Getting a kick louder without recieving distortion

[higgs]

Hi everyone,

I'm quite new to LMMS but ambitious about creating original house/d'n'b tracks. But whenever I try to make a good beat, I stumble upon a problem that i just can't get solved:

When creating a kick drum in ZynAddSubFX, I manage to get it deep and soft, just as I want it. The problem is, i can't get it loud enough compared to the other instruments. Playing the kick on solo and raising the volume of my speakers leaves the kick fine, but trying to mix it with whatever fader (instrument volume, ZASFX master volume, track volume, FX-Mixer volume) distorts the sound instantly.
I know that this has to do properties of digital audio processing (bitdepth?) and I can get around it by making everything else more quiet instead of making the kick drum louder and then turning the speaker up. However, I can't possibly lower the volume of every other track in the project just to make the kick loud enough.
So is there any other way of raising the volume of a track without distorting it? Maybe some tweaks in the properties of LMMS? Or do I have to modify the sound of the kick drum in ZynAddSubFX in oder to get it right?

I would really appreaciate some help and want to thank anybody who can help me in advance.

[slipstick]

However, I can't possibly lower the volume of every other track in the project just to make the kick loud enough.

Why not, that's the obvious solution ? If the kick is already running into clipping you simply can't have it any louder. And if you won't reduce the things that are making it seem too quiet there's not a lot left to do. Of course it may just be that you have it so soft and deep that there's plenty of energy there but whatever you're monitoring with isn't actually able to transmit the sound.

OTOH you may not need to reduce every other track. Why not put a spectrum analyser like Voxengo SPAN on the kick track and see what frequencies it is using. Then look at the other tracks and see what else is creating those same frequencies. It may be just the odd bass track. You can perhaps turn just those tracks down or even put an EQ on them and notch out just the frequencies that get in the way of the kick. That's a fair bit of work but it should help.

Putting a compressor or even a limiter on the kick track might also help but to get any real loudness boost you usually end up affecting the sound quite a bit which doesn't seem like what you want.

Steve

[higgs]

At first thanks for the quick response.

Turns out that I fixed the problem myself, but parts of your answer actually helped me.

The thing was that I used to filter out way too many frequencies, so there wasn't really anything to amplify anymore. Having the kicks in loops while editing them made me unable to really notice that.
Anyways, I'll try the SPAN Vst, it seems like an useful mastering tool.

Greetings
higgs

[slipstick]

Well I'm glad you got it fixed...but I sort of wish you'd done it a bit earlier. It could have saved me a lot of useless typing .

Steve

[musikbear]

Hi everyone

Hi, Welcome to the forum higgs! Here are all our important links:
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