Quick technical questions for the crowd. Anyone have any idea as to what type of processing Mr. G uses on his kick drums? Or any suggestions on getting near there for someone who works outside the box?
I’m talking the real deal bass laden ones that drop when the tune is about to get to business. I know he’s sample based with his MPC2000 and then into a board and that he mixes in realtime when he records. It sounds like it could be simple EQ but I just can not seem to replicate it. I think I am missing something when I try to sort of cop that vibe.
It’s funny because I’ve been pretty into his stuff for the last few years(late to the party, I know) and when pressed I can’t think of the names of any of his tunes. I always just search his tunes and listen to any of them and there’s always some tricks I can learn from them.
The technique I’m asking about is recurring in lots of his tunes. It happens in this one:
May not be the best example as the original kick is pretty distorted but it may be the most revealing example? It does sound like it may be a layering thing not a post processing thing?
I record to a Tascam DP and use a variety samplers. I should have everything I need I think but perhaps not?
Taking a listen now. Liking the start of this track.
Oh yeah… that’s some heavily distorted loop.
Then in comes the clean highs. A very varied construction. Reminds me of a Fatboy Slim interview I read in which he said he uses two drum kits. One crazy distorted and the other a bit more normal.
Onto your original question. It sounds like the kick has a distorted layers layers mixed together, ran as a loop with additional samples completing the break, and then distorted once again together as a whole.
Whatever he is layering the kick drum with is giving it that flavour. I’d say some sound around 3kHz and 10kHz area with reverb… distorted and pushed into the red.
Loving these vibes!
I’m not a DJ but it makes me want to play this next
Going to try and make a kick like this later. I’ll do my best to let you know the results.
Additionally, I did see a cool trick the other day. Someone took a drone sound. Pushed it through their favourite filter with reverb. Distorted it heavily and took that as the starting point as a sample. Then sampled that microscopically (maybe granular). Then distorted that a lot and What A Bassline!
I was just watching his boiler room set. Yes definitely his trick is just adding gain on the mixer. Sometimes he shapes with the EQ.
Nothing fancier than that.
So if you have a mixing desk / mixer, drive pedal , etc. then play around with your gain input until you hit the red,then back off -1dB at a time on the kick channel. Sometimes the sweet spot is even in the orange in your metering. It’s simple but requires a lot of practice. Once you nail this technique down you can give your kicks this vibe without thinking about compression or EQ too much. Each drum sample you use will sound good at orange and if you want to add extra punch in the performance then hit that point before distortion.
This is the secret sauce I think. Can’t quite get it figured though.
I have tried this too but i have not had the success I had hoped. These kicks just seem so heavy and I haven’t cracked this nut to where I’m happy with the result.
Have you tried layering your kicks with a sine wave? When I was using the mpc 2000 there would be a pad with the kick sample and a sine wave on the next layer. I would have the kick sample dominate and the sine would be at half or a quarter of that level of the kick drum.
My go-to layers at one point for kicks was a white noise sample and also a sine wave.
This technique is really helpful. All credit to SFM. I stumbled on this awhile ago and have been using it with good results. Possibly the cracker to the nut? Curious to hear if anyone else is doing this.
Purely coincidentally yeah! The last few days I’ve been using this trick on a bunch of breaks in my Octatrack to bring out the kick: starting with an exaggerated high pass, Q high, then bringing down the base value to find that weight-y sweet spot. Works a treat, though can’t confirm if it nails exactly what OP is looking for.
I do layer occasionally for effect. It never turns out like this but I’ve usually done the old one boomy, one clicky, one distorty for hiphop stuff. Not as frequently on house and techno stuff.
On my latest track ive been specifically trying a sine based kick to layer. I can’t decide if it just makes it phase. It sure does not have the impact when dropped in that Mr. G’s do.
I made some samples.
Took a standard RYTM kick drum, ran it through Heat and printed it to cassette. Instant change.
I played the kick at different speeds from the cassette into AudioShare (love that app!).
Upon trimming I came across the sample rate feature in AudioShare so I dropped it down to 11k.
Single kick;
Different speeds;
Single kick at 11k sample rate;
Have a little go with these and let me know how it goes.
I think that low end Mr. G has going on also enhances the quality of the kick.
What I want to know are how he gets his rides to sound the way they do. I know it’s a 909 sample he always uses, but how does he get it to sound like bells. I’ve tried a lot of different techniques but none get to that twang.
Yeah I read that awhile back and have been on the hunt for one since I need to sell some stuff to fund that one though. Can’t sneak that one by the missus at that price!
I kinda went in rough. Woke up and had a go from my memory. Cross referenced it with your track and didn’t change much although I could hear stuff.
Read the interview and I’m loving his vibe. Seems like I guessed a few things and got them right. Printing to cassette for that tape compression is something that got him to this point. He also mentions sampling and resampling; guaranteed characteristic results when done right.
I’m now watching his Boiler Room because of the interview. Amazing stuff! Everything is overdriven, including his dancing! Can’t beat that sort of raw passion. It’s taken him ages to get where he has gotten to. Fair play to him! Very thankful to be introduced via this thread and this great forum.
Seems like a few processes have had him arrive at the sounds you’re liking
I need to sell some stuff to fund that one though. Can’t sneak that one by the missus at that price!
