Hi @Eli,
I’ve been toying with drops for about 3 years now with SonicPi. I still fight with them 
Some thoughts:
double/triple the drums / snare / volume over about 10 seconds
Mess with your sleeps in your drum live_loop. Getting it back in sync after, well thats another issue and pain all together. Volume with the level fx.
then cut it off dead… and ‘drop’
Using local or global hpf/lpf fx with a ramp controlling the mix works well.
(for example), a female vocal into the quiet spot, before restarting the drums etc…
Trigger a sample outside of a live_loop in a new buffer/workspace.
Having said all that drops are hard, after a couple of years I’m finally getting to a point were I’m closer to what I want (and thats through completely dropping SuperCollider and SonicPis Fxs)
SonicPi only provides you with local or global fx (https://github.com/samaaron/sonic-pi/blob/52f50b8b21e0fde533712cef8680fc1e3972941d/etc/doc/tutorial/A.15-performance.md#4-use-the-master-mixer). Coordinating that across multiple live_loops while leaving others alone is messy and expensive resources wise (consider reverb). DAWS approach this by providing shared fx channels which you can route based on mixers audio to. Easily remove the frequencies from certain group of instruments while leaving others alone. Its something I’ve wanted to solve in SonicPi for a long time, but time and money always gets in the way.
Other solutions:
- Riser samples/instruments, can be a big help.
Its worth adding I don’t think anyone has truly mastered a good break in live coding. I’m not sure of your musical background but I found I learnt the most by studying how musicians make breaks now. Looking at DAWs and their techniques. They have been doing it a lot longer than we have with code. From that I understand better whats lacking in code and how to get closer to what I want.
Hope that helps and look forward to hearing your experiments.