A good kick drum sound can often make or break a track. It’s probably going to be one of the few bass-end elements in your mix and so key to providing that low-end energy.  

 

While kick sounds can vary massively there are two basic elements that will probably be common to most. Lets call them ‘punch’ and ‘weight’. Punch is the top end, the knocky bit of the sound where the beater of the bass drum pedal hits the drum head. Without this your kick sound won’t have any clarity or thump and probably won’t translate well to audio systems with poor low frequency reproduction. Weight is all the subby bass-end energy, the stuff which gives the kick it’s depth and power.

 

If you’re using samples then it’s often possible to combine two sounds containing these elements to get the one perfect kick. However, if you’re dealing with a real bass drum or you don’t have a good sample to hand then there’s a great trick for bringing that sub-bass energy to a punchy but bass-light sound.