If you have a large collection of kick drum samples, examine their waveforms on a sample viewer. In nearly every case, you’ll see a basic sine wave with a lot of complexity at the beginning of the waveform, followed by a fairly stable sine wave that reduces in amplitude. Seriously. Go look at your kick drum samples’ wave data. Unless you’re making hardstyle or industrial, the primary kick waveform is a sine.
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So, if you want absolute control over your kick drums, you’ll need to learn to create two specific components: the attack and the body. Since the body of the kick is generally a sine, nearly any softsynth can cover this task. It’s the attack and ‘punch’ components that really define each sound. Case in point, the TR-808’s attack is essentially a click, while one of the TR-909’s defining attributes is a slight pitch envelope that gives the body of that kick more impact - which is why it’s still a mainstay in house and techno.