This tutorial is written in tandem with the 909 snare you can also find on my site. Although both are intended for the Yamaha An1x synthesiser you are happy to try this patch out on whatever synth you whish. Let me hear when you do! When you are fooling around on your synth (or simply following programming instructions like these) always keep playing the patch during creation. In this way you will be able to actually hear and understand what is going on.

The sound we'll be making is the typical and ever popular 909 kick you can hear on so many Go to scene 1 of the 909 snare we've just created in the An1x 909 snare tutorial. First s et the volume to 127, and the volumes of VCO1 and VCO2 to 127 as well. Both Oscillators need to be set to a [pulse] wave with their edge at about 36. This will give a sound wave somewhere between a square and a sine wave. Now set the pitch of VCO1 to -24 and that of VCO2 to -32 (which is one octave below the first)

Now to make a sound percussive we need two things: a rapid drop in pitch (remember this trick) and a percussive amplitude envelope. Set the [Peg Depth] to 63 and the Peg. Decay to 15. Set the Amp. Envelope to 0,45,100,64. This will allow you to play shorter and longer kicks. We have a kick now but it sound like a fart. What to do? Turn up the feedback to 104 (not full!) We're almost there; just set the LPF to a cut off of 127 and the resonance to full. Set the filters envelope to 0,64,127,85. Now you're done.

Finish of by setting the eq to LF=80 boost = +12 to even further boost the bottom end and boost MF at 1k with about 12 db, if you haven't done so yet. My preferred variation effect is the aural exciter to give you that that extra bit of sonic power.

I hope people like this 909 kick and I hope someone will produce an ever better one! Play with the cut off frequency and the amount of noise for a broad range of kicks. T his kick is excellent sample fodder as well (you might want to use your An1x for something other than kicks . )