KickLab XXL Manual
Virtual kickdrum designer
Virtual section
The Virtual section of Kicklab XXL is a real kick synthesizer. It creates Kick drums
purely from scratch without the use of any samples, and thus no two kicks are alike.
The Virual Section is designated by a blue colored panel surrounding the knobs. The
Oscillator that generates the Virtual Kickdrum sound can be set up as a Sinus wave or
Triangle wave. The Triangle wave can produce harsher distorted and "plasticky" kick
sounds, but has also the disadvantage of losing sub content compared to a Sinus
wave. Use the Sampler section to provide the sub
content in such presets. The Oscillator is the first
part of the sound generation process. The frequency
input of the oscillator is controlled and shaped by the
pitch adjuster and pitch shaper. The pitch shaper is a
AHDS (Attack, Hold, Decay, Sustain) Envelope with Envelope Strength Control (Shape
E). The release is predetermined and can not be changed.
The puncher section is similar to a kick foot pedal, the punch
parameter controlling how hard the pedal is punched in, and the
impact parameter controlling how much impact the virtual drum
head receives. The Puncher is not related to the velocity sensitivity
of KickLab XXL. The Puncher predetermines how much strength the
Foot Pedal strikes the Virtual Bass Drum Head regardless of
velocity sensitivity. The more you turn these knobs, the tougher
the attack of your Virtual kick becomes.
Distortion can provide a little dirt into the kick, or can be used to
produce massive hard style kick drums. Be cautious how much to
apply if used with EQ and Saturation due to internal clipping if you
do not want them to occur. The Distortion has a selector which
can be set to strengths varying from low for subtle warmth to
loudest. The plugin will never output above 0 dB, so even with the
settings to loudest the plugin will not produce clips in the host mixer. The Distortion
applies to the Virtual Kick section only.
It is very well possible to get internal clips when using the filter in some extreme
settings, most often when having lots of, or a long decayed, sub with a Low Pass filter
cutoff parameter setting close to zero, or having added too much distortion, saturation
or EQ. This should be avoided when using a full sub kick drum in the virtual section.
Again, the plugin output will never output above 0 dB, but internal clipping can
happen. Use your ears and the graphical meters supplied to determine if your settings
are causing undesired clipping.
