Here’s a guide to using VCV Rack to make that thunderous warehouse techno rumble kick you’ve heard used many times industrial techno. Plus a free file to download with all the settings I’ve used (see ‘VCV Rack Techno Rumble Kick’ file below).
See our other VCV Rack Patches here. See also: Studio Brootle 909 Sample Pack, Free Techno Kick Sample Pack.
To get the classic techno rumble kick in VCV Rack you need to:
- sequence 2 copies of the same kick drum
- then process one through a reverb and filter to make the rumbling sub bass
- send them both to a mixer module to mix both the normal kick and rumble.
It sounds like this:
VCV Rack Techno Patch
[in the file you can press Q on your keyboard to start and stop the track].
Overview of the setup…
Looking at the image above (or at the file) and you can we have a standard four to the floor techno drum kick pattern. There are 2 copies of the kick – one that goes the mixer with just a bit of eq (that we hear as the kick) and another copy of the kick that is processed with reverb into a thunderous sub bass.
The sub bass kick is processed on the second row – where one of the kicks from the top row is routed to an XFX Reverb module, the reverb is is filtered down with a VCF with a tight ADSR filter on it to cut the reverb short into a tight phat sub bass rumble. This sub is then EQ’d and sent to its own mixer channel.
Turn down channel 1 or 2 to hear the kick or sub solo’d so you can hear the different processing to the same kick.
How to set up the kick and sequencer (top row)
The top row of the VCV file is a clock, sequencer and kick, here’s a run down of the modules and why they are used….
- Midi-CV unit – this is set with a gate out to Gnome, the function of this is just so you can press Q to start/stop everything.
- Gnome – This sets the bpm of the drum seq.
- Drum Sequencer: this has 2 sequences the same (with a standard techno kick pattern).
- BD-9: this is set up to play 2 identical kick drums.
- EQMASTER – this eqs the first kick before sending/it to the mixer
Techno rumble processing (middle row)
The middle row contains the processing of the rumble kick. With these modules:
- XFX Reverb – set for a short-ish bass heavy reverb.
- VCF – this filters the top end out of the reverb so we just get the bass (if you turn the filter freq up you will hear the full reverb). I set the filter to open and shut quickly every kick so that the frequency is modulated by an ADSR…
- ADSR – This makes the filter open and shut quickly and is triggered by the drum sequencer too so it triggers on every kick. It has fairly short settings but with an attack so the sub bass comes slightly after the kick.
- EQMASTER – the sub bass is then eq’d and sent to the mixer.
Bottom Row: outputs and scope
Look at the bottom row where the 2 channels are mixed, plus a scope to see what is going on…
- Scope – an oscilloscope to show the output
- Mixer – to mix the 2 parts
- Audio Output – to send the sound to your sound card.
More ideas / further experimentation…
One thing you can obviously change is the kick drum samples or modules and you will get a very different sound. I love Trummor2, it’s a great kick module with many more features than the one I used, try using that.
Also you can try tweaking the reverb settings on the rumble kick. Especially the filter and filter envelope settings to change the dynamics of the sub rumble.
Please let us know any questions or improvements to this article – or send us what you make, we’d love to hear it… Or get in contact at https://www.instagram.com/studiobrootle/ . Give us a follow there too please 🙂
We made a similar article in of a rumble kick in Ableton you might like here: https://www.studiobrootle.com/techno-rumble-ableton-rumble-kick/
See our other Studio Technique articles here:
https://www.studiobrootle.com/category/studio-technique/
And our other VCV Rack tutorials here: https://www.studiobrootle.com/category/vcv-rack-patches
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