Nicky Romero KICK Synth – Gearjunkies Review

Here it is, the KICK Drum Synthesiser Nicky Romero artist edition plugin by Sonic Academy and Nicky Romero. The name says it all, this plugin is intended for making kicks. And that’s what you get, big fat kickdrums for a wide variety of genres.

User Interface

First lets talk about the GUI. It’s well layed out and not hard to get to grips with. On the toprow of the GUI you will find the Category and Presets boxes. The middle of the GUI is reserved for the big screen field where you can see the pitch,amp and click pages depending on your selection. Also the total lenght of the kick you can adjust there. Next to the field is a box for the click section and the eq, sub and drive section. Bottom row is gate (one shot on or off), snap (snapping to the next note value), tags (note values and hz) and keytrack (pitchable tone via midi) section and the Nicky Romero designed Distortion section.

How does it work?

The main idea behind this drumplugin is that its divided into a click and a kick part. Clicks are sample based and a whole lot are provided in KICK. You can also use your own clicks, claps ,snares whatever you like to be added to the userclicks. Its possible to adjust the volume and tune the click, also you can mute and solo the click. This is especially handy when you are adjusting the lenght of the click via the click screen.

Sound

Now for the most important part the kick, bass itself. You can use the presets or draw in your own curves. A great addition to this plugin is that you can read the note values and hz. When you activate the tags button you can see the values in your screen, so its easy as pie to make a kick in the groundtone of your track. Just start drawing in the curve nodes and adjust them at will. The pitch field is intented to draw in the pitch slope of the kick, the amp section is for the overal volume curve of the kick and last you can adjust the click thats on top of the kick.

Distortion Unit

Now we come to the Nicky Romero designed Distortion unit. Its a simple setup of distortion, tone and mix knobs, adjusting is a nobrainer,but what really is clever is that you can make this unit distort pre or post the click section. Thus you can shape the kick and distort it but keep the click part clean for added definition. Big tonal EDM kicks are made this way.

EQ, Sub and Drive

Last section is the eq, sub and drive section. KICK has a built in limiter that keeps you safe from doing harm to your speakers, eq is used to shape the overal tone of the KICK thus incl the kickpart and the clickpart. Then comes the sub section where you can add the lowend subs that are so populair in the clubs or ease back a little if you like your kicks not to heavy. Lastly you can add a lovely overdrive to your kick for added harmonics and roundness.

Verdict

Sonic Academy and Nicky Romero did a great job on making this plugin thats full of very good presets, but also is easy to use if you want to make your own kick. Searching for the right elements to built your kick can be a thing of the past now.
It’s fun to use and very easy to work with.

Rob Fabrie

For info and videos visit Sonic Academy. Earlier this year Nicky Romero also introduced a sidechain plugin, Kickstart. Expect a closer look at this plugin by Rob next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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