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Having a lot of problems creating really nice swooshes/sweeps.etc. to fit a tune. And tbh, I've never really gotten it right. Anyone have any good advice towards creating sweeps and making them fit nicely? I do all the usual stuff - white noise/band passed - reverbed, saturated.etc. but it never sounds so nice and ... I dunno "full".

Try widening it with chorus or some other stereo widening tool?

Edit: Have you tried a short, bright reverb as well? If not, shorten the room size/delay time and up your early reflections (if your reverb will allow it).

go nuts with different effects...flangers, chorus, reverb etc. its just something youve got to keep trying with.
but keep the whole thing quite subtle, otherwise it sounds like arse.

I usually use my sweeps to underpin a transition, as opposed to being the transition themselves. Switch up the percussion, run a white noise sweep underneath it sidechained with a slightly longer decay than usual so it breathes itself in and out around the hi hats or whatever?

Whitenoise always sounds cheesy when I use it, so I just use reverse reverb instead.

yeah that's my problem as well sketchy - good ideas though the rest of you, will give that a go. Flanger on white noise could actually sound rather interesting... hmmm

Modulating comb filters can work well. The beginning of this track uses it (from around 24 seconds). http://soundcloud.com/aneurythm/aneurythm-known

I've been high passing mine with bi-filters anolog hi-pass filter. Sounds gritty/semi aggressive and not cheesy at all. Any anolog style filter will do. or u could use like a analog modled eq. I've used psp noble with results. and instead of reverb I've used like amp modelling. i just throw guitar rig on it and find i nice cab and it gives it a earthier tone. Oh and telephone filter shapes can sound cool.

I make the white noise with my mouth and use the filter on the sample. Like once.

I usually just use reverse cymbals/snares/reverbs, but in the song in my signature I used a standard white noise sweep, and I threw a rotary speaker effect on it and it made this really tense sounding harmonic sweep. I also layered a reverse cymbal on top of it. Also, I haven't done it in literally years (hm thanks for reminding me), but I used to just recorded my breathing and get louder right before a transition.

im all about white noise - band pass filter - delay/reverb maybe some flanger in there as well, seems to work well for me and as was said earlier I usually dont let it stand out too much its mostly a transitional aid in the background.

stereo delay and a heap of reverb, always does it for me.

My 2 tips for risers/sweeps...

Synthesizing with Massive
Add a Massive track in your chosen DAW and draw in a note as long as you want your riser to run for.

Next add an automation lane for one of the Massive macros and make is sweep up from 0 to max during the length of you note.

Now open up Massive and assign that Macro to anything & everything. Some good suggestions would be oscillator pitches, filter cutoffs, lfo amounts & rates, oscillator & noise & phase amounts, distortion & effects amounts, etc.

Finally add some effects, chorus/flanger/phaser are good, along with reverb or delays.

Time stretching samples
Take a small sample, maybe a cymbal, or a piano note or anything you like.

Some where in you DAW you should be able to pitch bend a sample, apply this bending the pitch up or down as you require.

Now time stretch that sample to the length you want it to sweep over.

Add some effects for width & movement. You can also add layers with subtly different pitch bend curves panned to different places to add some nice width.

Bonus tip
Layer sweeps, take a few different sweeps made with different methods and layer them on top of each other.

the dub lemon wrote: Synthesizing with Massive
Add a Massive track in your chosen DAW and draw in a note as long as you want your riser to run for.

Next add an automation lane for one of the Massive macros and make is sweep up from 0 to max during the length of you note.

Now open up Massive and assign that Macro to anything & everything. Some good suggestions would be oscillator pitches, filter cutoffs, lfo amounts & rates, oscillator & noise & phase amounts, distortion & effects amounts, etc.

Finally add some effects, chorus/flanger/phaser are good, along with reverb or delays.

Thats a siiiik idea. I always do sound design for sweeps separate then like drop them into the track... this way u actually hear what ur making context. sweeeeeeet

wub wrote:I usually use my sweeps to underpin a transition, as opposed to being the transition themselves. Switch up the percussion, run a white noise sweep underneath it sidechained with a slightly longer decay than usual so it breathes itself in and out around the hi hats or whatever?

Exactly what I do, usually to bring in something new every 8 bars I use a sidechained white noise patch to tie the sections together..

To get it sounding 'good' I just add some reverb and chorus try getting the dry/wet balance right or else it may end up sounding a little metallic.

stereo delay, long + short reverb, band pass/reject sweeps.