Lately I've been playing DDR at the local Round One again and I developed a bit of obsession over BRE∀K DOWN! - which I always liked but didn't try to listen very deeply to before. The preview really makes it sound massive. How did they do it? 1/2
Well, it turns out that you can answer almost everything because the DTXMania rip of the track contains the background stem without drums, bass or guitar. At the part we're looking at (0:44) the vocals are doubled up and autotuned, a reverb explosion sound is added, there's a resonant "synth zap" covering the hihat part, a synth arpeggiation comes in, and a delayed pad synth is added to emphasize the chords. It's a lot of stuff but it's not exactly excessive either: each layer is doing something specific. Good arrangement always adds the magic. 2/2
@Triplefox I never noticed until now that they have an Ink Spots style spoken word segment during the organ solo