Transition effects are one of the most common sounds you can hear in electronic music genres nowadays. They include swells, buildups, sweeps, and other effects, which help build a sense of expectation coming towards a certain part of your songs, like the drop or breakdown. The usual approach to making these kinds of sounds is to use previously made samples from sample libraries, or to make your own from different synthesizers. Also, some unique VST instruments have recently emerged, created to help reduce the effort of making FX transitions, give you the ability to customize them, and fit them better in your tracks. In the next tutorial, we will present to you one of these instruments and we will review its possibilities.
We will start by opening an existing project in our SoundBridge: DAW. This project contains all elements of a full mix but is missing some proper uplifter and sweep FX transitions.
For the purpose of this tutorial, we have decided to use a VST Instrument called The Riser, designed by AIR Music Tech. However, you can choose between a few other similar instruments out on the market.
Let’s first hear the actual track from our project without any sounds from The Riser.
~Full Mix – Without The Riser FX
The Parameters
As you can see from the picture above, the Riser interface doesn’t look simple, but it’s actually not too complicated when you start working with it. The main part of the engine consists of three separate oscillators, which are Sweep, Noise, and Chord. You can see them lined up on the upper left part of the interface.
The sweep oscillator has three parameter curves which you can adjust by moving up or down (Volume, Frequency, and Shape). Below the curve window, there is a little slider that controls the amount of the LFO A or LFO B. The Oscillator mode selector underneath that enables a number of oscillation modes.
The Noise generator has similar controls like the Sweep generator above, but instead of Frequency, it uses a Pitch curve.
The Chord generator offers more parameters to control. Below its section, you can choose the OSC mode, Octave, Chord type and Pitch mode.
The top right part of the interface is reserved for controlling the master filter, and main amp. To the far right, there are sections for Delay and Reverb.
Lastly, the bottom-left part of the interface has controls for the two LFO’s, overall Decay, and to the right the Master volume.
That would be the basic overview of the Riser’s parameters and functions. Now it’s time to build a transition with it! We will add three different uplifter, sweep and downlifter sounds throughout our track. Guaranteed, you will hear the empty spaces being filled the right way.
Transition sounds
~The Riser – 1
~The Riser – 2
~The Riser – 3
~Full Mix – With The Riser FX
The great thing worth mentioning about The Riser is that you can increase or decrease the sweep duration by going up or down octaves on the keyboard. Also, you can tune the sweeps, fades, and modulated risers to the root key of your track. This is a great time saver for building your transitions!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1e0Lwykkt784ScFMXh-J8tgk79RcFFr2W/view
