The drop!

Thin and crispy

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well, imo probably the most important part to a track, but im terrible at making drops, any1 have hints? tips?
making the perfect rolling drums? the suspense building risers? and all other ingrediants!
 
if you find a nice, long descending cymbal FX with good stereo movement and then reverse it you can make some sweet risers
 
for me its different every time, but a few things renain the same.

If you want the drop to have force, you can use just a few hits' worth of quiet before it hits.

Kick rushing is getting a bit meh but a classic style if you can think of anything else that works.

lowpassing your drums and gradually bringing them up is another classic.

Free analog synths (like Elek7ro) are nice in creating simple risers - use a large glide and monophony, and make notes that are always higher than the last one and overlapping each other.

Speeding up an LFO on a pad/lead sound is cool.

And one more nice trick: reverse a sound you have in the track, apply a huge reverb to it with 0% dry sound and reverse that. Nice little rise isnt it.
 
I too suck at drops! I find sometimes the simple things work well, like a reversed crash cymbal, with some nice reverb and delay attached to it. Other times, a nice string / pad sound with pitch bend attached to it moving it up a couple octaves ovar a 16 bar period works well.

Occasionally I've been known to throw in a reversed 8 bar drum loop before the drop to help build anticipation. Also, as Kama has already suggested, a couple bars of silence before the drop can help highten the impact.

You could even throw all these together if you wanted to!
 
a half bar of silence can really make or ruin a tune, but if used well this can make a drop huge

also, guess it's kind of cheating, as your not doing it musically, but you could always dip the gian down a db or so in the build up, then raise it back up for the drop
 
filtering bass is another way to make your drops- but i am a big fan of a bit of silence right before the push
drum rolls are kool if done right- some toms and kicks pitched diffrent ways can be a good build
just depends on the tune really
 
Toms work also. I've used a lot of 'real' drum fills, i found a breaks pack that had solo's and drum rolls a plenty, so i sample those a lot to get a real feel to them instead of a machine-like groove. I'll see if I can dig that up and link it to the sampleswap thread.
 
it can help to think completely out of the box too. like, what if you bounced down a few bars of the whole track at its fullest, reversed it, automated a low pass and reverb so it sounded like it was being sucked away from you, let it go to a few counts of silence and BOOM...just my first idea...

---------- Post added at 18:44 ---------- Previous post was at 18:41 ----------

also, i think having a single big snare hit right before the drop can be really effective
 
The drop is all about psychology: you've got to put in audio signals that EVERYTHING IS GOING TO GET LOUD. I think the best drops create tension that steadily builds gives the audio clue that the drop is coming and then draws out that moment when you think it's going to drop just a little bit longer than you'd expect. Hell I've got this record (can't remember which one of the top of my head) which has a fake drop - it goes for the kick roll but instead of dropping goes into a HPed beat then drop later on.

Some of the classic techniques (some have been already mentioned):
Kick rolls
LPing/HPing the drums (or BP sweep)
Rising sounds/filter sweeps of white noise
Use of silence/letting delays or reverb tails ring
Cymbals
 
I like to gradually bring in a low cut at around 200 that is in full force just before the drop. Then when the bass kicks in the bass really kicks in.
 
The most important part of the drop is the drop itself not the build-up to it. It you are dropping into something solid then you can stick any old shite in the build and it will sound good. If your drops don't sound heavy enough or you are having to do things like turn the levels up when it drops etc then more than likely there is a problem with the content not the style.
 
If you make your buil up riser etc etc. say if you have a reverse fx cymbol. put it though a lp filter. and for however long fits the tune filter it down just before the tune drops. so its like builing up and building up. then BAM its all pretty much gone then before you even realise its smashed you in the face agen i meenin like 1/2 a bar or a 1/4 bar. hope it helps
 
for me its different every time, but a few things renain the same.

If you want the drop to have force, you can use just a few hits' worth of quiet before it hits.

Kick rushing is getting a bit meh but a classic style if you can think of anything else that works.

lowpassing your drums and gradually bringing them up is another classic.

Free analog synths (like Elek7ro) are nice in creating simple risers - use a large glide and monophony, and make notes that are always higher than the last one and overlapping each other.

Speeding up an LFO on a pad/lead sound is cool.

And one more nice trick: reverse a sound you have in the track, apply a huge reverb to it with 0% dry sound and reverse that. Nice little rise isnt it.

this post kills it
 
Just found this site, first impressions are good!

On the drop... some good tips above, one thing we always used to struggle with was the impact of the drop. We would make an awesome build but would then struggle to get anything to follow it. So now we start writing at the point of impact and work the intro back. Its easier to cut things away and the old saying stands, less is more. Big sounds have big impact, try dropping something like a big tom or phat kick on just the beginning of the drop and only again when the need arises, this will heavy up the point of impact. Original is best but sometime the classic techniques such as mentioned above just need to be used, the drop is the one thing when I buy records that is ultimately the decisive factor and imo is the one thing worth taking your time over.

JtB


www.soundcloud.com/biteandgouge
 
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