LOGIC PRO X - Designing Cinematic Sub Hits

Warning! There's some super low end in this video, so please set volume levels accordingly.

Equally, don't listen on laptop speakers - you'll miss... most of it! Huge, impactful, heavy, sub-laden hits are surprisingly genre-neutral. We might associate them most of all with movie trailers but they're popular in lots of forms of EDM and even in power ballads too.

This week, I'm making one from scratch, to show you how easy and creative it is to be sound-designing your own version of this studio staple. We'll discover that sounds which aren't 'only' bass-heavy can really help - the transient impact of upper freqeuncy content can define sounds like these. We'll also experiment with designing, bouncing, chopping and reversing reverb, to tailor effects treatments to a core sound. Lastly, I'll experiment with Pitch Bend too, layering sounds from a number of expected - and not so expected - places.

00:00 Intro
00:48 Why Drum Synth is a good place to start
02:17 Recording note and BIP
03:42 Space Designer Reverb 1
06:41 Bouncing the reverb
08:12 Importing the reverb audio file
08:56 Reversing Reverb file
11:30 Managing transition from reversed to forwards
13:17 Adjusting region lengths and adding fades
14:20 Autofiltered Chromaverb - Reverb 2
16:43 Auditioning Ultrabeat Kick Bank
18:08 Recording and mixing new Kicks
19:08 Clip Distortion after Filtered Reverb
20:24 Creating pitch drop bass - ES2
22:31 Pitch Bend considerations
23:35 Drawing Pitch Bend
25:10 EQing out the Sub frequencies
26:01 Feeding pitch drop bass into Reverb
26:46 The power of transients
27:36 Further ideas we could add... and summary