What are the most important elements of a professional music production?
It’s a loaded question – and one with no right answer.
Great composition. Effective arrangement. Memorable melodies. A clean and clear mixdown with a final master that competes commercially – all are essential to a professional sound.
However, I’d like to talk about a component that doesn’t often receive a lot of love. Yet, it’s just as important as the aforementioned elements for making your music sound polished, professional, and commercial ready.
I’m talking about transitions.
Transitions are the song’s glue. Transitions provide cohesion between the different arrangement sections and instrumentation elements. Transitions build tension. Transitions release tension. Transitions introduce elements. Transitions remove elements. Transitions are essential. Transitions are awesome.
Listen to any of your favorite artists and I guarantee you’ll discover a masterful use of transition effects. It may be subtle, but assure you it’s effective and deliberate. We all know the ‘8 bar rule’ – the ‘rule’ stating that something should change every eight bars. We don’t talk enough about the effort great artists put into making sure new elements and sections are properly introduced.
“Effects – like risers, and filter sweeps, and cymbals…To be honest, they are a really big part of my writing process. Sometimes a transition sounds weird, but then I add this filter or cymbal swell and it just works… It actually makes a huge difference in my songwriting. The song has to be great of course. The song has to make sense. But it really helps… that’s the beauty of production.”
Amateur producers haphazardly introduce elements – the result is abrupt changes in the arrangement and instrumentation that sound awkward. Professionals, on the other hand, use effective transition techniques to blend new elements into the mix – the result is the beautiful, cohesive manipulation of energy and tension that makes music awesome.
Transitions are awesome. Now let’s talk about how to use them.
There are a lot of different types of transition FX. However, I break them down into seven main categories. I’m not just doing so for the sake of this article; I find that breaking large production techniques such as this into manageable buckets helps me better understand vast or complex subjects.
Note: I can’t take credit for categorizing transition effects in this way; credit goes to Shane from Echo Sound Works for this method. I highly recommend checking out his stuff – his site is a phenomenal resource for presets, samples, and tutorials.
Anyways, the seven main categories of transition FX are:
There are two types of risers: tonal risers and noise risers.
Like risers, there are two types of sweeps:
So what’s the difference between risers and sweeps? In one word: Length. The word “riser” generally refers to a sound that plays for a bar or more, whereas a ‘sweep’ is generally shorter than a bar. However, note that a lot of times these two terms are used interchangeably by producers since they are so similar.
Many producers often underestimate the importance of quality drum fills in their productions. Fills break up the groove of the song and prepare the listener’s ear for change.
While I could write an entire new blog post on drum fills (maybe I will! Let me know what you think) for now I will stick to some “quick tips” to make your drum fills better:
Ah – filter automation. If I had to choose one of these techniques to use exclusively, it would be filter automation. This tool extremely versatile and sounds amazing when done correctly. Specifically, I find myself always using the following types of filter automation:
Note: The Sonalksis Creative Filter is my favorite auto filter – the low resonances make it incredibly smooth and pleasing to the ear. It currently sells for just $40 which is a great price point for a top-notch filtering plugin.
The name speaks for itself – take an element (often times the one you are introducing), bounce it to audio, and play the sample in reverse.
This technique is extremely prevalent in pop music – and for good reason. It’s an extremely effective way to introduce our ears to a sound gradually.
Making a reversed reverb transition is very straightforward.
Pro Tip: My favorite elements to do this on are pianos and vocals.
I actually start out all of my tracks with a reversed reverb transition effect. The first signal that comes through in a song usually sounds quite abrupt, so I remedy this by adding reversed reverb. Shout out to a music mentor of mine Stayloose for this tip!)
Impacts and sub drops are generally used to bring the energy down – at the conclusion of a drop for example.