Nowadays, there are cooler methods for
setting up a breakdown or a new section of
your remix. One of the most popular
transition sounds is the “whoosh,” a synthesized,
four- or eight-measure crescendo
followed by a long release.
The classic, old-school whoosh uses a
noise generator as the sound source,
swept by a slightly resonant lowpass filter.
A more modern approach is to render
a long reverb tail, then reverse it and
copy the reversed portion to the beginning
of the original tail. The nifty thing is
that you can use this on any type of
audio material — drum hits, vocals, horn
stabs, you name it.
Let’s take a closer look at these old- and
new-school techniques using Propellerhead
Reason and Ableton Live.
Old-School Whoosh
Here, we’ll use Reason’s Subtractor to create the sound, since this synth has a classic
configuration that applies to almost any hardware or software synth.
Step 1. Initialize Subtractor’s settings. Then turn on the noise generator and turn
the mix knob fully clockwise so only the noise is heard. Switch Filter 1 to highpass
mode and roll off some of the lows.
Step 2. The sweep for this whoosh is created by automating the lowpass cutoff
frequency of Filter 2. Once you’ve activated Filter 2, lower the cutoff to about 40
to 50 percent and add a touch of resonance to emphasize the sweep.
Step 3. Using Reason’s track automation, select “Filter2 Freq” and create your
sweep by changing the cutoff as the noise plays. In this screenshot, the first four
bars create the rise, after which the sweep fades for the next four measures.
Step 4. By adding touches of delay and reverb, you can expand the ambience and
width of the sweep.
Step 5. For a more overtly sci-fi sound, increase the resonance of Filter 2 to
about 75 percent. Beware when adjusting this parameter, as too much resonance
will take off your head and/or scare your cats.
New-School Whoosh
Since this technique relies on audio, we’ll use Ableton Live to demonstrate the steps. Any full-featured recording app will have similar
tools, so if you use Sonar, Cubase, Pro Tools, Logic, Digital Performer, etc., the principles will be the same.
Step 1. Live’s Drum Machines collection includes classic Roland sounds, so let’s
start with a TR-909 snare. Create a clip four measures long and add a snare hit
on beat one.
Step 2. Now, we apply the reverb necessary for creating our new-school whoosh.
Step 3. Turn the reverb wet/dry control to maximum and increase the decay time to
15–20 seconds (longer if you want a 16-bar sweep). From there, right-click to
freeze the track, then right-click again to flatten it. The result should look like this.
Step 4. Next, move the start point to beat 1 of bar 5, and crop the clip down to
four bars. After that, increase the clip volume accordingly.
Step 5. Use control-d (Windows) or command-d
(Mac) to duplicate the four-bar reverb clip. For the
duplicated clip, use Live’s “Rev.” function (pictured
here) to reverse the sample.
Step 6. Now you’re ready to create the whoosh. Copy both clips to the arrange
window and place them on a single track, with the reversed sample followed by
the forward sample. Hit play, and you’ll hear the two samples with a little dip in
volume (which we’re about to fix) at the point where they join.
Step 7. Trim the two samples slightly. Take a beat or two off the
end of the reversed sample, then cut the same number of beats
off the beginning of the forward sample. Repeat this process
until it sounds right, then butt the two samples together. The
result should look like this.
Step 8. We can now apply some effects to individualize the
sound. Live’s Erosion, Overdrive, and Redux are good for grunging
up the sound. Modulation effects are good for adding animation.
Here, I added flanging followed by delay, then some highpass
filter to make the whoosh blend better in the mix. To really up
the ante, automate one or more of these parameters — or assign
several to a Macro and “play” the knob as you record.