MrKicksy · preset library
The thirty presets
Thirty presets across eight genre families, each tuned by hand as a reference sound for its style or its machine. None of them came out of a script. Load the one closest to the track in your head, take it apart, and make it yours.
VST3 + CLAP · standalone studio app · save and load your own
How the library is organised
By genre and by character
Eight families group the thirty presets by the music they are made for, and each one names the sound it references, so you can find a place to begin by ear.
Somewhere to start
Each preset is a set of values for the same machine. Move one knob and it is already yours.
Hand-tuned, every one
Each is a hand-tuned reference for a genre or a classic machine.
Yours to save
The plugin and the standalone editor both save and load your own presets alongside the factory set.
Built on one engine
All thirty run through the same four layers, five rumble engines and eight-stage master chain.
Where a preset sits
Two axes, both live
Each preset is a point on two dials, analogue to digital and plain to realistic, set when the preset was made. Those dials are not a description filed next to the sound. They are the same two macros you have on the interface, so a preset hands you the control that moves its character as well as the character itself.
Both axes run the full width of the library, 0.1 to 0.9. Industrial Clipped, Hardstyle Driver and Gabber Saw sit at the digital end. The three drum-machine voicings, Lo-Fi Tape, Dub Cavernous and Hall Hum sit at the analogue end. Acoustic-Electronic Hybrid, Ambient Earth and Hall Hum are the most realistic: the ones where the sample layer and the room are doing the work.
The axes, as the code sets them
- analogue → digital
- Drives the saturator, where the drive model and mix live. At the analogue end, tape and tube. At the digital end, hard clip and the bit crusher.
- plain → realistic
- How much of the sound is a clean synthesised kick and how much is room, sample and imperfection.
Move either one and you are off the preset and into your own sound. So we shipped thirty references instead of a folder of a thousand to trawl.
What differs between them
What moves between them
Each preset starts from the same initialised patch and changes only what it needs to. Counting those changes across the library tells you more about how a kick is built than a description would. So here is the count.
- Shaped by decay 27/30
- Amp decay is set on 27 of the 30. It is the single parameter that does most of the work of separating one genre from its neighbour.
- Then by the click 22/30
- Click level on 22, with the model and length tuned on ten of those. The click is the part that survives a phone speaker.
- Then by saturation 14/30
- Master distortion mix on 14, across four of the five drive models, hard clip, soft clip, tape and tube.
- The body layer, when needed 11/30
- Only 11 enable the body layer, because a kick that needs mid-range weight gets one and a pure sub has no use for it.
- Rumble, sparingly 5/30
- Five presets turn rumble on, using two of the five generators: ReverbTail on four and FeedbackDelay on one. It is an effect somebody reaches for, and the library treats it that way.
- Bit crushing, rarer still 4/30
- Four reach for the crusher, and one of them routes rumble to the second output so it can be mixed separately.
That list is the design, laid out. Most of the library is decay, click and saturation, the three things that decide whether a kick fits a track. Rumble, the feature the instrument is known for, is switched on in five of the thirty, because a rumble running under everything stops being a sound and becomes a mix problem.
Techno, hardgroove, rumble, industrial, minimal
Dry, weighty, room-ready kicks: the kind that survives a bad PA.
- Berlin HardgrooveDry and mid-forward, with a short amp decay. Lets the percussion bus breathe.
- Rumble TechnoFeedback-delay rumble routed out separately, with a long tail under the kick.
- Schranz RumbleHard and fast, rumble pushed further. Built for the loud end of the night.
- Industrial ClippedHard-clipped transient and a distorted tail. Relentless and dry.
- Minimal Clean ClubClean and unadorned: a kick that leaves the whole mix to everything else.
House and garage
Warmer, rounder, and built to swing.
- Old 909 WarehouseA 909 voicing with warehouse weight, analogue drive, short tail.
- Deep House ClassicRound and soft-edged, sitting under a chord instead of in front of it.
- UK Garage SnapTight and snappy, cut for a shuffled two-step pattern.
Drum and bass, jungle and breaks
Fast music needs a kick that gets out of the way of the break.
- DnB PunchPunchy and short, leaving room for the sub and the snare.
- Jungle StampHeavier and stamped, in the jungle lineage and not the clean-DnB one.
- Breakbeat SmackA broad smack that reads clearly against a chopped break.
- Amen CrunchCrunchier and more saturated, for breakcore and the harder amen end.
- Footwork SubbySub-forward for footwork and juke, where the kick carries the low end.
Hip-hop, trap and lo-fi
Long sub, soft click, and enough weight to carry a whole beat.
- 808 Long SubThe long 808 sub with a faint click: the trap and hip-hop staple.
- Trap BoomBoomier and more forward than the plain 808, tuned for modern trap.
- Lo-Fi TapeTape-softened and slightly dulled, for lo-fi hip-hop.
Hard dance and psytrance
Where the kick is the lead instrument and carries the track.
- Hardstyle DriverA driving, pitched hardstyle kick with a distorted body.
- Gabber SawOverdriven into a saw: the gabber and hardcore voicing.
- Psytrance ClickyA sharp click over a long, controlled sub tail.
Latin, dub and global
Rhythms where the kick is part of the pattern instead of the pulse.
- Reggaeton LatinTuned for the dembow pattern, present without dominating.
- Dembow CrispCrisper and more percussive, cutting through a dense arrangement.
- Afrobeats WarmWarm and rounded, sitting inside the groove.
- Dub CavernousCavernous and long-tailed, built for space and delay.
Classic drum-machine voicings
Faithful voicings of the machines that started it all.
- 808 VoicingThe 808, long sub, faint click. A reference voicing.
- 909 VoicingThe 909, punchy mid, short tail. A reference voicing.
- 606 VoicingThe 606, small, dry and percussive.
Ambient, cinematic and hybrid
Kicks that behave more like low percussion or a felt event than a beat.
- Ambient EarthSlow and cinematic, more felt than heard.
- Hall HumA sub-heavy hum with a rumble tail: a room as much as a kick.
- Acoustic-Electronic HybridThe sample layer working against the synthesised body.
- Future Bass ThumpA soft, wide thump under a supersaw chord.
Formats
Formats
MrKicksy hosts as a VST3 or CLAP instrument in any DAW that takes the format, and runs on its own as a standalone editor for designing kicks before you open a session.
VST3
Hosts as a VST3 instrument in any DAW that supports the format.
CLAP
A first-class CLAP build for hosts that prefer the open plugin standard.
Standalone
A standalone studio application with live audio, for building kicks outside a DAW.
Look under the hood
One machine, set thirty ways.
Pick a preset, then read how the four layers, the five rumble engines and the kick-aware master chain turn a set of numbers into the sound you heard.
From the Atelier
Pick a preset, start a track.
MrKicksy is a proprietary Flexiana Atelier product. Hear the presets, watch the walkthroughs and get it at liveset.app.