Quote Originally Posted by The_Laughing_Man View Post
I used to layer my kicks but I tend to find you create more problems than you solve.
You introduce phasing issues and also watch those start points and badly clipped samples.
IT works but do be careful, make sure the samples all trigger correctly and check for phasing.

I tend to just use 1 or 2 kicks now, never or very rarely samples, I`ll use synth kick generators to create the right kick or kicks for the job.
Maybe a deep 808 style for that round low end, and then a slightly more aggressive 808-ish for some mid thwack.
agree and i'm more or less the same these days. on digital setups i find it important to take extreme care that you dont get transients messing with each other and frequency ranges phasing each other out so i'm always very careful about my envelope settings when layering kicks and rarely layer more then 2. classic trick is to layer a shaker over it to give the high end more density.

building my own kicks from sinewaves and noise was a very good learning experience. i also spent a lot of time just processing single kicks and experimenting with severe shaping and pitching. if you know what you're doing you can get really interesting results by playing around with say a 909 sample.

i find the main frequency area to pay attention to as far as punch goes is around 90-120hz. if you focus all the weight too deep (the tail on a kick usually sits at around 50-60hz) you'll just get pure bass and no punch and it'll be hard to fit a bassline into your track (assuming you want one).