Moulton Laboratories
the art and science of sound

Comments

Ohio     Jan 08, 2007 06:55 PM
Amazing article...

Thanks!
Joshua 
     Jan 27, 2011 11:44 AM
Hi, my compliments for this article, it really open mind.
i have a question for you; can you explain in dept the technic called "Pitched kick drum"?
for example:
what effect unit (from sequencer or 3rd part plugin) can make this?
how to choice what frequency target i have to set?

i hope it's no too late :D
thanks!
marco 
USA     May 02, 2011 06:23 PM
Just cruising around and found this site and set of articles - some good stuff here!!

marco - the thread is pretty old! the article is from 1993 - probably posted later AND the last comment was a thank you from 2007!!

but what you may want to consider is that your question has more than one answer depending on your process - If you are recording a real drummer then the entire kit should be tuned appropriately for the song AND room - it can be a challenge to discern the tonality of a kick, but that being said and with the knowledge that there is always a fundamental frequency - we push on-



Using samples, synthetics or combos (this might originate from software,hardware or realware) you may want to pay attention to the fundamental frequencies of your sound or layers of sound. Some software and hardware provides the ability to simply set.

A frequency analyzer may help you if the sound doesn't have strong harmonics near the fundamental.

Use a frequency to note chart or calculator- google will turn up these types of tools.

You might also use a vocode function to trigger a pitched sound with a kick envelope this could be mixed with or replace the trigger sound - a simple side chain setup can be used to trigger pitched sounds - sine waves have been quite popular for this.

If you are asking what the relative pitch should be - you will find no single "correct" answer. Key notes and the likely intervals as suspects could be tried.

Also don't forget about auto-tune - this can come in handy particularly if you want to change the sound/pitch according to song parts-

I'm pretty sure there are other ways to approach this-
audiodidactic 
india     Jun 26, 2011 11:50 AM
t's very Informative and helpful speacilly for the freshers, and i feel if it would have more questions added
seo 
     Sep 26, 2011 01:05 PM
Great Article, exactly what I was looking for.
Dane 
Dave Moulton, assisted by Peter Alhadeff and Alex Case
February 1993

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