A kick drum is a sine wave that starts high and sweeps down fast to a low note, with a short click on top for the attack and an envelope that sets how long it rings. Open the kick generator (also at kick.aden.space), start from a preset, shape its sweep, click and body, tune it to your track's key and download a WAV. It runs in your browser, with no plugin and no account.

What is a kick drum made of?

Almost every electronic kick, from an 808 to a techno kick, is built from the same parts:

The sweep does more to the character than anything else. A fast, deep sweep gives a tight, punchy thud. A slower sweep sounds like a zap or a laser. Almost no sweep leaves a soft, round sub.

How do I make a kick drum from scratch?

1. Open the kick generator at tools.aden.space/kick, or kick.aden.space.
2. Start from a preset close to what you want. Each drum has its own, by style: the 808 and 909, house (bass house, future house, UK garage, afro), techno, trap and more. Step through them with the arrows on the display at the top, or open it to search them.
3. Set the body note. Tune it to your track's key (see below).
4. Shape the sweep. More sweep gives more punch; past a point it turns into a zap. Play it after every move: Space or Enter plays the sound.
5. Add click until the kick reads on laptop speakers. Too much and it ticks.
6. Set the length. At 128 BPM a beat lasts 469 ms, so in a four-on-the-floor a kick much longer than that runs into the next one. The BPM to ms tool gives the beat length for your tempo, and how to convert BPM to ms explains the maths.
7. Add drive until the kick holds up on small speakers.
8. Export. Download a WAV (44.1 or 48 kHz, 24 or 16-bit), or in Chrome and Edge, drag the Export button straight onto a track in your DAW.

Simple, Advanced and Pro

The kick generator has three modes, and the page remembers your pick.

• Simple shows the sound's waveform and a few knobs named for the kick, like its sweep, click and body. Drag, scroll or use the arrow keys.
• Advanced shows the kick's pitch, amp and click as curves on one timeline. Drag a point, drag the dot between two points to bend the line, and double-click (or double-tap) to add a point. The row under the timeline holds the curve's own settings.
• Pro adds effects after the drum: an EQ drawn over the sound's spectrum, a compressor and a limiter.

Any value can be scrolled like a knob: rest the pointer on the note, tune, length or gain and scroll. Hold Shift for bigger steps and Alt for finer ones.

Stuck? Under the sound are four kicks like it. Play one, drag it into your DAW, or press Dig to make it the sound and get four like that one. The display's menu lists the sounds you came from, one click back.

To combine kicks, drop them on Blend in and give each a share. Layering two kick samples in a DAW often thins the low end, because their bodies cancel each other out where they're out of phase. Here the bodies merge into one tone, and the clicks are lined up and polarity-matched before they mix.

The address bar always holds the sound you're editing, so the link is the sound. Share link, in the Export menu, copies it.

How do I take a kick from a song?

1. Drop a whole song, or a loop, on the kick page.
2. The generator finds the kick where it plays the same way again and again, lines those hits up and averages them until the rest of the mix cancels out.
3. The kick starts remade as a synth kick. Switch between remade, cleaned and as it is in the song.
4. Set Clean for how much of the song is taken out of it, from the plain average to everything that isn't the drum.
5. In Advanced and Pro, the song shows where each kick hits. A song with more than one kick gives you each.

Averaging only removes what changes from hit to hit. Anything that plays with the kick every single time, like a bass note on every downbeat, can stay in.

Have a kick sample already? Drop a WAV, AIFF or FLAC on the page. A kick is rebuilt as editable curves and plays back as it was, so you can change its sweep or note like any other.

A kick taken straight from a released record is part of someone else's recording. Use the remade synth kick as a starting point and make it your own, or clear the sample before you release.

How do I tune a kick to the key of my track?

A kick's body is a note. When it clashes with the bass, the low end turns muddy and the two fight for the same space. Tuned to the key, they sit together.

1. Find the key. Drop the track on the Key finder, or see how to find the key of a song.
2. Set the kick's note to the root of the key, or its fifth if the root sounds too low or too high.
3. Pick the octave where the note lands roughly between 40 and 65 Hz.
4. Play it under the bassline. If the bass moves a lot, tune to the note it comes back to most.

A track in F minor gets a kick on F1 (43.7 Hz), or C2 (65.4 Hz) for a higher, punchier one. For more on roots and fifths, see the music theory guide.

The other drum generators

Next to the kick, tools.aden.space has a snare, clap, hi-hat, crash and rumble generator, all built on the same voice. In Simple mode each shows knobs named for its drum: a snare's body, ring, snares and decay, a clap's hands and tail, a hat's decay from closed to open, and a rumble's tail and pump.

The drum kit at tools.aden.space/kit puts six drums together (a kick, snare, clap, hi-hat, crash and rumble) and loops a groove: techno, house, trap or breaks. Fit together tunes the snare and rumble to the kick and evens out the levels, with the kick on top. Drop a song on it and the kit becomes that song's drums.

A kick also drives how loud your master can go. See LUFS targets for streaming and free music tools for producers.

FAQ

What frequency should a kick drum be?

Most kicks settle on a note between about 40 and 65 Hz, from E1 to C2, and get their punch from a pitch sweep that starts a few octaves higher. A click in the upper mids helps them cut through on small speakers. Pick the note from your track's key rather than a fixed frequency.

Should I tune my kick to the key of the song?

Usually, yes. A kick's body is a note, and a kick that clashes with the bassline muddies the low end. Tune it to the root of the key, or to the fifth, in the octave where it lands between about 40 and 65 Hz, and check it against the bass by ear.

Why does my kick disappear on phone speakers?

Phone and laptop speakers can't play the lowest notes of a kick, so a kick that is almost all sub vanishes on them. Add a click for the attack and some drive for harmonics above the fundamental, and the kick stays audible even where the sub isn't.

Can I use a kick taken from someone else's song?

A kick lifted from a released record is part of someone else's recording, so releasing it uncleared is a risk. Use the remade synth kick as a starting point, change its sweep, note and click until it is your own, or clear the sample before you release.

Is the kick generator free?

Yes. It runs in your browser with no plugin and no account, and you can download every kick you make as a WAV.