If i was the OP in this or other similar thread and i wanted 'that' sound whatever it is:

1: i attach my file
2: i attach what i am aiming for
3: i ask for advice

i never see that, seems bonkers and often like its a thread just to drag out the same stuff rather than actually meet the result.

I also see a lot of know how (quite often recycled garbo or wiki) and zero audio to back it up

just a thought

I've seen that, and even after someone had determined exactly what the OP wanted and several ways of achieving it with common software plug-ins, there were still a dozen more replies of people who had obviously not listened to the file, each insisting that the OP needed a some pricey vintage instrument which didn't actually do the sound in question. So it fails both ways.

The very first reply in this thread was the only answer needed.

Not really, it’s based on assumption. We don’t know what sound OP is referring to because he gives no examples. The sound of the early 90s says very little, it’s quite diverse. Even more so than today since people didn’t have access to the internet.

Well to be fair about modern music using kick sample libraries, back in the day a lot of guys just sampled kicks from other records. It's not like they sat there and all handcrafted their own back then either.

To address an earlier question - yes you can get really nice samples that were run through nice hardware convertors and distortion units, but I typically find that I still do more to them to get them where I want the sound. So the usual answer is to start with great samples and then continue to mold them into what you want them to be. Some guys just throw the sample in and thats it, but whenever I try that, I typically decide to remix at the end because the kick is not doing exactly what I want. After I process it, it then gets to the sound I want in my head and I am good.

Another thing is there is no need to just use 909 samples. This may apply more towards House, but I love using hip hop drums a lot. More variety there and if you get the envelopes tweaked right the kicks stay nice and tight. Another tip is to take an open hi hat from a record, distort, and just dial in the envelopes so it's snappier. It will give you more of a unique sound that still will slam in a club.

I think a lot of people want a killer sound right off the bat or they get discouraged. It takes a lot of experimentation and time, but it will pay off and will make you a better producer.

I'm saying you're wrong.
Alesis and some others like Ensoniqs were affordable gear way before before Behringer. Midiverb II is 1987 and £450, 3630 is 1989 and £260 and Ensoniq DP/2 is 1995 and £799, Digitech TSR24 is 1993 and £899 and TSR24S is 1995 and £799 etc

Also not all techno drums made the same.
Equalizers, compressors and reverbs are here. Ralf Hildenbeutel did a lot of great production.

For op: Recepie of 90ths kick in Ableton using stock plugns

0. Sample 909 Kick from someone's record
1. Add noise and hum, then gate it with long release or don't gate if you're true to the roots
2. Saturate 2-3 db with noise
3. rise ~120hz so it's boomy, rise ~1-3k so it's clicky
4. Saturate 2-3 db more
5. Compress with high ratio
6. Reverb it by taste but avoid rumble sub reverb.
Ableton Reverb in echo mode is so grainy it reminds midiverb or zoom reverb.

Notice that in 90ths were way less sub frequencies, way more boomy frequencies and lot of mud. Bass and Kicks has content in 100-200 and half of the records has nothing below 70 hz.

Well, we can be reasonably certain that it's not tape saturation, because tape saturation on kick drums sounds just plain awful and would likely only be deliberately used on experimental or perhaps industrial styles. Meanwhile, overdrive or distortion on kick drums were quite common in early 90s techno because it makes them tear right through the mix. Of course there are many ways to achieve that; it might have been overdriven mixer inputs, it might have been through a guitar pedal, it might have been some other effects unit, it might have been a sample of another record's kick that was run through any of those things... but it definitely wasn't tape saturation.

Hard disagree, the bass swell up and you get a nice head bump plus cool saturation. The sound depends on the machine though.

Again, the chance of it being tape is higher in the early 90s than later on, may even be cassette. But generally some form of overdrive yes I agree. But to just frame it as mackie seems wierd to me, I mean you’ve got a few millimeters on the dial where the sound breaks up, beyond that and your 909 is straight gabber. It’s one sound, and a sound that I personally dont find that useful.

No 90s techno was made with tape, ppl keep saying it.

Except when it was.



The following comment comes from Lee In Sync himself, on the music released on "Storm":

"There are only 4 instruments in the track - all Roland, 2 SH-101s, 1 TR-808 and 1 TR-909. There was no hardware sequencer either. Everything was synched using the drum machine triggers. The notes were recorded on the SH-101 onboard sequencers, so the tune was very limited. Also, one of the SH-101s was not working properly. I could not record the same note twice in the sequencer for some reason. You can't really set up a more basic studio than I used for that track. The track was a production nightmare in reality. I am surprised it ever made it to vinyl. There is tape noise on the recording where the cassette deck level was way too low. But....it does sound like rain. It all went wrong but ended up right it seems".

So yeah, just use a sample CD, use a ROMpler, it’s all the same. You all know better. I’m just rectal cancer infecting the loose assholes on here.

Wrong in what? That Alesis was budget gear most used back then? Possibly, but it was represented in many racks. Ensoniq was expensive? Well, Lexicon was more expensive. Dp/4 was common? After it came out it was, with the lot that could afford it and see the point in getting it. Most came to know it through ASR-10. There were similar boxes than dp/4 from other manufacturers? There were.

I didn't say Behringer invented inexpensive gear. When their (edison etc) compressors hit the market, the amount of dynamics processing in project studios skyrocketed. Of course there were inexpensive gear before Behringer too. It was a bit less inexpensive and usually quite a bit more crappy too. I think Alesis was the Behringer before Behringer as in market leader in inexpensive.

By the time Ensoniq released dp/4 there were already a lot of competition and prices were going down. I remember lusting after Zoom and Lexicon (Alex) inexpensive units when they come out. In hindsight I was only three years away from moving ITB. Sold my hw synths and switched to Creamware Pulsar (1998) / Propellerhead Reason (2000).

LOL this thread got dirty.

I'll throw in an option. UA Fatso, or some other emulation or better HW.
That will blow that kick up followed by maybe the Pultec low end trick.

SDRR is another.

This is absolutely my sentiment as well.

I found myself a good condition ASR 10 off CL like 7 years ago for $600, and since I've been sort of collecting stuff from that era... Emu orbit 9090 romper... Then even grabbed an original Mackie 1202. So much fun to play with. Ive yet to bring them all together and do the whole live techno thing which will be fun...

But there is this sort of sad lonely feeling to the nostalgic pursuit of making music with tools from an era just to try and capture that era. After a while, like you said, you want to feel yourself in the current pulse of things. After all our favorite electronic artists of the 80s and 90s weren't trying to seek out retro gear and instruments to capture the essence of a lost era... They were mostly using current gear making current sounding music which was cutting edge at the time. When I remind myself this, I lust after the retro vibes a bit less.

The fun part is sometimes fusing retro and modern. Also, I've found that focusing on composition, Melody and groove, regardless of style, sound, era, effects centers me and reminds me of why I love making tunes in the first place. So the takeaway there for me is: if working on vintage 80s/90s gear inspires me and is fun, then do it! I'm also reminded that many artists out there including the honorable Aphex Twin still to this day never turns down the opportunity to use his oldschool drum machines, samplers or effects units in his releases. Dude can make next level bananas type shit in 2022 with an Alesis HR 16 and a 3630 lol.

There is nothing I want less than to feel myself in the current pulse of things. Not interested in the past either though, nor in the old idea of what “the future” might sound like.

I’m going for audio Mad Max vibes tbqh.

I mean, this is entirely not true at all. 90s artists almost exclusively used older synths and fx because they were cheap. And while no sampler that was widely used was truly “vintage” at that time, most ppl were using older samplers and shit too because… they were cheap.

And that’s before getting into groups like Air and ppl like Vincent Gallo that were REALLY obsessed with sounding old and using vintage equipment.

So yeah, this whole concept you have here is basically entirely incorrect.

The first dude I knew in the 90s with a serious all hardware studio had almost zero “modern” equipment for that time, he was trying to sound like early 80s synth pop and industrial but made melodic techno with it. Still jocks Flood to this day lol

While this is all well and good, I do not believe AT is out there saying to himself “I really want to fuse retro and modern ideas in my music”. I think he has a vision of music that doesn’t sound like everybody else’s, and he knows how to achieve it.

The problem most ppl have now is they have no vision. So they use the same tools to make shit that sounds the same as everybody else. It’s very boring.

Your entire post is riddled with inaccuracies. JK :D

Yeah I hear you about not wanting to be in the pulse of things, if you mean mainstream commercial stuff which most of is plastic uninspired samey and it keeps miraculously getting more and more artificial and boring sounding as the years go on. I don't know how it's possible, very odd. Youd think something fresh would break through.

For example, I had somewhat high hopes for the new Charli xcx lp which I checked out the other day expecting to hear next level and forward thinking pop. Aside from 1 or two cool ideas and some funky grooves, totally just plain old vanilla 2022 pop.

I still think there's room for something unique in the current pop world, but maybe I'm an idealist. However, in the underground there are still cool things happening (at least there were as of a couple years ago--kind of fallen off a bit since then), which is actually more of what I meant by "current pulse". Top 40 stuff is always going to be mostly cookie cutter.

To me one of the biggest problems with the above lies in the endless sample packs, vst presets, shiny new plugins, and YouTube tutorials on how to craft the perfect tech house bass, or how to make a lush pad sound in 2 minutes with Serum. Or endless Reddit posts on how to make EDM bass and low end hit hard. The problem is that most of these tutorials use almost the same approach, same tools, and it's become this hive mind thing. There are nuggets of gold here and there, but damn. Back in 1996, there weren't endless instructional videos on "how to make the perfect Big Beat build up and tamb patterns". Producers and artists just got in to the damn groove and felt it out using their hands and bodies and spirit. Now it's all mental and OCD and analysis.

Anyway, my point is no one agrees with you more than me regarding current pulse vs the glory days. I hear myself sometimes even being crabby and cringe at myself. Like man I can't even go to Spotify and check out the lastest deep house playlists to try and hear what's new and hot without being like "ummm this isn't house" or "ughhh why did they have to contain those transients so hard or make those synths sound so artificial? Why do these vocal patterns and timbres sound EXACTLY like every other dreamy lazy floaty perfectly shaped dynamicless vocal?" Why does everything have to be SO PLEASING???

Lol alright ending my rant here... Point is I'll take the tape saturated or ADAT printed kick drums, quadraverb drenched pads and 303 lines any day over the pile of cotton candy

Also all that said, it's a mind **** right? Bc we all just wanna make that perfect/smooth/mind melting mix or drums that slap hard and bass thats so rich and deep or vocals that just stun... But the problem with the state were in is that the mix and sound design and mastering becomes 75% of the focus, 20% on performance of the vocal and then the remainder on melody, attitude, rawness/uniqueness, concept etc.

Every "old" guy here knows what i mean with "90s techno kicks"

I also don't wanted a special kick - it's was a general question.

Btw i found a good solution by using "Kick 2" - the last update had a "tape" distortion :-)

I dont recall people obsessing about the kick in those days.. We didnt listen to the kick so much as the tunes nahmean

I find this fixation on specific techniques hilarious. You either know how to make techno or you dont

Take a listen to something like Bevery Hills 808303.. pretty much every track of theirs is processed differently. I doubt you will find any single one "true" way, it never existed

Neural DSP have their Amp sims on sale for 3 more days. You can try these as demos.

https://neuraldsp.com/plugins

I dunno man, I was into trackers, and I remember a lot of talk back then about finding the perfect kick even in our weird little scene. It was pretty much the only thing that people were worried about doing better. We did put more emphasis on the song for sure, but there was always concern about making the kick stand out in the mix. My bandaid was to have the same kick playing on two tracks. Yeah, all it did was make the kick twice as loud, but I remember liking that a lot more than the kicks I got from my old MC-303.

Except actual 90ths producers are stating otherwise in interviews. I recall Richie Hawtin saying: I've sampled my kick from record X for release Y, and then 5 years after Z people revealed "we've sampled your kick because it's sounded fatter".

Bonus point for love to Bunker Crew.