Conquer Any Arrangement!

One of the most common questions that comes up for novice producers, is how to get started on arranging a tune. It's all very well getting an 8 bar loop together, but what do you do with that once you've got the basic groove? Many people come unstuck at this point, so this week we're going to look at a few simple tips to get you started...

Remember that these are general guidelines, and although they'll show you some fairly generic arrangement ideas, there's no harm in following them. A "forum" argument you'll see frequently is that people don't want to use the same track structure as everybody else, they want to be more original than that. Which is a valid point, but frankly if you're struggling to get an arrangement down in the first place, it's basically irrelevant - like so many of the arts, you need to get the basics mastered first. Then when you can knock out a good, effective arrangement easily, you can start to vary it and make it more original...

Dubstep

What with Korn's recent (and much-mocked) announcement that they've been doing dubstep since before it even existed, it seems that this unruly upstart of a genre has finally taken over the mainstream. But it still has its common characteristics like everything else, and a quick glance at the hugely popular Youtube channel UKF will show numerous comments pointing out that all the tunes seem to drop 55 seconds into the track. This is no coincidence; 55 seconds is equal to 32 bars at 140BPM. A dubstep intro, therefore, is usually 32 bars, and frequently these days takes a form closer to a build up; introducing a simple hihat or percussion pattern for beatmatching purposes, plenty of big reverb sounds for atmosphere, and most of the melodic content of the track being established here. The second set of 16 bars can build dramatically with big white-noise whooshes, kick rolls, and other tricks to make the drop sound emphatic.

Once you're into the drop, and your bassline is rolling, you need to manage your switch-ups. Deeper dubstep can sit in a groove for a long time, with perhaps a subtle change in bass patterns or sounds every 8 or 16 bars. More hyped, "filth" sounds change constantly; fills every 4 (or even 2) bars, changing the bass patches every few bars, bringing in new percussion every 8 bars and also perhaps using your main melodic theme (from the intro) for the last 2 bars of an 8 bar phrase.

After a 64 bar drop, an 8 or 16 bar breakdown will give your track time to breathe before the 2nd drop. This can be a reprise of the intro - bring the melodies back in, and perhaps use a buildup again, depending on how "hype" your tune needs to be. In the 2nd drop you should employ a different bass pattern or sound to keep the interest up. A 32 bar section here will suffice, before you move on to an outro of 16 bars or so - most dubstep DJs don't even let a track get this far before mixing out.

Hip-hop

Hip-hop, with its emphasis on vocal tracks, employs a much more song-based verse/chorus/bridge approach. This makes things easier for the producer; there is less importance placed on interesting structures, and indeed much hip-hop doesn't change, rhythmically, between the verse and the chorus. You only know it's the chorus because the MC goes into their hookline, and perhaps there's an extra backing vocal. Verses are typically 8 or 16 bars, and choruses are generally 8 bars. You really need to keep to these structures to help your MC; they'll be practised at working to 8 bar phrases and trying to be too clever is frequently counter-productive here. If you don't want to change the beat much for the chorus, it can still help to add in some percussion like a cowbell or some bongos to give a subtle lift. Equally, within your verses it's often interesting to have certain elements come in and out on 2 or 4 bar sections to give the vocalist something to bounce off.

Intros can be kept short; 8 bars will usually suffice, and outros can be equally short, even using a fadeout. One thing to consider is using the vocal hook or chorus from the outset; if it's a strong chorus people will want to hear it, and there are plenty of tracks out there that start with the chorus. The only really tricky part is the bridge; generally a simple way of treating this is to use a key-change. Then when you change key back to the original, it gives a great sense of momentum as you swing back into the track.

House

House music is a different beast again, and possibly the most open-ended of the genres covered here. There are only a few essentials; you need to start and finish with some fairly simple percussive action for DJing purposes. You should also try to leave too much melodic content out of the early stages of the track; if someone is blending it in the mix, it may just end up clashing with the track already playing. Beyond that, it's just a case of whatever you can do to keep it interesting; house tends to be more progressive in nature so you need to be able to introduce new elements regularly to keep the flow moving. It doesn't need to "drop" so a subtle progression is often preferable. This can be done by adding in percussion elements, adding harmonies to your riffs, or gradually opening a filter on your bass or lead line.

Breakdowns and buildups are not always necessary beyond having a breather from the main groove; if you're going for a classic US house sound, then simply dropping out the kick and some of the bass may work well. If, however, you're working on an electro house sound, then a big 16 or even 32 bar breakdown, complete with woosh noises, kick rolls and soaring riffs will be essential. See our recent article on buildups for more tips on that front. After the breakdown you can return to the original groove - gentle switchups are useful to keep the interest levels up, but introducing a whole new vibe isn't always necessary. A long, beat-driven outro of 16 or 32 bars will help DJs mix out of the tune.

So, if you're really stuck for arrangement ideas, just follow one of these simple guides. Once you've got a basic structure down you can tweak it away from the norm - but remember that no house or dubstep track ever got a bad review on the basis of it's unadventurous 32-bar intro! Keep things simple, and you'll be able to focus on the stuff that's really important - a good groove, strong melodies and a solid bassline. So no excuses - load up that idea that's been sitting in your DAW for weeks and get started....

Make Your Beats More Vocal!

Vocals in dance music often polarise people - it's easy to see them as being only for the funky house cheese brigade, or the underground grime crews, which could mean waiting 4 hours for a late MC to turn up with his dodgy mates and make your studio smell of weed. But there's actually a lot of variety between the territory of full vocals and hardcore instrumentals. So lets take a look at how you can spice up your tracks with a slightly more refined use of the human voice...

Using vocal samples has a very clear advantage over recording a full vocal; you don't need to find a good singer, you don't need a microphone or a decent recording booth, and you don't need years of practise producing vocals either. You also have access to a whole world of ready-recorded material. Sites like 'acappellas4u' offer a wide selection of acappellas culled from released music, usually mp3, with varying bitrates and varying sound quality. It should be noted that it's not really legal for them to do this, and it's not actually legal for you to use them either (whether you'd actually get sued is another matter, but the likes of Soundcloud and Youtube are getting increasingly vigilant in identifying and taking down tracks that use uncleared vocal samples). So if you want to find good quality, legal vocal samples, it's often better to turn to one of the increasing number of sample packs out there that offer vocal samples. They're usually tailored to specific genres and feature gigabytes of well-recorded vocal snippets and phrases to use in your tunes. Alternatively, speak to local bands or MC's and see if you can do a remix - this will give you an original and exclusive full vocal to play to with.

In general, the stage of your tune will dictate what you want to be doing with vocal samples. If you're still working on a one-bar drum loop, then it's often fun to drop tiny, half-syllable vocal sounds quietly into the loop. Maybe an 'Ah' on one of the snares, a pitched-down hit on a kick drum somewhere, or a breath noise very quietly in the mix. If done well it can really catch the ear and make the beat more interesting (an obvious example would be the 'Think' break from the Lyn Collins track of the same name), and if you mix it quietly it will hardly even sound like a vocal sample.

The next level up is using a simple hit to add interest to the overall groove. This could be as simple as a 'yeah' sound or an 'uh' sound from a hip-hop track (hip-hop intros are usually full of these sounds) and these can add a surprising amount of energy to the groove if used well. Just once every 8 or 16 bars can really give things a lift. On a similar tack, the intros and outros to RnB tracks (especially by female singers) often tend to be full of adlibs, featuring simple or extravagant 'ooh's and 'aah's. Load these into a sampler so that you can re-pitch them to suit the key of your track, and you suddenly have loads of little melodic motifs that can be used for hooks or to harmonise with your existing melodies.

A very 'current' way of using vocal samples is to chop them up into loads of little short sounds, map them across the keyboard, and then 'play' them to create a new melody (which of course doesn't really make any sense lyrically). First demonstrated back in the 1990's by the likes of Todd Edwards, then completely recontextualised in style by Burial, and since copied by every Future Garage producer from here to Croydon, this technique may soon be rather passé, but there are still original options; avoiding burying everything in reverb will certainly help.

Vocoders offer a whole wealth of fun opportunities. They're the effects units that create the 'robotic' effect and are usually pretty simple to set up; put one on your vocal track and then assign an input signal, rather like selecting a sidechain input on a compressor. The vocal will then be modulated by the input signal; so if you put a chord sound in, you'll get the classic 70's synthy vocal effect. Great for funk and soul or disco influenced tracks. Alternatively, combine with the 'chopped' technique mentioned above for some seriously other-worldy vibes. Then if you bang some heavy effects such as reverb or ring modulation on the results, you can create spacey atmospheric effects that scarcely resemble the human voice at all, but give an instant sci-fi feel to your beats.

We shouldn't let this article pass without mentioning spoken word samples. In general, these have been somewhat played out - from portentous, deep-sounding vocals over the breakdowns in progressive house, to the kind of snappy shout beloved of dubstep heads before their track drops into the filthy bass, to the motivational stuff about Jack's house you still sometimes hear in house music, this is a territory that has been well explored already. However, they're popular because they do work - so don't be put off digging deep in the archives for radio interviews, live footage and the like, as you can still unearth some gems. Just don't touch Martin Luther King!

So, it should be clear that using vocal samples doesn't just mean mashups and remixes - you can use them in any number of ways to find inspiration, add energy to your tracks and give things a new flavour without having to turn to yet another softsynth. So give your beats a new lease of life by grabbing some packs and acappellas and getting busy with the sampler!

Ready to make your tunes more vocal? Check out our vocal packs here!

Master The Perfect Intro!

A lot of people struggle with the structure of their tunes, and the intro often gives them the biggest headache of all. It's a delicate balancing act - how to stay interesting, whilst still mixable and useful to DJs in their sets? Let's go in a little deeper and see how you can write the intro that your track needs!

The first thing to consider; The fact that dance music is a very functional beast. It's not just for listening to on your mp3 player, but it has to work in a club or on the dancefloor. That means it needs to be mixable by a club DJ - ideally, it should even be fun to mix.

So let's start at the functional, DJ end of things. You need a clear signifier at the start of the track, with a good transient that's going to be audible on headphones in a loud club. This could be a kick, a crash cymbal or just a hi-hat, but it's essential that a DJ can use it to beatmatch the track. An intro also needs to have a fairly predictable structure; with elements coming in and departing on 8 and 16 bar markers, so that it doesn't throw off a mix, and so that it will blend well with any track layered on top of it.

Your intro should also be a sensible length; again, this is to tailor it for DJ-ing purposes. Dubstep tracks frequently use 32 bar introductions, although sometimes as short as 16 bars is useful for those DJ's who like to mix quickly and double drop. House and trance, on the other hand, use a longer intro and can easily be 48 bars in length (or more) to allow a DJ to gradually blend two tracks and layer them up in the mix.

Your choice of genre will also dictate how your intro should bring about the main section of the tune. In dubstep and jungle, this is all about the drop. As a distinct moment when the bass kicks in; it needs to have impact, and sound big in the mix. Progressive music, on the other hand, doesn't always need a 'moment' like that; it's not mixed in the same way, and so the end of an intro can be signified simply by bringing in a sub-bass or the main riff.

If you want to create a 'moment' at the drop, then, there are a few things you can do. Firstly, consider contrast - you want the drop to sound big, so don't show all your cards straight off - leave a certain amount of percussion and melodic elements (as well as the bass) out of the intro so they have more impact when they arrive. You can enhance this by clever use of effects; consider bandpass-filtering your drums in the intro, so that when they finally kick in properly they suddenly sound bigger and fuller. You can also use effects such as reverb and delay on your drums to make them sound a bit more distant, and remove this at the moment of the drop - bringing everything into sharp focus with a bang.

When actually writing the intro, it's usually best to work with elements from the main track, to help them lead into the larger section. You can then cut them down so that listeners only hear hints of what is to come, building up anticipation and stopping them getting bored when the full parts drop in. For instance, take a riff and filter it down, and perhaps only take the first two or three notes from a two-bar loop. If something is later to be repeating every bar, maybe have it only once every four bars in the intro. Any sound effects from later in the tune may be liberally sprinkled all over the introduction too. As you're working with a smaller sound pallette, it's often good to have things coming in every 4 or 8 bars to keep the interest up, and this is where sound effects can really help, without having to resort to using your big lead melody straight out of the blocks.

Having said that, of course, if you have a strong and recognisable sample in your track, it's good to make use of it in the intro; this way, when a DJ is mixing the track, the sample will be heard over the top of the blend and people will be able to spot your tune long before it drops, making people's ears prick up on the dancefloor.

As usual, there are the exceptions to the rule here, and some great tracks don't follow the intro rules at all. Consider Skream's remix of 'In For The Kill' by La Roux - a track so enormous that it went to number 1 and still smacked it on the dancefloors, but was almost unmixable. This tactic is one for the confident; you can get away with an unmixable intro but only if the track is so strong that people have to play it anyway. Otherwise, they may just pass over it for something else that works better in their sets.

We covered radio edits in detail a few months back on this blog, but it goes without saying that if you're aiming for a 3-minute version of your track, then a 90-second intro is simply unrealistic. In which case, go for 4 or 8 bars at most, get the melodies in early, don't worry about gradually developing the drums (in fact, consider leaving them out of the intro altogether) and get to the meat of the track (the main chorus or riff) as quickly as possible. It's not about DJ play this time, it's about grabbing an inattentive listener's attention within the first 10 seconds!

So, the intro is a complicated area which can make many novice producers struggle. But by following some of these hints, you'll soon have a quality, interesting intro that DJ's want to mix with and iPod warriors want to listen to all the way through!

How To Score Soundtrack Success!

Over the last five years, basic home studio setups have come on so far that it's now possible to write full arrangements and sync them up to a video just on a standard laptop. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for writing music to film, TV and adverts, and so also gives producers a much-needed new revenue stream too. But how to get involved and start making your mark on this crowded scene? Join us as we run down a quick overview of what equipment, skills and contacts you'll need....

One of the trickiest parts of the process is getting the work in the first place, and finding people who need music for their productions. One obvious place to start would be with local students on film or TV production courses who may need to create programmes or shorts for their assessments. It would be unpaid of course, but it's still good practise, and - as we should all know in this industry by now - networking and making contacts is never a bad idea. That kid at university now might land a plum job at Universal in two years time, and if you've worked together before, it could lead to better things in the future.

If you're a published musician, then simply ask your publisher - they'll no doubt be in contact with music sync agencies to try and get your tracks onto TV programmes, and TV people are always looking for new music. Alternatively, ask someone you know who is published - they may already be turning down work if they're busy, and you might get a chance to submit a couple of demo efforts.

The crucial skill you'll need is the ability to turn things around extremely quickly. Sometimes you need to submit a demo the same day, sometimes you get twenty four hours, but either way there's very little time to get bogged down in details, fills and mixdowns. You need to sketch the general idea out quickly to communicate the idea to the director, and if they like it there'll be (some) time later to work on the small stuff. Bear in mind that these projects can sometimes need a lot of music; your author last week had to submit a two-minute track in the style of early 90's soul, and the initial deadline was within four hours. You have to work quickly and efficiently.

This leads on to what tools you'll need to do this. Firstly, and most obviously, you'll need a certain range of hardware and software to work with. Any modern DAW can handle video and audio these days, and any laptop from the last 5 years will be perfectly up to the task. Synths and samples are extremely important; whether you're trying write a 70's funk lead or a classic piano house piece, a good keyboard should have you covered. Sample packs are highly useful for this as well - with one purchase you can get a quick overview of a whole genre, with some ideas for production, riffs, and arrangements too. Get a dozen or so and you'll find that whatever you need to write, you'll be able to turn to one of your packs and find some inspiration for a starting point (they'll come in handy for your own productions too).

The other angle is a decent grasp of theory and musicianship, as well as a good musical knowledge. You might be asked to write in a style that you've never written before, but if you're familiar with genres and scenes, you might be aware of the typical sounds of that style. If you don't, then you'll need to quickly work out what it's doing so you can get into the right vibe – is it minor or major? Key changes? What are the rhythms doing? Your producer's hat is important here too; you can take a drum kit or piano from the 70's to the 80's just with your choice of EQ and reverb, so a good knowledge of production techniques is invaluable.

Any instrument skills come in very useful here too; even if you can only play a few chords on guitar or gave up violin at grade 3 - real instruments are difficult to synthesise effectively, and being able to record yourself playing even a simple line will add an extra dimension to what you can offer.

One other key requirement is the patience of a saint. Hearing an overpaid media executive making ridiculous comments to try and justify their obscene salary is amusing when it happens to someone else; but once you've heard someone ask you to make a folk track "a bit more "heavy rock"(true story)you'll start to appreciate the need to be polite, play the game and make changes to your track even when they're plainly not going to work. These are the people who decide whether you'll be featuring on the show or advert, so it's best to play along and try to accommodate them where possible.

Patience and persistence are also essential to deal with the inevitable knock-backs that you'll receive along the way. Just like trying to get your tunes signed involves plenty of polite refusals, it will be a long time before you can get into the swing of writing quickly to order. So don't get disheartened - keep hustling and as you get more practised at this tricky art, you'll soon find you start to get more interest from producers and publishers.

You could write a book on producing music for TV - many people have - but we hope these tips have given an insight into how to get started.

Why not give it a shot!? Check out our latest combo deal - TV Film Soundtrack SuperProducer, an all-in-one selection of 9 (!) of our best selling sound FX and cinematic sample packs, the ultimate tool for any soundtrack composer to get started!

Mixing It Up - Dub Style

Lee Perry, right? A stoner genius hunched over a giant 1960's mixing desk, concocting a dizzy swirl of reggae loops and effects? Well, that's the stereotype. But you don't need 24 ch

Dub mixing - that's King Tubby andannels of vintage hardware to get involved; you can take some of the techniques for your own beats and use them to create great dub effects and styles to bring extra flavour to your productions. There are plenty of reasons why you might want to do this - whether to give new life to your arrangements, or to use a whole new branch of effects to lift your tracks. So let's go in on a mixing style so popular it spawned a whole culture...

Dub mixing can really be broken down into two main aspects; there's the arrangement, and then the treating of individual sounds. If you listen to some classic dub reggae you'll notice immediately that it's a very sparse arrangement; dominated by the bass groove, the drums, and the producer's choice of embellishments over the top. These embellishments make up the other part of dub mixing; they'll be heavily effected snippets of vocal, piano, guitar and so on, that use the mixing desk like another instrument.

How does all this help you? Well, you can look at the way the bass-led arrangements are used for inspiration on your own tracks - garage and dubstep have been doing so in fine style for several years. But more importantly it's all about the effects. Get creative with these and you can summon enough musical interest to carry a whole track...

Delay is one of the most common effects. You can put it on anything but try adding an auxilliary send from your drum buss, or one of your melody lines. Then send a signal to the delay and see how the effect floats into the track. To make it more interesting, set the delay time so that it doesn't exactly sync with the tempo of your track, and filter out the tops and low frequencies from the delay return to give a more authentic tape vibe. If you turn the delay feedback up, you'll quickly create a wall of delayed distortion - turn the 'send' down so you're just left with the effect, then you can turn the delay fader down so that it fades away gently. Try also sending the delay return back into the input of the delay to create a feedback loop - this is very easy with a modern DAW; in Logic you can simply take a send from Buss 1 and send to Buss 1 - again, this will rapidly create a wall of feedback and so you'll need to be careful with the send levels! It may be worth putting a limiter into the chain so that you don't overload anything (our ears in particular). If you then mute the source channel you'll again have a crazy delay effect replacing the original sound, while nudging the delay time will also alter the pitch and speed of the delayed signal.

Reverb is the other big dub effect, and the basic idea is similar in principle; set up an occasional send to an effected buss. This is particularly effective on snare drums or vocal hits; send it for just one beat, and you'll hear the snare which was up close and present, suddenly zoom off into space. Alternatively, send it for a longer time and experiment with the pre-delay time on your reverb to create a rhythmic, pulsing sound.

You can then get busy putting new effects on the effect returns. Put a delay on a reverb return to make an even bigger and more spacious effect, and try phasers and flangers on the reverb while you're at it. Anything is fair game - whatever you can think of to make the effects even more crazy. At this point you'll start to see why dub arrangements need to be so sparse; effects can get so huge you need room for them in the mix, and they would clash badly with a full complement of vocals, melodic elements and harmonies. In the same way, it should also be apparent why you'd only be sending a short snippet of sound to the effects busses - it can quickly build and dominate the whole track.

The comment about using the mixer like a musical instrument may also make more sense now; with so many variables, sends, returns and feedback loops, you need to keep close control on what you're sending to where. It takes practise, and is not really possible in real time with just a mouse, so most DAW users will make use of automation instead. A much more fun way, however, is to assign the important parameters on a good midi controller, so you can let the track play through and record your controller movements as you jam out an effects track over the top. This will take a little while to get the hang of, but it's a lot of fun, and will help you see the dub mixing process as more musical than just banging a load of effects on a drum track!


As we can see, dub mixing is something that can look complex to begin with, but it offers you a whole new way of looking at arrangements and a new sonic palette where effects are concerned too. So there's no reason not to get involved, start making some crazy effects chains, and seeing where it can take you!

How Long Should It Take To Make A Track...?

Do you find it impossible to finish off a track, and spend ages tweaking all the little details? Or perhaps zap through a beat in an afternoon, only to wonder later on if it couldn't use a little more interest? Then join us as we look at two different approaches to writing tracks, which may just help you find a different style...

There's always an ongoing discussion in music about how long it takes to write a track; put a group of producers in a room and you can be sure that they'll eventually come round to this. Four hours? Four days? Four weeks? Answers will span the whole spectrum, and while there's not really a right or wrong, it is worth considering if you sometimes feel you haven't found your rhythm.

Artists such as Skream and Zed Bias are famous for writing their tracks very quickly - both are quite capable of writing four or five tracks in a single day. While this level of productivity can make other producers envious, it's worth remembering how many they release - an awful lot less than 25 tracks a week! It's clear, therefore, that the vast majority of their tracks do not see the light of day.

Conversely, other artists take much longer; Peverelist for instance has spoken in interviews of how he can spend anything up to a month working on a single track.

What's happening here are basically two different means to the same end. Those who turn out tracks by the dozen are essentially coming up with an idea, finding a way to run it over the course of 6 minutes, making sure it sounds roughly right and then moving on to the next one. The ideas are not overly developed - there isn't time for that - but just presented in a raw form. Some of them might not be amazing, but that's ok, because one of the next few might be the hit - an idea so good that it just works on its own, looped up.

The opposite end of the scale involves starting with an idea, which may or may not be amazing, but then working on it and shaping it until it finally becomes a good track. This can require plenty of changes and a willingness to recognise when something isn't working - if you need to scrap a bassline for instance, even though it's been in there since the start.

The upshot of both of these methods, of course, is broadly the same; you spend a long time writing music in order to come up with a good track. But if you sometimes find yourself stuck in a rut with your tune writing, it's often worth trying a different tack to see if it doesn't give you a fresh way of looking at things.

So if you normally spend forever tweaking and changing your tracks, then set yourself a challenge - try and write a tune in, say, 5 hours or so. To do this, you need to forget about messing around with the details and concentrate on the big stuff; the drums, the bass, and the main hook, be it a sample or a melody. There's no point in spending 20 minutes EQ'ing a reverb tail if your drums don't cut it. Do that at the end, if at all! With any luck, once you've got a strong basis for a track down, you might realise that the reverb tail isn't as important as you once thought.

If on the other hand you start a new track every evening, then it's maybe time to slow it down a bit, and work on something until it's fully ready. When working like this, there will be plenty of ideas and sketches that don't make it into the final arrangement, and sometimes dead ends where you scrap a whole big chunk of the tune and start over. To do this, you need to use one of the hardest skills to acquire in music - that of listening to your work critically and objectively. You need to be able to step outside the 'creating' bubble for a moment, and instead of thinking 'do I like this lead/breakdown/bass?' consider 'does it do what it needs to do?'.

One good way of getting into this mindset is to get a friend round and play them the beat - if you find yourself apologising for the track, or saying things like 'wait for the next part, it's great', then you know you need to go back in. And before you try to argue that you'd get bored working on a track for so long, remember that if you can't listen to your eight-bar loop for three days solid, then it probably isn't good enough! So at this point you need to be ruthless; cut out the bits that don't quite work and try again. It will be possible to create a good finished article, so long as you have the discipline to make it work.

So, there are two basic ideas for writing - keep to the bare bones of an idea, finish it quickly and let it be seen in a basic form, or spend time working and developing it until it's as good as it can be. Both sides have their disciples, and both can be equally rewarding - so maybe it's time to switch up your workflow, and try a new angle on production!

Bring The Hype Into Your Tracks!!

It's the hands in the air moment; that point where the music drops down, the beat falls away, and the track winds up the crowd into a frenzy - the build-up. It's often the centrepiece of a track, especially in house, trance and electro music, so it's something you need to get right. But when it all comes together, it can be the making of a track. So let's go in deeper with some tricks of the trade that will help you bring the crowd to a frenzy!

Before we start though, let's get one thing straight; you need to dispense with subtlety. Less is not more. The more hype, the bigger and the crazier the better. An understated build-up is basically a contradiction in terms, so remember to go all-out when you do this.

So, when writing, you need to first consider that it's all about contrast. A build will always sound bigger if it follows a sparse, minimal section - and you'll want to drop the track down anyway, since you're probably coming from a driving beat into your breakdown. Listen to some late 90's trance by the likes of Ferry Corsten and Paul Van Dyk for some classic examples of this (they're very cheesy but structured perfectly!); the tracks often drop down to complete silence before the build up emerges. This serves two purposes; one, the crowd gets their breath back and a chance to prepare themselves for the build. Two, the build sounds much bigger when it comes from complete quiet, amplifying the effect of all your careful production.

There are plenty of tricks you can use to bring in your sounds. First, and most obviously, is volume. If you're coming from a quiet section then you don't need to slam in your lead harmonies at full whack; bring them in gradually, and the simple fact of the volume increase will help intensify the build. At the other end of the build, when it's at its peak, don't be afraid to crank the volume of certain parts even higher than they are in the main track - this may be a technical no-no, but it'll all get compressed at some point anyway; and for the last four bars of the build no-one's going to be worrying about a slight lack of clarity when they're busy reaching for the lasers.

Next up is filters. Low-pass filter your lead lines, and gradually turn up the cutoff to increase the intensity of the sound. Simple! Anything with distortion on it sounds great with the resonance turned up too - the high harmonics will really squeal. But don't neglect the high-pass filter - these are very effective when used on kick drums and basslines. The sound of a descending cutoff on a kick-drum roll increases the energy of your track in just the same way as a rising low-pass; so be sure to use plenty of filter action.

Which brings us neatly onto drum rolls. These are not only effective, but also great fun if done properly. Stay away from the old faithful of just going from crotchets to 8th notes to 16ths - it's been done a million times and isn't particularly interesting. Instead, program something a bit funkier, a bit more stuttery, to keep people hooked in. Fade the drum roll in, make the MIDI pattern increasingly busy as it goes along, and think about playing around with the sound too - automate things like pitch, panning, even volume envelopes (try a very short decay with sustain at zero, and then slowly increasing the deay time). But drums aren't the only thing you can 'roll' - try taking a single syllable from your vocal sample, or a snippet from your lead riff, and loop those up. Or even bounce down your whole track and loop that up, kick drums and all, using shorter and shorter loops for a crazy but huge sound.

We've talked a lot about increasing things as the build goes on - volume, filter cutoffs, intensity, but there are other things you can try too. Effect sends, for instance; put a reverb plugin on a buss and gradually increase the send level to this buss. Try it with your synths and pads to make a huge spacious effect at the end of the build. Again, you may lose clarity, but this is rave energy we're talking about here, not delicate piano subtlety. Remember - more is most definitely more!

Don't forget about some of the classics, too, like the high-pitched rave-string. This one is simple but always works - just fire up a strings patch in a sampler (usually, the ropier and cheaper sounding the better) and play a high octave of your root note. Whack a load of stereo spread, phasing and reverb on it for extra bigness and let it sit above your build-up to create that kind of tension that only high strings can do. Need some extra anticipation right at the end of your build? Then just add in one bar of silence right at the end, before your tune crashes back into the main groove. Again, you won't win prizes for innovation with that one, but there's a reason it's a popular trick; because it works! On a similar tack, you can also experiment with the "fake ending" - bring things up to such a level that it sounds like you've hit the climax of the build, but then drop them down a touch, and bring everything even higher for another 8 bars or so.

Finally, once you've got all that in place, you can turn to the essential riser. Used well, these can turn any build into an insane rave meltdown - they are the icing on the cake and should be added in once you have all the other elements in place. You have plenty of options here - a simple rising pad can work, or a siren sample. A very popular one is just white noise - filter it, get plenty of stereo width on it, sidechain it off something to give it an interesting rhythm and it will fill in all the gaps left in your frequency spectrum. This is also somewhere that keen sound-designers can really get moving - program those synths to make the wildest rising sounds possible. But for the rest of us, sample packs are a very good option here. For a bit of pocket money you can usually grab a pack with enough complex, interesting risers to keep you in build-ups for years!

So, the world of the build-up is something you need to get to grips with if you want your breakdowns to really do damage on the dancefloor. But it's also somewhere that you can get very creative once you've mastered the basics - the possibilities are almost endless. So don't just sit there - get working on those kick rolls and risers, and bring the hype into your tracks!

Looking for the essential sounds to create an epic hands in the air moment? Look no further! Check out Epic BuildUps & Breakdowns 1 & Epic BuildUps & Breakdowns 2 for impressive results!