Phrase Fracture for Battalion

Phrase Fracture

Phrase Fracture presets for Battalion.

Phrase Fracture is a preset and loop set for Battalion that focuses on Odd metered and Polyrhythmic beats. Unusual rhythms paired with unrecognizable drum sounds can introduce a new palette of sound into your music and create new workflows to how you write.

Sound selection

The sounds used in this kit were all recorded for this project and are mainly small short sounds processed through extreme distortion and saturation effects. This allows the final sound to be greatly influenced by the sound of the effect while still maintaining an original live recorded base. Even with the brutal processing, the sounds are still simple and carry a sort of interesting homemade/natural character.

Shaping in Battalion

Once processing the initial audio, the samples were shaped into drum sounds within Battalion. Filtering and pitching thumps with added resonance to make kicks, adding distortion and reverb to clicks and pops to make snares and shortening the envelope on noise samples to make hats are common sound design techniques across all presets in this pack. When recording the audio to make the drum sounds, I was not trying to think of what each sound might become. But once having general percussive sound effects made, any of them could be transformed into any type of drum sound allowing much more flexibility and uniqueness to what usual snares, hats, kicks, etc. sound like.

Processing loops

Once combined to make a kit, the sounds are processed further as a group. Effects are added based on timing, using LFOs and Envelopes to allow them to grow and evolve over time, rather than just being static effects. Filters might open as the beat progresses to drive you forwards towards the loop or reverb might be added at certain beats to provide accents to those points in particular. Using the Performance view, the user is able to push all this further and harness the kit.

Advantage of odd meter

Odd metered and polyrhythmic drum loops are versatile for a couple of reasons. Writing music not in 4/4 always inspires new rhythmic ideas and breaks a producer or composer out of their muscle memory. Odd metered loops can even be used in 4/4 by shortening or adding a beat, which brings a whole new level of complexity not common to achieve when starting in 4/4. Polyrhythmic loops are especially cool as they can loop and loop without ever sounding the exact same. For long extended drum parts, this can help maintain interest and avoid repetition.

Created by Evan Braddock

Evan Braddock is a composer and sound designer from Michigan. He sees sound design as a crucial part of his compositional process. He believes choosing the sounds the notes make can be almost as influential on the track as the notes in which they're playing. This means a lot of his music is made from manipulating live recordings and creating custom synth patches. He then uses this to inspire a story for the piece of music he will go on to write.

Creating sounds can easily be seen as the whole job. Evan doesn't look at sound design like that. It's important to keep in mind how drums, samples, oneshots and loops will be used in context to allow them to be built on top of. He always thinks about usability to ensure he's crafting the best tools for those interested in exploring new sounds.