Automation Builder
Filter sweeps, swells and wobbles for your build-ups, sized to the bar. Shape them or draw them, hear the filter open on a loop, and take them into your DAW as MIDI automation.
Sounds to load your MIDI into
Supersaw Essentials: 25 free trance presets for Vital, the free synth. Leads, plucks, pads and gated stabs, voiced for every tool on this site.
Automation that builds tension
Most of the lift in a trance build-up isn't new notes. It's the same chords with the filter slowly opening, the resonance creeping up, more reverb and delay, and sometimes the pitch rising, until everything resets on the drop. Getting those curves right by hand, bar by bar, is fiddly. Here you set them once, hear them, and drop them in.
Ramp moves from one value to another over the bars you choose. Curve sets how: low values move early and settle, high values wait and rush at the end, the way most filter builds feel best. Ramp, reset on the drop snaps back to the start value when the build ends. Swell goes up and back down, Steps moves once a beat, and Wobble is a synced LFO whose depth grows over the build. Drag on any lane to draw your own curve.
Using the MIDI in your DAW
Each lane is its own MIDI file with one controller: filter cutoff on CC74, resonance on CC71, volume on CC7, expression on CC11, mod wheel on CC1, reverb send on CC91 and delay send on CC94. Pitch bend lanes write pitch bend. Drop a file on your synth's track and map the controller to the parameter (most synths learn it in one click), or convert the clip to automation; Ableton Live, FL Studio, Logic Pro, Cubase and Bitwig can all do that. Set your synth's pitch bend range to 12 semitones and 100% bend is an octave.
Pair it with the Build-up Generator for the snare roll and riser, and the Arrangement Planner for how long the build should be.
Questions
Why can I only hear some lanes?
The preview plays filter cutoff, resonance, volume and expression on the chords. Mod wheel, sends and pitch bend depend on your synth and effects, so they're drawn and exported but not played here.
How smooth is the automation?
Each lane writes a new value every 1/96 note whenever it changes, which is smooth enough that you won't hear steps on a filter sweep. Pitch bend uses the full 14-bit range.
How long should a trance build-up be?
Usually 8 or 16 bars. Shorter builds of 4 bars work going into a second drop, and 32-bar builds suit long breakdowns. Start the filter lower and the curve later for longer builds, so it doesn't open too early.