Composing Lofi Beats

1. Intro: Undoubtedly the style of music that I have the most fun making is low-fi music. And the reason is, is that it's so relaxing, so comforting, so deep and fulfilling, that you can never not feel awesome when listening to it. It's so practical, it has so many uses. It is great for background music. Obviously, I'm using it right now. It's great for when you're trying to work, when you're trying to study, just listening to it. It gives you new thoughts, new ideas, new creativity. It propels your work forward. It keeps you going, keeps you from getting too low or too anxious. So it's kind of the best music. It's also really great for music producers who want to get hurt and want to get this stuff listened to or used practically. Because if you're producing music such as lo-fi, you're putting it online. Gaming streamers will find it and will stream it underneath their gaming like on Twitch. People will use it in their projects. And if they using it through Spotify or through soundtrack by Twitch, I think it's called, That's all getting counted and you're getting paid royalties. So it's a very practical music to learn how to score for money for, for earning income. Like it's not so bound by people's taste. How do you sound when you saying how well do you play instruments? None of that matters because most people love low-fi, Because most people love to relax. Hi, I'm Jordan. I'm a composer and producer from Australia. And I love to make lo-fi and I love to put it on Spotify. And I love when people stream at and listen to it. And I want to help you to do the same thing to make your own low-fi music. So let's take this class. Let's learn to make lo-fi and get the skills to make what is the most practical music available online in the world? 2. Understanding Lofi: Hello, fine means low fidelity. And what that generally means is that people will make it sound old-fashioned. The idea is that you take the music that you're making and you intentionally lower the fidelity so that it sounds like it was from a VCR, a cassette tape, a vinyl record. That's generally what it means. That's how it was originally and then it ended is for that reason that it was named. But that's not generally how lo-fi always sounds. Anymore. You can have high fidelity music and call it lo-fi. Now, the parameters are much more around how relaxing is it? Can you drive to it? Can you flow? Can you feel the beat? Does that help you think? Does it take attention away from what you're doing? That's a big one. People, people listened to low file what lo-fi while doing something else. So you can make lo-fi sound low fidelity with plugins, there is some excellent ones such as retro color is a great one. It's a plug-in that you can put it over your track and it will instantly sound like it's playing out of Excel. Oh, offer vinyl and they've gotten various options for that. I did do that for quite awhile. I have since stopped doing that. It depends on what your artistic vision is for the track, whether or not you want to put it through a low-fidelity plug-in, It's up to you. But you can make low-fi music without doing that. Well, we're going to do today is we're going to make a nice relaxing lo-fi track that is very stuck standard for low fi. What I'm hoping is that it's going to give you the general parameters of what makes up a lo-fi track and how you can turn a loop into a full track. It should be very useful, very applicable to your life by making. All that matters is that it's a nice casual beat, doesn't absorb too much attention. It's important that all of the layers sound good. It's important that there are a lot of layers and that they work together. So that doesn't feel like there's a lot of layers. That's a big part of it. Alright, let's get started. Let's make some low-fi. 3. Creating Our Chords: Let's begin with codes. A very good place to start. I'm going to start with 16 bars right here. And I've got it set on C minor, because C is a nice, easy key to scoring. And minor because a lot of, a lot of low fi is just in minor keys. I guess it's just part of the relaxing, sultry nature of low fi. It just suits monarchies better. I'm starting on S3, the middle note of the piano. But normally where I would go up from here, I'm going to go down. So let's see. I'm gonna go with third down to a. Normally I'd pick a, but I got a flat here because that aligns up with C minor. F would be next. So that's the triad. But I'm going to add a seventh. Seventh chords. It's just so much richer. And of course, that's a D. So I'm going to grab the day one octave lower. That adds to the richness. Once again, really basic code would just be a triad here. It would just be the sea to the a, down to the F, and then that would be just your standard cord. But adding a seventh by just going a third away and adding another one, and then adding a base one octave lower than your lowest note. Those two little extras just do so much to enrich the chord. Oh, I didn't add an instrument yet. I'm gonna go to my boy, my old reliable in plugins. I am loving Spitfire labs. Everything I used from labs is free. Everything. So I've got a whole range of instruments here. I didn't pay for anything. So it's great. I've got my keys. I found them because it helps piano. I found them because I was just looking for a nice piano to use. And I wasn't expecting I really high-quality free one, but I found it and spit fire. So very happy about that. Yep, cool. Sounds nice. Next code. So we started, I started here with the C, with the amount of D. I put it on it. Here's the c. What the heck? Having a little moment, we started with to say here. So let's do the next chord, just one degree higher. So I'm going to draw an a day. And that was a crazy little moment there. It's because I'm so used to starting with the root on the bottom, which is obviously the normal way to do it. D Dan to be B flat is what this key requires. Isn't it? Just so funny, like I am so much more used to doing it in C major that I'm so used to doing in C major that it feels just like wrong to, to pick notes that are more appropriate for C minor. That's cool. We're on a D here. I say we go much higher than, then. We'll do a jump here. Alright, someone, G3 from D, E, F, G, three degrees higher, G. Now we'll hit def down from j. This is quite a gap. It's quite a gap, but I think it will sound nice. I didn't have a good reason. But I think it will sadness. Be f trying to do math in my head about how far away I want everything from each other. That is a big challenge for me. Very hopeful chord up and then. I disagree with myself. I think it can be higher. It can go up higher still. I think we can keep climbing. We've made 16 bars. We don't have to end the journey so early. Keep wanting to end the journey, but doesn't only say, what if we made this an octave jump? These are literally an octave apart. This is a slight gap, three degrees. This is an octave that can be cool to hear what that sounds like. Yeah, I like it. So I've done exactly the same thing. What I'm doing with the base. I've done up on the top. So here's our main line code. I've just put a note up high and note down low and octave gap on either side. Kinda going when I richness theory bottom adding to their richness. I've just started again basically, I've got my C-code, got my say up to my day just doing that same jump again, that same motion as before. I'm doing the same thing I did before, except I'm adding to the richness. So we went on a little journey. Now we're going on our bigger journey. Be I think the point of lo-fi. Well, a big point is to be in the background, also be relaxing to de-stress the listener. But a huge part of achieving that is being, is being rich. Just really full and lay it and lovely. Okay, done to this day. I think we'd go up one more time. Slightly. Got our a again, actually love a. I always find a way to land back on e. I just think I know that I shouldn't. So it makes such broad statements about codes because how they act in relation to each other in different keys and different chord progressions should influence how you feel about them. But I just loved myself in a I will invite a to any party. Last one we're going to go down again. So we went on our adventure. We're going to come down. I know I made 16 bars like an idiot, but I think an eight bar chord progression is more than plenty. More than plenty. Let's make this one weird. We're going back to our smaller gap like we did here. This one's a bit bigger than that. D, E, F, G, G to D. Yeah, this is just slightly higher. So maybe it is the same gap as before. B, G. What I've done this time is I've messed with the thirds. I've done that sometimes. But then when I feel like G B, G, D, I don't know about this. I'm not sure. I'll listen to it and say, Oh, look, look at the progression. I go, I'll go down. Let's try that. I like it, but I just need to mess up. It's just so neat. Obviously, there's like a gap here. But that gap might be filled when I mess it up. So we can, we can work on making the timing a bit more creative. 4. Adding Variation to Chords: Alright, here we are with our codes. Okay. Oh, okay, I got an idea. What if I halved the amount of time some of them took, and then use some of them to ramp up to the next chord. So I like this quote. It's almost like a throwaway. That's too quick. Follow phi. You don't want anything. Being very surprising. We do want it irregular. To make a backward. Maybe this code returned, returning. It's kinda weird. That's kinda weird. It's the timing. Some things off, something's off. It should be irregular, but something's not quite. All right. And then this one is the final coordinates to resolve? I'm not sure. I'm going to say possibly. Yeah. That's okay. 5. Adding Layers: Alright, so I have found a sampled drum loop from semantics that I've decided to use. Once again, entirely free. They have them on their website and they have a lot of free samples that you can use. And it also comes with the lessons, say you can put them, make them commercially available. That's great. I also love it. I love it. The BPM down to 85, which is a good Baby M for lo-fi, not too fast. I also lowered the volume way down because these k's in a particularly loud and the job is very overpowering. So together it sounds like this. Now, but I do prefer to make my own drums when I have my, my instrument, my my machine. But I'm not, I'm not busting that out. As the sample is awesome. And it does the job. From here. It's time to use our codes to make everything else. The codes, the broth, the soup, the base from which everything else gets made. So we are going to do the baseline now. We're gonna do just, just these bass notes in another instrument. Let's try labs. What am I doing? Push ups. I'm going to put the cello on. Cello. Once again, entirely free. Okay, let's do another, another line. I'm going to try out the bass guitar. Just gotta yesterday and I want to try it out here. That's lovely. Great. I also want another line where it's made and synthesized bass. If you don't know about synthesis and you'd like to, I do have a class on Skillshare about synthesis that you can take that can help you understand what I'm doing. If you don't understand just from looking, choosing waveforms, one is okay. Maybe filter it. A little bit of a slightly attack down. Alright, cool. One more layer. Case. It's not clear enough yet. And layering, layering is your best friend. Let's drag it down an octave, T1, Desert. Alright, I'm going to set the size again, but change the oscillator. Oscillator a sub. Can I get this? I soften the attack on both at the synthesisers so that you can hear the strum of the bass guitar. Again, not hearing the Jati beginning of a synthesized. Again. As it starts. Much better that you're hearing. A nice guitar than that. Again, Huygens. So let's maybe strings. Gamma boy in there. On some blur. Maybe. Oh my God, oh my God, disgraceful. Why does that sound awful? Let's try. I'm not Labs. Contact. The free August rho saw Dino violence. It's not that it's bad, it's that it's wrong for this track. Let's try. Mandolin. Loved mandolin. Okay, cool. I don't like the instant repeating. Now for the mandolin any way. Going to add some reverb on there. Let's make it sound a bit nicer. Let's put Valhalla and that love our swelling. Fred, I thought I'd accidentally changed this one because I hated that repaid. But when it did it, maybe it's the guitar. It's not bad. Maybe, maybe it could be improved. Maybe the wrong one of these. That's the same one. Gosh. Maybe mandolin. And on some bot stop at. I might be wrong, but I thought it might be nice if it went down there. Oh my gosh. Is that nice? I don't know. I might change that later. Coca, Coca-Cola. Now we need some form of melody. 6. Making Our Melody: So let's copy this once again. Let's try to make a melody out of it. This form, this is not so scientific. I'm just going to mess around with the notes and try to do something that may appear that may work. This is entirely experimental. It may sound garbage. It just in my Mason. Good. If this looks random, it is kind of in my head what the shapes will sound like. And have a slight idea of what I hope will happen. I just will say. But maybe that's it for bars. Let's see how that sounds. I'm really enjoying the mandolin. So let's put the metal in that, but use the plucking that we used earlier that we ended up replacing. Maybe not at the beginning. Normally. Normally I would stop a melody of four bars and then just repeat it. But this melody doesn't. It's not catchy enough that it doesn't bear repeating, shall we say? So I can keep going. I like hitting it on this certain points. Yeah, there's no need to repeat this type of melody. It does fine. Continuing on. With other melodies that you make that a catchy or that suit a different style of music, you might just do four bars and then either one or repeat it, or more likely, repeat it, but change. Change elements, especially like, Let's repeat how it starts, but not how it ends. Sort of like column response, question-and-answer style of melody. I think the last two unknown needed. Over the last three. The last two. I think a reverb is needed. Skidding, very relaxing, sort of laid back. Oh my gosh. That was not what I wanted. There is something endearing about that. All right. I'm keeping it. I guess the one thing, maybe just some candy, some, just some little things. Whether again, I might be off base, but it kinda had to try substrings. I think it's obvious. What I'm going to say. It's a native reverse. I'm really revamping today. That's not always the case. That's often not the case. Not much science to this. It's, I'm sticking on key. I know super cool musicians, typical composers composed out of k's, especially in melodic elements of the song. I find that the less obtrusive Life VI is the better. And if there's anything that's gonna be intrusive and capture the attention it's composing out of qi. The whole thing ended on the sea. Great, great, great. Alright. Now to arrange this thing. 7. Arranging the Song: This part is quite simple. We just need to decide when the less than r or hear what, how do we start? What gets hurt first? In what order and when does the climb, when does it go down? We start with what matters most. And then we add from probably the bass guitar. I'm going to leave the bass guitar here with the courts, maybe the drums. I'll try without a first. I think I like it, but I want the first time the audience hears it. I want them to hear it with the high-end taken out. So I'm going to copy it onto a new track down here. Where I'm going to put the piano back on. Then I'm going to put rift onto it. Raft is a cool plug-in for adding effects and filters and stuff like that. Delete the top one. Okay. Alright, again, with the other end included. As I quiet isn't necessarily different. Come on computer. Come on computer. Alright, That sounds great. I assume computer. I'm going to then repeat that exact same thing, but with the drums. Because that sounded lovely. Move inside germs. Then I'll include that melody right there. You back off the melodies. Now we've got this plus the melody, plus the candy. Almost time for these guys. The slow build as part of low phi's up, he'll slow build. Nice and relaxing until we reach the full, the full song. Here's the full song which happens now. This is it. Every single layer repeating exactly unchanged, happens twice. Now we're going to do like a breakdown. I think it should be just the melody and the candy for the breakdown. Yeah, that sounds right. Well, that was dumb because it doesn't start from the beginning. Let's get this bad boy in. Because I liked that sound. Same thing but with drums. Then we repeat the song at full mast twice. Then I say we go out with the candy. Not the whole candy. Just the first part. And then that's how the slogans like this. Maybe it needs a base. What does that cost? It was the sample gasping grades. Alright, that's it. That's a life I track. Let's say that's what it that's what it is. Four minutes and 15 seconds, just about that's a good amount of time. 9. Until Next Time: That is this that is a lo-fi track we have done is we have made lo-fi. This track is going to work great because it's, it's nice. You can listen to it underneath other things. You can play games, watch, watching videos and have it playing. So that's great. It serves its purpose. It can be streamed on Spotify and it will sound fine. Still needs to be mixed or needs to be mastered. Where the melody, where the bars are for the melody could be moved slightly forward. It could be changed a little bit. So you can tinker it. But this is music that's going to sound pretty good without a lot of time added to it. So that's really great. That adds to the practical nature of this genre of music or this type of music. I don't know if it's really a genre type of music. So thank you so much for joining me. If you'd like to say how I did the synthesis, I have a class for that. If you'd like to know more about music theory, you heard me talking about chords, first-degree, second-degree codes. I go into it more in the music theory class that I have here on Spotify. So check that one out if you would like. I have one more. I'm playing a midi instrument. Many instruments are how I would normally make my own drum instead of using a sample. So you can check that out if you've got yourself a midi instrument and you're not quite sure what to do with it anyway. Thank you so much for joining me. I have several Moscow share classes. I hope you check them out and enjoy the rest of your day.