Question about arranging

[GravityDamage]

For some reason, whenever I make a drop, the different sounds come out choppy and rigid, and don't really flow like they should. How do I remedy this, and make it sound like pieces of a whole, not just sounds placed next to each other?

[Banesy]

It isn't a one shot answer. You have to always setup your synths or samples so that they work with each other. In general, you should take all of your drop parts and bus them to the same FX channel so that they all get the same processing. It isn't just one effect, it is the product of all of your FX that morph your parts into sounding like they are related and glued together. Compression and some dimension FX like reverb and delay help a lot.

Another trick is actually completely not related to your drop parts. Placing some very light ambient content under the drop helps fill in empty space so the drop parts are not dry and isolated sounding. A common one is a crowd audio clip or a light chord in the key of the track. A subtle background arpegiator also helps. Check out Virtual Riot's youtube channel. One of his videos explains this pretty well.

[GravityDamage]

Ooooh, I like that bit about the ambience! I do make my synths sound like they belong, I meant more like, they always sound like one part after another, when I want it all to flow together. Am I explaining that well? But I shall try processing them together, and thanks for your response!

[ChrisPlatow]

Banesy's advice is good. Your response seemed as though you thought he didnt understand what you meant. Or that you found his advice non relevant. But im pretty sure sending all your elements thru the same processing buss would help them blend better. Its either the sound design or if not its probably just b/c your sounds are too dry. I couldnt imagine it being much else. If it still sounds choppy maybe render your drop parts down to audio and mess with the fades.

[Banesy]

The ambience is magic, don't produce without it. You don't need to touch faders as much as I can tell...you add small dimension fx like reverb and / or delay so when part A stops it has a tail. Part B comes in over top of the tail and it is like a micro transition. When you compress that all together, it glues, gels...what ever you want to call it. This along with some constant background arp or ambient noise seems to do the trick.

There is some contribution from the hats on the top end also. Mixes will sound a little dry and separated if there isn't a nice tailing crash or open hat.

[Katharsis]

Try applying the same effect (compression, saturation, etc) to each sound. That helps create harmonic similarities between the sounds.

[Toolman4]

processing all the sounds the same is a great tip. Also keep in mind that writing the 'drop' section should have context and make sense. Things like let the music flow and 'there are no rules' is a way to approach writing a section with lots of edits/chops/glitches/etc...I feel like that when I tried writing songs with the approach that I'd have separate days for sound design and composition, I felt obligated to use not just those that I spent that time creating, but also a bunch of them. I felt like this became a redundant habit for me and have now just stuck to starting from scratch.

As cool as it is to learn how to make a complextro sytle drop, it's basically writing music and that's something that takes more time than anything with this whole computer music stuff. If you think you're able to discern a formula for learning, your music will become formulaic and boring real fast.

If you're hell bent on using your sound design skills, start with one sound. I know you've watched/read tutorials on this stuff....Find that one awesome foundation sound to work with. Now instead of moving towards using another sound, use a different modulation/automated version of that sound. If you got a filter opening up, make one that's closing like a pluck...Use different lfos, sequences,etc...If you work with this, your biggest challenge will be to make the different versions of the sound drastically different enough from each other, but limited in quantitiy. Think of that older datsik/excision/getter/mantis/Bro style....If you can improve your WRITING game with one sound modulated to tell a story, you're going to start to see where you can incorporate different sounds.

The market is HIGHLY saturated right now. If you've witnessed the growth of electronic music in the last 5 years, you'll know how important it is to be original. If not, then resist every urge in your body to recreate your own version of whatever it is you think 'EDM' really is.

[EasyLife]

I get what you mean by the sounds sounding like they're played in 1 by 1 order rather than a coherent chorus and the tricks these guys have suggested really helps, Flow is one of those things I feel comes with experience so adding some ambience to fill in those empty spaces and figure out which sounds fit and which doesn't in the arrangement is a great start.

[Redoken]

I think you csolve this problem only with experience

[bRRRz]

ambience, arp or white noise at the drop will help a lot. also stick your main bass sounds in a bus and apply some effects (like the same type of saturation, reverb etc.) on that bus. that should really help to glue them together a bit more.