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THE BEST WAY TO PITCH A HARDSTYLE KICK IN FL STUDIO | Pitching Hardstyle Kick Tutorial (Kick Pitch)

In this tutorial you will find out how to pitch your hardstyle kick in FL Studio. In the next lesson, we will take a look at how to pitch a hardstyle kick with Adobe Audition.

First select your hardstyle kick

To start pitching, we first need to have a hardstyle kick. Let’s just use the Noisecontrollers kick from my free hardstyle sample pack. Download it via the link.

So, you’d have to find your own hardstyle kick sample and open it in FL Studio. Once you’ve added your sample, just click with your right mouse button on the waveform and click “Edit”. Your sample automatically opens up in Edison. In Edison we can easily pitch hardstyle kicks.

Pitch the tail, not the tok

To change the pitch of a hardstyle kick, only select the TAIL part of the kick. Don’t select the TOK/PUNCH. If you’d also pitch the TOK/PUNCH part, the attack of your kick will lose its strength or shape. The tone (to pitch) is in the tail, not necessarily in the TOK.

How to pitch a hardstyle kick

In Edison, select the tail and then click the clock button. This is the time stretch and pitching area. With the “Pitch coarse” slider we can now change the pitch of the tail in semitones. 1 semitone is 1 key.

With the “Method” box you can select a pitching algorithm. Each pitching algorithm uses a different calculation that results in a different sound. By using the “Preview” knob you can easily hear the difference between the algorithms. Not each algorithm is suited for pitching a hardstyle kick. Personally, I like “e3 mono” the most. So, let’s just stick with that.

I believe the Noisecontrollers kick is built on a G note. So, by lowering the pitch by 2 semitones (2 keys) it now plays an F note. If you want to find the pitch of your hardstyle kick, click this link.

Let’s explore some other notes as well. Again, select the TAIL, click the clock button and use the “Pitch coarse” slider to change the pitch of your hardstyle kick. Let’s try an A# note (3 semitones up).

Let’s do another one (resetting the changes first). You know the drill… Select the tail, click the clock, set the desired semitone with the pitch slider. Let’s go up 7 semitones (keys) from a G. That would be a D note.

Now, the waveform gets pulled slightly out of center. It’s not ideal, but it sounds acceptable. In the next lesson, you will find a pro method for kick pitching.

Save your pitched hardstyle kicks

All right. You now know how to pitch your hardstyle kick in FL Studio, but we’re not done yet. Your pitched samples need to be saved in order to be used. So, let’s make a pitched A# kick and a pitched A kick to show you how to save them and use them.

When you’ve pitched your kick, click the SAVE button (the floppy disk in Edison) and click “Save sample as…” Now, just fill in the name for your pitched kick. I like to give the sample a name with the right note in it, so I always know it’s an A# kick. Just give it any location you want and click “Save”.

Use your hardstyle kicks

Got it? Good! You can now open your new pitched kick samples in a project. This way you can make a drum loop.

In FL Studio, you can click the “Add” button in the menu and select the “Sampler”. On the Sampler, click the folder button to find and open your kick samples. Do this for each pitched kick sample you want to use in your project.

Other hardstyle kick pitching tools

Now, be aware that this is an FL STUDIO approach. You can also pitch kicks in other tools, like Adobe Audition. Different tools might have different pitching algorithms, which may sound different. I encourage you to experiment if you have different tools.

Did you also know I have a Hardstyle Mixing & Mastering course and eBooks available? Just click these links.

Well, there you have it: a pitched hardstyle kick that goes up and down. Next: let’s find out how the pros pitch their kicks…

Plugins

For this lesson, the following FL Studio plugins were used:

  • Edison
  • Fruity Waveshaper

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