Designing the perfect snare roll build-up

Make your own, and then get it to fit with the rest of your track with some clever tricks

01 > The ubiquitous 16th-note snare roll is a dance music staple. Let’s create one using a basic Ableton Live kit – although these techniques will apply to any sampler and plugin combo. First, lay down a 16th-note MIDI pattern triggering a TR-909 snare from a Drum Rack.

02 > Let’s customise the velocity of our snare notes: draw in some notes at max velocity, and others at a fixed lower velocity, as shown. You can select syncopated notes, or those following your track’s riff, to be louder – this’ll give the snare roll a nice rhythmic effect in the track.

03 > Next, extend this MIDI clip over the entirety of your breakdown section, then load a MIDI Velocity device pre-Drum Rack in the chain. By automating this device’s Out Gain or Comp parameter up over the course of the snare roll, the level of the quieter notes will increase, loudening the snare roll into a flattened ‘wash’ of notes.

04 > This may be enough to give the snare roll sufficient progression, but there are other tricks you can try. How about automating the sampler’s decay over time? This will extend each snare note’s length a bit as the build-up opens out.

05 > If you’re using an audio clip of a snare roll instead of a sampler-triggered one-shot, you can always automate a transient shaper’s attack and/or sustain parameters to customise those dynamics through the build-up.

06 From here, it’s time to customise your stock snare roll with creative processing. Try liberal panning or autopan, automated saturation, modulation effects or virtual ambience to inject some personality into proceedings. Above all, help the snare roll bolster existing elements by fitting its notes into the overall groove.