Big Power Hits. How do you do them?

I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about. On some tracks there's something I can only explain as a "power hit". It's where the synth/sample, kick and bass all hit at the same time to give some sort of big impact.

Here's a sample. Skip to 0:50 and wait for the drop.



I've tried it twice and this is as close as I get ...

1. http://puu.sh/9GEd1/34eb8dfcd3.wav
2. http://puu.sh/9GLtw/f2c217d083.wav

I can't get that "impact" feel. When the kick hits I want that impact going on.

Any advice?

Automation. Bring tracks down with fader automation, pop it, then bring it back to a normal level. This can give you the sense of a big impact or "push" without cranking things a whole lot.

sirparksalot wrote:Automation. Bring tracks down with fader automation, pop it, then bring it back to a normal level. This can give you the sense of a big impact or "push" without cranking things a whole lot.

Could the same be done with side chain compression? Trying to find a video or something on it. Been stuck for hours lol. Will try the automation though.

Sounds like it could be done with sidechaining.

But I think the kick itself could be improved. The one in the video is "punchier." What I mean: the 808 kind of kick drum is by default just a ringing bass note. Booming, but it lacks a big punch to it—it's just bass, with the little pop of the transient.
On the original 808, putting an accent on the kick made it sweep down quickly from about an octave higher when it's hit. (it's pretty cool, you can actually pretty easily see exactly the element in the circuit that does this)
That gave it a punchier sound—you fill more of the audio range, starting to get into the mids.

The kicks in the video sound even more accented, a tighter sweep from even higher into the mids range. I think that's important to the "impact" sound. Add some sidechaining, and you're on your way.


Something else I noticed—in your examples, the bass is pretty loud. I think you'll get a more effective "impact" if you take it down a bit, and fill in the rest of the audio spectrum more. The video, for example, they've got cymbals on each "impact". Those work to fill in all the highs. Then the mids are covered more by the chords played on each hit. plus the bass note sounds like it's doubled on different octaves, filling up the whole range.

Like all the other's are saying, plus the vid example is using crash/splash cymbals as well... Also if you listen before they are using reverse cymbal sounds before the impact which makes a difference as well.. I'm using shitty laptop speakers atm so i cant hear whats going on at the bottom end...

Experiment with reverb on kick drums and crash cymbals together..(even time stretching kick drums with lots of reverb) just to make different impact bomb kinda noises... I like making impact noises just to rattle the house... YEAH!!

render them as one shots and try pulling those into the mix on the one count and sidechain those impact noises using your main kick drum as the key/sidechain input...

Impact noise create a sense of vastness and epicness.. Like it's in a big space or area... So make or use reverb like the kick drum is in a big area or space...

Your example dont have the same ambience as the vid example... So try and put each sound/instrument in it's own space or ambience to create that epicness..

EPIC!! NESS!!!

I tried it on a new track, and it worked cymbals, white noise etc. Think I need a bit of reverb and delay though. It's at the end of the phrase where I do it. Here's a sample: http://puu.sh/9LeJr/8b7deb18da.wav

dazastah wrote:Your example dont have the same ambience as the vid example... So try and put each sound/instrument in it's own space or ambience to create that epicness..

EPIC!! NESS!!!

I've yet to get to grips with dynamic space. Any tutorials online about how to achieve this?

Lampdog wrote:Reverb, delay, chorus, flanged chorus w/ stereo widening, etc, combination of all that or whatever else suites your tastes.

2-7 sec samples tuned down/played really slow then reverb, pan sweep w/ above effects that build up right before the drop, all of that, think different than you have before and DO IT, you won't blow up anything except your knowledge on how things sound, which is a good thing. Yeah, blow that up.

Cheers Lampdog

yeah, reverb's good, it's like noise that's tuned to your other material.

For widening, one simple trick is to make 2 copies of a sample, trim a little bit off the beginning of one of them, and assign them to two pads hardpanned to the left and right. With the right offset, you get the Haas effect, where you hear both delayed samples as one sound, but with more width.

JamesJeffery wrote:On some tracks there's something I can only explain as a "power hit". It's where the synth/sample, kick and bass all hit at the same time to give some sort of big impact.

It's difficult to add to what the other lads have said, but in the video example I would say the sound is achieved by 90% layered sounds and 10% processing. It may even be as simple as a nice synth patch with a single note played across 3 octaves… low, mid and high.

There's probably a bit more going on than that but it is super clean.

Bass, kick, cheesy supersaw pads all playing the same tune in unison... boom, boom, boom. All hitting at the same time and playing the same melody = bigness.

signal generator/compression/gates/.... side chain them together