The Drop Thread // How To Make Drops

[OttoMatik]

stop worrying about wobbles/lfos/automation. Just find/make a bass patch but dont wobble it at first, write your basslines melody and musical phrasing first. Then after you have the melody down and flowing right edit the shit out of lfos/envlopes and get creative with your lfo partterns and sequences. DOnt jsut rinse and repeat the same 1/4th wobble into 1/8th wobble over and over. Really cut the midi up over several instances of your bass synth just with different rate variations. THis is how i do my basslines and its just gotten easier. The less i worry about raging face right away and focus on melody and musical stuff then you make that music rage your face off lol. Its easier to fit lfos together when you have the big picture (melodY) sketeched already too.

Mmk thanks for sharing that
Next time i'll try making a sick bass patch and work out making the melody before/sequence before the lfo's and stuff like you said.

[chaotix]

I can't begin to tell you guys how many awesome sounding intros ive made, that i do nothing with because i can't for the life of me ever get a drop sounding right. Not to be vague, I'm talking about in power apposed to the build up. I would show you guys, but I'm almost embarrassed of how bad my drops are ahaha.

Any tips on this? tutorials some of you know about? techniques?

[Basic A]

I'm talking about in power apposed to the build up?

Turn things down, and allow more headroom for louder elements after the drop?

[chaotix]

I think it's more the layering i'm having troubles with.

[e-motion]

Arrangement? Yeah it's the hardest part.

From my personal experience, I can only land a good drop when I'm VERY inspired (those days you get once a week). Also, I only keep 10% of the drops.
All I can say is keep trying, if you fail, repeat. Also, most of my good drops started as bad drops that I corrected a lot to make them good. But don't try to polish a turd you know?

Also, I like to keep a long line of homemade presets/racks/samples ready when I write. I don't like to mix sound design and writting. Never works well.

[chaotix]

Yeah it could be arrangement i'm having trouble with. Here is what i have so far, and i can drop it at all. it's frustrating not being able to progress on what i have. Maybe my transitioning into the drop is what always messes it up for me.

Soundcloud

[Mammoth]

The song doesn't always have to change for the drop.
Some songs just sound better with sub bass added in with no filthy wobs.

[Occupied Error]

why dont you make the drop first than make an intro around it thats how i usually do it, not that iam the baddest man, or just less shit going on in the intro so when it does drop it sound heavy

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

There's no hard and fast rules for arrangement and its completely normal to make lots of mediocre tunes, the good ones come along when they want to, you can't force stuff like that. Just keep writing and try not to worry so much about it not being the most epic tune in the world that grips you by the soul, ya know.

Ever noticed that there is a hell of a lot of tunes out there that are just 'good to listen to' and it's only really a few that completely jump out and smack you in the face. In my opinion its a million times more important, and beneficial in the long run that you just get used to writing tunes, practice out the methodology of it all time and time again. Make 'ok' melodies that have a nice lick to them e.t.c., make decent shit, but draw the line about how hung up you get over it not being what you want it to. Change the perspective and get intimate with the importance of just knocking them out and because your craft will improve even if the material isn't completely 100%. Then when it that perfect tune idea hits you, your in a better place from pumping out tune after tune.

It's too high standards that hinder a prolific work-flow as you spend way to much time procrastinating over minute details and working at a really slow pace to try get everything sounding just right.

Some test was done a while back where they got 2 groups of people that had to write essays for 1 month solid everyday, 1 was told to meticulously craft each essay to get is as good as they could possibly get it, the second group was told to just get them done as quickly as possible. The second group wrote more than the first, firstly, and secondly, the second group also ended the experiment with a better quality of essay than the group that was really trying to make them as good as possible.

There's a huge lesson in that. The more you 'just do something' the more intimate you are becoming with it, the more it embeds into your subconscious, the better your instinct comes into play with it because you get seasoned with the process. There's all kinds of analysis you can pull from this, and it might not even apply to you completely but the point is; stop worrying, or i guess don't try so much to chase that sound and really experiment with the music, as sound, rather than a predefined sound if you know what I mean.

Just give it time, don't stress over shit not being as good as you think it could be so much, make more shit more quickly and in time you'll be doing it naturally. you can't force the tides man.

bit of a rant but meh.

[Versuz]

try layering your midrange bass, fill freqs, add cymbals, crashes, etc. had some trouble with this a while ago this video helped me out a lot

[mikeyp]

+1 for the crashes, i've recently discovered how awesome they can be. mixed and placed correctly they can be huge in making things sound big without being dominant, you might not even notice they're there unless you're trying but you notice something's there

[Altron]

The way you make a drop, and how your drops sound are heavily dependent on what part of the song you work on first. Some people like to make the intro first, and i've found that doing that makes it so that when you work on the drop, it will be more focused around the intro melody (at least in my case). Usually if I work on an intro first, it turns out to be a more subtle and liquid approach when I get to the bassline. If you listen to heavier stuff, like any of the stuff from Rottun Records, I would make a wild guess and say that artists like Excision or Downlink for example, make their basslines first and then focus on the intro afterwards. When you hear a heavy song by them, you will probably notice that the intro has a much more minimal and darker feel for the purpose of leading into the drop.

I can't guarantee this is always true, but from my own work, i've noticed that whatever I focus on first really decides the rest of the song. The big part is just getting your arrangement down. For some pointers, listen to other peoples stuff that you like, and don't copy it, but note where certain things change. Maybe count bars, and see where an artist you like has placed little fills or incidental sounds and whatnot. It really helps get a feel for how a song is arranged, and you can take pointers and maybe try using similar techniques in your own music.

[syrup]

Why the fuck does everything have to be about the DROP?

[e-motion]

Yeah it could be arrangement i'm having trouble with. Here is what i have so far, and i can drop it at all. it's frustrating not being able to progress on what i have. Maybe my transitioning into the drop is what always messes it up for me.

Soundcloud

The sweep is either too bassy or it ends too late. If you want a big loud sweep like that, you must end it before the drop (like 1-bar for example) and give a little bit of silence (with just the delays and reverbs fading away) or the classic vocal sample. Or a highpass rise on the sweep on the last bar.

The DROP feeling is mostly caused by an increase in volume, mostly in the lowend. As someoone mentioned, check Dodge & Fuski tutorials, specially the first ones, some golden tips there.

[Augment]

Yeah it could be arrangement i'm having trouble with. Here is what i have so far, and i can drop it at all. it's frustrating not being able to progress on what i have. Maybe my transitioning into the drop is what always messes it up for me.

Soundcloud

The sweep is either too bassy or it ends too late. If you want a big loud sweep like that, you must end it before the drop (like 1-bar for example) and give a little bit of silence (with just the delays and reverbs fading away) or the classic vocal sample. Or a highpass rise on the sweep on the last bar.

The DROP feeling is mostly caused by an increase in volume, mostly in the lowend. As someoone mentioned, check Dodge & Fuski tutorials, specially the first ones, some golden tips there.

Yeah, highpass it and end it a bar before the drop, it will all make sense when you try. Really nothing else that has to be done

[Electric_Head]

Yeah it could be arrangement i'm having trouble with. Here is what i have so far, and i can drop it at all. it's frustrating not being able to progress on what i have. Maybe my transitioning into the drop is what always messes it up for me.

Soundcloud

don`t bring up the bass before the drop.
Drop the bass in volume or remove it totally.

[Immerse]

Why the fuck does everything have to be about the DROP?

good question, i find myself spending the least amount of time out of anything on the drop. more focused on the groove and overall "head-nod-ability" of the track

[acrap]

Let me start off by saying that dubstep its my favorite genre of music i have been producing for about 6 months but it intimidates me to open up my sequencer now a days. i've gotten some advice from you guys before in exploring, listening and trying to create other styles of music which would ultimately help me with making dubstep. I've tried making some trance and progressive house which all seem to be pretty straight forward. the problem i seem to have is understanding how to make a clever dubstep drop with a billion midranged filthy bass sounds going all over the place with the occasional melodic fill. There's some sort of underlying order to all of this because it sounds good to my ear. I'm referring to artists like dillon francis, tim ismag, bassex, and ESPECIALLY helicopter showdown. I've tried imitating what i hear by ear but there's just so much going on i cant even begin to grasp whats going on. If anyone can give me some tips or videos that have worked for them when building the actual drop section i'd really appreciate it and please let me know if i'm not being specific enough. Thanks.

[ehbes]

Make a bunch of synths and bounce each one down then Load tem into a sequencer them make you bassline

[acrap]

that didnt really help at all