How to Make Schranz Kick Samples in Ableton DAW

Jason Little type Schranz Kick / Beat

I received several requests to show how to make a kick drum sounding, like in Jason Little’s schranz tracks. Jason Little is the most aggressive-sounding musician in the Schranz genre. I did not strive for 100% resemblance to its very heavy schranz techno beats, but the results are very similar to what Jason does.
In addition to kicks, I also used samples from the following sample packs: SCHRANZ VS. HARDCORE TECHNO, SCHRANZ TOTAL 2020 and CLASSIC OLD-SCHOOL HARDTECHNO & SCHRANZ LOOPS VOL.2

OK. I chose 8 kicks to make them really hard-sounding schranz drum kicks. Before processing, the kicks sounded like this:

Distorted Kick Drum

To create a really heavy techno kick I only used Ableton plugins. I used Drum Rack as a sampler. Next, I used a chain of plugins, including a limiter, AMP, delay, a guitar pedal simulation and another limiter. I also mixed in a bit of overdrive through the side chain for a lot of density in the midrange. When I need to make Hard Techno Kick or Schranz Kick samples I use a lot of distortion options.

You can create a similar chain of plugins in any DAW, like Fruity Loops, Cubase, Reaper or any other sequencer.

Hardcore Techno type Kick

In each example, you can hear: a clean, unprocessed kick, a processed kick, and a kick sound paired with another element, it could be percussion or a tonal loop. In this example, I made the kick drum sound close to hardcore sound, but the attack (ADSR) still sounds tight, bright and great for schranz and hardcore techno tracks.

Rolling Hard Techno type Kick

Rolling kicks, with groove I did using the same chain of plugins with slightly different settings. I used a little less distortion and a little more delay. The groove turned out to be a little biased and it is not as interesting to listen to separately as together with percussion. I tried adding hats – it sounds very cool =) I recommend you to try.

Distorted Rumble Kick

To make a schranz kick like this, we need a clean kick with a long tail and a lot, a lot of distortion. In this case, I did not use the delay, because the tail of this kick is long enough to make the groove we want.

Classic Schranz Kick

Here I used a classic 909 kick, and a medium distortion level. I also added a little delay to make a short rebound. In a mix with other sounds, this gives an interesting techno movement.

Kick Drum from Hell

This example is one of my favorites. The kick sounds very aggressive, bright attack, good and tight groove, rolling beat. Sounds great when mixed with other instruments. This kick is perfect for any kind of extreme techno.

Bangin Kick

This hard kick resembles the noise of the tractor engine, is not it? =) Aggressive, industrial groove will go well with hats and other percussion. Perfect for hard bangin’ techno tracks.

Punch Schranz Kick

Last example in this article. This is also one of my favorites. Enough distortion + a little delay. This kick works well for both Hardcore Techno and Schranz.

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