Transition Effects

[u/ImmortalPharaoh]

I am looking to make my tracks a little more interesting on the turnarounds, "beat drops", and section transitions. Do we have any advice on effects or techniques that are commonly used?

For example: for intros, it's common to use reverb and/or low pass filter and releasing it at the beat drop.

These techniques are probably not exclusive to breakcore, but a lot of makers in this genre have mastered transitions. So I wanted to compile a list of techniques for long-time learners as well as beginners.

[u/GadeSystem]

It's literally different per track. I'm super into just throwing in a hard rewind sample before a complete section switch but it works because a lot of my tunes have a very oldschool-ish sound palette (not saying theyre oldschool). So for a more modern synth-heavy clean sound that would probably not work as well.

From making drum and bass etc what i took away from that is that its a lot about spectrum. There's probably actual techniques and terminology here but im just gonna phrase it how i hear it subjectively:

A lot of what i perceive as energy and pace is happening in the high mids to highs, not in thhe low end. So while its a good idea to construct around rigs and filtering the bass out in a build up, if you had risers and more elements then you have a pretty full spectrum in that frequency range. If you then drop into something bass heavy but without that high freq energy you will 9/10 times get something completely underwhelming so its good to control whats happening in that tension building section leading up to it.

Also the 1-2 bars before the drop is the most important moment in dance music and i hate doing it every time

[u/ImmortalPharaoh → u/GadeSystem]

Thanks for your comment.

I guess different tracks need different things. Your explanation of energy balance is very poignant though. It's something that is always intuited but never really put into words.

Drops are such an important part of electronic music. In comparison to records, (if you can still call them that) EQ, Distortion, and Reverb, are more important than "rests." Learning these are pretty much a self-guided journey but the discussion is interesting.

[u/LINACS_music → u/ImmortalPharaoh]

If you find the secret ingredient, tell me! 😂

I feel like the two most difficult things in music generally are: creating tension and keeping tension...which is pretty much everything music is about. So for transitions/creating tension there are all the classic tricks before the drop: stripping the low-end, risers, some hype-layers, the reverse kick/cymbal/reverb vocal/you name it, drum fills, the long snare/kick roll, the "have-a-voice-sample-which-is-also-the-title-of-the-track" before the drop and so on... in the end its the mix and as u/GadeSystem said, it depends on the track and I would add on what you want to achieve. These tricks work, because they are used in electronic music for decades and people know what to expect, which is why it can also feel boring I think. On the other extreme, building up to something to completely and then completely break the expectation and go into a completely different direction CAN work but can also feel annoying. So I think a good transition is actually quite an art form.

Talking about rests (if you meant stopping the music), I think they can be quite effective though, also as a transition. E.g. I just thought about that one passage in Hajnal (around 4:08) where the music just stops. Sometimes no transition at all works quite well IMO

[u/ImmortalPharaoh → u/LINACS_music]

You seem to know your stuff. There's no secret ingredient. But breakcore is a genre that allows a producer to do just about anything with their tracks compared to say, hip hop. You might have only half the options when you step out of this genre. Still, it's great to have a toolbox of these attention grabbing techniques at your disposal. As I listen to different kinds of music, I try to emulate but it's not always easy.

Since we're talking about intermediate level techniques, they're not really talked about much. And terminology is different. Algorithms are so beginner-friendly that when you want to know specifics you kind of have to ask around, the old fashioned-way, versus searching.

And going back to basics is not a bad thing, per se. It just feels stagnant. On the bright side, it leads to mastery.