Putting a drops in songs

[jbeard]

Hey all,

What vsts/plug ins do you use and in what way to help make drops in your songs? I'm working on a track at the moment that needs a build up and drop but can't get one i like so getting ideas...

thanks

[awesome88]

do you mean breakdowns and build ups to a drop?

[LabRat]

If you're after those white noise builds then samples are the best. In terms of a drop after a breakdown, you can create the illusion by bringing the levels down slightly before the drop so when that comes in it sounds bigger

[jbeard]

Yeah sorry not sure of the proper term, but when the build up comes in to sound big then the 'drop' happens and every dances their nuts off.

ok thanks for the advise, just trying to suss out what the main technique was

[Bonz]

so many ways....

99 problems and a DROP aint one.

in some cases even a small amount of silence before the drop makes it alot heavier.

[jbeard]

haha bonz, silence then saying '99 problems and a drop aint one' would actually be a sweet drop!

thanks but

[CBG]

a drop comes down solely to arrangement. It's probably the hardest thing to master

[jbeard]

Is there some sort of tips for my arrangement you could share? I am only just getting good at making solid synth leads and such so i'd say i am a fair way off.

[CBG]

best advice id have is to just listen to lots of music and see what the pros do. every drop has a context within the track.

Heres one ive done, listen at about 2:30

Lucifer's Lullaby **PREVIEW** by Chris Gould

[Bonz]

haha bonz, silence then saying '99 problems and a drop aint one' would actually be a sweet drop!

thanks but

hehe no worries dood.

also depends on what kinda genre u makin...in some ways.

[jbeard]

mostly focusing on dubstep, but with bits of everything!

[JonnyB]

with dubstep, a way you can make is have your intro down etc etc. then after 16 bars start your build, take out all the kicks or even all the drums, and just leave the synths playing, with some whitenoise 'sweeps' after 8 bars start to make the synth's rise in pitch, and bring in a kick build...like have a kick every 4 beats, then make it quicker to 1 every 2 beats, then to every beat then to every half beat, every quater, getting faster and faster etc etc. then on the 31st bar bring everything to a silence drop in your vocal hook or just have a real loud punchy snare snap on the 3rd beat of the 31st bar and then drop the bass on the 32nd making a nice 32 bar intro *around a minute understand?

[Bonz]

^^^^listen to jonny, he knows what his doin.

[jbeard]

Jonny thats perfect, thanks man. cant wait to get home and try. I love hearing how people actually set their tracks out, it gives me so much more understanding! cheers again +1

[street]

i havent made a full song yet coz I have no good patches and not much time to make music, but structure wise, Id go:

intro --> build --> drop --> release --> build --> drop --> --> release --> outro

try sidechaining the synths in the build sections and getting that pumping sound going, makes the drop seem to hit harder I reckon

[JonnyB]

by release do you mean like a bride/interlude thing?

[dim]

best advice id have is to just listen to lots of music

THIS

[street]

I dunno how to explain release, it just comes after the drop section or whatever, where it becomes less intense, less things going on etc. and fuses into the build.

like in this song:

Intro: 0:00-1:00

Build: 1:00-1:30

Drop: 1:30-3:00

Release: 3:00-3:28

Build: 3:28-4:05

Drop: 4:05-5:19

Outro: 5:19-6:19

[Bonz]

yeh i see what u mean...

i call it the bridge though.

important for structure jbeard!

[jbeard]

Thanks for the example, helped heaps to get the idea.

I think im getting the hang of the structure, just hard to put whats in your head into the comp!

[street]

lol, heres my first attempt at a drop, also my first song attempt, or half a song, so its pretty woeful.

1st song by Streetcleaner

[street]

its also not mastered coz I have no idea how to master it, lol. just put it up for an idea I guess :S

[jbeard]

Man good effort! respect

I am going pretty good on my first dub song and will upload soonish.

[ChevChelios]

mostly focusing on dubstep

Dubstep is a sinch.

Corny melody for 14-30 bars, two bars of silence and insert some chav tellin you you to fuck your mother, then bang! Add wobbles, lasers and generic halt-time beats.

In all seriousness though, if you want your drop to have some impact there are a few ways to do it, as said before, structure is key, but there is more.

For a banger:

On the first beat of your drop you're gonna want to fill up as much off the audio spectrum as possible (that is 20Hz - 20 kHz), dont go completely all out and ram every possible noise in there or you're gonna go majorly in the red, but a good recipe for dubstep would be sub bass sweep, big midrange bass, a fairly solid beat and a crash cymbal or some white noise.

For the more musically inclined:

It will come down to chord structure, you'll want the last chord to sound as if it wants to resolve somewhere, for example the 12 bar blues which has been used a billion times (cause it works), you play I,IV,V in C major, V or G feels like it wants to resolve to I, so when you get to the end of your build and the V chord plays into the your I chord it makes everyone feel warm and fuzzy inside, it goes from unstable to comfortable, euphoria ting.

I hope you can make sense out of that last bit, but its hard to explain without writing a billion words.

Put those two ideas together and you have yourself some musical and production genius.

[dim]

^ now thats good knowledge.

wonder how many DJs think that I, IV and V are just parts of the star wars saga tho?

+ rep chev