Kick Distort

The hard-techno kick, where distortion is the whole point. A clean low sine — the same weighty body as a sub-drop — is shoved through a heavy saturator (and, if you want it, a wavefolder) until it grows a dense wall of harmonics that punches through on any speaker. This is the industrial / rave / gabber kick: run it clean-ish for a firm knock, or crank it into a saw-toothed, buzzing beast.

How it works

A trigger resets a sine oscillator and fires two envelopes: an amplitude decay (the body) and a fast pitch sweep (the punch). That sine is then driven hard into a tanh saturator, optionally blended toward a sine wavefolder for a metallic edge. Because heavy shaping muddies the very bottom and adds fizz up top, a fixed highpass near 25 Hz cleans the sub and a Tone lowpass tames the high end. Distortion is level-matched by ear rather than gain-compensated — it gets loud on purpose.

Controls

  • Level — base hit strength. This is the loudness knob; nothing needs to be

patched to get a full, strong kick.

  • Tune — the sine fundamental, 30–120 Hz. Low for a sub-heavy body, higher

for a tight industrial "tok".

  • Decay — how long the body rings, 0.1–1.0 s. Short is a tight, punchy hit;

long is a sustained, distorted drone.

  • Punch — a fast upward pitch sweep at the very start (up to ~4× tune). A

little adds "tonk" and attack; a lot gets aggressive and synthetic.

  • Drive — the star: heavy tanh saturation. Low is a firm, slightly gritty

knock; high is a buzzing, harmonically dense gabber kick. Defaults hot.

  • Fold — blends in a sine wavefolder on top of the drive. 0 is pure

saturation; turn it up for a brighter, more metallic, ring-mod-like edge.

  • Tone — a post lowpass, 1–8 kHz. Roll it down to tuck the fizz behind the

low end; open it up to let the distortion snarl on top.

Attenuverters

Each bends its CV input into a param: how much, and which polarity (negative = inverted). At 0 the matching input does nothing, so the knobs above rule.

  • Vel — Velocity/accent CV → Level.
  • Drive — CV → Drive (e.g. an envelope or LFO for evolving grit).
  • Tone — CV → Tone (e.g. an envelope to open the top as the hit lands).

Inputs & outputs

  • Trig — a gate/trigger; each rising edge strikes the drum.
  • Vel — velocity/accent CV. Scaled by the Vel attenuverter and added to

Level (so unpatched, or with Vel at 0, the Level knob alone sets loudness).

  • Ptch — 1V/oct tuning, added on top of the Tune knob.
  • Drive CV / Tone CV — modulation inputs for Drive and Tone, each scaled by

its attenuverter (±10 V = full range).

  • Out — the distorted kick, at ±5 V.

Tips

  • For a classic hard-techno kick, keep Fold low and lean on Drive; shorten

Decay slightly so the distortion bites the transient instead of the tail.

  • Sweep an envelope into Drive CV for a kick that grows dirtier as it decays.
  • Add Fold and open Tone for a screaming gabber / industrial hit; pull

Tone back down if it starts to fizz thin.

  • Push Punch hard with a longer Decay for a pitched, distorted tom/bass hybrid.