Excitement-building plugins

Are your track’s energy levels low? These tools can help…

Boom LiftFX £100 Mac/PC Specifically designed to inject your arrangement with maximum excitement, LiftFX can handle risers, build-ups, sweeps, falls and other elements of dynamic interest. With a time-oriented interface that lends itself to thinking in tension-building terms, LiftFX is a highly versatile tool. www.boomlibrary.com

Cableguys VolumeShaper $29 Mac/PC The sidechain-ducking VolumeShaper automatically takes control of your kit to modulate the intensity and loudness of each section over time. It’s also easy to shape decay and noise-gates for the kit too. VolumeShaper can also automatically create pulsing rhythms on the fly with its inspired gated-pattern generator. www.cableguys.com

AIR Music Tech The Riser $129/£96 Mac/PC As we’ve stressed in the feature, it’s those transitions between sections that need the most consideration when arranging, and The Riser is a perfect tool to craft those hairon-end rising sonic shifts between your track’s core moments. A synth-based instrument that also includes over 300 presets. www.airmusictech.com

Oeksound Soothe 2 £175 Mac/PC Something we recommend on a daily basis. Soothe 2 has great applications when it comes to bringing the vibrancy of your track to the fore, even at a pre-mixing stage. Taking out some of the harsher resonances on the fly can help smoothen out your track prior to your big drop. It’s hugely useful for managing any untoward energy build-up on a sonic level. www.oeksound.com

Valhalla Vintage Verb $50 Mac/PC We’ve talked about making things appear bigger and more epically scaled, so what better than a reverb plugin that goes beyond what most are typically capable of. Vintage Verb has been around for a decade now, but is revered by many producers for its natural sounding flavour, and the huge array of space-tweaking you can employ to get the right sound. www.valhalladsp.com

Native Instruments Massive £129 Mac/PC A soft-synth classic, Native Instruments’ Massive is also a limitless tool for generating the types of white noise which some EDM producers swear by when hand-carving their own risers and sweeps. Any synth with intricate LFO-shaping ability can be used, but Massive remains the MVP for many producers. www.native-instruments.com