EDM Buildups – Rising Pitch Lead before the “Drop”

In EDM music, builds create tension that usually leads into the BIG drop. A floppy buildup without enough tension can really ruin an otherwise good record. Listeners love to be teased with a juicy buildup so why not give them what they want? In other words, in EDM music – the buildups is what I would call the foreplay before the big release. 

There’s many ways to build tension towards the drop (the part where people start to go crazy and jump with their hands up). In the following tutorial we’ll showcase how to create tension using a rising pitched lead. A synth riser usually consists of a single whole note, held in root position with some pitch modulation to create the sound building/going up in pitch. Additionally we’ll create some width to fill out our left and right channels.