[How to] make a kickdrum with triple osc

Write guides and how-tos about LMMS for other members.
Ok, this is going to sound weird to some, maybe. Why use triple osc to make a kickdrum? The answer: because you can. Also, because it can produce some pretty neat sounds!

Ok, we're going to use a technique called substractive synthesis here. To make this tutorial easier to follow, I'm marking with [tags] which tab you need to be on on the instrument window.

[Plugin]
To start with, we'll make some noise. Set all the oscillators to produce white noise. The other settings don't matter at this point, as most of them don't have any effect on the noise generation. Then we'll move on to the Env/Lfo tab. That's where the magic happens.

[Env/Lfo]
Here, we're going to set the volume envelope first. Here are good settings for it:
Amt: 1 (full)
Del: 0
Att: 0
Hold: 0
Dec: 0.248
Sus: 1
Rel: 0

Ok, try it now. Right now you have a neat little snare drum, kind of a crappy one but still. But read onwards, let's make it into a good kick.

Enable the filter. Select the RC Bandpass (24dB) filter. This is important to pick the right filter, it won't work so well with the 12dB one, unless you want some weird kickdrum...

Set the resonance to maximum and cutoff to minimum. (That is, 10.0 and 1hz, respectively). Now, the instrument should sound like a bass guitar that constantly plays the same note. But we're not done yet.

Go to the cutoff envelope, and set these values:
Amt: 0.2
Del: 0.02
Att: 0
Hold: 0.05
Dec: 0.187
Sus: 1
Rel: 0

Now listen to the sound. It's a kick drum! How awesome is that?

Now we can add some character to the sound. Go back to the plugin tab:

[Plugin]
Now, set the first oscillator to saw wave, set the crs dial to -24, and try playing different notes (C3 - G4 are good). See how the character of the sound varies slightly! You can vary it further by adjusting the volume of the saw oscillator. Try detuning it with the FL/FR knobs. Turn the SPD knob up to give it some stereo effect.

You can also try different waveforms to see how they affect the sound. You can even change the second oscillator, it's enough that there's one noise oscillator to produce enough frequencies to substract from. You can try all kinds of weird things now to create weird, cool and fun bass/kick drum sounds, and you have much more control and finetune over it than you have in Kicker.

Have fun!
That was actually a really awesome tutorial, thanks man!
Nice tutorial works well, i been using LMMS for over 3 months now and every time i use it, it amazes me how you can make so many different sounds. Awesome software.
Neat write-up!

However I just want to add that from a mixing perspective a central sound such as a kick drum should not be stereo if you ever plan on playing live or having your track played at any venue. While that will not apply to most people here, just for the sake of information having a perfectly mono compatible kick is important in most EDM genres.
Stakeout Punch wrote:Neat write-up!

However I just want to add that from a mixing perspective a central sound such as a kick drum should not be stereo if you ever plan on playing live or having your track played at any venue. While that will not apply to most people here, just for the sake of information having a perfectly mono compatible kick is important in most EDM genres.
True. You can fix this easily with stereo matrix, though.
Gasp!
Thanks for this tut diiz.
It's a lifesavers!
Been trying to figure out how to do this for a while now!
It really came in handy! :mrgreen:
I tried this and for some reason I didn't end up with anything resembling a kickdrum: instead I got some sort of weird low humming sound.
Zennistrad wrote: instead I got some sort of weird low humming sound.
Mmmm ..you made a mistake :D
Its not really important anymore. Diiz wrote a whole plugin the new Kicker after he had made this tutorial. Everything that you had in the 3oc kick, is more than possible in the kicker1.0
Read about that here:
http://lmms.io/wiki/index.php?title=Kicker
musikbear wrote:
Sun May 08, 2016 11:09 am
Zennistrad wrote: instead I got some sort of weird low humming sound.
Mmmm ..you made a mistake :D
First off, please excuse the necropost :)
I found this interesting thread from a Searx about this thread's very title,
but I can't get anywhere if the instructions don't function as described

I can confirm it's not a mistake Zennistrad made, I hear the same low tire-squealing hum after following everything...
The instructions are either missing some details, or triple oscillator was updated with breaking changes since the instructions were written.

After setting the 3 oscillators to noise, and applying the settings of the volume envelope
what's described as sounding like a crude snare just sounds like flat continuous noise instead
the volume envelope doesn't seem to do anything at all

Then after applying the filter, that actually sounds like a bass guitar as described,
except it's just a continuous tone since again, the volume envelope doesn't do anything...

Finally, after applying the cutoff envelope settings, that's when it sounds like squealing tires.
(I've done this multiple times and gotten the same result, even after multiple LMMS restarts)

It's not described if I'm supposed to change the modulation settings, so I assume those are supposed to be left as is on MIX
since as described:
diiz wrote:
Mon Dec 30, 2013 11:56 pm
The other settings don't matter at this point, as most of them don't have any effect on the noise generation.
Does the initial post need some updates or is triple oscillator just broken??

Also I'm aware of the kicker, but I'm kinda doing my own thing...
I'd like to try to practice a style of making pretty much any sound using only triple oscillator, since from examples, I'm seeing it's more than possible :)

hope I can help things get improved, and also learn a few things in the process :)
Tcll wrote:
Sun Jun 04, 2023 1:21 am
Does the initial post need some updates or is triple oscillator just broken??
its really a bit more complicated.
3oc ..was broken when diiz made that tut. Now 3 oc is 'repaired' -well sort of, there is still an issue, but it is only after playing same note for like 5 mins..
No that tut does not make a kick drum. If i can find time i may look at a how to, but i wont promise anything. My eyes are not friends with LMMS UI any more
Time 🪁