I have been wondering for a while why his tracks have such moving forward motion. They feel faster than the BPM like when he uses effects in his tracks they don't sound sloppy. You might say he tightens up the timing of effects, audio so and so forth but I think he uses some elements in his mixes that are not heard properly but felt. Do you guys have any ideas on how to make track have that moving forward motion? I know they are properly mixed. But not always he uses things like white noise or ... if you have any suggestions for making track have that moving forward feeling I would be glad to hear it.
Let's make it an encyclopedia of techniques used to make track FEEL faster in arrangement?

 

as always with this type of question; post an example of what you're talking about. I'd venture more than 60% of this site have only the slightest idea what skrillex sounds like

put up a youtube video

 

Have everything half time but with upper percussion (hi-hats, etc) at normal time.

 

that shit is classic

 

It's also true

 

and the other one


He is not doing magic but the track feels fast.You might say use half time or some odd time signatures for percussions, loop them to make them faster. Is there any tricks in his arrangements? or I am just deluding myself to hear an illusion of it being fast?

 

I listened to both.. sounds like he bumping the daw delay increments up for arp elements but bass on time, +1/192, +1/64, then bring it back for verse/hook

 

pretty much

 

Skrillex likes Serum (and me too)

 

Yes and he probably likes kittens too but that is as relevant to the question as what you said...

 

In the second song the snare/rim feels a bit of grid, like it's quantized en then nudged a bit forward

 

I know there are a lot of ways to create motion in tracks now, but as a veteran drummer your hi hat swing has a lot of power as far as the energy of the track. Make sure the hats set really proper in the track. Open hats right before snare. I played in several touring reggae bands and the one drop has no energy if the hats don’t swing forward.

 

i dont see why it feels faster than it is, i see it the other way around.
to me dubstep is pretty much like d&b or any other broken beat, it feels slower than it actually is.
as far as i understand its always fast 160+, so "half time" and beyond, is the way to go.

skrillex doesn't show the real speed all the time, its the opposite.
the moment he does, it pushes everything forward dramatically.

hats play a big role in this but its not just them

btw,what is your daw?

in Ableton (what Skrillex uses) its very simple to apply different grooves, or extract grooves from something else.
or to move an entire track tiny bits (Track delay)
or to loop something in an uneven way to create polyrhythms. this technique generally works well in dubstep
reversing stuff is another way, well there are many ways.

Skrillex is very creative, i like him, his studio is just a macbook on which he makes tracks on the backseat of a driving car.
this means he absolutely knows what heck he is doing, he spend hours and hours for his passion, i don't think you can just learn one trick and get there, its a lot of tiny stuff well put together.

if you want to achieve things like this on a regular basis you have to go through a bunch of tutorials about "Groove" and "swing",
the genre doesn't really matter as long as it is electronic music imo.

then experiment, watch more, experiment, and so on...... till you know how to make Tracks
"move forward"

 

Last edited by a moderator: May 7, 2018

example

 

...

 

Last edited: Jun 4, 2018