Glitch is a great technique used in Electronic Music to add unique change ups and to modulate your music. Glitch can be used on your drums to create fills, melody to create tension, and other ways of distorting your composition. In this article I am going to go over some tools and vst’s for creating glitch effects. I am also going to discuss how I use glitch and ways of implementing glitch.
Glitch Effects and Free VST’s
Below is a video of some free VST’s I use in music creation as well as my Free (aq) Glitch Effect Rack.
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Below is links to all the Effect Racks( Blue glitch, fire, LiveCut, and Supatrigga)
Using Glitch Techniques in Your Music
Glitch can be used in many different ways. Like any musical technique if used right and not constant it adds a depth to your production and sound. Here are tips and tricks I use in creating touches of glitch in music.
Glitching Drums for Modulation
One of the things an electronic artist has to be constantly looking at is how to make drums, and other aspects of there music, constantly change and sound dynamic. By placing glitch in certain sections you can have that modulating effect. When I add a glitch sound I generally only add it to the hats and or claps. I usually leave my Kick alone because that is the foundation rythm. I might double my kick or something but I keep it solid.
With Hats I like to use the Blue Glitch. It creates a good sequence of changes. Also another technique would be using reduction on the drums to give it that 8 bit sound.
A melodic Glitch
Glitch isn’t just for drums and rhythms. You can use it on your melodies to make a wispy feel, or a “tweaked” section before a break down. I like to add the effect Fire to my strings to give it a glitch style delay. I usually only use a hard glitching section in one or two parts of a song. It creates a tension to the music and should not be used all the time. Blue Glitch can also be used for this with there revers and stretch effect.
Bass with a touch of Glitch
Just like my Kick, I don’t like to glitch out my Bass that much. It is nice to add some breaks with it though. Once every 8 measures, or so having a glitch slow down, or beat repeat can create tension and tell the composition that it will change.
Another technique would be to separate you bass into a high and low chain by using multiband. I have another article on how to do this with your bass You can find it here: http://https://www.subaqueousmusic.com//production-articles/free-music-tools/17-multiband-dynamic-effect
Basicly if you have the sub bass on one chain and a mid and high bass you can add glitch to the highs to create just a touch that won’t mess the groove to much as well.
Keep in Mind with Glitch
One golden rule to keep in mind with glitch is to not overdo it. Having just a touch in one section, or adding a whole glitch break down will add dynamic and rad composition changes. Best example I know of this is the song Adrift In Hilbert Space by Ott.
About 4 minutes into the song Ott brings a new section by adding glitches that bring a whole new level to the song. Ott created these sounds by manually chopping them and rearranging them. By doing it by hand he creates a really solid glitch pattern. If he had just started with that it wouldn’t have had the same effect and power.
Another useful technique is to have a whole bunch of effects on a drum section with different variations and probability. Then bounce it down. After that go through by hand and pick the best glitch parts. Use that and cut out all the other ones that don’t quite make it as groovy. That human discrimination is what separates it from just bad chaos.
Using Glitch In Your Live Performance
Adding glitch to your drums live and modulating that way is a RAD and fun way to switch things up. I have tried out many combination of effect chains and vst’s. The one thing I am repeatedly reminded of is to stick to solid and low latency VST’s. Try to use as many effects as possible through ableton and not 3rd party. I have run into tuns of problems and latency issues that way.
I then just map the effects to my LPD8 for fast triggering. Then I can add glitches and such live.
And with that… Enjoy the rad free tools and techniques in glitch. Hit me up with questions and send me a track you like with some glitch inspired sounds.
