When it comes to hardcore techno, and style/genre like gabber, hardstyle, speedcore, new style hardcore, oldschool gabber, etc.. the kick drum is the more important part of the production:
the kick drum has to be ridiculously strong, and/or distorted, mangled to death, strong solid fat devastating and incredible.
For me the best combo is drum synth or sample + distortion (and couple of other effects like compression, distortion, EQ, and more distortion).
But sometimes it’s nice to have a dedicated plugin ! Here we go with the freeware plugins :
1. Gabber Master! VST by John Merrik
Gabber Master !
direct dl : Gabber Master VST download!
It’s a Windows-only VST, it seems it has been created with Synthmaker, and should work well in 32 bit VST hosts sequencers.
The GabberMaster VST is sample based with a nice variety of samples, and some parameters for destroying the sound.
Instant gabber hardcore breakcore speedcore terrorcore !
2. Bassdrum::Murda VST by Distocore
Distocore Bassdrum::Murdaaaaaa
Information and download : http://www.distocore.net/
Concept by I:GOR , this free plugin is more sophisticated and is a powerful drum synthesizer:
You have 3 oscillators with many waveforms to choose from, envelope sections for the pitch and the volume.
The audio signal goes to filter + distorsion + bit crusher + eq.
Now you can create powerful hardcore kick drums from scratch.
3. Hardcore Kicks Lite VST by the CoreStylerz
Hardcore Kicks VST 2 Lite
Information and download : http://www.thecorestylerz.net/vst/hardcore-kicks-vsti-2/hardcore-kicks-vsti-2-lite
This one lets you make some noise too.
It is “facebook-like-ware”, not really freeware, but it’s nice and deserves some supports.
some agressive ear-destroying presets show the potential of this hard kick generator.
4. Synth1 by Ichiro Toda !
Synth1 VST !
Or any synth with at least one or two oscillator, a pitch envelope and some saturation / distorsion / filter / EQ effect.
– turn off all effects
– start with OSC2 (mix 100% to the right), choose the triangle waveform,
– activate the Modulation ENVelope for Osc2 : set Attack to zero and turn up the Decay and AMounT
that’s a basic kick drum
Now you can destroy it with the effect section :
– choose analogic distorsion (A.D) or DECImator.
– for more funkyness, you can also add a filter lowpass (or bandpass) + filter envelope, crank up the resonance to add screaming.
Or choose a square waveform instead of the triange.
now you can mix with a kick sample, layer it, resample, do anything you want
Only Synth1 audio examples :
5. Virtual KickLab XL by Angular Momentum
AM Kicklab XL
it’s here : http://www.amvst.com/kicklab-xl
A kick dedicated free plugin for Windows, you can create bass drum from scratch.
It’s not as ferocious as the other plugins in this list, but it can do some solid kicks.
It’s more clean, the saturator and distortion aren’t dirty enough.
But you can produce nice kicks out of it.