kick drum synth ?

[JRogers]

The best kick drum synth for creating signature kicks & presets ?

[Manu]

I'd say probably some Roland. Now the term "best" is subjective.

[mitchiemasha]

Hardware or VST... VST... Kick 2. Metrum by Vengeance might be better but I've not tried it.

I have a Novation Drum station but this simply emulates a 909 & 808, which you can easily layer, both sit in the same kit but that's where it ends.

[juxtpose1]

I wouldnt say best but D16's drumazon and nepheton are good fun

[KLH]

The key is to have the sounds from a TR-808 and a TR-909. Once you have those, then you're all set.

If you're technically inclined, you can grab the incredible Rebirth RB-338... which gives you TWO TB-303s, a TR-808, and a TR-909... all for free.

[sephi]

If you have one set of 808 samples, one set of 909 samples, and one set of acoustic drum samples, you can make pretty much anything you want through layering, distortion, compression, reverb... I have Drumazon, Kick, Battery, and probably some other drum VSTs I'm forgetting, but I always end up just using samples and shaping the sound I want with Transient Master, various distortion and saturation units, etc. Most of the samples in genre sample packs are just 808 and 909 samples that have been put through several phases of saturation, compression, expansion, EQ, etc. Using a "drum synth", whether outboard or VST, is mostly going to use the same stuff (envelope, distortion, EQ, reverb, etc.), just built into the hardware or drum-synth VST instead of coming from your DAW or a third party VST.

Nicky Romero's "Kick" (v2) VST is good for jumping straight to "I want more of a click, and a fat distorted tail" decisions, without having to use a 909 or 808 emulation interface. It's pretty cheap too.

[efinque]

Hardware or VST... VST... Kick 2.

I spotted Rene Amesz using Kick 2 (in his Instagram)... could be an ad though.

EDIT : I'm not personally an avid user of kick synths.. I had one circa 2007 and even now I still can't get my head around why one would use a dedicated/separate synth for a kick.

[mitchiemasha]

What I've noticed about using kick synths. The bottom end sits together right, much easier. Using samples, even thought it might be in key, have the problem of alignment still. There's a lot of sound/distortion in samples you end up spending time to remove or fix. Any reverbed clicks, claps, top end etc, will have predelays not in time with your bpm.

Avenger synth is due Christmas it has a lot of nice drum features. It's from the legend behind Vengeance itself. In my opinion it will be the synth of all synths.

[djshire]

Any subtractive soft synth with a sine wave can be used as a kick synth, it just takes some work

[rikv]

Any subtractive soft synth with a sine wave can be used as a kick synth, it just takes some work

djshire is right...some tweaking gives you enough different presets or the sound you're looking for.