Sound & signal
Kick
The kick is the low drum that states the beat — in most dance music, on every one of the four beats in a bar. It carries the pulse and most of the energy a floor actually feels.
Measured in our catalog
273,725 public tracks — 61.7% of the catalog — are tagged into the house, techno and trance family built on a four-to-the-floor kick, at a median of 126 BPM.
That is the pattern most of this catalog is arranged around, and it is why bass-swapping is the default transition technique here rather than one option among several. Outside that family — drum and bass, garage, hip-hop — the kick moves off the grid and the same technique needs more care.
Measured on 11 August 2026 across distinct public tracks carrying at least one house / techno / trance genre tag, counted once each rather than once per tag.
Why it matters
Two kicks at once is the loudest problem in DJing. They occupy the same narrow band of low frequency, so instead of sounding twice as strong they sum unpredictably — sometimes doubling, sometimes cancelling — and the mix loses its floor exactly when it should feel biggest.
This is what the bass EQ is for, and why almost every transition involves taking the low end out of one record before bringing the other up. The rest of the mix can overlap happily; the kicks cannot.
Frequently asked
Why do you cut the bass when mixing?+
Because two kicks in the same frequency band sum unpredictably and the low end turns to mud. Rolling the bass off the incoming track until the swap keeps one clean kick in the room at all times.
What is a four-to-the-floor kick?+
A kick on every beat of the bar. It is the defining pattern of house and techno, and 273,725 tracks in this catalog are tagged into that family.
Can two kicks ever work together?+
Briefly, and deliberately — a double drop rides exactly that effect. Held for more than a few bars it stops reading as power and starts reading as a mistake.
Related terms
Four-on-the-floor
Four-on-the-floor is a kick drum on every beat of the bar. It is the rhythmic base of house, techno and trance, and it is the reason those genres mix into each other so easily.
Sub-bass
Sub-bass is the lowest band of a record, roughly below 60 Hz — the part a club feels through the floor rather than hears. It is where most of a track’s physical impact lives.
Three-band EQ
A three-band EQ splits each channel into low, mid and high and gives you a knob for each. It is the primary tool for deciding which parts of two records are audible at any moment.
Downbeat
The downbeat is the first beat of a bar — the "one" a DJ counts to. It is where the kick lands hardest and where every phrase, drop and transition is aligned from.
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