In this lesson you’ll learn how to make a hardstyle kick sample in FL Studio suitable for layering. This will be a clean hardstyle kick tail sample, which you’d need multiple to be able to make a hardstyle kick layering.
No time for layering? Get Raw Kick Power Project: a professional ready-made tail FLP.
“Layering ready” hardstyle kick sample
As shown in the previous lesson How to Make a Hardstyle Kick Layering with Samples, different clean hardstyle kick tail samples were created and then used for a kick layering. It’s a very important lesson and part of the essential basics. That’s why I encourage you to check it out.
Save time and download many layer-friendly kick tails in my Free Hardstyle Sample Pack.
But for this lesson, let’s take a look at how to make a “layering-ready” hardstyle kick sample.
Hardstyle kick tail samples
The kick samples used in the previous lessons were made a long while back. Back in the day I used a chaotic Patcher template (Patcher is an FL Studio plugin), but this is totally unnecessary and way too complicated. So, I decided to redesign one of the tails to keep it simple. The result is very similar and just as useful.
How to make a hardstyle kick sample
There’s no straight answer to this question, but there are a few guidelines:
- Use an a-symmetric distortion plugin and clip the signal.
- Use an equalizer to boost the mid frequencies and play with removing some low frequencies. Don’t forget to add some high frequencies as well.
- Optionally, use some reverb.
- Repeat this process a couple of times. But be more aggressive in the beginning and more gentle to the end.
These type of tails already sound very hardstyle -ish, but their purpose is for a hardstyle kick layering. Just check the previous lesson and everything becomes clear.
Raw Kick Power Project
Some tails don’t need layering, such as the Raw Kick Power Project. Besides a tok and sub bass, this tail is ready as is.
Download it now, so you can skip creating tails and focus on building tracks.
Plugins
For the individual tail samples, the following plugins were used:
- EKS-9
- FabFilter Pro Q
- Fruity Waveshaper
- iZotope Trash
- Fruity Love Philter
- Fruity Reeverb 2
- Fruity Fast Dist