Brief Summary

We hear so many references to ‘punchy’ drums, ‘attack’, ‘in your face’, ‘cut through the mix’, I could go on. However, in the same way as making everything loud is rarely a recipe for success, if sounds sometimes need to be made more punchy, doesn’t it also follow that you might want make punchy sounds a little softer sometimes?

Going Deeper

In this article and accompanying video Julian illustrates one such time when a kick drum can be a bit too punchy. When mixing live sound, engineers are often seeking as hard a transient as possible. When done well this really works, the combination of a really fast kick drum sound and a big PA system with ample subwoofers creates that in your chest kick sound which is so impressive at a gig.

The issues which arise from this is that when taken out of context, for example on a live recording, this kick drum sound can be too much. Without the contribution of the PA the kick can sound clicky and stark. To be able to use as much of it as I want I find I want to dial back those transients and luckily that is made far easier by the transient shaping plugins which are so often employed to introduce additional attack. Luckily the best of these also go in the other direction, softening the attack.

In the video I demonstrate this with a live recording captured as multitrack from the mixer at a gig. The kick drum sound wasn’t extreme but it was still a bit ‘slappier’ than I’d have gone for in the studio. By dialling it back the kick becomes less obtrusive. You could just turn the kick drum down but the effect would have been very different as the decay of the drum would have disappeared with the reduced level. By reining in the transient a more ‘pillowy’ sound can be achieved with lots of warm bottom end. It cuts through less by design.

In the video the example is set up to be unmissable and in the mix I ended up using a more moderate setting but this example makes the point clearly. This is very much a taste-based decision and luckily if you favour the more in your face kick sound, there is always the option of turning the knob the other way. It depends on whether you like your kick drums to go ‘ka’ or ‘duh’…

To find out more about Sonnox Envolution, the plugin used in this example, click the button below.