Using One Vocal as a Schranz Theme and Rhythmic Hook
Table of Contents
One vocal can connect several parts of a Schranz track. First fit the phrase to the grid and key, then process it for the groove, clear space around it before the drop and reuse a short chop as a rhythmic hook. The listener hears one recognizable idea while the arrangement gives it a different job in each section.
Turn one phrase into a recurring idea
In Turn Up The Bass, we begin with the short “Turn Up The Bass” phrase. We pitch it for the track, line it up with the groove and later turn a few syllables into new patterns.
This connects the intro, buildup, pre-drop and drop without needing a completely new vocal in every section.
1. Fit the phrase before you chop it
In Lesson 20, we start with timing. The vocal was prepared at 155 BPM while our track runs at 156 BPM, so we warp the phrase in Ableton Live and move its important transients onto the grid.
We fit the source phrase to the project, warp it in Ableton Live and build the first recognizable pattern.
Read the course transcript
All right, so module three is done. We went over the Schranz drums. We went over how to arrange an intro. We've done all of our sound design in the drums. Now it's time to move on to the vocal, which in my opinion is the next, or I don't know, it might be tied for first, but really, I think it's the next most important element in a Schranz track because Schranz is very vocal driven. A lot of the best Schranz tracks is just a absolutely insane Schranz drum groove and an amazingly
catchy vocal. And so that's what I aimed for with this track. So this track only uses one vocal phrase and it's chopped up in a bunch of different ways. So if we right click on our vocal phrase right here and do show in browser, this is our vocal phrase. Turn up the bass, turn up the bass It's just a single phrase. So I drug that into our project and made a phrase that goes like this. Turn up the bass, turn up the bass So I ended up pitching it up one
semitone so it would be in key with our track. And all I did right here is I just duplicated it. But there's something important to know when it comes to creating vocal phrases like this. You wanna make sure that your vocal phrases are like right on the grid because in Schranz it helps when everything is just super dialed in rhythmically. So with all of these vocal samples, I already made sure that they're perfectly on the grid because I just want people to like drag, drop and start producing. But you'll notice
that this would be perfectly on the grid if our track was at 155 BPM, but our track is at 156. So Ableton did not auto-warp this. So this sound is unwarped. So when I drag this vocal in, the first thing I'm gonna need to do is figure out its original BPM. So our track is in 156. I'm looking at this vocal phrase right here. I can tell that this is not on grid, especially because the tail of this clip is not ending right on the grid. So I can double click
in here and then I can hit this warp button right here. And when I'm warping vocals, I want to use complex or complex pro. Beats is really good for drums, but warp mode that's best for vocals, in my opinion is complex. And then I wanna go down here where it says BPM. And I wanna basically tell Ableton, hey, this sample was originally at 155 beats per minute. And then if you look, our vocal is actually much closer to the grid, but maybe what we wanna do is get it right on
the grid. And I don't know if I did this in the track, but I'm just kind of walking you through my thought process when I'm doing this in real time in my own tracks. So I would tell the clip, hey, it's 155. So now we have a perfectly, gridded up vocal phrase up here, but we can see that maybe this transient should actually be right here, right on this grid. And if we switch our resolution to 1 16th, you can see that these are the main grids that we want our
vocals to fall under. And right now this transient is not. So I would double click right here. And what you can do is you can click and instead of dragging, if you drag it like this, it's gonna snap to the markers. What you can do is you can hold option and that temporarily turns the grid snapping off. And you can see I can get much, much closer to like exactly where I want it. And I'm gonna do the same for this transient right here. So we can hold option and then
drag this transient right onto the grid there. And so now I'm gonna loop this half bar. Turn up the bass, turn up the bass Turn up the bass, turn up the bass It's perfectly warped. It's right on the grid. And so this vocal phrase would be perfect for starting to chop up and use in your track. So that is how you warp vocals. And what I did here was, let's see, I didn't even warp them over here, but I thought, hey, it still sounds good. All I did for these vocals
was I turned them up a semitone and then I started to chop it up and make a pattern. So the first thing I did was I duplicated this across to turn it from a half bar pattern to one bar pattern. Turn up the bass, turn up the bass And then what I did was I took a little chop right here and I held option and I drug it over here to make a chop just like this. And so if we listened to the full two bar loop, let's turn on the
metronome. Turn up the bass, turn up the bass Turn up the bass, turn up the bass So that is one example of a vocal chop that I made. And you're gonna see that there is a lot more variations as we get throughout the track, especially when we get to the breakdown, the build and the drop. But I am going to go into that when we actually start discussing the drop. But yeah, I just quickly wanted to go over how to find a vocal, how to warp a vocal correctly, and then
just how to like lay out just some type of unique vocal phrase.
Use this order:
- identify the source tempo when you know it;
- choose a warp mode that keeps the vocal clear;
- line up the important word starts with the groove;
- pitch the phrase when the track needs it; and
- listen with the drums before making more edits.
Do not force every syllable onto an identical grid. Keep the phrasing natural while making the important accents feel deliberate.
2. Establish a phrase the listener can recognize
We duplicate the source and add a short chop at the end. The first version stays simple enough to remember before later sections change it.
If your first pattern is already crowded, the next variation will have less impact. Build one readable phrase first. Then you can shorten it, repeat it or leave space around it without losing the connection.
3. Process the vocal for the surrounding track
The dry phrase already works, but it does not sit inside the dense groove closely enough. In Lesson 21, we add Echo, EQ, Pedal and a final cleanup EQ. An Auto Filter stays ready for later movement in the arrangement.
We bypass and restore Echo, EQ, Pedal and the final cleanup so you can hear what each stage changes.
Read the course transcript
So now that we have our vocal, the next thing I'm going to talk about is the processing that I did to this vocal to give it like a gritty, more energetic sound. So first, let's start by looping this two bar section and I am going to play what the vocal sounds like with all the processing. Now let's turn off all the processing and hear what it sounds like. So without the processing, it doesn't sound bad at all. It actually sounds really good. But I remember when I was writing this song,
it just felt like it wasn't sonically fitting in with the rest of the track. So then what I did was I just went in and applied some processing to try to just finesse it into the space I wanted. So let's turn off all the processing again and we're going to turn this on one by one. So first we have the echo. Let's listen to it without the echo. I wanted to give it a little bit of space and a little bit more rhythm. So what I did was I added an
echo and you can find that up here in audio effects echo and then I left it on dotted eighth notes. I'm pretty sure I just left the settings pretty close. The only thing I changed was I turned the feedback down from 50 to 13 and the dry wet down to 15. And so I'm just going to show you what that sounds like with the feedback all the way up where it was before. I think it was at 50. And so the feedback is basically just adding more and more copies of
the original sound. So if we turn this up, it's going to delay out a lot further. And that's cool, but I didn't want that. I actually just wanted like a very tiny amount of feedback. So it almost just sounds like there's that one extra like base. Turn up the bass, turn up the bass, bass, and then that's like it. So then the next effect I added was an EQ eight. And all I really did here was I just took a little bit away from the 200 Hertz range and then boosted
the highs around 2K and 5K. So we can listen to the before and after. And this is what the EQ on. Turn up the bass, turn up the bass. Just a little bit brighter. And I probably did that because our next effect is notorious for like creating a sort of like low fi and more like rolled off high end. And that is pedal. I love the sound of pedal. It just makes things sound like super crunchy and low fi. And pedal has three modes. OD for overdrive, distort and fuzz. Typically,
I'm using it on the overdrive setting because I just think it rolls off the highs and compresses, adds a little bit of distortion, but not in a harsh way. So let's listen to it without the pedal. Now with the pedal. Let's listen to it in context with the drums in this intro. Let's listen without the pedal. Turn up the bass, turn up the bass. You can really hear just how like harsh it sounds. So I really like adding the pedal to keep it nice and crunchy and still exciting, but roll
off a little bit of that high end. And then our next effect we have is an auto filter. And we're actually this this auto filter isn't doing anything right now. It's only applying a little bit of filtering during build one point one. So we're going to skip over this and then we're just going to talk about this EQ eight at the end here. So this EQ eight is cutting the lows that were probably added by the pedal. And maybe it's not even doing that much. It's just rolling off a little
bit. I probably just put it there and was like, doesn't sound bad. It's probably doing a little bit under the hood to just make sure that there's no like errant low frequencies that are, you know, going to cause any phasing. So I just put it there. And that's basically it. There's not a lot of magic going on in this vocal processing, but each effect is doing its very specific job in a in a very like transparent way. So let's turn off all the effects again and we'll listen with the drums.
It just sounds more lo-fi. And to me, it fits better in the mix and sounds more unique. And so that is it for the vocal processing. Really not too hard.
Each stage has a different job:
- Echo adds a small sense of space and another rhythmic repeat.
- EQ adds brightness before distortion.
- Pedal adds a crunchy, lower-fidelity character while softening part of the harsh edge.
- The final EQ removes low material left by the processing.
Bypass one stage at a time. Keep it when the vocal fits the drums more clearly. Adjust the settings until they suit your phrase; a different recording may need a lighter or heavier chain.
4. Clear the pre-drop around the vocal
In Lesson 25, we strip the pre-drop back to one bar of vocal and reversed-kick movement before the drop arrives.
The arrangement leaves the vocal and a reversed kick movement in the foreground immediately before the drop.
Read the course transcript
So for this next lesson, I just want to briefly talk about the pre-drop because there's not a ton to talk about here. I didn't do some overly complex pre-drop, but I just wanted to talk about what a pre-drop is. So we did the build and the build sounds great, but you'll notice there is this one bar of like emptiness or, you know, in this case, just the vocal right before the drop happens. And this is a pre-drop. They're typically anywhere from one to two bars, sometimes half a bar. And basically
this is the section where the vocal theme is typically established. So, I mean, if you're familiar with dance music, you're definitely familiar with pre-drops. It's usually where the vocal comes in right before the drop happens. And it's oftentimes like the title of the track. So in this pre-drop, I literally didn't have anything complicated going on. If we scroll down, you can see all we have is the vocal duplicated. And then if we unfold the kick, we just have this little like reverse kick. And if we listen to just this part,
that's literally it. That is the entire pre-drop right there. But I just wanted to go over it because it is an important part of the song. And having a great pre-drop can be the reason why some DJs play or track. So this is a really important part of the song to think about and not just gloss over. So real quick, I talked about the vocals. Let me just talk about this reverse kick because this is something that is done a lot in like Schranz, especially. I noticed these reverse kicks where
it just sort of has this low end energy sweep that goes into the drop. So all I did here was I probably just took these two files right here and then I hit R to reverse both of them. And then I just cut the transient off there, slid both of these over like this and then applied a fade like that. That's probably that's probably what I did. And it looks exactly the same. So let's listen to it. The bass. Yeah, like that little reverse right there. It just adds so much
like impact to that first kick. So that is it for the pre-drop. Really, really simple. Not a ton to go over. So now we can finally get into the drop. Let's get into it.
The main move is subtraction. The phrase feels bigger because other parts leave the foreground.
Ask what can disappear so the vocal reads clearly. You may only need the phrase, one transition sound and enough silence for the first kick to hit.
5. Turn a few syllables into a rhythmic hook
In Lesson 27, we return to the same phrase and isolate “turn up.” We cut those syllables into a repeating half-bar pattern that follows the established sixteenth-note grid.
A short vocal chop is aligned to the groove, repeated and varied at the end of longer phrases inside the drop.
Read the course transcript
All right, so we arranged the drop drums. Now let's get into the vocal chop. This vocal chop is, again, it's pretty simple. That's a theme that, you know, we're gonna find throughout this whole project. There's nothing too, too crazy going on. It's all about taste. It's all about selecting the right sounds and figuring out where to put it, you know? It doesn't have to be that hard. So we're back on our vocal track and we went over the vocal build and the pre-drop and now we're gonna take a look at
this chop pattern that we have during drop 1.1. And this is a very, very common, like, Schranz chop pattern. Schranz can be like a very vocal forward genre where sometimes it's just drums and vocals and that's exactly what this is. So let's take a listen from the build and then we'll listen to part of the drop with our vocal and then I'll go over how I made that. Turn up the bass, turn up the bass Turn up the bass, turn up the bass Turn up the bass, turn up the bass
Turn up the bass, turn up the bass Turn up the bass, turn up the bass Turn up the bass, turn up the bass Turn up the bass, turn up the bass So, very rhythmic, very catchy. And you know, like I said in the pre-drop, it's nice to have like a vocal that has like a theme that people can sing. So the pre-drop is saying turn up the bass and then this vocal chop is just saying turn up, turn up, turn up over and over and over again. You can see that
if we just highlight this half bar and hit command D to duplicate, it's just it looks exactly the same. And that's because we just have a half bar pattern that's repeating over and over again. And so this is what it sounds like. And so that's our one pattern. And then you saw there was a little fill here at the end. And that just is adding some variation. And instead of we're taking a half bar pattern and we're turning that into an eight bar repeating pattern because there's this little variation at
the back. Then for drop 1.2, we have the same thing except instead of this little variation, we have this variation. So now I'm going to show you how I actually made the vocal chop. So let's make a new audio track and then I am just going to copy our vocal phrase down to this other track. We'll set this to negative five so it's not too loud. And if we solo it, we don't have any of the effects, but I'm just going to show you how I chopped up the vocal. So
this pattern, like I said, is a very basic one. I want to make a half bar pattern. And because we're working in 16th notes, you can see there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. This is our half bar pattern and there are 8 16th notes in this half bar pattern. So I know there's only eight places that I can put these chops. So you can arrange it however you want to get like a cool variation and I'll show you sort of how I did that. So let's listen to
this vocal phrase again. So I want just turn up. That's all I want. So we have turn right here. So let's put this right here in this like fourth 16th note. This is almost like a dotted eighth kind of vibe. And then we have up right here and we'll put this right here. So if we loop this section and let's turn on the metronome and you can see right here this transient is like a little soft. It's not as percussive as I want it. So what I can do is I
can hold shift option and then I get this little pointer finger. And then you'll notice as I'm clicking and dragging, it's not doing anything because it's snapping by 16th notes. So I'm going to hold command so I can basically turn off the grid and adjust this. So this word up is a little bit more percussive than it was before. So just like a little detail like that is how I like to chop vocals. So now we have if we turn off this first vocal and we'll listen with all the drums.
So now you can see how this vocal chop sort of adds the rhythm. Let's try creating like a different pattern. So you can just see how basically we only have like we don't have eight options because there's a lot of different combinations, but we only have eight places where we can put these sounds so we can just sort of like start dragging them across and seeing how it sounds. So I ended up landing on this pattern because I just thought it sounded the best. And I also think this might be
the exact same pattern as our offbeat perc. Let's yeah, it is. It's the exact same pattern as the offbeat perc. So that's probably why I thought it sounded great is because it was already working with the rhythm that we have. So that is how I made the vocal chop. So let's just listen one more time so we can hear what it sounds like in context with the drop. And now you can hear there's like a new synth coming in but the vocals are still there We subtracted the ride and now
we're adding that new tonal synth. So this is what arrangement is all about It's sort of like knowing when to add knowing when to remove knowing when to transition into an end to a new part So that's why arrangement is so so important. And so that is it for the vocal chop
The chop connects to an offbeat percussion movement already in the groove. That makes it feel like part of the rhythm instead of a phrase pasted on top.
Build your hook this way:
- find the shortest syllables that still read clearly;
- place them against an existing drum movement;
- adjust soft transients until the rhythm feels tight;
- repeat the smallest useful pattern;
- add one change at the end of a longer phrase; and
- check it inside the full drop.
Your vocal may need a different pattern length. Let the words and groove decide.
6. Reuse the theme without playing it constantly
The phrase appears as a clear line, a buildup element, a pre-drop focus and a rhythmic drop chop. It stays recognizable because the source is the same, but its function changes.
Remove it when the synth, percussion or transition needs the foreground. Bring it back where recognition or rhythmic pressure helps the section.
For the wider section workflow, see How to Arrange a Schranz Track From an 8–16 Bar Loop.
Vocal-theme checklist
- The phrase is timed with the drums before detailed chopping.
- Pitch changes fit the track.
- The first pattern is easy to recognize.
- Every effect has a job you can hear.
- The pre-drop leaves enough space for the phrase.
- The chopped hook connects to the existing groove.
- Changes happen at useful section points.
- The vocal can leave without the groove collapsing.
One phrase becomes more useful when the arrangement gives it several connected roles.
Follow the vocal workflow inside Diablo 3
Explore Diablo 3 Hard Techno Essentials. Choose Masterclass Included to follow the complete Turn Up The Bass vocal and arrangement lessons in Ableton Live. Choose Sounds Only if you want the sound library without the lessons.
