As cliche as it sounds, your best bet is to use your ears. Typically most kicks sit around the 100Hz range but try listening to it with other elements in the mix to check how it sits in the mix. Id say the most important thing is to have a distinction between the kick and snare as they are usually very close in terms of frequency

For me, I pretty much learnt what every parameter on the synth does and how it contributes to the sound overall and then literally just experimented. Best thing it to try thing that usually wouldn't be right and try fit them in. You achieve more unique results!

For me, it's careful use of filtering, distortion and width. Also try and mess around with resampling and repeating the process and slicing up, reversing and repitching your basses. Frequency splitting really helps for controlling your tone. Best advice I can give is to literally try anything, you'll learn new things and be likely to end up with more unique sounds.

Try playing 7ths/9ths/11ths/13ths/ as well as trying inversions on these. Also playing dominant 7ths with flattened 5ths can sound nice too!

I prefer to work with straight audio samples being dropped onto the grid in ableton. I'll find samples with parts that I like, for example one hat sample has a transient sound I like and another has the sustain/decay that I want and I'll stitch the samples together and fuck around with the crossfades in ableton until I'm happy with the sound. Freeze and flatten (bounce to audio) and use that new sample. I find that layering samples can sometimes just become a complete mess and this method will generally sound cleaner. That's not to say that I avoid layering, I just find this method works better the majority of the time.

I do both! As long as you EQ and level out each layer correctly you should have no problems. All to their own though!

Hey everyone,

UKF recently did an article called "Dat Snare Tho" (https://ukf.com/words/dat-snare-tho/14267) where big name producers shed some light on their snare layering techniques and what they thought made a good snare. I was thinking maybe we could do the same?

For me, I start with a 200Hz hit which I then layer with a transient which can vary what frequency it hits at, I'd say roughly between 500Hz - 1kHz maybe? I then round off my snare with either a noise from a synth, a clap or an acoustic snare layer which can be lifted from a drum break or from a drum sampler like Addictive Drums or Superior Drummer.