How To make your own kick drums in Diva

With so many kick drum samples available, it’s easy to overlook the benefits of programming your own. It only takes seconds.

Kick drums, eh? You can’t live with ‘em, but you can’t live without programming ‘em. Except, of course, you can – there are bloody millions of kick samples to choose from! So why bother programming your own? Three reasons, really.

• 1. It’s a great way to really tailor your kick to your track.
• 2. It helps your productions stand out.
• 3. It’s good for the soul to go beyond presets and make your own sounds.
• And… er…. 4. It’s too easy not to give it a go.

First thing’s first: the meaty bit of pretty much every electronic kick you’ve ever used is based on applying a pitch envelope to a simple oscillator like a triangle or sine wave. That’s how the 808 did it. That’s how the 909 did it. And that’s how we’ll do it. So start by loading Diva and selecting an INIT patch.

Now let’s configure Diva’s modules. Choose DUAL VCO (oscillators), HPF PRE (high pass filter), MULTIMODE (low pass), and Analogue (both envelopes). Then program a four-four kick pattern on F#1. And let’s use a short 1/16th length as that allows plenty of length control later.

DCO settings next. Start with Osc1 to triangle (the 909-style layer) and Osc2 to sine (808 vibes). Then set Tune MOD mode to BOTH, to make sure the pitch envelope applies to both. And apply SYNC so both trigger together without intermittent phase cancellation between them.

Now let’s turn it into a kick drum. First set the Tune MOD Env to fully +. Envelope 2 is now controlling the oscillator pitch so start by setting Sustain and Release to 0. See how you can hear the pitch coming down quickly already? Now slowly pull the Decay down to 32… and there’s our kick drum!

Let’s look at the different ways of tailoring our kick next, starting with the amp envelope. First bring Sustain down to zero and then try raising Release from 20 to 50. Release is the key length control for our kick. But, as you can hear, it’s also central to the tonality of the kick, ranging from tight 909-style to tonal hardcore techno.

The filter section is the key to adding some of that distinctive 909 kick click we all know and love. Set the lowpass Env2 amount to fully + and then start lowering the cutoff down to around 34. Now we’ve got a click. We can also try flicking the Mix between Osc1 and Osc2 to hear the difference. Osc1 is that tight, clicky 909, Osc2 is the more tonal, saturated-sounding 808 style.

Filtered

Filtered Osc1

Filtered Osc2

Finally, try tweaking the Fine Tune to adjust the tuning of the kick. And you can also experiment with different MIDI trigger note values and lengths, but that will only really make a lot of difference on kicks with longer release times for more tonality. This can be fun for edits, as you can hear below.

Fine-tune up

Fine-tune down

Pitch edit 1

Pitch edit 2

You can use these kicks as a powerful sub bassline tool by layering them with another kick sample… and then raising the amplitude envelope a tiny bit. That way you have the huge bassline power of a long kick but without overloading the transient section or taking away from your chosen kick sample. But there’s a snag. Have a listen…

 As you can hear, the sound of each synth kick varies a little from the previous because their long decay tails are causing interactions with the following ones. To avoid this, render out your Diva kick and simply loop the audio over the ¼ bar section you like the sound of. Listen to how much more effective that is now…

As we just saw, analogue synth-style kicks like this do have a tendency to have minor little variations (more or less click or slight timing / phase variations. This is the nature of analogue emulation, and can sound great in organic electronic music, but for tight, club bangers it’s often worth sampling out a single kick you’re happy with and using that for every beat instead.

So there it is - a fully customisable kick with a blend of classic 808 and 909 vibes. We’ve made it in a bog-standard subtractive synth configuration in Diva, to show how easy it is, but imagine how much more detailed, individual control and processing you can get over the two oscillators with a modular or semi-modular option like Zebra 3! And don’t forget, these are all dry and unprocessed. Be sure to fire up your compressor and EQ to sharpen them up in the mix.

Find out more about Diva on the u-he website, including the free trial.