Getting a Good Kick Drum Sound

When it comes to mixing a song a prevalent kick drum is essential. While the EQ will change depending on various factors such as genre and general tone of the track, there are some basics to follow when dealing with a kick.

For the most part you want a well rounded sound involving good weight, clarity and snap from the beater. Let's take a rock/metal kick drum for instance. You want it to be big and full of click so what can you do to achieve that?

You'll want to find the root note of the kick which could be 60Hx-120Hz and if you aren't used to hearing what's needed right off the bat, you can use the boost method to find the kick's root, you'll know when you've found it.



You'll typically cut between 250-500 with a wide Q to make space for bass and get rid of that "boxy" sound. You'll find the click of the beater between 4-8k.

Now what really separates a rock kick from a metal kick? The adjustment of the mid cut Q. Metal loves click, rock loves beef, you may even put a small boost at 250-300 to give it some warmth, though this warmth can be achieved through a good signal chain and cutting that range.

How about a club/house kick? The knock you're looking for could easily be at 200-250, then you'd want to cut around 500. It could be just like a typical kick EQ for rock/metal too. Again, this all depends on the kicks themselves, there are general guidelines here obviously, mainly being "don't cut the root note".

Make sure you listen well and work with the kick/bass together rather than soloed to truly shape the kick to the track and achieve what you're looking for and sometimes you may have a perfect kick that just needs a great compressor choice to bring out the rest.

If a kick isn't tight enough or (believe it or not) loose enough, use a transient shaper like SPL's transient designer to really tune that kick. Tightening it can actually make it and the mix a bit cleaner.

Learning when things don't need to be EQ'd is also key, now go shake some walls!