after the codec thing i said what i wanted in one line. a very strange kick. a data kick, a schizo kick. but the punch and the power have to be there.
the first version knocked my speakers onto the floor. so the first feature request was a limiter.
then the real problem: how do you make a kick weird without turning it into dumb noise? the data band just screamed. every kick felt like it grew from the same base. so it got more bases, a MUTANT one that isn’t predictable at all, new distortions (one is called SCHIZIFY), particles flying around inside the rumble, heavy low metal. i took apart three kicks i love from other people’s tracks and used them as references.
around one in the morning it got its name.
there are two dice. the balanced one changes things and still tries to keep the low end and the punch. FUCKED UP changes every setting at once. weird results, maybe only good for layering.
random kills punch, that’s the hard part. a roll lands somewhere the hit goes soft and no single knob is to blame. so there’s a PUNCH GUARD: it renders a short probe of the kick, and if the attack is drowning it backs several knobs off together and pays the low end back with clean sub.
at five in the morning i left a list of demands, said i was going to sleep and that the presets had better be there when i woke up. a minute later the limits ran out.
if you’ve never opened any of these machines, start with this one.