5 replies to this topic

[Marky]

Hiya.

I have a track that's 90% finished, but I've been struggling with the build up out of the breakdown. This track is clearly the best work I've done so I don't want to ruin it with a crappy build up.

I've not finished many tracks at all, so I don't have a lot of experience to draw on in making good builds. Just other tracks, really. I remember how overdone and irritating snare rolls were by the turn of the century - seemed every bloody record in the late 90s had one. I know filter-swept white noise has been popular for quite some time now – but I kind of wonder if that’s not a bit "done", like the snare roll.

The breakdown of this current track needed something, so I added a filter swept, side-chained white noise build, with sends to reverb and delay, but it still doesn't feel right. It feels slapped on, “she’ll do”, rather than made specifically for the track.

So… what tips can anyone offer on making cool build ups? How do you choose what’s right for the track? And how do you go about refining the build-up to make it work better with the track?

Cheers

[Woot?]

Hey Marky,

I'm in a similar situation to you at the moment. I found this pretty cool tutorial on youtube re making build up FX. I've been using a similar method to the first one for a while, but using an element of the actual track (synth/vocal) as the "trigger" sample for the long reverb tail, so that it sort of blends in. Adding in the automated filters and pans gives variation, and changing the timing of the automation before and after the drop changes it up even more. Should post some examples of your experiments too.

Here it is:

The dude goes through it pretty quick - seems like he knows what he's on about





(EDIT - no [media] tags required anymore, just link and you're away... - Spec)

[Spectrum]

^^^ Great video, Woot!

I must admit I've reached for many a laser to the beat of snare drum roll in the 90s... like this gem way back from 1993.



And yeah, agree wholeheartedly that white noise is very much the new snare roll, and just so way over done in its raw form. But that's what progo is all about these days, yeah?!

So what do I like to do?

1) Lots of reverse cymbals, drums, or synths, reversed, bathed with plenty of reverb, reversed back the right way again (so the reverb tails lead into the sound), crossfaded with the original sound again at the peak, again with more reverb.

2) Exchange reverb for delay, synced to the BPM of the track, reversed so the echoes rhythmically fade in from nothing (rather than fade out to nothing), and add more cavernous reverb.

3) Experiment with granular sound effect tools, grabbing snippets of sounds from your track (to retain context, kinda like where Woot is coming from), then let it spit out a few minutes of random sonic clouds of whooshes and swirls, snip out the most exciting bits, stick it into the effects chains of example 1 and 2.

Looking forward to hearing what other 'Punks like to do.

[Marky]

Awesome. Looking forward to watching those vids when I get time. A 7 months preggers better-half has made studio time a bit of a challenge lately.

I have been playing around with feeding my track through a KP2, and just taking slices from the random noise that comes out. Been using that not so much for build-ups as for mnml tweaky percussive sounds.

I think I need to do some learning on how to use Reverb effectively. I think I'm actually a bit scared of it.

[Spectrum]

Marky, on 24 November 2010 - 02:16 PM, said:

A 7 months preggers better-half has made studio time a bit of a challenge lately.

Big congrats, tho' I dare say, studio time will continue to become thinner and thinner for a while.

[Marky]

cosm video was helpful. will try that out tomorrow if i get time.

and 1st rebirth is a total classic. I have that on a prolekult re-release vinyl here somewhere. Along with other similar era gems like Access (Misjah and Tim) and Are Am Eye (Commander Tom). Ahh the good old days.

Forgot just how heavy on the snare rolls 1st Rebirth was...