Tags: posts polarity-music Bitwig Tutorial VST-Plugin Sound-Design

Kick Ninja - AI Pitch Envelope Detection

Tutorial | Sep 20, 2024

In today's video, I'm introducing the Kick Ninja VST plugin, which stands out from other kick drum synthesizers because it allows you to recreate kick drums from samples using AI and features pitch tracking for customizable 808 and trap sounds. You can drag in samples to analyze and mimic the pitch envelope and attack phase, and there's also a useful export feature to easily drag samples into your DAW. The plugin includes typical oscillator and sampler functions, along with distortion and compression, making it a versatile tool for creating unique kick sounds.

You can watch the Video on Youtube

Summary

Maybe you don't watch the video, here are some important takeaways:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the channel! In today's video, I'm excited to talk about a VST plugin called Kick Ninja. Now, I know what you might be thinking: "Not another kick drum synthesizer!" But trust me, this one comes with some cool features that I think are worth highlighting.

First off, you can see here the waveform area where you can adjust the body of the kick drum. The plugin lets you fine-tune the pitch envelope as well as the amplitude envelope. You can also blend between different oscillator wave shapes over time, which can be automated—giving you a lot of creative control. Another interesting feature is a unique form of distortion you can dial in.

What makes Kick Ninja particularly special is its ability to incorporate both oscillators and samplers. You have access to at least three samplers and a variety of global effects, including distortion, compressors, and more—pretty standard, albeit useful tools. What sets this apart is the export feature that lets you drag and drop the generated kick drum sample directly into your DAW. Super handy!

However, the principal feature that stands out to me is its AI capability to recreate kick drums from samples. You simply import a kick drum sample, and instead of dropping it into the sampler, you drag it onto the oscillator. There's an AI symbol that appears, and once you release it, the plugin analyzes the sample. It splits the frequency components, using the lower frequencies to create a pitch envelope and the higher frequencies for the attack phase. You also have control over attack time and more.

After importing, the plugin auto-generates an amplitude envelope and a new pitch envelope based on the sample you provided. Though it might not be an exact match, the pitch and amplitude envelope should be more or less the same, effectively giving you a very similar-sounding kick drum but generated via synthesis.

So I tested this by importing various kick samples, and let me tell you, the results were quite impressive. Even though some texture and details were missing, the fundamental characteristics like the pitch and amplitude envelopes were spot on, providing a convincing recreation of the sample.

There's another dope feature that I have never seen before: pitch tracking for 808 sounds. I used the init preset to start with just a basic sine wave and added a pitch envelope to create 808-like sounds. The cool part is that the last note of the pitch envelope can be pitch-tracked. This means the attack phase remains the same regardless of the key you're playing, but the tail end adjusts according to your keyboard input. This is particularly useful for genres like trap music where you want a consistent attack but variable bass notes. Add in some distortion, automate it, and you’ve got yourself some pretty dynamic sounds.

Overall, those two features—the AI sample recreation and the pitch tracking—are particularly special, setting Kick Ninja apart from other kick drum synthesizers like Kick 2. The use of AI to analyze and split kick drum samples into attack and decay phases is a brilliant idea, and I'm really excited about the potential here.

I’ll drop a link in the description below so you can try it out yourself. There's a trial version available on the website. I'm currently using the trial as well, experimenting with different kick samples to see if this plugin is a must-have for my collection.

That's it for today's video! If you enjoyed it or have any questions, leave a comment below. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the channel. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Bye!

Transcription

This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.

[00:00:00] Hey folks, welcome back to another video.
[00:00:03] Today it's about this VST plug in here called Kick Ninja.
[00:00:06] And the first thing you probably think is, oh no, not another kick drum synthesizer.
[00:00:12] But this one has some cool ideas in there that I want to show you.
[00:00:17] So first up you have here your waveform.
[00:00:19] You can dial in for the body at least, the pitch envelope, you can dial in the amplitude
[00:00:25] envelope, you can change here the blend between different oscillator wave shapes over time.
[00:00:32] If you want to, you can dial this in here.
[00:00:35] That's very special distortion.
[00:00:37] So you have basically for everything in here, you have some automation line you can use
[00:00:43] and dial it in over time.
[00:00:45] That's pretty cool.
[00:00:47] You not only have an oscillator here, you have also a sampler or at least three samplers
[00:00:52] and here at the end some kind of global effect with some distortion, compressor and so on.
[00:01:00] So far pretty normal.
[00:01:04] There's also on top here an export feature where you can just drag this out into your
[00:01:09] door, just a pure sample, which is also very handy.
[00:01:15] But the main feature for me is that you can actually recreate kick drums from samples.
[00:01:23] So what we do here is we pull up here some samples, we have some kick drums in here.
[00:01:30] Let's say this one and you want to recreate this in kick drums in the synthesizer.
[00:01:36] You drag it in onto this oscillator here.
[00:01:39] Instead into the sampler, you drag it here to the oscillator and you can see there's
[00:01:43] an AI symbol here.
[00:01:46] And then we just release and we can now insert here a low pass frequency.
[00:01:51] So everything below this frequency gets analyzed for the pitch envelope and everything above
[00:01:57] is used for the sampler for the attack.
[00:02:00] We can also dial in here an attack time, 10 milliseconds, it's pretty okay.
[00:02:06] And then we just hit import and we just get here an amplitude envelope.
[00:02:13] We also get a new pitch envelope and this is how it sounds.
[00:02:19] So this is the kick drum here from this synthesizer.
[00:02:23] This is how it sounds here.
[00:02:26] It's not the same, but it's the same pitch envelope and so on.
[00:02:35] So of course some of the texture on top is missing, but you get the same kick drum.
[00:02:44] Let's try this one.
[00:02:46] AI import.
[00:02:52] Sounds pretty much the same.
[00:02:56] It's kind of the same kick drum.
[00:03:01] So this one here is pretty dope in my opinion.
[00:03:05] You just drag in some kick drums and recreate them inside of an oscillator.
[00:03:12] I love these kind of features.
[00:03:14] It's really my thing.
[00:03:16] There's another dope feature in here I have never seen before.
[00:03:21] So let's use here in it if I have, is there actually an in it preset?
[00:03:27] In it preset, yeah.
[00:03:29] So it sounds like this.
[00:03:32] It's just an oscillator.
[00:03:34] So let's start in here.
[00:03:37] Pitch envelope.
[00:03:38] Let's say something like this.
[00:03:46] So you can create 808 sounds with this.
[00:03:49] Of course, this is just a sine wave here.
[00:03:53] But you can now use here the pitch tracking.
[00:03:57] And now the last pitch note inside of this graph here becomes more or less pitch tracked.
[00:04:05] Everything before is always the same.
[00:04:08] This means you can create a kick drum or you can create the attack of the kick drum.
[00:04:13] And this last thing here is then pitched to the key input of your keyboard.
[00:04:18] So it's pitched up or down.
[00:04:23] But the attack phase or the attack pitch envelope is always the same.
[00:04:28] So this is pretty cool for 808 or trap music, I guess, where you want to change the bass
[00:04:36] here, the bass frequency or the bass note.
[00:04:39] And you want to keep the attack always the same.
[00:04:42] You can see it's pitch tracked.
[00:04:50] And then here, of course, use a bit of distortion or we can automate this.
[00:05:02] I think I need to bring in here the wet.
[00:05:08] Yeah, nice.
[00:05:11] Oh, that's a bit too much here.
[00:05:21] And you can then change the length of the whole kick.
[00:05:29] So these two features are pretty special, in my opinion.
[00:05:32] The rest is more or less the same you find also in kick 2 and all the other kick drum
[00:05:37] synthesizers.
[00:05:38] But this one was a bit special and I think this is a great idea here to use AI or machine
[00:05:44] learning to figure out the pitch envelope and the sec the kick drum into an attack
[00:05:52] phase and the tail or the decay or yeah, it's called body decay and tail here.
[00:06:01] So yeah, this is pretty dope.
[00:06:03] I leave you a link in the description below so you can try this out.
[00:06:06] There's also trial version available on the website.
[00:06:10] This is here trial.
[00:06:11] I haven't bought this yet.
[00:06:13] So I try to figure this out if I really need this and I drag some kick samples in there
[00:06:19] and see what comes out of it.
[00:06:22] So I want to show you this on this Friday.
[00:06:24] Thanks for watching.
[00:06:25] Leave a like, leave a comment if you want to ask something.
[00:06:28] Subscribe to the channel.
[00:06:29] Thanks for watching and bye.