ABSTRACT
The central component in the creation of electronic dance music lies with the sonic design of the kick drum. This, along with the surrounding percussive instrumentation, forms the ubiquitous drum loop of almost all electronic dance music. This chapter examines the conventional approaches for designing the kick drum, claps, snares, and ancillary percussion. With production ethics, there are some approaches to the creation of a kick drum. The theory behind layering kicks may appear simple, but involves careful consideration, experienced listening, audio editing, and processing. The process begins by choosing three kick drum samples based on their different sonic characteristics. A more popular approach is to synthesize a kick. The theory behind synthesizing a kick remains the same regardless of the synthesizer. It consists of sweeping the pitch of a sine wave and then employing further techniques to add presence, body, and a harder attack stage.
