Using Alchemy to create kicks

One of the things I've been doing for the last 2-3 years is to replace all third party plugins by Logic's stock plugins. I guess most people end up using too many plugins without exploring what Logic has to offer. And one of the plugins we can definitely replace is KICK by Nicky Romero. I started doing it by using Ultrabeat (and it does a pretty good job), but now with Alchemy is even easier and more customizable.

All you gotta do is sample a bunch of transients from kicks (something between 10ms and 50ms is usually more than enough) and then import them into Alchemy. You can import one at a time or more than one to different keys. It really depends on what you're trying to achieve. If you want to try different pitches on the kick, I would recommend importing one at a time. make sure you change the Keyscale to None so the transients pitch doesn't change when you go up and down the keyboard.

After that, have a second oscillator as a sine wave. Assign the pitch of that oscillator to an MSEG and draw the curve you want. Play with the octaves and depth until you have the body and tail you want. As a suggestion I would assign another AHDSR to the volume of that oscillator and would remove a bit of the attack so it doesn't create phase issues with the transients of the first oscillator.

Basically with this technique you can have the same transients and try different pitches on the body/tail of the kick. I would also suggest playing with the pitch of the transients, because sometimes making it higher or lower, affects the punch of the whole kick.

If anyone wants a deep tutorial on how to do this and maybe even a preset to see how I achieve this, please ask. I'm too lazy at the moment to do it without knowing if it's worth it hahaha

Hope it helps, anyway!

Interesting stuff. Would like to see an example. Make a video? 

Here it is. In the ZIP file there's the preset for Alchemy, the transients sample I used and the video to show how I did it. On the video I was playing C2 and that's why I put the tune down 24 semi tones (2 octaves). The preset is only 12 semi tones (1 octave) to be played in C1 instead. Go up and down the keyboard and the tail will change the tone, but not the transients. As I said on the original post, play with the tune of the transients as well as it will change the overall sound of the kick. The base is there now for you to use Hope it helps and opens a whole new chapter on how to use Alchemy and even Ultrabeat (even though Ultrabeat is a bit more complex due to it's routing, but same concept).

And of course it doesn't stop there. Try different wave forms on the tail and you will get crazy sounds. Apply distortion to one of the sources or both, go crazy and who knows what you will find

Another thing you can do is to reverse the process: the tail will not change the tone when played on a different key on the keyboard, but then you can import a bunch of transients at the same time so you will have the same tail all across the keyboard, but maybe 20 or 30 keys have different transients. Hope it makes sense. It's a way to use the same tail but experiment with different transients. It really changes the sound of the kick.

Enjoy

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4OxzRzSAmpDZ2xHR1h2Z3o4NHM

Awesome due! Thx so much for your hard work!

No problem. Glad I can help. Hope it becomes very useful in your productions.

Off topic. You recorded the quicktime video of your screen using Quicktime? I could have sworn someone mentioned that to me before but I forgot to follow through and check/test.

Ed.

Off topic. You recorded the quicktime video of your screen using Quicktime? I could have sworn someone mentioned that to me before but I forgot to follow through and check/test.

 

Ed.

Yeah, Quicktime. 

How were you able to record your voice as well as the sounds screen sounds???

Thx.

How were you able to record your voice as well as the sounds screen sounds???

 

Thx.

The sound is from my laptop's microphone so it records both at the same time. Nothing fancy