Kicks · FL Studio · 180 BPM
The kick.
The kick is the heart of every Hardtekk track. Here you build it layer by layer: a deep tone for pressure, distortion for bite, a click for the attack – and the short gap that makes the typical bouncing rhythm.
Four layers
A Hardtekk kick has four parts that sit in different frequency ranges: sub (pressure), punch (hit), crunch (distortion) and click (attack). In between lies the mud zone, which you usually turn down a little.
| Layer | Range | What you hear |
|---|---|---|
| Sub | 35–65 Hz | Pressure in your stomach. Always mono. |
| Punch | 60–150 Hz | The hit in your chest as the pitch sweeps down. |
| Crunch | 500 Hz–5 kHz | The growl and screech of the distortion. Audible even on a phone. |
| Click | 2–8 kHz | The short attack right at the start. |
| Mud zone | 200–500 Hz | Makes the kick dull and boxy – usually cut a little. |
In detail
The ranges are guide values, not hard borders. Sub and punch overlap because the punch is exactly the moment when the pitch falls from above into the sub.
Why mono? The ear can hardly locate deep tones, and on a mono system stereo differences in the bass partly cancel out. So everything below about 120 Hz stays mono.
Why crunch? Many speakers (phone, laptop) cannot play sub. Distortion creates overtones higher up – so you “hear” the kick even where the sub is missing.
Kick builder
This builds a kick right in your browser, one beat at 180 BPM. Try the recipes first, then turn the controls yourself and listen to what changes. The hint below the controls tells you what your setting will sound like.
In detail
This is how the kick is made here: the sub is a clean sine tone whose pitch falls from the start pitch to the root note. A volume envelope shapes it; in the gap it drops as far as “Gap depth” says (32 dB in the example kick).
The recipes are starting points, not rules. “Classic and heavy” follows a real Hardtekk kick: pressure, a short air gap at 145 ms, pressure again. The others are typical directions – in real tracks every kick sounds a bit different.
The crunch is the same tone, heavily distorted (like a waveshaper) with everything below 200 Hz filtered out. It gets no gap – so the kick stays audible during the air phase, only the pressure is gone. “Gap overall” shows how much quieter the whole signal is in the gap.
The click is a few milliseconds of bright noise. Everything together is brought to a peak of −12 dBFS so nothing comes out of your speakers too loud.
A real kick from FL sounds richer – several distortions, EQ, often samples as layers. But the principle is the same.
A strong kick: the recipe
A strong Hardtekk kick is tuned, has a clean mono sub that carries the energy, a short pitch drop for the hit, crunch from several small distortion stages and a gap for the groove. Clipped at the end – and always compared with a pro track at the same loudness.
| Sounds … | Usual cause | What you turn |
|---|---|---|
| dull | too much 200–500 Hz, too little on top | cut the mud zone by 2–4 dB, a bit more crunch, click on |
| thin | sub too quiet, root too high or layers out of phase | sub louder, root towards 45–55 Hz, check phase, lower the top layer's high-pass |
| muddy | everything in one distortion, no gap | distort in stages, EQ afterwards, add the gap, keep the sub clean |
| too soft | start pitch too low, drop too slow | higher start pitch, shorter pitch drop, some click |
| too clicky | very short drop, click too loud | longer pitch drop, quieter click, small cut at 3–6 kHz |
| no pressure on big systems | root too high, sub clipped away or in stereo | lower root, sub mono, distort the sub less, check against a reference |
| cheap / digital | harsh distortion, scratchy highs | gentler stages, switch on oversampling (where the plugin offers it), cut a little at the very top |
In detail
Compare at equal loudness: the ear almost always prefers the louder sound. So turn the pro track down until it feels as loud as your kick (by ear or with a loudness meter). Only then do you hear real differences in pressure, hit and crunch.
Cross-check: listen to the kick on big speakers or headphones (sub) and on a phone (crunch). A strong kick works on both.
Distortion that sounds cheap is often aliasing: very hard distortion creates overtones above the limit of the system, and they fold back as scratchy tones. Oversampling in the plugin helps, if it has it. The recipes in the builder are starting points – your ears decide.
Pitch drop
Every kick starts high (about 250–400 Hz) and falls to its root note (about 45–60 Hz) within 20–50 ms. That fast sweep down is the hit. The root note should match the key of your track.
In detail
Tuning: Load the kick into a channel, put Fruity Parametric EQ 2 on its mixer track and look in the analyzer for the lowest peak. That is the root note. Use the channel's pitch knob to make it match the root of your track (or its fifth).
Note names: 44 Hz is close to F1. FL Studio numbers octaves differently from many tables, though – the same note is usually shown one octave number higher there (F2). The letter is what matters, not the number.
Too slow sounds like a laser, too fast loses the hit. You can hear both in the builder above.
The gap
In the middle of the kick the sub goes almost silent for about 50 ms while the crunch keeps running. That creates the typical bounce: two pushes of pressure per beat. Build the gap with a volume envelope – and plan it deeper than it should sound in the end.
In detail
With volume, not with phase: You could also make the gap with two opposing waves that cancel each other out. But that depends on the pitch and falls apart with the slightest shift. A volume envelope always does exactly the same thing.
Plan it deeper: Clippers and limiters in mastering lift quiet parts relative to loud ones. With the example kick, the gap was still about 30 dB deep after normal mastering – with little reserve it would have filled up.
Shallow is sometimes intended: with a tonal “beep kick” the gap in the mix is often only about 8 dB deep. That is a different sound, not a mistake.
Layers and phase
When you stack two kicks they can reinforce or cancel each other. A few milliseconds of offset or a flipped polarity is enough to turn “louder” into “quieter”. Always check with your ears and an analyzer.
In detail
At 55 Hz one cycle lasts about 18 ms. If layer B starts 9 ms later, it runs exactly opposite – the sum almost disappears. With flipped polarity the same happens even without any offset.
High-pass on the top layer: let the sub come from one layer and cut the bass from the other (crunch, click) – rather at 60–80 Hz, not above about 110 Hz. Otherwise a hole opens up between sub and top layer, and the punch is missing.
In FL you can flip the polarity of a mixer track (newer versions have a switch for it in the mixer). You fix an offset by moving the start of a sample very slightly.
Steps in FL
Tune first, then distort in several small stages, clean up afterwards, add layers, put in the gap, and finally clip and bounce to WAV.
Choose a base and tune it
A clean kick sample or a synth with a pitch drop. Find the root note with the analyzer in Parametric EQ 2 and tune it to the key.
Fruity Parametric EQ 2 (analyzer) · channel pitchDistort in stages
Better three or four distortions with a little drive in a row than one with the knob all the way up. Each stage adds a different character, and you stay in control.
Fruity Waveshaper · Distructor · Blood Overdrive · Fruity Soft ClipperEQ afterwards
Distortion creates mud. After the distortions, a small cut between 200 and 400 Hz – a few dB are enough.
Fruity Parametric EQ 2Layers
A top layer for more crunch or click. Cut its bass with a high-pass at 60–80 Hz and check the phase: if the kick gets thinner when you add the layer, something is wrong.
Fruity Parametric EQ 2 · polarity in the mixerBuild the gap
A volume envelope that pulls the sub down deep at about 145 ms for around 50 ms. Works in the sampler channel (volume envelope), with Gross Beat (draw a volume envelope) or with Peak Controller, which turns a control track into a volume movement.
Channel envelope · Gross Beat · Fruity Peak ControllerClip and bounce
A clipper at the end shaves off the last peaks. Then export as a 24-bit WAV. Mono below 120 Hz – check that before you bring the kick into the track.
Fruity Soft Clipper · export 24-bit WAVIn detail
Why in stages? One distortion with lots of drive quickly makes everything the same: flat, scratchy, muddy. Several small steps give you a choice at every point, and you hear what each step adds.
Gross Beat works in time with the project. At 180 BPM one beat is 333 ms long; with the example kick the gap sits roughly between 44 % and 59 % of the beat.
Peak Controller: it reads the level of one signal and uses it to move another control. How exactly you link it depends on your setup – if you are new to this, the envelope in the channel is the easiest way.