Psy Kick Tutorial by Zero
An envelope is a general word for a functional bit of a synth which can change a parameter with time with four key values.
ATTACK - defines the time for the parameter to rise from its baseline to the peak (defined by a parameter usually called "amount", "amt", "depth", etc)
DECAY - defines the time for the parameter to fall from its peak to the SUSTAIN value while the note is being held
SUSTAIN - defines the value the parameter will DECAY to while the note is being held. A setting of zero means the DECAY will decay to the baseline value.
RELEASE - defines the time for the parameter to return to the baseline value after the note is released (key-up on a keyboard).
Now, we have to think about what makes a drum sound. A drum is just a skin stretched across an empty cylinder. Like a string, it has a fundamental pitch at which it will vibrate if you perturb it - the tighter the membrane, the higher the pitch. When we hit it with a hammer, the impact very rapidly stretches the membrane and, likewise, rapidly (and temporarily) increases the fundamental pitch of the drumskin. As the hammer comes away from the drum, the pitch quickly drops as the membrane relaxes and the stored, elastic energy slowly disipates as the drum vibrates and makes a sound. We need to recreate this with a synth and an envelope is the perfect way to do it.
Example :
In Cubase (and as a caveat, I've never used cubase, but most people seem to so I'll use it as an example) load up the Monologue synth - it comes free so everyone should have it. It looks like this :
Set "noise" and "osc 2" to zero in the mix section as we'll only use Osc 1. Forget the LFO, forget the filter, forget the FX section. Pick a triangle wave in Osc1 leave the coarse and fine pitch adjustments at zero. At this point, it may be helpful to have a loop play a half-note on-beat where you would normally put a kick drum - set it to a bass-to-subbass note and just let it play over and over again as we build the drum. You could also just use a keyboard, but since you won't likely hit the key with the same velocity each time it may be trickier to tweak later on. At any rate, it's good to hear what everything does as we go. The velocity setting for the note can be whatever is default since we won't change it for the kick.
Set the "MOD SRC" to "MOD ENV" and crank up the DEPTH - we can fuss with the DEPTH value later. MOD SRC defines what you want to modulate the pitch of Osc1 - in our case, we want to use the envelope, MOD ENV.
Leave the MOD SRC here at VELOCITY. This means that the peak value that the filter will rise to will be defined by the velocity. Since we are using this for pitch information, this is like saying that the harder we hit the key on the keyboard will translate to hitting the drum harder - the drumskin will tighten to a higher tension and we will peak at a higher pitch.
DEPTH can be cranked up to whatever. We will, again, fuss with it later. Say half to start with and you can tweak to your heart's content. This just gives the range for the softest velocity to the hardest.
ADSR we know about. For a drum, attack should be zero or very short - we're talking about an impact so the time is very fast. Sustain to zero, the drumskin will relax to it's basic frequency when we're done hitting it. Decay - shouldn't be too high, but use your ears. Too short and you'll get a click, too long and you get a long pyyeeeooooouuuuhhh sound. Right in the middle of those two is a fat, clean, thud. I don't have this synth so I can't give you a rough guess, but your ears will tell you. The depth on the ADSR/Osc1 may be too high or too low and you may still get a noisy or muffled kick noise, but make it as thudding as you can with the decay and then fuss with the DEPTHs to shape the sound later. Release should be short or nothing. Put the same settings on the AMP ENV and increase the sustain to about half and release to a bit.
Bang. We're done. Now you can whack on a filter or compressor if you like, or use the filter on the Monologue - do whatever other production magic you want on it, but that's the basics and you should have a totally tuneable base for any psy kick you may want. Add a bit of noise if you like or try a saw or sine wave (with the filter cutting the highs, probably, and put the MOD ENV on the filter with a small bit of depth, etc, and you can totally sculpt the psy-kick of your dreams. Full-on commercially awesome.