How to mix a great sounding kick Drum

We picked the brains of Four leading mix engineers across a variety of genres — Richard Furch (Prince, Chaka Khan), Colin Richardson (Carcass, Napalm Death), F. Reid Shippen (Pink, Steven Tyler), and Steve Fisk (Nirvana, Screaming Trees) — to get the inside word on how they get the kick drum to sound awesome in the mix.

Mixer Richard Furch has worked on some of the most iconic albums of the 2000s, including Grammy winners Speakerboxxx/The Love Below by Outkast and Confessions by Usher.

1. Lose what you don't need: Use low-cut filters to cut off anything that doesn't serve the sound musically. These can sit at 20Hz but might come up to 50Hz or so if there is no helpful sonic information there. Play around with the filter's resonance — a slight bump right above the cut-off frequency can give definition to the sound. If you can't find that spot exactly, use a narrow parametric EQ instead for more control.

2. Control the dynamics: My first go-to for that is drum leveler by SoundRadix. This plugin makes sure all the hits are equal or dynamically solid without adding the sound of compression. Yet. Use a gate to control the length of the kick drum and listen to the rhythm of the music to fit it in.

3. Compress for style and sound: I like using compressors to give a sound or vibe to the track instead of looking to minimize the dynamic range (I feel that's often a byproduct, not the goal). Note that a VCA-based compressor gives you tightness but also might change the low end of the kick quite a bit, so EQ'ing after that kind of compression to put back some of the low end and reshape is imperative.

4. Beg, Borrow and Steal: Add samples if the kick sample or recording doesn't seem to have the ingredients you need. Make sure you have the 40Hz you're looking for or add a sample with a very clicky sound to add that feel in parallel to the original track. Trying to EQ a kick that severely lacks in the places you're looking for starts sounding strange, processed, and will still leave you longing for better.

5. Marry the kick with the bass: I don't buy the theory of making opposite EQ moves in kick and bass to complement. Basses are too complex and, in many songs, move around musically too much to make a meaningful change here, and also, the technique makes people set EQs without actually listening to what the two parts need. Instead, find a complimentary level, triple-check the phase relationship, and you should be in good shape if your monitoring is decent and the arrangement is sound. Use side-chain compression on the bass to make the kick punch through, but that's the last step for me.

Colin Richardson is a UK-based mixer and producer who has worked with some of the most iconic acts in the metal genre.

I haven't got a special formula for the kick sound. One tip I can give is to imagine the kick sound you would like when you’re setting up the mix. Then towards the end of the mix, scan the kick sound and decide if it's still the sound you first imagined.

If not, decide if it's level or certain frequencies with EQ you are missing. But never give up and say “oh well, that’ll do!”

I will also layer the mic’ed kick drum track with three or four kick samples as I find that each sample will have a different characteristic which will be useful as you add more layers and other instruments to the final mix.

F. Reid Shippen is a mixer, engineer, and producer with eleven Grammy-winning albums and more than a hundred number one singles to his name.

The secret to a great-sounding kick … is that there is no secret. I can give a few pointers, though.

Have good monitoring. The low end is the hardest thing to deal with— it’s room-dependent. So make sure you know what you’re hearing. Check references and headphones. Check sub polarity. Make sure your room is not fooling you.

That chart you got from Instagram telling you what frequencies to EQ? Throw it away. It’s useless. Every kick drum is different. The EQ is lower than you’d think.

Try 30Hz on a UAD Pultec and then follow it with a Fabfilter high-pass to get rid of the way too low stuff (which will eat up headroom), setting up a 12/24db slope, then moving it around until the kick sounds full.

Ignore the numbers; use your ears. Sometimes, cranking the slope up high can make the kick sound FULLER even as you roll off the lows. Why? No idea. It just works.

The kick isn’t an instrument — the drums are an instrument. If they’re live, make sure there’s not a lot of low end coming from other sources. Even with programming, you can get a ton of low-end info from other tracks that can obscure or conflict with the kick’s frequency range.

I generally high-pass everything to clear out room.

Also, consider the kick and the bass to be ONE instrument, and give and take EQ points between them to make sense. Depending on where one of them lives, the other needs to make room.

I rarely side-chain, personally, but I make sure the kick and bass hit together. The note of the bass should feel like a continuation of the impact of the kick, and they should play together like one instrument.

And be careful of conflicting frequencies. If your kick fundamental is a half-step off the bass fundamental, the low end will sound wobbly and feel terrible. If that happens, ruthlessly remove one of them (usually the kick’s.)

Polarity is key.

I’ve had songs where I’ve fought with the low end until I realized that, like an idiot, I didn’t check the polarity of the drum mics. I got them correct, and, BOOM, the low end feels right. Always, always ALWAYS check your polarity.

And for programming, do the same. It can make a huge difference. (This is also where you make sure your kick drum is pushing the speaker OUT when it hits, and not IN)

Clear out the low mids! Rupert picked 360 and 700hz on purpose — try getting rid of those and see what happens. You’ll have to fool around with the frequency or the amount of cut, but it’s in there somewhere.

Don’t be afraid to go crazy with the EQ.

I have used 560’s on kick a lot, and it’s not subtle. Go crazy with the EQ and then slam it through El Rey or a dbx160 to make it tight and controlled.

Parallel compression is your friend; until it isn’t. Try parallel on just the kick or the whole kit, or SKIP the parallel if it’s throwing all the drums off and not poking through.

Finally, don’t be afraid of using samples.

I’ve used five different kick samples for one song. Take samples that add in parts of the low end that are missing and use those instead of trying to boost something that isn’t there with EQ and dealing with the mush that can come along with that.

I usually have a thud, snap, tick, boom, and chest sample to mix and match if needed. And always, always, ALWAYS check polarity on all your samples. Or else.

Producer, mixer, and composer Steve Fisk is a legend of the Pacific Northwest rock scene who recorded several tracks for Nirvana's Blew EP.

I have NO rules for kick drums — especially these days when I'm often mixing other peoples' engineering.

It is always a lot of dicking around trying to get it to work, but it really is a case-by-case thing. If I told everybody to suck out 300 cycles and boost 8k for the beater, I would really be doing them a disservice.

I do a lot of shelving of the other tracks to make room for the kick first. Then it has more to do with the actual drum, how it was tuned, did it have a front head, where and how it was recorded, how well it was played, the tempo and genre of the song, the bass part, the bass sound, the bass player, and most importantly, the other drums.

If I'm recording the drums, I usually use an Electrovoice RE-20 or an AKG D12 inside the kick with a U87 or U47 outside.