The Energy setting explained

The Energy setting tells the music model how intense the track should feel. The four options, Warm-up, Build, Peak time and After-hours, become a phrase in the style prompt describing the energy, so the model adjusts density, drive and restraint while your BPM, key and genres stay exactly as set.

The four levels

• Warm-up. Restrained. Sparser drums, longer phrases, less aggressive bass and a lower ceiling on the drop. The sound of the first hour, when the room is filling.
• Build. Rising. More tension in the arrangement, risers and filtered builds, a drop that lands but leaves room above it.
• Peak time. Driving. The default. Full drums, forward bass, big drops, a vocal that pushes. Made for the busiest part of the night.
• After-hours. Deep and hypnotic. Fewer elements, more space and repetition, emotional rather than explosive. Late, dark rooms.

How it reaches the model

The prompt contains a sentence like "126 BPM, key A minor, peak-time, driving energy". Energy sits next to BPM and key because the three together describe the groove: how fast, in what tonality, and how hard. Models respond to energy words reliably; "restrained" and "driving" produce audibly different arrangements from the same genres.

Energy versus genre

Genre sets the vocabulary of sounds; energy sets how they are deployed. Tech house at warm-up is rolling and understated; tech house at peak time is stabbing and loud. Hard techno is intense at any setting, but warm-up still pulls it back. If a track comes out too busy for its slot, lowering the energy is usually the right fix rather than changing genre.

Energy versus loudness

Energy is about arrangement; loudness is about level. A warm-up track at −8 LUFS is just as loud as a peak-time track at −8 LUFS, it simply has less going on. If you want a quieter file as well, change the loudness preset in Master & export.

Energy and the DJ settings

The drums-only intro, drop position, break length and instrumental outro are independent of energy and are honoured at every level. An after-hours track still gets a 16-bar drums-only intro by default; the drums are just sparser.

Energy and vocals

Energy affects vocal performance as well. Peak time pushes the vocal forward and encourages chant-like hooks and ad-libs. After-hours gives a more intimate, spoken or breathy delivery. For precise control use the Voice options panel, which overrides the general tendency.

Choosing

Match the energy to the slot you are making the track for. Many DJs render the same brief at two energy levels so they have a version for the opening and one for the peak.