Transition Tools
In early 2017 we asked our trusty samplecrafters to assemble a suite of transitions, risers, swells and other arrangementbolstering goodies. We’ve made these available to download once again…
Can you feel it in the air, readers? So can we: a change is coming. As economies falter, institutions crumble and hatred divides the world, many think we’re heading into World War III. And while we wait under our beds for a huge white noise swoosh and an equally massive impact, let’s spare a few moments to consider how life imitates art.
Transitioning between sections of a song is at its most effective when you give your listeners an indication, and with this huge free sample pack, you can rain disaster down onto the established order and push your track into a new direction. Build up a wall of atonal noise, scorch the musical earth with big booming one-shots, and establish a new musical regime on the rubble of the old.
These samples have been created by sample moguls Cyclick and Groove Criminals, and provided you still have a functioning electrical grid, they’re royalty-free for use in your tracks!
Cyclick
Robbie Stamp of Cyclick has provided plenty of whooshes and swooshes to get you in the mood for change you can believe in. They’re arranged in folders by tempo, but it doesn’t mean they won’t fit in any track – speed isn’t an issue when it comes to the wash of white noise.
They’ve all been processed using top-end effects chains, which were changed up for each recording tempo, so no two transitions are alike. “Slap them in where you need,” says Robbie, “but do give them an extra push with more filtering, distortion, delay, reverb, stretching, pitching, and buckets of modulation.”
You can call Robbie out about his ultrafascist sample categorisation policies on Twitter @cyclickbob.
Groove Criminals
Oli Bell’s filled his half of this month’s pack with synthesised sweeps and FX for you to dig around in, all stemming from some über-cool hardware synth sounds.
“For these classic white-noise sweeps, I used a stack of analogue synths including the SH-101, SH-09, Juno-60, Novation Bass Station, and the MS-20 mini, along with a bunch of cool Eurorack modular gear,” Oli informs us.
“Although we kept most of the analogue FX dry, we heavily processed the impacts and reverses so they were ready to be dropped into place with minimal tweaking.” All these sounds are well served for building high drama.
As we’re exploring the depths of arrangement this month, we felt it was a perfect time to give our Transition Tools a second airing…