Slate Kicks

[yarrick19]

How are you all treating the Slate kicks in terms of EQ and compression?

Some of the kicks have an awful lot of sub lows on them and they can be a bit tricky to fit into a mix properly. What kind of treatment are you doing to help them sit right in the mix?

 

[Ermz]

The best 'treatment' I find is to sit down for a few minutes and audition different kicks at different blend levels. Find what works for the track best, outright, without processing and then take it from there. If there's still stuff to do, then it depends on what's needed. Sometimes a 2nd kick sample needs to be blended just for its high end, or some more meat. Maybe a HPF to kill the sublows on faster material, some low-mid cuts, high-end boost etc. Standard fare really, but I try to minimize the amount of processing I do by mixing and matching the tones of different kicks. This applies for all drums.

 

[Machinated]

ermz has nailed it - instead of doing crazy eqing, try and find a sample that fits in best and then do slight adjustments if they need it from there.

 

[crillemannen]

ermz has nailed it - instead of doing crazy eqing, try and find a sample that fits in best and then do slight adjustments if they need it from there.

+ 1 on that.

Peaople seem to think that Slates samples are the holy grail. - Just replace your snare and kick with Slate samples and the drums will be awesome. WRONG!!!

As Ermz said blend the samples, try to find samples that complement the original sound, meat, more mids etc.

Cheers

 

[aramism]

yea but i do find that most the slate kicks have a lot of lows so depending on the situation they get upto 90hz sometimes even... usually less though.

support samples are the way to go though. unless you are dealing with a train-wreck of a recording in the first place. i wind up using snare z2s and z4s and automating them according to the part more than anything. one of the hardest things to re-create in a smaller or not as well tuned room is the sound of a great room. so with blending you can get a little of that big studio room sound and retain the character of the original drumkit.

 

[Slate]

The lows on my kicks are meant for medium rock/metal... the faster the tempo of the song, the more sub lows you DON'T need.

So I'd put an eq shelf at 100Hz.. start cutting 1db, 2db should usually do it. If you find yourself having to cut more then 3db, then its an issue somewhere else in the mix..

But there are some other good suggestions in this thread.. certainly my drums don't mix themselves, so you'll have to tweak things to your taste. For metal kicks I'd combine black kick and kick 5, send them to a compressor, get more bit out of them, then to an eq to tweak the sublows to the tempo of the song.

 

[Splat88]

For what its worth, I always high pass Slate's kicks, usually Kick 10z3 at 50 to 60hz and that takes out a lot of that low end rumble.

 

[yarrick19]

Sounds like some of you guys are leaving them as is.... interesting. I usually end up having to EQ them to get them to work. I know others do this as well...

does anyone know if they tweaked the kicks?

i always find my self with at least 3 eq adjustments on any steve kick sample

I was just trying to see how others were tweaking the samples to work a little better.

 

[daveotero]

Funny, I've only had the Slate pack for a little while now but I find myself using his kick samples specifically for that sub energy. Kick 10 > LPF around 200hz > comp with a short release > tuck in about 10db or so under another sample and love the luscious low end

 

[paladin shredder]

i usually high pass at 50hz on his kicks, but i try not to eq samples (especially slate samples and andy's samples). i figure they are damn good engineers for a reason, so i try to just get the best i can out of my own recorded tracks and work with those to get the right sound.

 

[GarethSE]

What Paladin said.
If you can't get sneap or slate samples to fit your mix with little effort it's probably something YOU'RE doing wrong.

 

[akarawd]

Hi,

I agree with Ermz. As with everything else in mixing, it's perception about what fits and what not that yields decent results. I used to treat my kicks in the craziest of ways but now I automate an eq or copy the kick, treat it with a HP, lower its volume 3-5db and use that for the fast parts. Compression I won't use with these samples, they have a wonderful attack, and I'll either use a restricted velocity range or use Drumagog's Dynamic Tracking more conservatively. I spend more time matching kicks with the rest of the production than using plugins.

Having said that, if there's a kick you particularly like here's a suggestion : It is often the subs in combination to the 160-280 area that render a kick "too thick". Try compressing a fair amount around 220Hz and HP depending on when your bass is sitting.

Regards,
Thanos

PS. I took a look at your studio/gear pic - simple but awesome, love it.

 

[kalony]

yeah, when i got the slate libary, felt in love with the snares from the first second, but with the bd`s i also had my problems.
verry deep, and a bit to much high kick and not hard enough. when i got them i was wondering and checked a lot of similar sounding songs to compare, but still didnt felt in love. now i mostly take another bd wich i was sampling someday, and mix it with the slate bd`s to get what i want, than eq and than its nice for me.

fazit, the bd`s fits not that good in my mixes like the snares do (tehy fit sometimes without doing anything). they sound to soft to deep and to hifi to me.

i was checking the sneap bd for example and liked it much more in my work.

but its still the best libary for rock metal ive ever heard!!!

thx steven

kalony

 

[Slate]

Take the Black Kick and mix it with Kick5, drop down a low shelf under 100Hz and you have a seriously slammin metal kick... we'll have new metal kicks in our new DELUXE expansion and I'll be making new presets from existing kits (like the hybrid I mentioned) in 3.5.

I also like Panty Kick + a bit of Kick15 to the GClip to make it slam hard... Again, drop the sublow stuff.

You just have to think about frequency vs time.. the faster the song, the less sublow you need..

 

[kalony]

hey slate...,
thx for the tips, ill try this next week with the next project.
but to give you just the view i am talking bout, lemme tell you, that i was mixing your bd`s with the bd from danko jones wich i took from the beginning of "forget my name" for example.
i know, its nothing bout a metal sound, but this kind is what i missed in your libary. the harder rock stuff. you can just have a look on that song / bd-sound to think about. or dont...^^, whatever...

kalony

 

[Slate]

i'll check out that song on itunes and report back later..

 

[mick thompson]

cheers for the tip slate - love your samples by the way