STUDIO STRATEGIES

Ed:it designs and processes a percussive hook

A catchy dance track is defined by its core melody or lead. However, I usually like to keep things fairly minimal and steer away from obvious melodics – instead, subtle musical parts and distorted basslines combine to form my musical foundation.

Nevertheless, a lead synth can be exactly what’s needed to hook in the listener, and a ‘percussive’ melody can help support that minimal feeling by creating both rhythmic and melodic interest. You can hear this a lot in early 90s rave/jungle and 00s drum ’n’ bass: beats and bass do most of the work, but a catchy musical percussive sequence rides over the top.

As you may have guessed, this is exactly what I’ll be creating in this month’s Studio

Strategies session. To design my basic sound, I’ll combine synthetic layers from Prologue and Albino 3. After that, a selection of processors will take the raw signal into more characterful territories: I’ll use delay feedback to create movement, chorus for subtle fluctuations in pitch, then room reverb for space and width. Experimenting with unusual effects and automation can generate great results.

Leads like this can also come into their own during a breakdown or rising intro. I like to build different versions that I can use throughout a project: try switching up timings, note lengths and FX.