Kick layering question

My last thread was on kick drums, yet I have one more question.



As of late (thanks to Tom EQ), I started layering my kicks which sounds great.



I’ve been doing it in logic’s ultrabeat and it’s multi-outputs. Long story short - send out, send back together compress, eq, switch to mono etc.



One thing I’m wondering, particularly if you layer with an 808. Is it fine to tune the tone of the kick (the 808) using the pitch slider in ultrabeat? That’d be just as if you transpose a sample in ableton wouldn’t it?



Or is there any reason I shouldn’t do that? I got told by a friend I probably shouldn’t tune the kick simply with the pitch although I can’t remember why.



Anyone care to enlighten me?



thanks. :slight_smile:


I think tuning the low end, bassiest samples sounds sh!t. Takes the power out of them.

You could probably stick a bit of pitch envelope on them, which would sound better than transposing. That could give you the note you need.

Either find a kick with the right pitch from the beginning - or make a sine/sub with the test osc plug in logic & import it in. You can get the lows you need from the get go from there. Once in UB, you can do the whole ADSR thing.

SA have vids on adding extra weight with a sine in some tech tips if you have a look. In simpler,alchemy & sylenth - I think?

UB is also a powerful drumsynth - so you can make a sine with the bottom osc & apply a pitch envelope and an ADSR etc… That could get you what you need, rather than firing up a test osc plug.

yeah its better to use the pitch env but it is important to tune the kick to the tracks root.