Here’s how to make a raw kick in six quick steps, so your hardstyle, rawstyle, or hardcore tracks hit hard and sound original every single time.
You can follow along in any DAW, FL Studio, Ableton, Logic Pro, Cubase, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be using FL Studio, but everything I show works everywhere.
Want a shortcut? Get the Raw Kick FLP + Sub Bass Samples and make savage kicks fast.
What is a raw kick?
Raw kicks are mid-heavy, distorted drums with a dark, powerful sound and a strong punch. They’re the backbone of professional rawstyle, hardstyle, and hardcore music. Without them, your track can feel flat or misplaced.
How to make hardstyle, hardcore & rawstyle kicks
I’m going to show strategies you probably haven’t seen before. They can completely refresh your kicks and take them to pro-level. Don’t skip a second. Unless you want people to skip your tracks.
We’re talking full-force kicks that stand out in any aggressive EDM. By the end, you’ll know exactly how to take a single distorted kick and turn it into a powerful, layered monster.
Rawstyle kick, hardcore kick, or hardstyle kick tutorial?
Focus on the concepts, not just the sounds and settings. This is only one method, my method, but it’s extremely effective.
In the video, there’s an example I dug up from my huge pile of projects. Not sure exactly when I made this one, but let’s break down how to build these kicks in six easy steps.
Step 1: Build the raw kick
You can start with samples, but most of them are overused or don’t hit hard enough. Creating your own kick ensures it’s original, powerful, and fits your style perfectly.
The key is building the character with mid-tones and distortion.
How to make distorted kicks?
To achieve this, start with a clean drum-like signal. Then process it on the mixer with effects like distortion, EQ, and reverb.
There are endless ways to get stuck at this stage. Messing around with distortions and plugins can take months if not years to get good results.
That’s why I made this kick project available again for download. It can save you a ton of time.
You can now get it here: 👉 Raw Kick Power Project
Build kicks yourself?
But if you want to build kicks from scratch, check the many hardstyle and rawstyle tutorials on Screech House, so we can keep it short here.
Either way, make sure you have a raw, distorted kick first. This is your foundation. From it, we’ll create different kick elements, such as the tail, tok, and tick. Think of it like giving your kick its personality. It needs to stand out.
Step 2: Sample the raw kick
Once you have your raw kick, record it and save it as a sample. Make it 2 to 4 beats long. This gives you room to tweak it later.
Clean up the sample: get rid of clicks, silences, and any leftover noise. Normalize it, add a short fade-out, and save it in your kick folder with a clear name, like “tail.”
Hardstyle tok, tick & 909 kick drum
Next, create the other kick elements: tok, tick, and 909.
- Tok: Clone the tail, keep only the first 100-200 milliseconds and delete everything else. Fade out the end, and save it as “Tok.” This is the punchy part of the kick.
- Tick: Clone the tail again, but this time keep only 10-40 milliseconds. Fade out the end, and save it as “Tick.” This is the snappy click that cuts through the mix.
- 909: Disable all mixer effects and only record the clean kick signal for about 200 milliseconds. Tighten it up, fade out, and normalize. Save it as “909.” It’s not a real 909, but a substitute. It gives your kick that clean low-end oomph and pressure.
By now, you should have four elements: tail, tok, tick, and 909, all from one distorted kick.
Tip: once you have these elements, you can reuse them for multiple kicks. You’re essentially building your own mini library of custom sounds.
Step 3: Layer the raw kick
Now add all kick samples to a new project and create a layering. Layering means stacking multiple sounds. Each sound has a specific role and works together to create a complete well-rounded kick.
From top to bottom, a good order is: tick → tok → 909 → tail → bass.
Mixing sub bass and kick
We haven’t touched on the bass yet, because if it fails your track fails. One wrong sample can severely weaken the kick or blow up the low end and wreck your mix.
Bass is highly sensitive, so there cannot be any room for errors. If you want to be 100% sure your sample is legit, get my Sub Bass Sample Pack.
You can download it here: 👉 Sub Bass Impact
All basses are highly optimized, and you can drop them straight into your layering without worry.
Create bass yourself?
I only recommend designing your own subs and basses if you know what you’re doing. You can find a handful bass tutorials on Screech House. Otherwise, just drop a mix-ready sample into your layering and proceed.
How to layer kicks?
Try these key tips to take your layering to the next level:
- Tick starts the kick. It should be short, clicky, and snappy.
- Tok comes next. It should be punchy, with a mid-tone character. But here’s a neat trick: add a slight delay between the tick and tok. This creates a little space and a sense of float, so they both can shine briefly.
- 909 sits under the tok for extra power and pressure. Not too loud to avoid boominess, and not too quiet to avoid weakness. Slightly delay it as well for room and float.
- Tail and bass come last, after the tok and 909. Make sure the bass doesn’t overlap the 909. Both are dominant in low frequencies which can harm your mix if they clash.
For each sample, you can use automation to shape its volume curve, so they can blend together perfectly.
Here’s another trick: subtly shifting samples forward or backward can make a huge difference. Sometimes, even a tiny adjustment can bring a flat kick to life.
Step 4: Mix the raw kick
After aligning each sample, send them to separate mixer tracks so you can add effects and shape them individually.
How to mix kicks?
With that done, try the following strategies, which can work like magic:
- Tick: remove the low frequencies and boost the highs to make it snappier and more open.
- Tok: removing some lows can also work. Experiment, but keep some of the upper lows for impact.
- 909: cutting higher frequencies can help keep the sound clean, but it isn’t always necessary.
- Tail & Bass: apply cross-EQ by cutting lows on the tail and highs on the bass at the same frequency. A good starting point is usually around 180 Hz and above.
Pro tip: If you want a really tight result, try using a linear-phase EQ. It avoids phase smearing, but don’t worry too much if it’s too technical for now.
Mixing & layering kicks
Mixing a kick goes hand in hand with layering (the previous step). In practice, play around with effects, shift samples, adjust volume curves, and so on until everything falls into place.
Use your ears and analyzers. If it sounds better, keep it; if not, adjust it. Just fall back to this tutorial as a general framework.
Step 5: Finalize the raw kick
Route all occupied mixer tracks to a single track for final processing. You can apply EQ, limiting, or any other effects.
Limiting and maximizing the raw kick is the minimum you should do to make it sit loud and tight in the mix.
How to sample a kick?
When you’re satisfied with the result, record a 2-beat sample of your finished kick, clean it up, normalize it, and add a fade-out.
The final recording should look tight and centered, matching the standard for professional rawstyle and hardstyle kicks.
Lastly, save the sample, give it a clear name, and your raw kick is ready to use.
Step 6: Test the raw kick
Drop the kick into a track or snippet, and match its volume and placement in the mix. Then dare to hit play and test it.
Kick drum test
Listen carefully and ask yourself:
- Is it powerful?
- Is it distorted enough?
- Does the punch hit?
- Does the click cut through?
- Are the lows and highs balanced?
- How does it compare to professional kicks?
If something feels off, tweak the individual elements, save, and test again. Once it’s spot-on, your kick is then set to dominate any track.
And your job here is done.
How to create professional rawstyle, hardcore & hardstyle kicks fast?
Don’t miss the raw kick project and sub-bass samples. They’ll put you ahead fast and save you big time.
I don’t know how long these will stay online, so if you want them, grab them now.
