What Is Schranz? Kick, Drives, Groove and Repetition
Table of Contents
This guide explains the approach Vince demonstrates in Turn Up The Bass. He describes Schranz as a Hard Techno subgenre whose exact definition changes between producers, then builds his project around a punchy, warm kick, repeated drive layers and an arrangement that creates movement by adding and removing roles. It is an artist-led example, not one fixed genre formula.
A producer’s definition of Schranz
For this project, it is useful to hear Schranz as a set of interacting roles rather than a list of plugins or one BPM number.
The Turn Up The Bass project uses these main roles:
- a kick with a clear attack, body and rumble;
- repeated drive layers that create groove, texture and midrange pressure;
- supporting percussion and rides that change brightness and energy;
- vocals and synths that create focus outside the drum wall;
- an arrangement that controls when the pressure is full, reduced or rebuilt.
We introduce the sound and the production traits used in the Turn Up The Bass project.
Read the course transcript
In this video, I'm going to talk about what Schranz is and how it's different from the other subgenres in hard techno. So if you're already familiar with the Schranz, you can totally skip past this. It's going to be a real quick short video. So Schranz is a sub genre of hard tech. No, there are so many different sub genres of hard tech, no, and everybody has a different definition of what each one is. So I'm not going to get into that debate. I just want to briefly talk about what Schranz
is. I'm not going to dive into the history because I know I'm going to butcher it and make somebody mad. So I'm not even going to go there. So I have the project file open here and really what I've mainly want to talk about is the characteristics that make Schranz Schranz versus other genres in hard tech. No. So I would say some other important genres of hard tech. No are I've been calling it Neo rave just to describe this new type of hard tech. No, which I would characterize with like
these types of kicks. And this almost feels like hard dance, but this is sort of where the name hard tech. No, is starting to trend where it used to be characterized by some kicks like this. And there is still hard tech. No, that uses kicks like that. But I would say the most popular variation is using these reverse bass kicks. So another genre is industrial. And again, this is way different from the industrial hard tech. No, that was being made like five years ago. This is almost like industrial hardcore, I
would say. And I would say it's characterized by sounds like this. Like really like I call them trash can kicks because that's what it sounds like. There's a lot of screeches and it's very aggressive and just really hard. And then there's Schranz. Schranz is definitely characterized in my opinion by the drives. So these drives are what creates that like really gritty grooving percussion. And then you have the kick, which is very punchy and warm and round sounding. So then all together you get drums that sound like this. I just love
it. I love the groove. The drive. I love the energy. It's a lot of fun to make and it's a lot of fun to listen to. I would also say that Schranz is a lot more repetitive than the other genres because in Schranz, it feels like you're sort of looping the same thing and constantly adding and taking away. And it almost has like a more traditional techno type of arrangement where genres like industrial and neo rave almost have like an EDM arrangement where there's that constant like rise, fall, big climaxes.
Yeah, that is basically the difference between Schranz, neo rave and industrial. And we're going to be focusing on Schranz for this masterclass. So I just wanted to give you like a brief little bird's eye view on what makes Schranz Schranz.
This is one artist-led project, not the only valid way to make Schranz. The value of the example is that every role can be heard and inspected in the same track.
The kick creates impact and low-end motion
The course project uses a kick whose attack, body and rumble perform separate jobs. The attack gives the hit its front edge, the body carries its main weight, and the rumble continues after the hit.
Those words describe jobs. A kick does not need exactly three files, and one source can perform more than one job.
The important production question is how the complete kick works with the drive and percussion. A kick that sounds enormous by itself may leave no room for the rest of the track. The layers must be timed, pitched and balanced in the groove.
For the full construction and listening workflow, read How to Make a Schranz Kick: Attack, Body, Rumble and Phase.
The drives create much of the midrange identity
The drive is not simply “more distortion.” It is the repeated midrange and percussive pressure that sits around the kick and keeps the groove moving.
In the course project, Vince layers three different drive parts:
- a more percussive layer that behaves like a hat pattern;
- a bright, noisy and wider layer that fills texture behind it;
- a short, bit-crushed percussion layer that adds another rhythmic edge.
The number of layers is specific to this project. The broader idea is that each part should add a different function. Several full-range layers doing the same thing can turn pressure into a flat wall that hides the kick.
This is one reason a Schranz groove can still sound generic after the kick is made louder. Much of the identity lives in the midrange rhythm, texture and interaction around the kick.
Percussion changes depth and energy
Supporting percussion gives the repeated drive something to move against. Offbeat hits, loops, hats and rides can add syncopation, brightness and section changes without replacing the central groove.
In the Turn Up The Bass project, the ride acts as a clear energy control. Bringing it in makes the drum wall brighter and more urgent. Removing it reduces that pressure and creates room for another section to take focus.
That decision is more useful than “always add a ride.” Ask what the arrangement needs at that moment. A bright part that helps a drop may become tiring if it plays through the entire track.
Repetition is the engine; variation controls attention
Vince describes the project's arrangement as repetitive, with movement created by adding and removing sounds rather than replacing the groove constantly.
Useful variation can be small:
- remove a ride for several bars;
- change which drive layer is most exposed;
- shorten a fill before a section change;
- create a brief gap before the kick returns;
- move a vocal or synth into the foreground;
- change the drum pattern in a later drop.
The goal is not to replace the groove every eight bars. It is to change the listener’s view of the same central idea.
The finished Turn Up The Bass timeline shows how the same central roles move through a complete arrangement.
The finished Turn Up The Bass timeline shows how the kick, drives, percussion and repeated themes move through a full track.
Read the course transcript
Alright, so the track is completely finished being arranged. Now, let's just do a brief overview here, and I'm gonna delete this part right here. I forgot that we, I forgot that I like remade the intro for you guys at the end of the track. So let's just do a quick bird's eye view. We have our high pass intro. This is a great introduction to the song because it's not giving away the low end or the full drums. This is also a great position for a DJ to start mixing this track
into what they're already playing. And then we go into intro 1.1 all the way to the break. This section could be longer if you wanted, but I thought this was a good length. Then we add our ride. Then we have our break, which is introducing like the main element of the track, which is the vocal, turn up the bass. That's what the song's called. That's what the vocals are saying. Then we have our first build. Then we have our drop outro, which our synths start getting introduced at. Then we have
our breakdown, which is the start of our like really long euphoric section. And we're still introducing our synths here. Then we have our second build, which is like the long, epic build of it. And this also helps us like separate this breakdown and second build from the first half of the song because it's longer, it's more epic. We're introducing some melodic elements and we're signaling to the listener that, hey, this second drop is the real deal. Then we have drop 2.3, which we take the energy up another notch. And then
we have our drop 2.5 and 2.6, which is our drop outro. And we're starting to remove some of our elements. And then we have our true outro, which is 32 bars of a very DJ friendly section of the track that will allow a DJ to start mixing in their new track very, very seamlessly. And then just like our pure drums at the end. So this is how I like to arrange songs. I like to make my tracks as DJ friendly as possible for the sole reason of DJs being able to
easily mix this track in with their sets. If they have a track that sounds good and doesn't get boring, doesn't grow stale, and is easy to DJ in and out of, they will most likely play the track in their sets. I can speak on that as somebody who is always reaching for DJ friendly songs while I'm DJing, especially long sets like two, three hour sets. You're gonna need a lot of music and you're gonna need music that sort of goes on for a while without being boring. Cause it will fill
in time. It will allow you to pick your next song and it allows the listeners and the crowd to just like get in a vibe, you know? So that is pretty much the arrangement of our track. And you could see, we don't even have that many elements, but we're just using great, great elements and arranging them in a smart way. So that is it for the arrangement of the track. Now, the next thing I wanna get into is the mixing and mastering. I know a lot of people are very concerned
with mixing and mastering and for a good reason. It's very important to make sure that your track is clean, punchy, loud, and mixed well. Because in addition to being DJ friendly arrangement wise, you want it to be DJ friendly mix and loudness wise. So a DJ doesn't play your track and go, "Oh my God, this sounds terrible. "I need to mix out of this as fast as possible." Because trust me, I've done that a ton of times. You do not want your track to be like that because then DJs will
never play it again. So we're done the arrangement. Now let's get into the mixing and mastering.
For the broader timeline workflow, read How to Turn an 8-Bar Techno Loop Into a Full Track.
Distortion is part of the sound, but interaction decides whether it works
Aggression can come from the sources, saturation, clipping, drive processing and group processing. More processing is not automatically more Schranz.
When several distorted layers play together, their level and frequency content add up. The result can keep its grit while still controlling mud, harshness and lost punch.
The useful mix question is not “How do I make this clean?” It is “Which interaction is making the groove less clear than I want?” That might be a source, a repeated layer, the broad level balance, time overlap or a processing stage that is being driven too hard.
For that diagnosis, read Why Your Techno Mix Sounds Harsh, Muddy or Weak.
What BPM is Schranz?
The Turn Up The Bass project runs at 156 BPM. In Lesson 10, Vince says he commonly plays Schranz around 155–160 BPM while also making clear that producers can go slower or faster.
Use 156 BPM as a fact about this project, not a rule for every Schranz track.
Keep the genre example specific
Schranz, Peak Time Techno, Industrial Techno, Hardgroove, Hard Bounce, Hard Dance and Neo-Rave should not be treated as interchangeable names for one production recipe. This guide stays with the kick, drive, percussion and arrangement roles demonstrated in the Turn Up The Bass Schranz project.
When you move to another style, recheck the low-end relationship, groove, sound palette and section movement with examples made for that style. Do not keep the same method and only change the genre label.
The glossary connects the course vocabulary to the sounds and sections used in the project.
Read the course transcript
All right, so you just heard the track. Now let's go through and let's name everything in it. The reason we're doing this before anything else is shared vocabulary. In the rest of the masterclass, I'm gonna be throwing around terms like drives, kicks, rumbles, attacks, bodies, leads, just so many different terms. And if you don't know what those terms are, then when I really dive into this masterclass, you're gonna feel lost and nothing's gonna make sense. Quick disclaimer, in this video, I'm not gonna be going into how these sounds were made.
That's what the rest of the masterclass is for. Right now, we're just labeling things so we're on the same page. So later in the masterclass, when I say things like, let's process the drives or let's turn down the rumble, you know exactly what I'm referring to. So let's go through them. So first, let's talk about the kick. The kick is the most foundational element in the track and everything else is built on top of it. In Schranz, the kick is arguably one of the most important elements. It can be made
a number of different ways, but in this project, I chose to take the kick builder route, which means I'm stacking multiple layers on top of one another to get one final kick. This is a really useful process because you can break down the kick into three parts and then process each layer individually. And when I made these files, I made sure that they sync together perfectly. So in this kick, we have three different layers performing three different jobs. So we have our attack, our body, and our rumble. So let's talk
about the attack. The attack is the very beginning of the kick, the click, the transient, the snappy bit at the front, and it sounds like this. And now let's listen to it in the context of the whole kick and I'll add and remove it so you can hear it. So you hear it's really given that punch in the front of the kick. And without the attack or with the attack being like really quiet, the kick just kind of sounds soft and buried. Next, we have the body. The body is the
meat. It's the thump of the kick, the part that gives it its weight in the low and mid-low range. This comes right after the attack and provides that low end punch in the front of the kick. So let's listen to it in context of the whole kick. So absolutely vital, super important. Next is the rumble. The rumble is the bass or the tail of the kick. In Schranz, it's usually like super noisy and doesn't really have a tone to it. And it's what you feel in your chest at the club.
Without it, the track just has no weight. It also just provides like a lot of groove in the back half of the kick as well. So that is our kick and we covered the three parts, the attack, the body and the rumble. Let's move on to the drives. So once our kick is there, the next layer that gives Schranz its signature sound is the drives. These drives give our drums like the forward momentum and the groove and it's driving the groove, which is why it's called drives. At least that's why
I think it's called drives. So in this group, we have three different layers. And if we play them all together, it's really groovy, really noisy and percussive. So we have drive one here, then we have drive two. That one's like super gritty. Then we have drive three. That one's just like filling a lower frequency range and very percussive. So I'd say if like the kick is the heartbeat of the track, the drives are the engine. It's just pushing it forward, giving it that groove. Now let's move on to the ride.
The 909 Ride is such a classic sound in techno and just basically in every dance genre that ever existed. And it certainly is in Schranz. We're not gonna have this going the entire time, but we're gonna throw it in for a little extra oomph and energy on the drums. So this is what it sounds like. And if we listen to the entire drums together, I'm gonna turn the ride on and off. So it just gives like a ton of extra energy and really just elevates the drums when you need it.
So now let's talk about the percussion. In this track, we have two percussive elements. We have this little offbeat perc. And let's actually play that with the kick so you can hear it. You can hear how the percussion is like playing off each other. So first we have the offbeat perc. It's just adding like a nice little like bounce to it, and then we have this cool like distorted texture loop. So with both of those on at the same time. And this is just acting as like texture that's filling the
gaps. So that's everything for the drums. And if we play everything together, it sounds like this. So the drums are just the most iconic and important part of Schranz. So that's why it's so important that we go over these different terms because this is the most foundational element of Schranz. So next let's talk about the vocals. The vocal in this track is a sample. It's just a pre-recorded voice that I'm chopping up to fill the space and add a little call and response element to the track. It allows the listener
to like really attach themselves to the track because they have something to sing. So this vocal is very simple. It's just a single phrase that says turn up the bass. Turn up the bass Turn up the bass Turn up the bass And then in drop one, I chopped up the vocal to make like a cool call and response. So this is what it sounds like. Turn up the bass And then if we turn on the drums. It just adds like a really, really nice groove. And the next thing I wanna
talk about are the melodic sounds in the project. So we have three main types of melodic sounds in the project. We have our main lead, which in this case is this arp ravager. Then we have like almost like a brass one shot. That's called lead party crasher. And it's just adding some nice rhythm and tonality. So if we listen to the leads. And then in the breakdown, we have this pad and this is the pad angel preset. And I kind of refer to this as like a counter melody because it's
supposed to play off of the melodies of the other two elements. So if we listen to this. And if we listen to everything altogether. So that is our pad or our counter melody. I might call it one or the other depending on what's ever coming to my head at the time. And then the last thing I wanna talk about are the like transition effects or the transition fills. So we have two types of transitions. Sometimes we're gonna be using transition effects like risers like this. Or this. Or we might have
some impacts here. And then we have other types of transition effects like fills. And I have a whole group right here called builds and fills.
A practical path for learning Schranz production
If you are building a track, work through the jobs in this order:
- create a kick that works in the groove;
- add drive layers with different roles;
- use percussion to create movement and energy changes;
- arrange the loop into clear sections;
- mix the interactions without stripping away the character;
- move to mastering only after the mix is stable.
That order is a learning path, not a requirement that every artist starts the same way.
Follow the full Turn Up The Bass project
Diablo 3 Hard Techno Essentials currently offers a Masterclass Included package with the 50-lesson Turn Up The Bass Schranz course, Hard Techno sounds and production tools. A separate Sounds Only package does not include the course. Check the product page for the current contents and compatibility before buying.
The course follows the demonstrated Schranz project. Shared Ableton, arrangement, EQ, sound-design and mixing ideas may help in other styles, but the footage is not presented as one universal Techno formula. Diablo 3 is separate from the current Everything Bundle.
