Punch-BD

These days, the genres that can be labeled as electronic dance music sound louder than ever. Because of the advancement of production techniques, many musicians don’t focus only on the structure of songs, but carefully design each sound to be as impactful as possible. And no sound is more important for electronic dance music than the kick drum.

Not long ago I reviewed a plugin called Punch – an advanced virtual drum machine designed by Rob Papen. Today I’m going to take a look at its companion, Punch-BD, a plugin that allows you to focus on creating the most powerful bass drum in the world.

If you’ve also read my reviews for Rob Papen’s RAW and RAW-Kick, then you’ll probably understand the relationship between Punch and Punch-BD. However, while “the RAWs” seem dedicated to created distorted hardcore and hardstyle sounds, “the Punches” seem less niched (although many hardcore and hardstyle presets are also available).

If you know a thing or two about production, then you probably know that many dance musicians create one kick drum by stacking or layering other kick drums and other sounds. In Punch-BD you can stack up to six kick drums, whether they’re synthesized drums or samples. But the best part is that you don’t have to play them all simultaneously; you can also choose to play them as six separate notes on your MIDI controller, in sequence, or in a tuned sequence.

Since distortion is the go-to effect for bass drums, you can choose what type of distortion you want to add to each drum (power, overdrive, fuzz, transient, etc.). You can add many other effects to your kicks, and also use the plugin’s intuitive 3-band EQ. It’s easy to recommend Punch-BD to any producer who wants a powerful plugin to help them design world-shattering bass drums.