Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to lesson eight in the EDM unit.

My name is Mr. Chapman.

And in today's lesson, we're going to be exploring the breakdown, build up and drop sections of EDM music to try and help us answer the question, what musical ideas can create excitement in EDM music? I'm going to be doing some listing.

I'm also going to be doing some composing on BandLab, and that's where you'll see the most of me.

Without further ado, let's take a look at what we need in this lesson to be as successful as possible.

For our do now, let's try and put the following sections in the correct order.

We have the build, A Section, drop, another A Section, breakdown and mix-in.

Spend a minute or two trying to arrange these into the order that you think would be most appropriate for an EDM track.

Hopefully you got something that looks a little bit like this.

We have the mix-in, followed by the A Section which we looked at in lesson seven.

Then we have a breakdown, build and drop section with the A Section that repeats.

What's the difference between a mix-in, and this breakdown, build and drop section.

Again, take some time to write down what you think the difference would be, and hopefully we can answer that in a little bit more detail in the next couple of slides.

Finalising the structure of your dance track.

Below each section, I've written a little bit about what happens in that section.

We know that the mix-in is a gradual layering of different ideas.

The A Section is the main musical idea and a full texture with a complete drum beat.

The breakdown is a sudden thinning of the texture.

So it's a removal of some layers, which may include all or most of the drum beats.

The build section is gradually introducing some of those ideas or fragments back into the mix.

We can maybe be using effects and adding a kick or a snare again gradually.

The drop then is sort of the climax of the song just before the return of the A Section, and they may or may not be a one bar gap for added impact.

Active listening.

You will hear the buildup and drop sections from two different tracks.

First, you will have "Faded" by Alan Walker, and then you will have "Bounce", by Calvin Harris featuring Kelis.

What I would like you to do is write down the three techniques used in the build up and drop sections for each track.

Focus on the musical elements.

You may talk about texture, instrumentation.

You may talk about the dynamics, or the way in which the artists and producers have manipulated some posts perhaps.

Breakdown, build up.

These sections play with the texture to build momentum towards the climax of the song, the drop.

Extra ingredients include: automation to gradually increase the volume, a snare build, and a white noise filter.

So now we have the ingredients, let's pop over to BandLab, and put all of this into action and make our own breakdown and build up section.

Using music software.

You can create music using audio mixing software.

The demonstrations in this lesson use a free programme called BandLab.

BandLab is for use by over 13s only, and if you are over 13, you still need permission to use it from your parent or carer.

So here we are over BandLab.

We are currently in "My Library" because I want to open up the project that I had in lesson seven, which was my mix-in in section A so I'm just going to edit that, which I encourage you to do, but you can start over, that's okay.

Once you get to your library, if you click the three dots on the project that you want to open, mine is called "Mr Chapman's Sick EDM beat with a flame emoji", of course you can open that in the mix editor and it will load up your track from last time.

I will zoom out so we can see what we did last time.

We don't need that.

Here was the track that we had last time.

We will give it a listen in a second.

Just a quick recap.

We had this piano idea at the beginning and we were doing a mix-in in section A.

So my section A lasts for eight bars, and my mix-in is 12 bars currently.

After about four bars, we had the kick pattern come in, and then we slowly introduced other layers until we have the full section as section A.

So we'll just quickly listen to that, and then we'll talk about how we're going to turn what we've got now into a breakdown, a build up section, and the repeats of the A Section.

We'll try and do it in as few steps as possible so it's nice and easy to follow, and so that can get your track into that larger structure as quickly as possible.

Let's hear it from the beginning.

I'll turn it up so you can hear it nice and clearly, and here we go.

We had a little bit of overspill which was that pop and snap down here.

So I'll just quickly edit that so it's all nice and neat.

So that was our mix-in and A Section.

So what's our first step in making this into a breakdown section.

So what do we need to do? Well, the first thing we need to do is thin out our texture.

Currently we have everything playing.

For a beat breakdown section, we want one, maybe two instruments.

So our first decision to make our first step is to decide what we want to continue.

Now, it makes sense for it to be the piano, of course we could continue the piano, but then my thoughts are in this piece specifically is that it's going to sound too similar to the mix-in, it's going to sound too similar to the interest, I'm not going to repeat the piano.

What I'm going to repeat instead is drum roll is going to be I think the stand up high bass.

So let's just remind ourselves of what that sounds like.

I solo the track by clicking S.

I'm going to just leave that a little bit more.

I'm not going to be too specific right now 'cause we're just going to build up.

What else would I like to do? I would like to continue the hi hats as well.

Let me get rid of that so you can see more of the screen.

So I'm going to continue that on as well, and maybe for good measure, I'm going to repeat that, this sort of sweeping white noise filter sound as well, which sounded like this.

And it builds back up as we saw last time, but what I'm going to do is not that clever, but I'm just going to copy and paste that over and I'll zoom in a little bit so you can see more easily.

I don't want it to build up just yet because this is the breakdown not the build up section.

So what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to chop it in half like that, and that's going to give us the effect of it decaying and not building back up.

So let's hear what we have so far in this breakdown section.

So let's go from just before the breakdown and then the breakdown so far, with all of the instruments.

Okay, great.

Do I like that? I'm not sure if I do.

Yeah, I do.

Something wants to come in there.

I think it's got to be the kick drum, but before I loop that, why don't you then pause the video and try and get to the same stage.

Decide what you want to carry on.

Pick one or two things maximum and have them loop over.

So for me, it was the hi hats and the bass, and just for a little bit of extra spice, I put on that sort of the filter sweep thing.

You don't have to do that.

If you did pick that last time or you want to find it in the loop section you can.

There's a quick way to find it as we search "edm", and it was in pack 1 I believe, and if you scroll down, they are called risers.

So if it says "Riser", like here "Pong Riser 03" I think that is, might be 02, but you can press, just click on the loop once to hear it and put whichever one you like.

Pause video, resume when you're back into the position that I'm, and then we'll go on to step two.

Okay, step two.

I'm assuming you've paused it, and you've got to the same point that I am.

Now, I was just saying that I wanted to reintroduce my kick drum.

So we had a little bit of a break from the kick drum, but I want it to come back in bar 25.

Let me move my head out the way.

So I'm going to hold out, click, hold, and drag, and repeat it right there.

We can zoom in just to double check that we are in exactly the right position and we're not so.

Good job we did that.

So let's see what we've got.

So this is our breakdown.

And then the kick should come back in.

Good, but it's too, it's not breakdown enough for me.

It's too energetic and it's too loud.

So what I'm going to do is add in some automations.

This is going to be our second step here.

I'm going to add automation to make the kick drum gradually get louder.

I don't want to hear it straight away.

So to do that, I come over to my tracks on the left, I click on the "Show", "Hide" automation button, and I get all these lines and you might think, "Oh gosh, it's going to be scary." It's not, follow what I do and practise, and you'll be okay.

Remember, you can always undo things.

BandLab is quite forgiving.

Basically all I need to do is going to start line.

I could put that on the bottom on an end line or dot, and I can drag that up.

So I want it to end at about zero dB, which means zero decibels.

That's just the standard that all at zero decibels at the moment.

It's a little bit louder, that's fine.

I want it to stay kind of quiet for a while.

So I think that that's pretty good.

And the reason I did three dots there is because I don't want to affect the kick drum that was before.

If I didn't have that, then all of the kick drum would be really, really low and I don't need that.

So I've just put one dot just before the track, and then I've put it down, we've put our end dots at the very end around zero dB, but it doesn't matter too much if not.

Again, we always need to remember to press the automation button again, so we don't make any mistakes, and it's always good practise to just go back and play what you've just edited straight away so you can make any edits there and then.

We can't hear the kick drum yet.

There it is, slowly coming in.

There you go.

Obviously we need to continue the loops of the other tracks which we can do now.

Let's just here keep it looping.

There we go.

So that was the second step, adding automation into our kick drum pattern.

So pause the video, add some automation to your kick drum, and then join me back here.

Pause it now.

Okay, wonderful.

Hopefully you paused it and you're in the same position as me.

We've looped three tracks and we've got automation in our kick drum so what's next? Well, we can start to introduce instruments and loops that we had previously.

And again, it's always nice to make them come in gradually so we can practise using that automation.

Let's have a think about what we'd want to come in next.

I have a sneaking suspicion.

It's going to be something more melodic, but let's have a play around, see what we can come up with.

You know what? That actually might be quite good to come in.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to do the old trick again, so I'm holding out, I'm click.

Oh, that's a space bar.

That's not good.

Click, hold, and I'm going to put it bar 29, and I'm not going to mess up with the automation right now.

I'm more interested in this, I believe, which is our main melody.

So let's have a recap of what that sounds like.

Okay, very nice.

Out, which are we going to aim for bar 29 yet.

Out, click hold and drag, it's 29.

I don't think I put that in the exact right place.

Oh, I did.

Ah, ah.

That's not the right place though, that's not good.

So let's just subtract 29.

Everything is in time? Yes.

Right.

So let's add in some automation.

So what do I do first? Yes, I go and open up the automation panel, then what do I do? Well, I don't want to affect this track here so I put in a dot just before the track, then I put my start dot.

We'll put it down to about -27 and I put my end dots and it wants to be around zero, 0.

5 is fine, 0.

6, whatever.

I'm going to close the tab and solo the track and see what that sounds like.

So I'm going to go just before 29.

Something else must be soloed.

Yep, there we go.

Let's try that again.

Wonderful.

Okay.

So let's get to this space then.

So let's find our melody.

It could have easily been our spiccato strings as well.

But I just started to make it the synth lead and that's fine.

So pick your melody loop, put it into four bars after the kick drums come in or whatever you did last time yet after the kick drum and automate it so it comes in nice and gradually.

Click "Pause" now and do that and then join me back once you've finished.

Okay, good speeding through here.

If you need to pause and go back, you absolutely can do.

That is the nature of these videos.

It's very, very handy.

Let's think about what we want now.

So I'm going to have a look at some more of those risers that we talked about, those white noise risers.

I think there are a few towards the bottom of pack number one.

Yeah, so here they are.

Let's have a listen to all three of these.

Not a fan.

Okay, I like it.

I like it a lot.

Big, big sense of it really building up to the drop, which is what we're aiming for right now.

I wonder are we at that drop point? Are we at that drop point yet? No, I don't think we are.

I think we need to add in a few more instruments.

In what bar is that? Is that 20, 30, something? Let's get rid of that.

What bar are we at now? We're at bar 33.

I think it's about time we introduced more layers in fact, nearly all of them.

I want the piano back.

That was a very important part and we don't want to overlook it.

So let's get this piano back in 33 and let's get this Spiccato back in 33 as well, but what are we going to do, you already know.

We're going to move automation.

Yes.

What that was is because I've copied and pasted and it had automation information from before, it's just copied and pasted that as well.

So I don't actually need to do the automation for that, but I will do the automation for the piano.

So again, I go before the tracks, I don't interfere with the first part.

I set my start dots and I bring it down and I put my end dot towards the end, bring it towards zero.

I close automation and I see what it sounds like every time, just in case I've made a mistake.

I'm going to just continue these loops.

This is going to be a really nice build.

So let's get it.

Let's get it continued.

Loop de loop.

Yeah, we want all of this.

Don't move this time.

We're going to loop.

Is that everything? Of course we want the hi hats.

Of course we want the kick drum too.

So you can hear they're kind of slowly being introduced now.

This is where I'm going to introduce my final white noise sweep.

And the last thing I'm going to do before I hand over to you to finish your breakdown section is I'm actually going to cut my bars short by one bar.

It's going to leave a sort of gap.

Hopefully it's going to surprise the audience or the listeners a little bit, and then when it does drop and everything comes back in, it'll be more impactful.

So bear with me while I just edit this so it's nice and short.

There we go.

All of it? Yep.

Let's go back a bit and hear how that sounds in action.

Building, building.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to highlight all of them and just cut it short to that.

So let's get to that point now.

So we've introduced pretty much everything back.

We've added the automation so that's building, building, building, building, building, building up, and at around bar 50 if you've been following my structure and of course you don't have to do that, but it's recommended, we should be at a point where we're at the climax, we're at the drop and we're ready to do that.

So pause the video there and click "Resume" when you're ready to do the drop and the return to the A Section.

I did a little bit of changing while you guys were catching up, and I've shortened my breakdown section and my build up section, tiny mini beat, and as you can see about bar 44, I've chopped out a bit of all of the tracks apart from a little bit of the white noise.

So like I said, I wanted to surprise the listener a little bit, to have it build up, build up, build up, buildup, and then it goes to complete nothing, and then we have the drop.

I also added to make the drop even more impactful to actually stand up sub base and also a synth pad.

So although it's a repeat of the A Section that we did before, it's like an A plus 'cause we've got a few extra things.

So let's hear what that sounds like from the beginning of the breakdown section all the way through to the start of the repeated A, and then I will hand it over to you to do the final finishing touches for your breakdown, build up and drop sections.

It's a bit of a tongue twister that one.

So here is the breakdown from beginning.

So there it is.

I think it's pretty good.

You probably don't but that's okay.

Yeah, I think as far as the breakdown goes, we reduce our texture, we build it up gradually, we've added automation there, we've added a little surprise for our listener and our section A repeats, and we've got a little bit of extra on there.

So to me that is a success.

So I'm going to give you some time now to try and finish that as best you can.

What you may not have done yet is add a little surprise.

You don't have to do that.

You may not have finished your automation.

You may not have added anything extra for your A Section.

Now, when I literally copied and pasted everything that came in for the A Section around bar 45, and like I said, I added these extra things, but that's how to do it.

Now, if you think you can do better and I'm sure you can, please, please do spend some time, more time than I did, really go through those loops.

You'll find some amazing things in there, and I just know that you'll be able to produce some fantastic beats.

If Calvin Harris or whoever doesn't want to buy my beat then, you know, that's okay, maybe they'll buy yours and you can be rich and famous.

Let's quickly go over to the slides.

Don't forget to save your work and download it if you want to ready to share.

I've saved my project there.

I don't need to rename it so that's all good.

Let's head back to the slides and finish the lesson over there.

Well done and good luck if you still have a bit more work to do.

Create a breakdown, build up and drop section in your EDM track.

Use the video to help you create your own breakdown, build up and drop sections.

Change the texture, use automation and effects to gradually increase momentum.

For a stretch, maybe at a snare build and use white noise filters.

Pause the video to complete your task.

You're free to rewind and watch the video tutorial and click "Resume" when you're finished.

Share your work with Oak National.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.