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HOW TO GET MORE PUNCH FROM KICK DRUM | How to Add Punch to Kick Drum FL Studio (3xOsc Tutorial)

In this lesson, you will learn a quick method how to add more punch or snappiness to a kick drum in FL Studio. It will add onto the previous lesson How to Make Your Kick Punch Harder. If you haven’t yet, start with the previous lesson first. Then, continue with this one.

More punch with a 3x Osc kick drum

For this lesson, we’re specifically looking to get more “click”, snap or transient in the attack of a 3x Osc kick drum. The 3x Osc is one of FL Studio’s basic synthesizers.

If you don’t know how to work with a basic synthesizer, obtain the Sound Design for Beginners guide today. It will teach you exactly how all the settings on your synthesizer work, why to use them and how to use them. Just click the link to get started.

How to add punch to a kick drum

Open the 3x Osc and use the settings from the previous lesson How to Make Your Kick Punch Harder. Then, go to the filter section in the Envelope/instrument settings tab.

On the filter section, you can remove or enhance certain frequencies or frequency ranges. Thereby, manipulate the cutoff knob, resonance knob and filter type setting to seek a good snappy sound. Adding resonance at the higher frequencies can give your kick more “click”. Adding resonance at the mid frequencies can give your kick more “tok”.

Instead of using the builtin filter settings to boost certain frequency ranges, you can reach similar results with an equalizer. However, for this lesson, I want to provide a 3x Osc only method and demonstrate its convenience. For a demonstration, feel free to watch the video.

Why these added frequencies nest in the punch

To create a punch, a kick drum usually has a pitch drop in the beginning. The pitch drop is a quick frequency movement from high to low. Therefore, the higher resonance frequencies will nest around the punch of the kick, because in this case, only the punch contains some of these higher frequencies due to the initial pitch drop. There’s simply more higher-frequency emphasis in the punch, because there already are more higher frequencies.

Get more punch with a distorted kick drum

To push it to the next level, you can also use the filter settings to affect the punch of a distorted kick drum. As an example, you can route the 3x Osc to Mixer Track 1. There, feel free to add an equalizer and waveshaper to distort the kick a little bit.

Then, just play around with the filter settings and listen to how they add punch to the kick drum. This works well because by boosting certain frequency ranges before going through the distortion unit, you will get more power in the punch, as they are being more emphasized.

Again, you can easily create similar effects with an equalizer. In fact, you can get very creative results using different equalizers and distortion plugins. Just experiment.

Start with your synthesizer first

If you don’t know yet how to produce professional and unique results yourself, start by learning how your synthesizer works. This is the foundation you will always need to achieve high-quality sound design.

That’s why you can start immediately with the Sound Design for Beginners guide by clicking this link. The guide will help you through all the important settings on your synthesizer and explain in full detail how they work to produce excellent results.

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