Bit hard to explain but I'll try my best, my music theory is very self-taught but I understand the basics. It might be already well known techniques but I've only just noticed it myself so its new to me.
I've been studying the aptly named song Intro by Wave Racer.
I'm trying to learn how to create interesting buildups and I found this to be good example to try and break down learn from as it is such is a deliberately exaggerated case of making a buildup intro since the buildup is actually longer than the rest of the track.
I've been trying understand where it gets a lot of its energy from and how I can implement similar techniques in my own stuff by dissecting it piece by piece and trying to recreate it.
It has the standard edm buildup elements such as pitch risers, noise filter sweeps, gradually opening up pads etc. The ticking clock I find really reinforces a sense of anticipation and urgency as if something is about to happen any minute... all really standard stuff used to make an EDM banger ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
But I found that the arguably most important part of the build up is actually the thing I noticed last. It is the simple repetitive melody that is played relentlessly in background throughout the entire intro and my question is what is this technique (if it has a name) and why/how it works, here is what it does:
0:00
It starts of as a pluck just repeating a C note with a single B thrown in to keep it from getting to repetitive. What happens next is what I find pretty cool and at first I couldn't understand why it felt the song was continuously rising in pitch over the entire minute intro yet at the end the background melody was playing notes in the same octave as it was at the start...
0:27
Here it introduces another similar synth playing the notes D and E a major third above the original two notes but at an octave lower so that the pattern becomes the dyads C-E and B-D. It then gradually raises these D and E notes gradually during the progression until they rise to the same level as the original C and B notes.
0:40
It then introduces another synth, a high energy super saw that seems to have its high end gradually swept in. This follows the same pattern as before. Starting at D and E an octave lower and raising it to the original level of the background melody.
It is really simple in the end it feels like the song is constantly rising, higher and higher, but in reality it is just introducing new elements and raising them to the same level as everything else. I'm guessing this particular technique was necessary for this build up as it much longer than normal and you can't keep pitching notes up for 40+ bars because you will probably end up at ultra sound frequencies by the end.
Is this a common technique if so what is it called, or can i find any videos discussions about it and other places it is used.
One of my other questions before I started writing this was:
"why where the notes D and E chosen and how was the notes it used in between to lead up to the original B and C notes chosen?"
so that I can use this technique in my own songs, but while writing this and thinking about it I realise now it probably is just a case of what sounds good and maybe to avoid having any hugely dissonant intervals played simultaneously. All the of the melody notes are in key so almost anything works but it does seems to deliberately avoid playing major 2nds together as that sounds pretty dissonant despite being in key.
I probably answered my own question but as I had typed all of this out already, I'll just post it anyway, might be useful to someone, probably will be useful for me as a reference later on, or maybe someone has more info they can add.
Submitted December 21, 2016 at 05:56PM by Luna1943XB https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/5jmcrk/does_this_buildup_techniquestyle_have_a_name/?utm_source=ifttt