INSTRUCTION MANUAL

Sonic Academy Kick V2 Manual

Table of Contents
1. Overview3 8. EQ10
2. Installation3
EQ Edit Window 10
Microsoft Windows Installation 3
Apple Mac Installation 3

3. Interface4
4. Preset5

EQ Band Controls 10
EQ Band on/off switches 10
EQ Nodes 11
EQ Quick controls & On/Off 11

Selecting Presets 5
Saving Presets 5

9. Distortion11

Curve Presets 6
Undo/Redo 6
Gate 6
Snap 6
Sub View 6
Click View 6
Pitch Env Slider 6
Length Slider 6
Adding & Removing Nodes 7
Bending a Node Line 7
Window Selection Buttons 7
Zoom 7

10. Drive12

5. Pitch & Amp Nodes6

6. Sub Controls8
Pitch Knob 8
Harmonics Presets 8
Harmonics Sliders 8
Harmonics Knob 8
Waveshape Display 8

7. Click Controls9
Pitch Knob 9
Length 9
Start 9
HP / LP 9
Click Browser 9
Click Left / Right & Load 9
Drag & Drop 9
Keytrack / Phase /Mute / Solo 9

Sonic Academy Kick V2 Manual

Distortion Type 11
Distortion Control Knobs 11
Drive Amount 12

11. Compressor12

Threshold 12
Ratio 12
Attack 12
Release 12
Makup 12

12. Limiter13

Limiter Switch 13
Limiter Threshold 13

13. Velocity & Portamento13

Velocity 13
Slide 13
Portamento Time 13

14. Render & Export14

Key 14
Velocity 14
Generate 14
Export 14
Drag & Drop 14

15. Settings Panel15

Skin Select 15
Processing 15
Limiter Release Time 15
Limiter Lookahead 15
Clear Cache 15

1. Overview

Sonic Academys Kick v2 is a kick drum synthesiser allowing you to quickly and precisely create kick drums and
tune them to your tracks. It combines an eight Partial synthesised sub oscillator, 3 part sampled clicks, EQ and
effects to create a wide variety of kick drums, percussive and even bass sounds.

2. Installation
Prior to installation, you first need to download the kick license key from the My Account page - https://www.
sonicacademy.com/my_account/downloads/plugins. Place the license key on your desktop and select it when
asked by the plugin. Once complete the license can be removed from your computer. Should you need to reinstall
kick at any time, you can download the license key from your account page at any time.
Microsoft Windows Installation
Run the full version installer that comes with the download to install Kick on your hard drive. During the
installation process you will see an option screen asking you to select which version of kick you want to install VST or AAX. Once installation is complete you can then select KICK 2 from within your DAW. You will be asked for
your license key - simply point it to the file you downloaded previously.
Apple Mac Installation
Run the full version installer that comes with the download to install Kick on your hard drive. Once installation is
complete you can then select KICK 2 from within your DAW. You will be asked for your license key - simply point it
to the file you downloaded previousl

Sonic Academy Kick V2 Manual

3. Interface

1. Curve & EQ Presets

2. Undo / Redo
3. Gate / Snap / Tags Buttons
4. Main Presets and settings panel
5. Waveform display buttons
6. Sampled click control panels
7. Output Fader, Meters and Limiter controls
8. Velocity amount slider

Sonic Academy Kick V2 Manual

9. Portamento control
10. Sub control panel
11. Compressor and Export render
12. Drive
13. Distortion controls
14. EQ quick controls
15. Display window selection
16. Main display window

4. Preset

Selecting Presets
Presets can be selected either using the left and right arrow buttons or by clicking on the preset window and
opening the Preset Browser. The preset browser has 3 banks each containing multiple categories.
1. Factory
2. User
3. DLC.
The factory bank contains all the presets that come as standard with kick 2. This includes all the much loved
presets from kick v1. The User Bank is where you save your own modified or custom presets. DLC bank is where
preset packs bought from the sonic academy shop will be stored.
Saving Presets
Presets can be saved either using the save or save as buttons.
Save - Overwrites the current preset
Save As - Saves the preset to a new user defined location
Presets in the factory bank should not be overwritten and should be saved to a new location.
The User Bank is where you save your own modified or custom presets.
DLC bank is where preset packs bought from the sonic academy shop will be stored.

Sonic Academy Kick V2 Manual

5. Pitch & Amp Nodes

Curve Presets
Kick 2 comes with some predefined curve presets to help you get started quickly. Click on the preset name to
start browsing some examples. You can also save your own curves by pressing the Save Button or reset to the
default curve shape by hitting the Reset Button.
Undo/Redo
The undo/redo buttons enable you to step back or forward through a list of edits you have made to the curves
and also to the other elements of the sound shaping tools. There are 50 levels of undo.
Gate
The gate button selects between using a held midi note to control the volume envelope duration or have it play
through to completion on each press. With Gate ON the longer you press a midi note the longer kick will play
through the volume envelope. With Gate OFF kick 2 will play the full duration of the volume envelope. I.e. one
shot.
Snap
With Snap ON movement of the pitch nodes will be restricted to semitones. With Snap OFF pitch nodes will
move freely to any pitch value.
Sub View
Sub View enables or disables the waveform view on the main display
Click View
Click View enables or disables the waveform views of the 3 click channels on the main display
Pitch Env Slider

The Pitch envelope slider controls the size of the pitch range that is applied to the pitch curve from 0-50Hz to
0-20,000hz
Length Slider

The length slider controls the length in milliseconds of the pitch and amp curves from 50ms to 3000ms

Sonic Academy Kick V2 Manual

Adding & Removing Nodes

You can add a new node by double clicking and any space in the curves window. You can also remove
a node by double clicking it.
Bending a Node Line
You can bend a Node line by dragging in the middle of the line up or down. You can also straighten
the line by ALT clicking.
Window Selection Buttons

The window select button switch the display between:

Pitch: The sub oscillators pitch envelope controls
Amp: The sub oscillators amplitude envelope controls
Click 1-3: Click channel amplitude envelope controls
Zoom
You can use the + & - buttons to zoom in/out from100% to 5000%. you can also click and drag the
zoom display window up and down. You can use the zoom scroll bar to move the some location. If you
have a node selected the window will zoom in on that node.

Sonic Academy Kick V2 Manual

6. Sub Controls

Pitch Knob
The Pitch knob increases or decreases the pitch relative to the pitch nodes on the main display.
Harmonics Presets
The Sub in Kick 2 has a new additive synthesis engine enabling creation of more complex waveforms. The factory
presets are based on the harmonic series of various drums that have been analysed. Simply select a preset
using the menu to try different models.
Harmonics Sliders
Kick 2 has 8 harmonic sliders which relate to the volume level of each partial in the harmonic series from
particular preset. They are initially setup to accurately model the volume level from the measured drum.
Harmonics Knob
The harmonics knob controls the volume level of the 7 partials that follow the fundamental partial. If the
harmonic knob is set to zero there will be no additional partials heard and you will be only generating a pure
sine wave.
Waveshape Display
The waveshape display shows the shape of the waveform currently being generated. There are also left and right
preset selector buttons which enable you to cycle through the harmonics presets.

Sonic Academy Kick V2 Manual

7. Click Controls

Pitch Knob
The Pitch knob increases or decreases the pitch (playback speed) of the click sample.
Length
The Length knob controls the length of the endpoint of the sample.
Start
The Start knob controls the start position of the sample.
HP / LP
THE HP/LP knob enables you to apply either a low-pass filter by turning to the left or a high-pass filter by turning
to the right.
Click Browser

The click browser opens up the click browser window where you can select a new click sample.
Click Left / Right & Load

The left / right arrows allow you to cycle through the various clicks. The load button enables you to load a new
click sample from your computers file menu. Wav and Aiff are supported.
Drag & Drop
You can drag and drop a click file from your DAW, its browser or from the computer file browser. (not suported on
all DAWS)
Keytrack / Phase /Mute / Solo
Keytrack:
Phase:

Mute:
Solo:

Turning Keytrack on enables the click to follow the pitch of the incoming midi note.
The Phase switch inverts the phase of the click signal. You can use this to fix any phase cancelling
between the selected click and the other clicks or the sub.
Mutes the volume of the click so no sound is heard.
Solos the click so its the only sound playing.

Sonic Academy Kick V2 Manual

8. EQ
Kick 2s EQ section contains four bands or fully parametric EQ. There are two bell filters and a high and
low shelving filter.

EQ Edit Window
From this window you can manage all 4 bands of the EQ on a graphical layout.
EQ Band Controls

Each of the 4 band controls have frequency, gain and Q controls. Frequency controls the frequency
position in the audio spectrum where the gain control will have effect. The gain controls the amount of
eq applied to the selected frequency. Q or resonance controls how wide the effect frequency band is.
EQ Band on/off switches
Each band can be enabled or disabled using the band on/off switch shown above.

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EQ Nodes

You can also adjust the Gain, Frequency and Q using the EQ nodes. Moving the node up and down
controls gain, left to right controls frequency and holding SHIFT while moving up, down, left or right
adjusts the Q.
EQ Quick controls & On/Off

The EQ quick controls enable you to quickly adjust the gain of each of the 4 EQ bands. The Blue EQ on/off button
located top left enables you to completely bypass the EQ section.

9. Distortion

Distortion Type

Kick 2 has 3 different distortion models with unique characteristics

Clip: Clip gives you a buzzy distortion with a softer clipped attack.
Tube: Tube is a warm overdriven tube with a cleaner attack and more subtle distortion sound.
Wave: Waveshaper has a fuzzy aggressive distortion with a pronounced attack.
Distortion Control Knobs

Dist: Dist controls the amount of gain of the selected distortion.

LP/HP: The HP/LP knob enables you to apply either a low-pass filter by turning to the left or a high-pass filter by

turning to the right.
Mix: Mix controls the balance between the distorted and dry signal
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10. Drive
Drive Amount

This drive control is the legacy overdrive from kick v1. It is used for compatibility reasons for kick v1 presets but
can also add a nice extra layer of overdrive to v2 presets.

11. Compressor

Threshold
The threshold control sets the level at which the compression effect is engaged.
Ratio
The ration sets the amount of attenuation applied to the signal.
Attack
the time it takes for the signal to become fully compressed after passing the threshold level.
Release
Rattio is the time it takes for the signal to go back to the original non-compressed signal
Makup
Make up gain controls the amount of output gain to make-up for the attenuation done by the compressor.

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12. Limiter
Limiter Switch

The Limiter switch turns the limiter on and off.

Limiter Threshold

The Limiter threshold control sets the level at which the limiter effect is engaged.

13. Velocity & Portamento

Velocity
Sets the amount kick 2s volume will be effected by midi velocity.
Slide
When slide is off notes need to overlap for them to slide to the next notes pitch based on the time set on the
portamento time. When slide is on notes will always slide to the next pitch whether they overlap or not.
Portamento Time
Sets the amount of time it takes to slide up to the next notes pitch.

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14. Render & Export

Key
Sets the midi note at which you would like the kick to be rendered. this only applies if you have set one of kicks
sources to folow key tracking.
Velocity
Sets the velocity that the kick will be rendered at.
Generate
Generate renders the current kick with the its curent settings to a temporary cache and also updates the
waveform display.
Export
Export enables you to save the generated kick to a file location of your choosing.
Drag & Drop
You can drag from the waveform window in to your daw by holding down the left mouse button on the waveform
display aand dragging to one of the audio tracks in your DAW.

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15. Settings Panel

Skin Select
Sets the current skin. users can create their own skins using the PSD file that will be provided.
Processing
Sets kick 2 to either Mono or Stereo mode. This has some imapct on CPU usage.
Limiter Release Time
Sets the release time for the limiter
Limiter Lookahead
Sets the lookahead for the limiter. Having a higher lookahead will enable to limiter to catch faster transients.
Setting to medium or off will let more transients pass through.increasing lookahead will increase the DAWs delay
compensation. for live use it should be set to none.
Clear Cache
Clears all the kick files from your temporary folder generated during the "Render" process
Ensure you have saved out the files you want to keep as this process is irreversable.

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Sonic Academy Kick V2 Manual

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