Every drop deserves a build-up.
PREDROP grabs what is playing, locks it to the beat and rolls it tighter and tighter into your drop, with seven rise effects climbing along. Automate one button. PREDROP builds the rest.
Real-time capture of the plugin on an original HOPS LAB peak-time track (140 BPM). Every rise, roll and drop you hear is PREDROP's own output: no editing.
Same groove. One button. A whole build-up.
Press play, then switch between DRY and PREDROP while it plays: the two stay in sync. The only automation in the PREDROP version is GRAB: on at bar 5, off on the drop.
DRY: the groove as it comes in, untouched. PREDROP: GRAB catches bar 5 on the beat. AUTO RAMP tightens the roll from 1 bar down to rapid-fire rolls while the effects climb, NO KICK clears the lows, AUTO BLACKOUT silences the last beat, and the drop lands.
Hear every option
Each player keeps the same groove and the same 4-bar build. Only the option you pick changes, so you hear exactly what it does.
FLOW: the loop shrinks continuously, like a tape speeding up. Smooth and hypnotic. GRID: clean musical steps, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, always on the beat. The classic EDM roll. TRIPLET: the same climb in triplets. Swing and tension for trap, afro and breaks. FX: no roll at all, only the rise effects. For risers on pads, vocals and full mixes.
KICK MODE: kick and bass roll with everything else. The full machine-gun effect. NO KICK: everything under 140 Hz disappears during the build and slams back on the drop. The biggest drop contrast. KICK KEEP: the kick and bass keep playing live, only the top rolls. The groove never stops. MELODY MODE: long, soft crossfades for vocals, leads and pads: no clicks, no chopped words.
CLASSIC: gentle at first, then more and more decisive. The original PREDROP feel. LINEAR: the same rise every bar, from GRAB to the drop. EXPO: almost nothing for a while, then everything explodes in the last bar. Perfect for 16 and 32-bar risers. S-CURVE: eases in, accelerates through the middle, eases out before the blackout. LOG: the tension arrives early and stays high: urgent from the first bar.
HP: the lows thin out as the tension rises. LP: the sound closes like you are under water, then opens on the drop. BAND: squeezes everything into a narrow, nasal mid band.
CUT: the reverb stops dead at the drop. Tight and punchy. RING: the reverb rings out into the drop. Epic and wide.
TAPE: the repeats speed up like a tape machine, tight and on the grid. SHIFT: the pitch rises without speeding up, with a clean waveform-matched shifter.
A long build that stays patient for 12 bars, then takes off.
Rave Machine Gun: full-depth GRID roll with the kick, RAVE style, +24 pitch. Triplet Twist: triplet rolls with bounce and width, kick kept live. Vocal Stutter: short 1/8 repeats in MELODY MODE, with space and bounce. Made for vocal lines and leads. Chaos Drop: every effect, CHAOS style. Loud, wild, still clean at the top: the limiter holds it under −0.3 dBFS. Quick Fill 1 Bar: a one-bar fill at the end of a phrase, kick kept.
All demos use the same original 140 BPM peak-time techno track by HOPS LAB, exported dry (no PREDROP on it), then processed offline by the real plugin (PREDROP 1.2) and encoded to MP3 with the same gain: level differences between options are real.
Grab. Build. Blackout. Drop.
A build-up usually takes a dozen automation lanes. With PREDROP it takes one, and it is on the beat by design.
Catch the moment
Press GRAB (or hold a MIDI note). PREDROP records what is playing from the nearest beat, even if your automation arrives a few milliseconds late.
Let it climb
AUTO RAMP turns TENSION up for you over 1 to 32 bars, along the curve you choose. The loop tightens, the seven rise effects follow.
One beat of silence
AUTO BLACKOUT mutes the last beat of the ramp, the breath that makes a drop hit. Or play BLACKOUT by hand, it starts on the next beat.
Let go
Release GRAB: the loop, the effects and the silence all stop in one move and your track comes back at full power.
What a build-up usually costs you, and what PREDROP does instead
PREDROP is not a stutter plugin with a riser bolted on. It was designed around one job, the eight bars before a drop, and every detail serves it.
Draw 5 to 10 automation lanes: roll rate, filter, reverb, pitch, volume dip, and redraw them all when the arrangement changes.
One lane: GRAB
AUTO RAMP draws the whole climb over 1 to 32 bars, along one of 5 curves. Move the drop, move one clip.
The kick and the sub roll with everything, turning the low end to mud, or you duplicate tracks to keep them out.
GROOVE: NO KICK · KICK KEEP
PREDROP splits the lows at 140 Hz for you: cut them for a bigger drop, or keep them playing live while only the top rolls.
Wideners widen the bass too. On a club system or a mono phone speaker, the low end weakens or disappears.
Club-safe stereo
WIDTH only works above 150 Hz, and MONO BASS folds everything under 80, 120 or 160 Hz to mono.
A saturator without oversampling folds harsh, out-of-tune tones back into the audio, and they get louder as the riser climbs.
HEAT, 4× oversampled
Aliasing more than 55 dB lower than a plain saturator at the same drive. Measured, chart on the Sound quality page.
A stutter plugin for the rolls, a riser plugin for the sweep, a third one for the silence: three plugins, three workflows.
Roll + 7 effects + blackout, one dial
TENSION drives the roll and all seven rise effects together. MACRO and STYLE give you a whole character on one knob.
When every effect peaks at once, so does the meter. You fix the clipping later, or you don't notice it.
Safety limiter, −0.3 dBFS
Nothing leaves PREDROP above −0.3 dBFS, even with everything at maximum. Below that, it does nothing at all.
Live, you trigger a stutter with a mouse click or a mapped knob, and hope it lands on the beat.
MIDI GRAB
Hold any MIDI note: GRAB is held. Release it: drop. From a piano roll, a pad controller or a keyboard, always snapped to the beat.
Measured, not just claimed.
Every number below comes from PREDROP's own test suite, which renders the real plugin and measures its output. Nothing is estimated.
vs −19 dBc for a plain saturator at the same drive.
lower than a basic two-head pitch shifter, at +12 semitones.
by WIDTH at 100 %: your sub stays mono. A full-band widener adds −7 dB.
6 samples at 48 kHz, reported to your DAW, which compensates it automatically.
Your sound, saved. Your curve, your rules.
The ADVANCED panel
One click on the sliders icon opens everything a pro mix needs, in the same clear style as the main screen: MIX and OUTPUT, the safety LIMIT, MONO BASS, the SWEEP filter type, the SPACE tail, the PITCH mode and MIDI GRAB.
- Save your own presets in one click, recall them in any project
- 5 ramp curves and ramps of 16 and 32 bars
- Cleaner HEAT, PITCH, SPACE and WIDTH, measured
- MIDI GRAB: drive the build from notes
Built for the moment before the drop
Finish tracks faster
Techno, house, EDM, trance, drum & bass, trap: drop PREDROP on a bus, automate GRAB and move on to the next section.
Play the build
Map GRAB, or use MIDI GRAB from a pad. Everything snaps to the beat, so a late press still lands right.
Pro builds from day one
Nine factory presets and a recipe that fits in one line: load Club Build 4 Bars, automate GRAB, done.
One price. Yours to keep.
€18.99VAT incl. in the EU · one-time payment
A lifetime licence for PREDROP 1.2.1. Right after payment, your download and your licence key are in your customer area, and you receive them by email.
Buy nowSecure payment by Polar, our reseller · Instant delivery · Prices shown VAT incl. in the EU · Terms of sale
- Windows 10 and 11, VST3, 64-bit
- macOS VST3 + AU, Intel and Apple Silicon
- One licence key, for one computer
- Installs in one minute: one folder to copy
- 9 factory presets, unlimited presets of your own
- Use it in your released and commercial music
- No subscription. Works offline after a one-time activation
Questions, answered
Which DAWs does it work in?
Any 64-bit DAW on Windows 10 or 11 that loads VST3 plugins: FL Studio, Ableton Live 10.1 and later, Bitwig Studio, Cubase, Studio One, Reaper and others. Put it in an insert slot on a track, a group or a bus.
Do I need internet to use it?
Only once: the first time you open PREDROP, you paste your licence key and it activates over the internet. After that it works offline, in every DAW on that computer. When you are online it quietly re-checks the licence every few days; a missing connection never stops it.
Can I move it to a new computer?
Yes. One key works on one computer at a time: open PREDROP on the old computer, click the ADVANCED button, then DEACTIVATE, and activate the new one with the same key. Old computer gone? Deactivate it from your customer area, or contact us.
Is there a Mac version?
The macOS version (VST3 and AU, Intel and Apple Silicon) is in preparation. The current version is for Windows. It will be announced on this site.
Yes: VST3 and Audio Units for macOS, Intel and Apple Silicon, with the same licence.
How do I automate it?
The simplest way: turn on AUTO RAMP and automate only GRAB (on at the start of the build, off on the drop). Every control is also automatable, and a right-click on any control opens a menu with quick values and, in most DAWs, the host's own automation entries.
Can I trigger it from MIDI?
Yes. Turn on MIDI GRAB in the ADVANCED panel and route MIDI notes to PREDROP: while any note is held, GRAB is held. The features page shows the routing for FL Studio and Ableton Live.
Does it add latency?
6 samples (0.13 ms at 48 kHz), the price of the 4× oversampled HEAT. PREDROP reports it to your DAW, which compensates it automatically: your tracks stay perfectly aligned.
Where are my presets saved?
In Documents\HOPS LAB\PREDROP\Presets, one .pdpreset file per preset. Copy them to another computer or share them with friends. A preset stores the sound, never your performance settings (GRAB, TENSION, BLACKOUT, MIDI GRAB, LIMIT, MONO BASS).
Will my PREDROP 1.1 projects still open?
Yes, with the same sound: 1.2 keeps the plugin identity and every 1.1 setting. A 1.1 project keeps the pitch shifter it was made with.
Can I use it on tracks I release?
Of course. Everything you make with PREDROP is yours, including commercial releases. No credit required.
Your next drop starts eight bars earlier.
One automation lane. A whole build-up. Measured clean.