Overview

Envelope sliders
These sliders can either be set by dragging the slider, or by editing the envelope that controls it. You can select the envelope by clicking on the slider. If the envelope has more than 1 point, it will be controlled by the envelope. If it has only 1 point, the slider can also control the value.

CMD/CTRL + drag: fine drag
ALT + click: reset to default
Double click: enter value as text. The pitch slider allows you to enter note values too, like: “A2” or “F#1”.

Normal sliders
CMD/CTRL + drag: fine drag
ALT + click: reset to default
Double click: enter value as text

Length slider
Adjust the length of the generated sound. Double click to enter a value, it defaults to milliseconds, but you can also type 0.5s, for half a second. Or 1/4, 1/6d or 1/8t for lengths based on the tempo. 

Shift + drag: temporarily enable the absolute lock (see below).

Length absolute lock
On: Envelope points will be locked in their absolute position. You can add or remove to/from the length, while the sound stays the same, but envelope points will be moved. Kinda like “cropping” your sample.

Off: Envelope points will be relative while changing the length. They will stay in the same position in the editor, but your sound will change.

Active note
This is the note that will be used to display the waveform if pitch tracking is enabled (on the OSC or the Sampler layers). It will also be the note used when exporting a pitch tracked sound. Only used when pitch tracking is active.

Waveform view selector
Switch which waveforms are shown. Click OSC/S1/S2/S3 to show or hide the individual layers. Click MAIN to see the combined, final waveform (including FX section). The other waveforms will be hidden when MAIN is selected. The MAIN view will show you exactly what the complete sample will be.

Right click on a layer selector to hide the others.

Global pitch offset slider
Global pitch offset applied to pitch tracking on layers. Only used when pitch tracking is active.

Drag & drop sample export
Start dragging here to drag the rendered sample straight into your DAW. Please be aware that the sample will be saved on your disk in the Export folder inside your Library. Click the Main menu, Open Library, to see this folder on your computer. Please make sure to save these samples with your project.

Save preset
Save the current preset to a new file.

Preset browse
Click to open the preset browser. 

When Kick Ninja opens, it loads the “/Ninja/init.KickNinja”. You can overwrite this preset to have Kick Ninja load with your own custom preset. There’s also an “Init Preset” option in the main menu, that resets all the values to their defaults.

Please note that you can’t load presets made with newer versions of Kick Ninja. If you’re trying to load a preset and nothing happens, that might be the cause.

When you choose “Init Preset”, Kick Ninja will give it a cool Ninja name for you to start with :).

Playback settings

Bend
Pitch bend range in semitones (pitch tracking needs to be active)

Velocity
Amount that midi velocity affects the volume of the playback.

Voices
Total number of voices (polyfony). Make sure the playback mode is set to “poly”. Playing a lot of voices might be CPU intensive.

Release
No: Sample is always fully played when triggered
Yes: Playback stops when the note is released.

Time (release)
Time to fade out after the note is released. Release needs to active for this to work.

Mode
Poly: Play multiple voices at the same time. No slide/legato.
Legato: Pitch tracked sounds will slide when notes are held.
Always: Pitch tracked sounds will always slide

Porta
Length of the pitch slide from note to note. Pitch tracking needs to be on.

Envelope Editor / Waveform view

Envelope editor
Double click: create a point
Right click: open menu
Click + drag: marquee select multiple points
Shift + click + drag: add to selection
CMD/CTRL + alt + drag: hand drag view
CMD/CTRL + scroll: zoom in/out
Pinch/2 finger gestures: zoom and scroll

On an envelope point
Double click: remove point
Drag: move the point(s)
CMD/CTRL + drag: fine move point(s)
Shift + drag: move vertical only
Alt + drag: move horizontal only
Alt + shift + drag: snap to semitones (OSC pitch only)
Right click: open menu

On a tension point
The tension between two points controls the way values blend between two points. Using a musically pleasant exponential curve.
Drag: adjust tension between points
Double click: reset
CMD/CTRL + drag: fine adjust tension

Pitch tracked envelope points (OSC pitch only)
Right click on any point and select “Pitch Tracked” from the Envelope menu to make the point pitch tracked. Make sure you activate “Pitch Tracking” in the OSC layer to make this have an effect.

Pitch tracked will essentially have their value replaced by the key that is played on the keyboard. Offset by the Global pitch offset slider combined with the OSC pitch offset. And they could also be affected by the legato/portamento mode that is active.

The most common use case for this would be to have the last envelope point for the OSC pitch be pitchtracked. Allowing you to play your kick (or bass) sound with the keyboard.

The current value displayed in the editor and on the waveform is controlled by the global Active note slider. This is also the note that will be used when the sample is exported by the Drag & drop sample export button.

Phase locked points (OSC pitch only)
Right click on any point and select “Phase Lock” to make this lock the phase of the generated wave after this point. If you activate this for multiple points, the first point in time will be used.

This allows you to make changes to the pitch curve, while locking the waveform after that point. Kick Ninja will automatically adjust the OSC Phase offset for you while you make changes. This way you can “lock” your tail while working on the start of the kick.

Envelope menu
Right click on a point or the envelope background to open up a menu.

Pitch point settings: Pitch Tracked, Phase Lock see above.
Split: Select two or more points (or none to apply on all) and put points in the middle.
Reset: Clears all the points for this envelope
Remove points:  Remove the selected points
Simplify Envelope: Opens up the “Simplify Envelope” popup (see below). Will act on selected points or all if none are selected.
Copy points: Copies selected points (or all if none are selected) to the clipboard.
Paste points: Paste the points from the clipboard,

Simplify envelope popup

Remove points with a certain threshold, and thereby simplify the envelope. 0.5% (default) is a good startoff point if you want to keep the sound mostly the same. Make this higher to remove more points. 

If points are selected, it will only remove those points. If no points are selected, this will work on all the points in the current envelope.

Oscillator layer

Envelope sliders
Pitch
Controls the the pitch of the generated waveform

Amp
Controls the amplitude (volume level) of the generated waveform

Blend
Blends the waveform between:
– A pure Sine at 0 (the middle)
– A the currently selected wave (-1, all the way down)
– The harmonic oscillator (see below) (1, all the way up)

Dist
Applies distortion/drive to the oscillator directly. Very useful to make clicky attacks by setting it high for the attack phase, and then closer to 0 after.

H1/2/3/4
This controls the individual harmonics when the Blend value is between 0 and 1 (up). Allowing you precise control of the harmonics in the sound at every moment in time. H1 controls the fundamental, while 2/3/4 are multiples of that. Dial them in to go from a subtle tone to nasty overtones on your sound.

Sliders
Pitch
Pitch offset for the OSC layer, only applied to pitch tracked points.

Wave
Currently selected waveform, to hear this wave, Blend needs to be between -1 and 0 (down).

Gain
Gain for the OSC layer

Phase
Phase offset of the oscillator. If you activate Phase Locking, this value might change.

Buttons

OSC Power button
Click: Turn the OSC layer on or off.
Right click: show the OSC waveform in the editor display, while hiding the others.
CMD/CTRL + right click: show the OSC waveform in the editor.

Play preview
Play a preview of just the OSC layer, without going through the FX section.

Pitch tracking
Enable/disable pitch tracking for the OSC layer. Make sure you have at least 1 Pitch tracked point in your OSC Pitch envelope.

Phase flip
Flips the phase of the OSC layer.

Solo
Solo this layer, while (temporarily) muting the others.

Lock
Locks this section from being overwritten by a preset load.

Menu
Opens the OSC menu:

Init Oscillator: Set everything for the OSC layer to their default settings.
Browse for sample: Open a file with a system popup to start importing.

Sampler layer 1/2/3

Sample browser
Click the folder icon (bar) to open the sample browser. Or use the arrow buttons “<” and ”>” to select next and previous samples.

You can start dragging from the bar, or any file in the browser, to drag samples to other layers too.

Envelope sliders

Pitch
Controls the the pitch of sample. This can be automated for some crazy results!

Amp
Controls the amplitude (volume level) of the sample.

HP/LP
Controls the cutoff frequency of the High Pass and Low Pass filter for the sampler.

Sliders

Gain
Gain for the sample layer

W: Width
Controls the stereo width of the sampler. 0: mono, 100: full stereo, 200: sides only.

P: Pan
Panning of the sample.

Pitch
Pitch offset for the Sample layer.

Start/End
Controls the sample start and end position.

Buttons

Sampler Power button
Click: Turn the Sampler layer on or off.
Right click: show the Sampler waveform in the editor display, while hiding the others.
CMD/CTRL + right click: show the Sampler waveform in the editor.

Play preview
Play a preview of just the Sampler layer, without going through the FX section.

Pitch tracking
Enable/disable pitch tracking for the Samler layer.

Phase flip
Flips the phase of the OSC layer.

Solo
Solo this layer, while (temporarily) muting the others.

Lock
Locks this section from being overwritten by a preset load.

Menu
Opens the OSC menu:

Init Sampler: Set everything for the Sampler layer to their default settings, leaving the selected sample untouched.
Unload sample: Unload the selected sample from this layer, leaving the settings untouched.
Export (direct): Import the current sample, with all its settings, to the OSC. This will also use any currently active envelopes.
Export (with options): Same as above, but with options for exporting the layer to a sampler too.
Browse for sample: Use a system dialog to load a sample from disk.

FX Layer

Every voice has an fx layer. These are not applied on the output signal, but directly on a per voice basis. The FX section as a whole uses 2x oversampling to limit aliasing.

There’s two tabs. The order of processing is: Distortion 1 -> Filter -> Distortion 2 -> Compressor.

Any section can be turned on or off. If the entire FX section is turned off, the oversampling will also be bypassed.

Distortion 1/2

Envelope sliders
AMT
Amount of distortion. 0: not a lot. 1: a lot.

WET
Dry/wet mix.

Sliders

Type
Select from 9 different distortion types. From mild, to crazy.

Gain
Post distortion gain.

Filter
Envelope sliders

HP/LP/RES
High Pass, Low Pass frequency and resonance controls for the filter.

Compressor

Sliders
Standard compressor controls.

Ninja AI Import Samples to OSC

Drag a sample from your DAW, computer, or any of the samplers or sample browsers straight into the OSC to start the import.

Settings

Low pass frequency
Applies a low pass filter before the import. Defaults to 600 Hz. Most of the time it’s useful to apply some low-passing before importing, because high frequencies, potentially caused by noise, can cause lot’s of points. But experiment! If you’re importing clean kicks, you can do with a much higher value here.

Export layer
The import to the OCS will be the same for all settings. But you have a few options to automatically also add a sample layer.

Perfect full: This will render a new sample to disk by subtracting the generated wave from the OSC from the imported sample. This allows for near sample accurate recreation. Depending on your low pass frequency, the resulting sampler layer will most likely contain the attack and some high frequency content from the original sample.
Filtered: This will export the original exported sample to a Sampler layer, and create “cross fade” on the low pass filter. The frequency and the length are determined by the Low pass frequency and the Attack length slider. This lets you more precicely control what part of your original sample you want to use and maintain.
Attack: This mode will do a similar thing to Fileterd, but instead create a crossfade in volume determined by the Attack Length slider. It will mute the OSC for this period and then play the original sample. Then crossfade back to the OSC. Great if you want to keep the original attack, but change the tail.
No: No export to a sample layer at all.

To Sampler
The sampler to which the export will happen (1/2/3).

Attack length in ms
The length in ms used by the Filtered and Attack modes for “crossfading” between the original sample and the OSC.

Main menu

Init preset
Sets all values to their defaults and gives your preset a cool Ninja name :). This is different from the “init” preset loaded at startup.

Load preset from file
Open a system dialog to load a “.KickNinja” preset file.

GUI Scale
Make everything bigger or smaller.

Env show values
Constantly show values for envelope points

Env show grid
Show a horizontal frequency grid for the OSC Pitch envelope

Synth mode
This prevents resetting of the OSC when a note starts. Handy for if you’re making a synth sound rather than a kick or drum sound. When this is off (default for kicks and drum sounds) you can get clicks when the voice is reset while it’s still playing. Generally this is what we want for kicks, and the “click” is part of the attack.

If you are experiencing unwanted clicks, I would recommend first experimenting with more voices, release and release time, and making sure you are playing your samples in full. Unless you’re making a synth/bass/instrument sound, Synth mode should probably be off.