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I'm coming over from an electro house background, and I was always taught to just cut the unnecessary mud below 30-40hz. But now I'm reading in the DOA Q&As that Neosignal cuts at 50hz, and Noisia goes as high as 60-80hz. I understand that they're DnB for the most part, but I also know that you as dubstep producers take a lot of techniques from that genre. Where is a good spot to lowcut kicks for dubstep? Any other tips/links to making kicks would be great, as I'm currently having trouble taking a good sample (Xfer) and EQ'ing/parallel compressing it to make it sound as fat as kicks from pro tracks....electro tracks at least. The kick in this track is fuggin amazing for instance:



Thanks!!!

It's really situational. I tend to like kicks that have very little sub action for dubstep/dnb and kicks that have A LOT of sub action for house/electro. So the first thing I take into consideration is that, the source sample. Next, I try to figure out if I really need a cut or if a shelf will do the job or if I can get away with just leaving it alone. I don't see much point in leaving things below 40hz, since your average sound system loses definition below that point.

Also, I tend to worry about these things during mixdown when I have a sub bass interacting with the kick. If you have a sub bass taking up a lot of room at 42 hz then yes, you might want to make room for it by cutting up some of the kicks lower body, or you might sidechain, or you might just want to use a bell curve to cut a bit of the kick at 42hz. If your bass is busy between 42 and 70hz then the bell curve solution goes out the window and you might be better off just shelving the kick below 70 hz and getting the 2 to play nice. Once again, very situational.

Depends on your track key, personally I cut my kicks so they don't coincide with the highest note my sub will play (if they play simulataneously). Although sometimes if this is slightly high I'll leave the cut a little lower.

Yeah it depends on my sub bass and where i high cut that...also if I notice any audible conflict in the kick/sub bass overlap. Usually start a gentle roll off on kick around 90-100ish hz...

usually a sharp cut at 45hz, or somewhere between 40 and 50-55hz mostly.

Sure_Fire wrote:usually a sharp cut at 45hz, or somewhere between 40 and 50-55hz mostly.

Bro, that practice is fine and everything but from personal experience, that only creates a very resonate, nasal-like timbre on your kick, if that's what you want, go for it but those sharp high q cuts tend to create an unnatural feel to it. In most cases a gentle curve cut at your highest sub note will definitely help or at least clean er up a bit

MassAphekt wrote:

Sure_Fire wrote:usually a sharp cut at 45hz, or somewhere between 40 and 50-55hz mostly.

Bro, that practice is fine and everything but from personal experience, that only creates a very resonate, nasal-like timbre on your kick, if that's what you want, go for it but those sharp high q cuts tend to create an unnatural feel to it. In most cases a gentle curve cut at your highest sub note will definitely help or at least clean er up a bit

Depends on the kind of eq you use. Parametric will have this problem, linear and graphic should not. This is why I frequently prefer shelves to sharp cuts. If you're using parametric you could use a gentle cut at 55 and a steep cut at 40... There's no rule against using 2 low cuts.

Triphosphate wrote:

MassAphekt wrote:

Sure_Fire wrote:usually a sharp cut at 45hz, or somewhere between 40 and 50-55hz mostly.

Bro, that practice is fine and everything but from personal experience, that only creates a very resonate, nasal-like timbre on your kick, if that's what you want, go for it but those sharp high q cuts tend to create an unnatural feel to it. In most cases a gentle curve cut at your highest sub note will definitely help or at least clean er up a bit

Depends on the kind of eq you use. Parametric will have this problem, linear and graphic should not. This is why I frequently prefer shelves to sharp cuts. If you're using parametric you could use a gentle cut at 55 and a steep cut at 40... There's no rule against using 2 low cuts.

Fair enough, I've been using the IL Parametric eq 2, the only liner phase eq I have at disposal is ozone izotope 5, but the cpu on that D:

Triphosphate wrote:

MassAphekt wrote:

Sure_Fire wrote:usually a sharp cut at 45hz, or somewhere between 40 and 50-55hz mostly.

Bro, that practice is fine and everything but from personal experience, that only creates a very resonate, nasal-like timbre on your kick, if that's what you want, go for it but those sharp high q cuts tend to create an unnatural feel to it. In most cases a gentle curve cut at your highest sub note will definitely help or at least clean er up a bit

Depends on the kind of eq you use. Parametric will have this problem, linear and graphic should not. This is why I frequently prefer shelves to sharp cuts. If you're using parametric you could use a gentle cut at 55 and a steep cut at 40... There's no rule against using 2 low cuts.

Cool, yeah I don't low shelf like ever, I guess I need to get in the habit

low shelf around 60hz and sidechain it to your sub so it ducks 2~3dbs.

It depends on the key of the song

MassAphekt wrote:

Sure_Fire wrote:usually a sharp cut at 45hz, or somewhere between 40 and 50-55hz mostly.

Bro, that practice is fine and everything but from personal experience, that only creates a very resonate, nasal-like timbre on your kick, if that's what you want, go for it but those sharp high q cuts tend to create an unnatural feel to it. In most cases a gentle curve cut at your highest sub note will definitely help or at least clean er up a bit

My bad for not eleborating, I do the final cut at about 40-45hz, which is sharp, but I roll off a bit before that. I thought we were just on about the low cut.

There is a very informative thread on doa: http://www.dogsonacid.com/showthread.php?t=744584

Justin Bays wrote:It depends on the key of the song

VirtualMark wrote:There is a very informative thread on doa: http://www.dogsonacid.com/showthread.php?t=744584

lol it's just a bunch of trolls trolling and guys complaining about the tolls trolling. and didn't someone call Noisia a boyband and some point?

Don't blindly follow DNB advice and try to apply it to dubstep. Dubstep is slower so kicks can stay defined with more low end to them.

fv2k wrote:Don't blindly follow DNB advice and try to apply it to dubstep. Dubstep is slower so kicks can stay defined with more low end to them.

so Dubstep kicks have more low end than House kicks....wouldn't that mean that your low cut should be lower for Dubstep?

lool I'm intrigued, do a lot of people actually refer to the key of the song to decide where they lowcut? How do you even go about that, is it like A minor = 50hz, C major = 43 or something?

alexfsu wrote:

fv2k wrote:Don't blindly follow DNB advice and try to apply it to dubstep. Dubstep is slower so kicks can stay defined with more low end to them.

so Dubstep kicks have more low end than House kicks....wouldn't that mean that your low cut should be lower for Dubstep?

Yeah, so a 12db slope at 30-40hz would be fine

JizzMan wrote:lool I'm intrigued, do a lot of people actually refer to the key of the song to decide where they lowcut? How do you even go about that, is it like A minor = 50hz, C major = 43 or something?

In a sense, yea. You just gotta find the highest key of your subbass, mark down the frequnecy, then TRY or work towards having your kick sit above that frequency or lowcut to it, It has always helped me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_key_frequencies

Sidechain your sub with a kick and don't cut anything