A kick designer that measures what it plays
Nebula Kick renders each kick offline before you hear it, then reads the numbers back from that exact buffer. It anchors the tail's phase from the end, so the kick hands off to the bassline at the same phase however you edit the pitch sweep.
Also in Nebula Complete and All Access.
Highlights
What sets it apart
Phase anchored from the end
The start phase is derived from the anchor and the pitch envelope, so retuning or redrawing the sweep does not move the tail's phase. It is checked after the whole chain, including the EQ.
Clears the next division
Each kick states the division it must clear, a sixteenth by default. The panel judges the kick against that division at the host tempo, and a fix stays note-relative so it holds at any tempo.
A doctor that shows its numbers
Findings are split into faults and offers, each pointing at a visible control. Hold a section switch to hear the kick re-rendered without that stage.
Features
Everything in Nebula Kick
Sound
- Wavetable oscillator with drawn pitch and amplitude envelopes
- Click layer with 36 built-in clicks, plus a noise layer
- 6-band EQ, minimum or zero phase per band
- Character, oversampled drive with 6 shapes, transient shaper, compressor and limiter
Workflow
- Four macros: Punch, Dirt, Air, Weight
- Import a kick to match by file or drag and drop
- Export the kick as a WAV file
- Sidechain trigger: an audio track can trigger the kick without MIDI
Measurement
- Peak, true peak, punch, settled note, length and limiter reduction on screen
- Hold a section switch to hear the kick without that stage
- Bit-identical renders for the same patch and sample rate
Family
- Publishes its tail to Nebula Bass over Nebula Link
- 16 colour themes shared with the Nebula family
Nebula Link
Works with the rest of the range
After each render it writes a handoff contract (terminal phase, clearance division and related values) into the shared Nebula Link v1 region, which Nebula Bass reads to land its notes on the kick's phase. Nebula Drums reads Kick's length and pitch from the same region.
Claude
Claude can help
In Nebula DAW, Claude can read Kick's settings map, get and change the whole kick, measure it, list, load and save presets, and play it to audition. In Logic, Connect Claude in Kick's menu installs the Nebula Plugins connector, which adds finding open kicks by track and undoing Claude's last change.
Measured
What the tests show
- Phase anchor: 900 cases (100 random pitch envelopes x 3 sample rates x 3 anchor phases), worst error 0.000e+00 rad against a 1e-9 tolerance
- Terminal phase error after the full chain: 0.89 deg on the shipped preset, 8.32 deg with 48 dB/oct cuts, 15.92 deg at 96 dB/oct
- A quarter-note kick shortened to a sixteenth clears with 0.000 ms overlap at 128, 145 and 174 BPM
- A whole kick renders in 0.556 ms on the default and 1.177 ms with every stage on
- Original eleven presets: zero diagnostic findings at 44.1 to 192 kHz, every peak at -0.50 dBTP
- Latest suites in the decision log: Core 23285 checks, plugin 6954 checks, 0 failures
Questions
Nebula Kick FAQ
Which hosts can load it?
Hosts that load AUv2 instruments or VST3, such as Logic, Ableton, Bitwig, Cubase, FL and Reaper. GarageBand refuses it because it is not sandbox-safe.
Does it add latency?
It reports one fixed latency, a 10 ms head pad, identical online and offline, because Logic does not re-poll latency during an offline bounce.
Can it work with my bassline?
Yes. With Nebula Bass on the same Mac, Kick publishes its tail's phase and length over Nebula Link, and Bass lands its notes on that phase.
Can I trigger it from an audio track?
Yes. The sidechain trigger listens to an audio track and plays the kick on each hit, so you can replace kicks without MIDI.
What does it need?
macOS 11 or later, on Apple silicon or Intel. It loads as AU or VST3 in Logic, Ableton Live, Bitwig, Cubase, FL Studio, Reaper and Nebula DAW.
Try Nebula Kick free for 30 days
Download, install, and every product runs fully for 30 days. No account and no card needed. Buy the ones you keep.