Most music software companies don’t pay much attention to hardstyle. They might add a few hard dance presets, throw some distortion on a sound, call it “raw,” and move on. But that’s not the same as making tools designed for how hardstyle, rawstyle, hardcore, uptempo, and hard techno producers really work.
In these genres, the kick is more than just a drum. It carries the bassline and shapes the groove. Sometimes, it’s the hook, the drop, and a big part of the track’s identity. A good kick has pitch, movement, attack, tail, weight, and grit, plus enough control to keep the low end clear even when you start clipping.
Lussive Audio’s Tools: Hardstyle Niche, or Great For Hard Dance Music In General?
When I first reached out to Lussive Audio about testing their plugin suite, they seemed almost surprised I’d found them. They asked where I came across the company, then admitted their offerings were, in their words, a bit “niche.”
Lussive Audio is the software side of Lussive Media, run by Dutch producer Onne Witjes, better known as A-lusion. The catalog covers distorted basslines, pitched kick tails, reverse basses, screeches, and hardcore kicks. Good stuff if you spend any time producing in the hardcore electronic music scene.
The suite I tested covers that lane from several angles: Bass Generator for distorted low-end work, ClipLAB for clipping and destruction, Kick & Bass Machine for older Kontakt-based kick/bass combinations, and Hardcore Kick Configurator for Tha Playah-branded hardcore kick layering. The newer HardKick plugin, made with Psyko Punkz through Psylus Audio, makes the obsession explicit. This whole world is built around hard kicks, distortion, and the strange science of making low-end aggression behave.
Kick & Bass Machine is the clearest older example. It combines kicks, basslines, wavetable-style bass layers, subs, attacks, and custom slots inside Kontakt, and includes the samples as WAV files, giving the purchase a second life outside the instrument.
Hardcore Kick Configurator is more specific. Built with Tha Playah, it’s a hardcore kick-layering instrument with preloaded kicks, attack and tail layers, custom sample slots, randomization, root-note handling, and themed processing modes. It’s a chance to start with material tied to a known hardcore artist rather than a generic kick library.
Bass Generator feels more current. It still runs through Kontakt, but it works with the free Kontakt Player, which makes it easier to recommend. Several older Lussive Audio instruments require the full version. Kick & Bass Machine and Hardcore Kick Configurator are both in that category. They’re not standalone plugins or native VSTs. The free Player can load unlicensed libraries in demo mode, but without a full or Komplete Kontakt license, you’re working with a limited version.
HardKick sidesteps all of that. It takes the hard-kick concept and turns it into a native plugin with increased format support, artist banks, a larger source library, and a much more modern product shape.
ClipLAB is the one Onne seemed especially proud of, and I get it. It’s the least “Kontakt library” product in the lineup. No wrapper, no library loading, no demo clock. It’s a VST3/AU clipping and distortion effect built around pre-EQ, clipping, symmetry control, hard clipping, post effects, mono control, sub enhancement, note-based EQ behavior, and a Chaos Mode for mangled filtering and comb-delay-style processing.
The common thread across the catalog is speed. A general-purpose synth can get to these sounds, but not always quickly. You’re looking at a wavetable patch, pitch shaping, layered transients, distortion, EQ, clipping, mono cleanup, sidechain work, and a lot of trial and error. Lussive Audio’s pitch is simple: start closer to the sound.
All of this makes the most sense for producers already living in hardstyle, rawstyle, hardcore, hard techno, or adjacent faster genres like hi-tech psy. If you make pop, trap, house, cinematic work, or anything outside harder dance, there’s not much here for you.
Hardstyle and hardcore are specialized enough to deserve specialized tools, not a few aggressive presets buried inside a general synth. Lussive Audio isn’t broad, glossy, or built for everyone. For producers chasing distorted kicks, pitched tails, reverse basses, and aggressive low-end movement, it’s a genuine fit.
Check out more reviews ici.
