Melodic Techno and House’s captivating aesthetics transport listeners on an emotional voyage. It comprises hypnotic percussion, memorable arp sequences, beautiful soundscapes, and simple yet effective baselines. In the following tutorial, I’ll demonstrate how to make a melodic Techno drop FX.
As an illustration, I have prepared a short sequence in our SoundBridge: DAW, which contains most instruments of the entire mix. Let us listen to it.
~Full Mix – Without FX
Start By Creating a Soft Synth Sequence
As you can hear in the audio example above, I created a solid sequence in which I purposefully left the part before the drop a bit empty, and this is the part I will fill with the FX. Melodic Techno is distinguished by moving synths controlled by an LFO, in addition to the elements mentioned in the introduction to this tutorial. The LFO could then control the filter cut-off, the sequence speed, or some other aspect of the sound. I’ll use a similar technique with reChord, a versatile arpeggiator plugin.
To begin with, select any soft-synth plugin of your choice and use it to create a long note in the track’s root key. I’ll then stretch this note throughout the break in the MIDI editor.
~Melodic Techno FX – Long Note (Unprocessed)
Add an Arp to Make a Melodic Techno Drop FX
Following the above step, I will insert a new instance of reChord on the channel effect rack as you can. See the image above the synth. The first thing I want to do in reChord is turn off the sync option because I will automate it. The “Gate” parameter will be the next to be automated. By controlling these parameters, I can control the speed of the arpeggiator sequence and decay of the triggered notes.
~Melodic Techno FX – ReChord Parameters Automated
Add Reverb
Finally, I’ll place a reverb effect at the end of the effect rack and automate its Wet parameter to spice things up and better blend our FX with the other elements in the mix. Let us then hear it solo and in the context of the whole mix.
~Melodic Techno FX – ReChord Parameters and Reverb Automated
~Full Mix – Melodic Techno FX (Fully Processed)
If you liked this article about music production, here are some more on the same subject:
