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808 kick bass tips
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 5:53 pm
by hackman
all i'm doing is pitching down, and reducing attack
apart from the obvious, such as compression and eq, anything else i could be doing to make it phatter?
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 5:59 pm
by oscarhenson
hackman wrote:all i'm doing is pitching down, and reducing attack
apart from the obvious, such as compression and eq, anything else i could be doing to make it phatter?
i apply a tiny bit of distortion. not for crunch or anything, just to fatten it up a little
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 6:28 pm
by narcissus
'phatter'?? the 808's already fat as all f*ck
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 6:38 pm
by alphacat
Put a bandpass on it to cut everything below, say, 40 to 47 Hz (depending on what's going on w/ your subs,) and everything above, say, 400 - 1000 Hz depending on how much presence you want the kicks to have in the overall mix (and assuming the overall mix has been crafted with this in mind.)
In samples of real 808 kicks (as opposed to synthesized reproductions) there's some weird ringy artifacts around the 4000, 7800 kHz points.
A nice alternative to the much-used 808 are the
Analog Impact 1 kit's kicks. More attack, lots of tone.
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 6:50 pm
by wormcode
Waveshaping and/or tube distortion+parallel compression. Have the effected one sitting very quiet in the mix, just to add to the harmonics, and even play with the stereo field if you want. Makes it seem much bigger.
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 8:06 pm
by step correct
What about using it for your Sub kinda deal? Wouldn't hi passing it then would you?

Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 8:12 pm
by Depone
Are you making a sub bass from an 808's tail? or literally the bass from an 808?
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Wed Jul 14, 2010 8:32 pm
by staticcast
- Often I find there's not enough thump, so add a bit more pitch envelope (like 5-10 s/t or so) with a medium-short decay (50ms or so).
- Bounce and resample with settings you like - gives you more flexibility with the envelopes.
- In the past I've also gone into a wave editor and hacked together an 808 kick with like 20 seconds of sustain and no amplitude envelope (ie constant volume); it's quite useful at times when I really want to control what's going on.
I wish synth manufacturers would add an "808 sine" preset to their oscillators; it wouldn't be hard (and way more useful than "8 bit sine" as you get with Operator).
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2010 9:45 pm
by step correct
I'm just looking for something I can vary between my main bassline.. Not for a main kick drum but something that hits just as deep as my sub. Don't alot of people do this? Or am I missing something.
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2010 10:30 pm
by nowaysj
alphacat wrote:A nice alternative to the much-used 808 are the
Analog Impact 1 kit's kicks. More attack, lots of tone.
I've never worked with 96khz samples, how do you down convert the sample rate to 44.1?
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2010 10:42 pm
by hackman
whoa forgot i made this, thanks for the replies!
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2010 10:43 pm
by hackman
Depone wrote:Are you making a sub bass from an 808's tail? or literally the bass from an 808?
not the tail, why is that better? off to experiment...
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2010 11:49 pm
by Depone
hackman wrote:Depone wrote:Are you making a sub bass from an 808's tail? or literally the bass from an 808?
not the tail, why is that better? off to experiment...
If you Load an 808 kick into a sampler of your choice, loop one cycle of the 808's tail about a third of the way into the sample ( a nice 808 to tape sample he best) Then get a tuner plugin or similar, and tune the loop so that when you press middle C, you get Middle C. Makes the beefiest sub ever skeen!
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2010 2:41 am
by carsonac
Dont mean to hijack this thread, but can someon point me in the direction of some good 808 sample packs? (hopefully free) lol
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2010 2:51 am
by contakt321
I believe Goldbaby did a free Tape Saturated 808 sample pack, check their site.
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2010 9:22 pm
by alphacat
nowaysj wrote:alphacat wrote:A nice alternative to the much-used 808 are the
Analog Impact 1 kit's kicks. More attack, lots of tone.
I've never worked with 96khz samples, how do you down convert the sample rate to 44.1?
Your DAW hopefully should handle this for you, but if you really have to downsample then you can use either eRightSoft's 'Super' media converter or your wave editor - preferably the latter.
carsonac wrote:Dont mean to hijack this thread, but can someon point me in the direction of some good 808 sample packs? (hopefully free) lol
Here you go.
http://www.maketunes.com/forums/808-drum-samples
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2010 9:39 pm
by skimpi
you know like with julio bashmore tunes like err
this:
Soundcloud
how do you get the 808's so phat?
Are they real 808 samples? is it possible to tell? because I use Logic's ES2 synth and its alright, but theres just summat about it that isn't satisfactory enough for me, and i struggle to get enough punch too, even with the attack right down at zero, its just clicky.
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2010 4:30 am
by upstateface
Depone wrote:hackman wrote:Depone wrote:Are you making a sub bass from an 808's tail? or literally the bass from an 808?
not the tail, why is that better? off to experiment...
If you Load an 808 kick into a sampler of your choice, loop one cycle of the 808's tail about a third of the way into the sample ( a nice 808 to tape sample he best) Then get a tuner plugin or similar, and tune the loop so that when you press middle C, you get Middle C. Makes the beefiest sub ever skeen!

808 tail subs run tings.
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2010 7:50 am
by miscreant
skimpi wrote:you know like with julio bashmore tunes like err
this:
Soundcloud
how do you get the 808's so phat?
Are they real 808 samples? is it possible to tell? because I use Logic's ES2 synth and its alright, but theres just summat about it that isn't satisfactory enough for me, and i struggle to get enough punch too, even with the attack right down at zero, its just clicky.
Julio Bashmores sub hits are some of the nicest out there just now. I would love to know more about how he makes them.
A lot of his tunes sound like the subs are also layered with deep pitched down toms.
Check out his Buraka Som Sistema remix the tom hits in that are packing some weight!!!
Re: 808 kick bass tips
Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2010 3:03 pm
by skimpi
miscreant wrote:skimpi wrote:you know like with julio bashmore tunes like err
this:
Soundcloud
how do you get the 808's so phat?
Are they real 808 samples? is it possible to tell? because I use Logic's ES2 synth and its alright, but theres just summat about it that isn't satisfactory enough for me, and i struggle to get enough punch too, even with the attack right down at zero, its just clicky.
Julio Bashmores sub hits are some of the nicest out there just now. I would love to know more about how he makes them.
A lot of his tunes sound like the subs are also layered with deep pitched down toms.
Check out his Buraka Som Sistema remix the tom hits in that are packing some weight!!!
Yeah!, It's like they aren't like majorly loud and hit you in the face, they are just so clean and deep. He should do a Q&A session lol.
Yeah I tried to do summat liek that before but couldn't really pull it off, like tried to take 909 toms from the logic drum kit, and layer it with long release sine waves from the ES2 but yeah didn't sound that good lol.
Yeahh they are well beefy!