Musical Rhythms (Overcome BEAT BLOCK)

1. [INTRO] - Musical Rhythms: Hey, what's up? Everybody gratuitous here and welcome to my newest course called musical rhythms. So the idea behind this course is to teach you the common patterns that we have within music production. Because if you think about it, music in general is all about patterns like and their common patterns from genre to genre. So when you get stuck making your beats other known as producers block or beat makers block and you don't know where to go, you could be mixing and matching these different types of patterns within your tracks to help get past that, producers blocks You can keep moving because I know for a lot of producers as you're making your music, you might start making your instruments, and then you might make, like, some drum loops, whatever. But then you don't really know where to go from there, or you don't really know how to start building that track. So this course will really break down these different patterns that you have available to you, and then you can simply mix and match to help get that perfect fit. It's kind of like putting the pieces to the puzzle together with music production it's all about knowing what's available. And then it's kind of trial and air trial on air. And it's constantly like that. Everything from your sound selection to the notes play to the timing of those notes to the different techniques of how you're playing those notes. This will be a really eye opening course to a lot of you produces, especially when you're kind of at the intermediate stage, and you're still able to create those beads. But sometimes you get stock, or you just wish that you kind of had more knowledge in certain areas of programming, these midi notes. We break down a lot of cool and popular patterns such as like, you know what to do with your pads and arpeggios. And you would even talk about like the piano leads baseline fielders. Karen encounter melodies, stabs. Okay, so if you're interested in learning about all these common patterns we have within our music production, this course is called musical rhythms. You guys can enroll and I'll see you guys inside 2. 1-1 - Musical Rhythms Available [OVERVIEW]: Okay, so walk into musical rhythms. So what I've done in this section of videos is we're going to be going through each one of these one by one, okay? They're gonna be in a separate video, and what I'm going to describe to you is the different ways how we could be playing these types of instruments. Now, I don't mean like, for example, like, not just like a guitar or piano or or like a synth sound, but the rhythm and the style of how to play that sound, for example, you know, if you're, like, stabs here or like an arpeggio Ah, pitch Ben kind of sound, or like you're you're based sounds and you know, different types of patterns that we could be playing with. Um, So what I've done is I've just kind of composes a little composition here, and I've tried to give you an example of when we keep playing these types of instruments. So, for example, you could see, like, the stabs, you know, they're nice and short. They're kind of like little stubby notes, right? The kind of quick hits we have pads. They don't have to be long, but in this case is you could see they are long the arpeggio, um, in FL studio. Anyways, how you would do is you click here, you can click the tool appear and you have an RPG ater. You know, every dollar is different, but every doll will have some type of Arpege Viator that you can apply in this case actually didn't use this Arpege ater I did it right out of serum. Um, I'll show you how I did that when we get to the arpeggio section. So arpeggios are just really, really good for adding fullness to attract. So what you could be doing is like, you know, when you get stuck, these are different styles of tools that you could be using to the kind of mix and match to make your track actually flow. And then, as you can see, I did sink a patient here. So what this is is that you're kind of playing a chord or even, like a note off beat. So instead of playing it here right, I'm playing it on like like an off beat. And that's a cool tool to you Sometimes too. Again, I've just tried to implement all these different ideas as I was trying to plan out this course, you know, for example, we have stabs layering off, be off beats like the Syncopation we have, like the pitch band slash parlamento chords. So, for example, like we have quick chords such like the stabs or pads like a swell or just like a long cords here with a counter melody. So this is kind of like the counter in this track. You can also like a fielder, and that would just be that kind of in a long note. And it's just kind of like it's kind of filling up the track in the background, but by itself, you might not really notice it. But would you take it away? You really noticed that something's empty in the beat, so it's kind of a filler track, and typically you might just be kind of following, like the court progression or something like that and in this case, adjusted a baseline to assure you, um, nothing special with this baseline at all. It's just, you know, I'm following that. The court progression, and then near the end, I just kind of spice it up a little bit And that just gives your listener kind of a fresh restart. The loop. OK, so if I didn't have this, it would just maybe kind of sound a little bit boring. But since I have this, you'll hear as we proceed that it just kind of gives the listen. Refresh that. Eight years. So here's the track. What I did was this would like the chorus. Okay, It sounds like this, for example. Okay. And then in the next part of this'll oop, I did like a pre course. So, really, this would kind of be like here, but I wanted you guys to hear the course first, but imagine like we had, like, a verse. Okay. You know, like a verse here. Whatever. Then I would add in this pre course, and then it would go right back to the chorus. That was kind of like my idea when I was building the beat. But in this case, I just have the pre course here just because you're gonna hear it loop over and over. This track has not been mixed or anything. As you can see, nothing's been routed to the mixer here. I've just been simple volume balancing just to kind of help balance out the track. But if I were to mix it with EQ and compression and stuff, it would help. Had a lot more clarity as well as more focused towards certain instruments. Okay, so here is the track into the pre course. Let's just check out the baseline here just so I could show you these ending notes. Okay, so the baseline will be like, this will play just this. So, as you can hear, just kind of spices up the little baseline. Okay, So let's get into the next video and get into this course. 3. 1-2 - Using Pads for Fullness: Okay, So the first instrument we're gonna be talking about is your pad. Okay. A pad is amazing for fullness. It just adds so much emotion and ambience into your track. And how you create a pad is typically you just want, like, a really long attack. So, for example, I'm just gonna clone this destroyed in category a new pad. So I don't affect that one. I'm just gonna select a pad here. So luscious locks, as you could see, you know, a pad is this very long with an attack, and as well as it has a very long releases, Well, and then you can also effect with the filter to kind of replicate that same long attack as well as a bit of a long release. And, for example, a pad were just sound like this. So by itself is just so full tons and tons of emotion. Okay, So where you want to use a pad is whenever you're wanting to add fullness to your track for myself, typically, what I'll be doing is I'll be adjusting this attack to help it flow with my other instruments. Sometimes this attack could actually too long or sometimes it could be too fast. It all depends on the track you're working on. So that's pretty much how I would tweak a pad and then in addition with some effects in this case, actually don't have any reverb and delay, But many times pads do, like they're very, very big. Like the name of this preset. Very luscious. The very, you know, very big. Okay, so let's just delete that. And so this is the pad that I started with. Okay, so it sounds like this way. And if we look at it so with serum, I've just applied in LFO, and I think I applied it to, um maybe to cut off here. And if we play that What? Okay, so I'm not gonna break down so much the sound design stuff. Ah, more just gonna focus on you know how we could be using these certain types of techniques into your track and when to use them. Okay, so, again, a pad Is this really powerful? When you're wanting to add fullness? Typically, you're going to be using long cords with, um um but again, depending on your tax setting, because you see if your attack is too long and you have short cords. You're not gonna be able to hear the sound. So if you have short cords with the pad, then you're gonna have to dial that attack down so that it sounds, you know, faster in this case, you know, you look at the stabs here, So as you can see, this attack is actually at zero. If I play this stab sound, Okay, so that's a pretty big sound, too. But it's much more pluck year. Then let's go to the status pad so you can see it kind of swells in, especially if I go to the pad layer, which would be in the next video. So if we listen to the drum loop and the pad here, this is what I was kind of starting off with. OK, and then now if I start to add in other instruments okay. You hear that? Fullness coming in, for example, we have stabs in arpeggio. Okay, so again, a pad is really, really powerful. When you're warning toe, add fullness to your track. I typically find that iPad many times can display by itself. So what you'll discover over your years is some instruments they can stand out by themselves. They don't need any type of supporting layer, but then some instruments in your track duty to type of supporting layers. So does the need, like two or three instruments in order to make that one sound work in your track. But again, pads typically always be able to play late by themselves. They're so powerful, however, come mixed time. They also can clog up your track to so with an E que. Many times it is. Open up the EQ, you hear you know, on a pad many times like you might. We wanted to kind of cut in like your low mids, and you'll find that that helps clear up your track. Another cool tip for you when you're mixing. Um, I know this is about techniques, musicals of rhythms and stuff like that. But when you are mixing your track and if you're finding that an instrument is clogging up your mix and you're not sure which one it is, you guys consist simply a mute and mute, and that is this really, really powerful way. So, for example, let's say we're listening to, like these four sounds here and I'm not sure which track is causing me trouble. For example, hit play here. What you could do is you can actually just mute one and be like, OK, is this chart, for example, like it's this one. So now you know when you're mixing, you can open up your E Q. And you can apply. You know some adjustments within your e que. So that's that's a pretty cool tip I just typically find when I'm working with pads in my mixes. That pads because they are so big sounding because they're so emotional. They tend to really clog up a mix so many times you just kind of kind of cut some frequencies to allow for the other sounds to kind of fit in there but at the same time not take away from that emotion. Okay, so typically, pads have a long attack that allows for that swell, and to really amplify that swell even mawr, you could be using ah, high cut filter. And you can also be using a longer attack and you'll see appear when I play it. No. Okay, so this pads a little bit different because I have it all sink with taken LFO, and that's why it does like that repeating sound. So if I actually pull up this pad, this would be a better example for you. So again, here I have This is actually a pretty short attack again. Because of as I was programming this beat, I actually wanted to have a shorter attack to make it blend better with the longer attack, I found that the pad was kind of missing. It was kind of too late. This is like the volume. So this is just, you know, simple attack on the volume. So is taking a while to reach its maximum volume. But then on the envelope, too. As you can see, it's blue here. But if I goto one, you can see it's not blue. So what that's telling us in serum is that envelope to is affecting our cut off. And as you can see, when I play a note, you're going to see that it opens up Okay, it follows this envelope, okay? And what that does is it allows more of a swell sound. You can get more sound design out of it, okay? And then typically, you know, you're wanting to be using long cords with your pads. In this case, this is what this pad looks like. OK? And then went to go out into the layer. I just simply copy and pasted it. But yes. So that is your pads. We're gonna talk about the layering in the next video. 4. 1-3 - Using Layering for Change: Okay, So in this video, we're gonna be talking about layering. Now, layering doesn't have to just be with a pad. In the case of this track, I did layer the pad, but you could be layering anything. For example, I could just simply clone this AARP. I can select another preset, and I can have two copies of the AARP. And where that's really, really powerful is when you're actually building out your song structure. You can choose when to play both at the same time as well as you could take one away and what that's doing. Is it still allowing like that arpeggio fullness, kind of sound Arpeggios are really, really cool. Sounds will get more about that in their future videos. But again, when you have, let's say two layers now, you could take one away. You can add it together and it as a really cool dynamic to your arrangement in the same case here. Now we're dealing with the pad. So I just literally went control, see, and then control V and a copy and pasted that in. And that's all I did there. So if I play the original pad by itself, okay, But now we let's go to our layer. Okay, so this is just a simple pad, and it sounds like this again. I have shortened the attack as well as on the filter to so on both of them, just to help make it suits this track more. But again, typically, a pad has a You know, I'm thinking maybe around 700 milliseconds kind of thing. So here we go. Okay. So let's do this. Let's right. Click and go clone. Okay? And I'm gonna copy this and paste it in here, and I'm gonna take this one, and we're actually gonna load up luscious locks, the original presets. So, as you can see, I have about 800 milliseconds and then on the filter have one second. So if we compare that to how I adjusted it for this track, you know, we're looking at 300 3 50 then 300. So this is the volume envelope. This is the filter. So as you can see, it's much longer and I play that so again when it comes to layering. You know, for example, this to take this. This stabs here, I'm gonna control. See, I'm gonna right click and just go clone. And I'm simply just going to copy and another one we're gonna push your middle scroll wheel of Sorry. If you put your little tutorial on the right there, you can select like an instrument. For example, it was to say, it's a guitar. I'm gonna push in in the middle, though, and I'm just going to write layer, Let's select a different preset. Okay, so let's listen to the stabs by itself, okay? With the layer. So now with the layer, what you could be doing is you could be going up and down an octave. And then again, when it comes into the arrangement, you can separate these into different patterns so that you can choose when they're playing together and when you're only playing one for a different dynamic in your track. So in this case, this layer one is too high pitched for me. So I'm just gonna hold on control and the down arrow we listen to it again. Let's try one more lower. So let's just listen to that with and without. So first of all without okay, no with, So for example, you know, you might want to add this layer in to the chorus, but they're not Have it in the verse. That's where you can kind of mix and match again. You guys can check out my song structure An arrangement Course. If you guys want to be learning about song structure and how to build a motion with audio painting, just always be thinking about you know, the balance between them. And if you are mixing when it comes to your EQ us stuff like that, you can be e queuing these differently so that the kind of compliment each other. So, for example, if I just play the pads as well as the drum loop here, you know, this is what it sounds like, right? If I take away the layer, you know, it sounds totally fine. But as the song is building up, we can add in this pad turned on us a little bit. Okay, we take it away added in right here. Okay. You're gonna hear just as a different dynamic. My Okay, so that's just some tips with layering. Whenever you kind of get stuck in your track, just feel free to layer. Try layering, and it doesn't just have to be to You can try, like, three. I typically surely don't go more than three. But layering is just again. Cool toe. Add fullness as well as a different dynamic within your track. Okay, You can kind of mix and match throat your arrangement. 5. 1-4 - Stabs for Energy: Okay, So in this video, we're gonna be looking at stabs. Okay? So stabs are typically really short courts, and you can affect them to make them sound really big. But they play again. Really, really short. Now, I could have maybe just played it on the one and then just let it go. And then maybe, you know, do something like this. The stab is just every once in a while you want to play it It just as a little fullness. But in this track, I ended up doing it like this. Now, another cool tip to is with the layer. Now, with the layer, you don't have to follow the same notes perfectly again we can to be removing certain notes and it just traits that different dynamic as well. Only certain notes are layered and give you the emphasis. And so now we'll listen to that with the drum loop. OK, Okay, so the stab is not bad, but it kind of gets a little boring near the end of the second bar. So when the cords actually play, you know, it's fine and we listen to, like, the delay in the reverb kind of play out, and that sounds good. But then it gets kind of dry. It's like, Well, there's no notes. It's kind of like we're just listen to the drum loop. It doesn't sound too bad, but it could be improved on. So right here, you know, it's just kind of like, OK, you know, we just got to be more to the track. So let's just listen to it with the layer again. I just added that in in the last video, so I haven't really listened to it in context of the whole track. But let's listen to it. Okay? So again, that's not benefiting our problem off in between here. So let's add our pad back in. Okay, so let's listen to this, Okay? So that fix that because our pad is adding that fullness again, a pad by itself. Typically, you can just play by itself with the drum Lupin. And typically you're going to be good to go just as long as, like, your cores air powerful. Okay, so in this case of the stab, if we look at how I sound, designed it. So I have a very, very fast attack. It zero Typically you want to be a little bit careful with V ST's when you go to zero, sometimes thinking, having a click sound. So a lot of times you might want to put even to like 00.5 or something like that, and that will help prevent that click sound. In this case, As you can see, my attack is very, very quick. Okay, so I'm able to get more of the actual transient, whereas the pad has a bit of swell, okay? And that's leaving a room for the stab to kind of hit now. I don't use all of these techniques all the time. My tracks. I just tried to implement all these ideas into one composition so that as we go through these videos, you can see how it implemented them into the track. But again, to break down a stab. Typically, you know, with the nice short cords you playing on every single beat, you could be playing with Syncopation, and that is just when you play on the off beat. So, for example, I'll go to a new pattern here, so the on be it would be one to 34 Okay, so let's on beat. For example, if I do this. So that's 123 and four. And if we just listen to that, it sounds like this, but this can sound boring. Okay, So what you can do is you can put it with Syncopation. So there's a couple different ways you can approach. Think a patient. What I'll do is I'm just gonna put this pattern in here with this drum loop. That way we can hear drum loop with our pattern and hit play here. Okay, so here it's very, very boring. Right? So what you can do is you can put it on the offi here. Okay? Again. It all depends on your tempo. It depends on the track. If I put this like this, we can be putting on, like, the off beat like this. So, as you can see, there's three steps in between each of these, you know, Not this one here, but these two. Okay, so if we listen to this, okay, if you listen to it with the jump loop, Okay. So that's just what you call Syncopation. And that would help add fullness to your track. The reason why I want to show you that is because with stabs, typically that's really, really powerful, especially in like a dance track. So again, stabs are very, very short, and you could be using them kind of sporadically within your track just to add a little bit of fullness and more excitement to your song. 6. 1-5 - Game Changing Arpeggios: Okay. The next type of instrument and pattern you could be using arpeggios. These are probably a game changer for you. If you're not aware of thumb, I'm just using this after midnight one preset and I'll hit play here, and they literally just copy that same pad into here. Okay, let's go a different preset. No. Okay, which I want more. So if we play that with the drum, that, for example, now I'm using Nexus to hear. Now, I just want to tell you guys that I really do like, next to I like the sounds, but I'm not a huge fan of the licensing program. For example, if you do purchase nexus to you worshipped in the licensor and what happens if if you lose that the licensor, you lose your product. Okay, So if the license of breaks you have to ship it back to them, and then they will send you a new e licensure and you still have your product. And I don't like that type of licensing model, so I've kind of pulled away from next to over the years as well. This nexus to doesn't allow you to release sound design. So you're not really learning, you know, synthesis. Because, you know, synthesis is a different part than making music. They're two totally different trades. For example, if you're using a fiesty like serum or silence one, you know you can customize these tow whatever you want, OK? Whereas with next to it's like they just kind of give you the preset. And you kind of have control over like the attack. You know, you're a DSR a swell as like you're cut off. Um, and then in your I think it's in your mix your layers. You know, you can select your different layers if you want, enable or disable them, but you don't really don't have full flexibility. But I do want to say that nexus to does have amazing sounds. So first of all, what is an arpeggio? Let's just take a piano here. I'm just gonna click into court here. This is C minor, okay. And let's just I extended a little bit. So how in arpeggio woodwork is right now? If I play this all that one a pyre, this is what you call a block cord. So we're playing all three notes at once, but in arpeggio. What you're doing is you're actually playing the notes at separate times. For example, you could just create different patterns of this. It doesn't have to be, like up. You could always go like up and then down, okay? And then you go back up for something like that. In this case, this is going to be quite slow. But if I were to make it smaller, let's say like this. Okay. Now gonna press controlling cute quantities that, um, bring that back will bring this one back and then you don't. So you go back down to, like, see, let's say and see, In this case, the court progression is changing. So I would be wanting to change my cord, which means that I'm changing the arpeggio. So in this case, I played the a sharp I'm gonna play D and then f k. And then now here I can go like the f and then like the d and we can continue. So, for example, would sound like this. And that's an RPG. Okay, so in this case, it's slow. But what you can do is let's go back to the basic court here. Let's just extend this really, really long. So with fo studio, I'm gonna go fo keys. You're gonna click on the gear. This has an RPG ater. Okay, so all dogs will have some type of Arpege Viator just, you know, look it up on Google to find how yours works. But in this case, you could just select the up. And if I click play, you'll hear that this piano chord, which is just like this now is an RPG ator. Okay, you can, ah, effect like the gate. You can affect how fast it is. So if you right click, you could make sure it's on time. So, for example, fast He could select the range. So now it's going to be going up in octave for you to give you a different sound. Okay. And then, for example, if I wrote this piano to the mixer and then if I play like delay and reverb on to it, you'll hear that. Now we're getting into really powerful sounds. Okay, you listen to that with the drum loop. So, you know, I'm just doing this really, really quick with you, but I just want to show you that that is an arpeggio, and that's how you can work with it. And then these different V ST's allow you to create these different arpeggios, for example, like silence one has a built in our appreciator. Next is, too, as you can hear these air Amazing. And even if you just select like a dance lead, for example, that just sounds like this. You can actually go into the Arpege intersection, and you can select, you know, if you want to go up and down and stuff like that again, you know, this is like playing like that chord, but it's breaking it apart into different notes. For example, I was gonna hold on one note here. So now, as you can see, it's just repeating that same note, so I would have to click it in, and I'm pretty sure there's like presets. So, for example, if I double click desk to sound like this care so you can actually click on this and you can extend it, you can make it go up, you know, you just like the speed of it now to go back to our feet. So what I did was I just created an arpeggio within serum And so all I did was I just took the LFO here, and what I did was I dragged it to all off the volume knobs here, okay? And then if it was too aggressive, for example, with the noise, I just dialed it back. In other words, telling the v s t that I don't want the noise to go any louder than that because the noise was kind of aggressive as well as this kind of sub sound ahead here and then in the LFO all use this double click to create a point. Um, and in this case, this endpoint. So I literally created a point, and then I dragged it to where I wanted. Okay, so now if I actually go to the arpeggio, Okay, So I'm just gonna right click and go solo, and this is what it sounds like. Okay. And you can adjust this to however you want it to sound like this a big car attack and then with my notes. What I did is I selected Trigger. Okay? And so what that does is so when the note plays, this repeating starts happening. But if you started no later the repeating kind of starts sequentially. So in other words, if I'm playing this note and then I play this note, okay, I can kind of get the arpeggio sound. Okay, so let's listen to that in context of the beat. Let's just take out some of these sounds because it might get a loss in this mix here. So let's check this out. Can be a few days if I mute it. Three. Beckett and you can kind of sound. So this is just something for you to play around with. And you guys can again always hit F one and F o studio and it's gonna take you to the help manual. So, you know, make sure you click on this first hit F one help manual will appear and you guys can read about the Arpege aviator. When you're dealing with the arpeggio, you still want to be following the court progression, for example, we would actually want to follow this. So in this case, let's just like copy this and put it into keys. And if I play it by itself, okay, so again, loss of effects on. But I'm gonna turn on the arpeggio. Let's slow down a bit way down. So this kind of gets like that staccato. And with NFL studio, Porta Mental is actually right here. So instead of the slide, if you want to slide in between notes, you can actually do this. Maybe what? We're gonna bring this down an octave. Okay, let's just listen to that with the drum loop gate down. You can automate this so as you can hear, arpeggios are absolutely amazing. Um, so feel free to try those. I typically turned to an arpeggio when I just need that little extra fullness. And it all depends on the track you're working on. In the case of that piano right there, like that was probably the main part of the track. And then we would be using like, ah, baseline and Mabika pad. Just hope add some fullness as well as more dynamic to the track in a sense of different instruments. So, for example, if we just maybe add some instruments into the baseline with that piano and I'm pretty sure fl studio even up here if you go tools, um, they have an RPG. So right here. You guys can also arpege it just like this here. You're going to see a little pop up window, OK? And you could be adjusting all this different stuff, you know, to get different, uh, creativeness within Europe videos. And it's like that range I was talking about. So now it's just gonna give you two octaves. So right now it's too fast. So just turned on the reason why I fully don't like this because once you have used this tool, you're midi notes have now changed to this and, you know, this is kind of stock. So I was gonna press control and see toe undo, and they control alternatives to kind of keep on doing so right there. So I would personally choose this road in fl Studio forgetting r p J. Um, The reason for that is just because you have full control and how you want to affect it, you don't have to worry about your notes. And if you ever want to turn off the Arpege ITER, you simply can case That's arpeggios. Super super cool. Hopefully eye opening for you guys. Let's get into the next video 7. 1-6 - Powerful Choruses with Portamento: Okay, so in this video, I want to talk to a boat pitch bending. Okay. This is a technique that I use very, very often for my leads. It creates such a powerful sound. However, you can easily overdo this sound. So you kind of gotta play with it because they can sound too cheesy, but what it is parlamento. Okay, so within fl studio, you can click the wrench here, and you just enable port aumento and you could just increase or decrease the slide here. So first of all, turn it off. Okay? And this is what this guitar sounds like. Okay, so now I'm gonna enable port aumento and I'm gonna make it really, really drastic. And now you're going to hear in between notes there slide. Okay, So now if I enable some effects here, this is typically what I would do to start processing for a lead. So, for example, so as you can hear, it's like, OK, that's not in a lot more full. Okay, so now the difference between port aumento and mono mono means that you can only just play one note at a time. So, for example, if I hold down a note and don't let go. But then start pressing another note. Okay, so I'm getting like that pitch bending sound. Now, this is where you can get really, really creative with your leads. And so what you can do is that was going to go toe to the piano roll here. And since I have mono enabled and I'm just gonna play a note and in order to get this pitch bend sound, you just have to overlap a note. That's all you have to do. So, in this case, I'm just gonna make sure that I am playing within the same scale. I'm just playing in the scale of C minor. If you want to learn about music theory and playing the piano, you guys can check up music theory and cords for beat makers or piano for beat makers and producers. Okay, those are both within the membership, and you guys can just click the notes here, but in the scale and you'll hear that you would get, like, the pitch bend sound. Okay, now, because this guitar is a really guitar note and has a natural, you know, a TSR attack decay sustained release. Eventually it fades. Oh, OK. But whereas if we're dealing with something like serum, for example, you know this note will continue on forever. Um, so that's just one thing to keep into account that if you are working with V ST's, you can take advantage of this porta mental even more so just with your envelope. Okay, so again, just to hop back to the guitar note here for a second. So again, this is just in with in this little area, you can either just enabled port aumento. This is if you want to be playing multiple notes, multiple courts or if you just want a single lead sound only what note could be playing at a time. That's where you would enable mono. This is typical for like a baseline, because many times you don't want the bass notes toe overlap. If they overlap, you're going to get a really bad wall will sound, and it's gonna sound horrible in your mix. So if you enable mono, you'll make sure that you'll never get that overlapping sound, and you get to control the slide in between those notes again if you make it really, really drastic. So in this case I can play the notes individually on I get no band. Okay, if I disable mono, but I enable Parlamento you'll see that I actually get the slide even if I let go of notes . So, for example Okay, so in this case, obviously a super drastic. But, you know, maybe a setting around here, you can get a really cool sound. And even if you play chords, Okay. Now, if I disable, it will be the same chords one more time. Eso You know, it just sounds really, really cool. It just has a nice little slide to it. I typically like that sound a lot, but you just have to be careful not to overdo the sound. So let's just check out what I have done when I've programmed in to my pattern. Okay. If I turn it off, the increase is a lot. Okay. So, way too much. Maybe around here with serum, you can have more control over the curve. OK, so this is my track ambition, and we're just going to be working with the lead here, okay? And as you see, I've layered three different sounds and I've actually created all of this track out of a single guitar. No. You guys can check out my course creating organic beats. I assure you guys, I record a single guitar note with you guys and then actually create a whole composition out of that single guitar note, which is what I did in this track. This is often my beat takes by Grand Tutor's Volume eight, which is on Spotify. But if I were to sold them Oh, you here, this is up higher case. So there's like, that port aumento. Okay, so I just processed them differently. And now if I play that altogether, Okay, so if we look at the sound here and we go to the wrench, you're going to see Port aumento. So I have quite a bit of Porta mental going on with the slide there, And that's all I did to get that nice slide sound. And if you listen to that in context of the beat, so this is the course of the track. So here we go. Okay. So it's got a really cool pitch bending sound to it, right? And again, it's just so powerful. You got to be careful on how much you apply but I just want to show you that Port Aumento is super, super powerful. Now let me just show you with NFL Studio how you can approach this too. So I showed you right here within this section so you can enable Parlamento. And this will allow you to play multiple notes to get that pitch bend sounds. So, for example, would play one sound play another sound. Here's the band, right? And now what happens is the further away you play those notes, the more drastic that sound is. So, for example, if I play down low on a play up high, that actual pitch band takes a little bit longer than if the notes are close. OK, but up a draft plan far. Okay, so that's just one thing to take into account that as you're playing your your lead, you're trying to find a little melody within your track. If you are playing your left hand a little bit lower and your right hand up a little bit higher, many times you can create a really cool, pitch bending sound with his port aumento to create cool leads. Okay, again, the mono means that you could only play one sound at a time. And if we go into the piano rule here, you just have to make sure that you are actually overlapping notes. So, for example, this won't bend in mono. You actually have to overlap it. Okay. And in the same way with fo studio, I just extend the note here. You actually have slide notes. Okay, so if I click this and you can click in right here and you see as a triangle So this is like, the same thing as doing mono. Okay, This just does it. I guess within the piano roll is just another approach to doing it, just to make sure that you're actually overlapping on a note with without slide, and then you can use slide notes that way. But port aumento and mono are universal there in every single doll, and they're an amazingly powerful tool 8. 1-7 - Syncopation for Movement: Okay, So in this video, we're gonna be talking about Syncopation. Okay, So what that means is playing off beat and kind of surprising your listener If I'm gonna be playing like a court here 1234 It could be very, very boring for your listener because there's no balance. There's don't change up. But when you're playing syncopated notes, they're kind of off. Be yet we still are in sync, and they allow a lot more movement and enjoyment. You know, it's more pleasing to your year. Now, every single track is different. Some tracks don't suit Syncopation, But in my experience, most tracks do benefit from Syncopation. Okay, so the notes should really be on beat, right? So this should be here, but actually played it like this. Okay, so here we go. Okay. So it's kind of only offbeat, whereas these sounds should really be on like this. Right? But this doesn't really give life to the track. It's kind of like, you know, like, 12341234 But whereas when they're syncopated, they're off beat. Okay, I think this a little bit of a different flavor, right? And again you know, if we're dealing with, like, a piano, whatever to get like that Syncopation, which I showed you earlier So again, we'll just play. I can see minor here. I'll zoom in here, and typically, if I'm gonna add it, I usually go like 1/4 beat or something like that. It's a little bit easier to work with. So, with Syncopation, how I would approach this instead of playing on, like, every single beat like that, I would make this note smaller and I would play it like this. So I'm leaving a space in between each of these. And then this will be playing again on, like, the one here. Well, I guess is like the three. Um, then I do this. OK, so it would sound like this. Okay, so now you don't just have to do it like this pattern, Like, you know, maybe you can even take this one out and maybe have it just like this. So this sound is kind of weird. Don't worry about the sounds. Just more focus on, like, window. It's OK. So this is what Syncopation is. So even though I'm playing these notes on beat, you know, this These notes are off be as well as these notes, but it's still staying like in like that sink with it keeps with the rhythm and this is really, really popular. And like dance, music and stuff, it really, really helps. So Syncopation is huge. Try it. Oh, in your tracks. Okay. It will really help add more bounce, more life, more movement. It will make your tracks more pleasing to even your own ears rather than it just be so blocky. Because if it's just 12341234 again, it's just kind of rigid. Now you can always be using swing. Okay, so what swing is doing is it's actually these notes right here. So this is actually what I call the in betweens with safe spots. Okay, This is what I call the A and the B. So we have the on be right. 1234 We have the off beat, which is right here. The off beats was in between beats, and then we have the in betweens and I call this a and then B and A is a lot trickier to work with and be So what swing does is it actually nudges these notes over and depending on how much swing you increased by. Swing has been around for a very, very long time. I think it first started with, like, one of the first MP sees with Roger Linn. But what I'm trying to say behind that is would you give your track a little bit of this movement? In other words, not everything is so perfectly on beat. It really helps to give life to your tracks a little bit more of a humanistic flavor. Okay, so tryout, Syncopation. Hopefully that one helps out your tracks. 9. 1-8 - Talk Back with Counter Melodies: Okay, So in this video, we're gonna be talking about the counter melody, a counter melody, kind of compliments What's going on in the track? But it's just kind of different. That's how I treat a counter melody. So in this case, I actually just called it counter and this is what it sounds like. Solo. Okay, let's listen to it in context of the beat. - So as you can hear, it's just kind of different from the track is playing like a different melody. However, it's still kind of adding to this production. Now, one thing I'll talk about with Lease as well as counter. So when I found over the years is many times playing the same note over and over, it's very, very catchy. Toe our ears as a listener. Okay, so it may feel boring as a producer, but your goal is to create melodies which all blend together and all sound good. Okay, it's like that's your goal. And as you can see here, what I've done with my counter melody is that played a lot of the same notes as you can see . Since I'm playing in the scale of C minor, this D Sharp is a very, very popular note that I use very, very often. It's a very, very powerful note it because it just kind of blends with this scale. Now I'm gonna jump just a little bit ahead, and I just want to show you the chorus here because this is the same thing I did as you could see. Look how often I played this D sharp note, but it sounds really, really cool in the track, it is repeated over and over and over in the near the end of the loop. I mix it up just to kind of give our listeners a little bit of a fresh listen. Okay, so I hopped to a new track here. This track is called Desires of My Heart. It's off my beat takes by graduates Volume eight. And I just want to show you how powerful this counter melody is and it's the plucks. Okay, so I'm just gonna loop this area without it, the track would still probably be fine, but with it, what happens is these notes all play, and then there's a little bit of silence, but then these notes kind of fill in that gap and it kind of almost echoes back what I played before. Okay? So just listen to these plucks and how powerful they are. Okay? Okay. Turn it back on one more time, okay? So I just want you to be aware of how powerful a counter melody is now. A counter melody is actually really, really tricky to create. Sometimes it just happens in all senators like, OK, I got it. Sometimes it takes a while to find it, and sometimes you never find it. Sometimes a track might not ever have when it might just be a simple be. And it might just be that's just the way it is. But when you do find that counter melody, it just kind of talks back to like the notes that you've already played in the case of this track, you know, it's like these notes all played and then without it, you know, is still fine. But with the plucks, it was almost like this is like the tension and that this is almost like the release. It's almost like hello and that it was saying hello back kind of thing. Okay, so, you know, a counter melody is just a super powerful technique is something that you're gonna have to keep practicing over and over again. But if you know how to improvise on a piano, and if you know your music theory and cords being able to find one of these you know counter melodies won't be that hard for you because you already kind of know the notes that you're allowed to play. And then it's up to you just to kind of find a different pattern, which is a little bit different from what's going on in your track. Okay, so that is counter melodies. 10. 1-9 - Fullness Without Realizing Fillers: Okay, So our next pattern that I want to talk about is what I would call it a filler. Now, a filler is typically like a long note that I would play in a track. And the thing is, you usually never really notice it until you take it away. So, for example, if the course is playing, you don't really notice the sound is there. But as soon as you mute it in this case right here, you'll notice that all of a sudden old yeah, the track is it's kind of lacking. Something is lacking some fullness. Or it's lacking some rhythm in the background that you just really didn't notice. For the most part, for myself, I just would literally just have a nice, long sustained notes. That's all I did right here. I'm just using silence one here just for a lead sound. Okay, so this sound actually has quite a bit of presence in the track. A lot of times you'll find that as you're producing their certain instruments which were not crucial to the song, But if you do take them away, you do notice that there's something lacking in the song. Now I know down here have lied. Slash filler. This is just as I was creating the beat. But I've just created this melody just before I recorded this video. And I just want you to listen to this just by itself, okay? And then I'll play with it and then without it, and then you just kind of hear how it can kind of add fullness with it on. Okay, so again, it just asked, Is that little bit of fullness in this case? It's just a simple note. And I just followed the court progression of what we had here. So in this case, are chord progression is see a sharp G sharp. And then we go up to D sharp and then down to a sharp and then back up to the sharp. I just played notes within those chords. So, for example, you know, I just played like the d sharpen the night D, and then I went down to a shirt, you know, I just tried to find a melody that kind of complemented what was going on again. I just used notes that were in those cords, and it was just literally a matter of trial. and air intel. I kind of liked the sound, but that is a filler track. That's typically what I would bad to my track. Just add a little bit of fullness and again, So it's not the most prominent instrument in your track. It just adds fullness. And if you were to mute it, your track is obviously missing something in compared to when it is added in. Okay, so that's just a filler track. 11. 1-10 - Groovin' with the Bassline: Okay, So in this video, I'm gonna be talking to you about the base sign. I'm also gonna be showing you a couple of examples of how you could be programming your baseline. Now, it's very, very important that your baseline suits your song because it kind of is like the gel of the song. It kind of helps, you know, get that groove going. So in the case of this check, this baseline is pretty boring. You know, it's just following. Like the chord progression is not doing anything special. But the cool thing you can do with baselines is you can actually added an end. No, If I were just Did you do like this? For example, you can even play that same note like this, and a lot of times, I'll put us a little bit of space in between here. So, for example, in fl Studio, if I hold on Ault, it breaks out of this snap. You know, because if I don't hold on Ault, I have to follow the snap. It is the full thing, and that's too big of a gap. But sometimes these v ST's if the sound is butted up just like this. Ah, sometimes you're not able to get that initial transient to play again. It just kind of overlap. So let's just delete this. I know Kwon ties it. I'll put it back to where it was at the end again. This just kind of helps the listener and freshens up the loop. It kind of brings the loop back in. Okay. Whereas if I would just extend this note and have all these notes deleted, you know, just like this, then this might kind of sound really, really boring. So for a baseline, typically what you want to do is you want to be following like, the fundamental note of the chord. Kind of like the root knows. For example, if your plan like a C minor chord, you want to be planning to see note If you're playing like a d sharp chord, you're going to want to play D sharp for your base note. Now, that rule typically applies for like, the very, very beginning of the baseline. So, for example, if our Courtis c minor, which would be see de Sharp and G, you know, So I'm going to start with C first, but then you can actually kind of walk your baseline, you know? So, for example, I can have a do something like this and again with your base. You never want to overlap notes unless you're using like that mono stuff so that you can get that pitch bending sound. But if you're not using pitch bending, you'd never want to overlap notes because, especially when it comes to your mix, the low frequencies since they oscillate slower than high frequencies. If there's frequency cancellation, you're really going to notice a in your track, and it's a horrible wobble sound with your base you want nice, tight, clean base, so make sure you're never overlapping on your base, as you can see. You know, since the court S C de Sharp and G. You know, you could do stuff like this, you know, just for example, but and then, for example, with G sharp ear, we have C, and then we also have the D sharp. So, for example, you know we could play around with any of these three notes here, and then you can even go with, like the G sharp above as well. I'm just kinda showing you how you can kind of walk like the baseline. Whatever. For example, this is typically something I do quite a lot, just depending on how complex the track is. And you know, if the track kind of needs that type of feeling, maybe we'll go back down to the G. You know, just let's just listen to us for a second, okay? So I just want to show you an example of Ah, baseline that I used. And then I'm also gonna walk you through a couple of examples just to get you going with baselines. Okay, so this track is called climber way. It's off of my beat. Takes by gratuitous volume eight. And so this is the baseline. And I really like how this baseline turned out all play it just by itself. So just like this, you know? So these taps right here had a really prominent sound in this mix. Okay, So, for example, play just like a bit of the intro, and then I'll play a little bit further on in the song too. Okay, so here we go. So, in this case, what I did was I had the baseline here, kind of like the taps, the do do do right? And then I also created this lead, and it kind of copied that baseline, right? So, for example, play those two together and the lead kind of comes in, you know? So that was just a cool approach I took to this baseline really allowing that baseline to be front and center of this track. It was really, really prominent. Okay, so this track is called real gangsta. When I used to run the Web state beat struggles dot com. It was a website where I used to do audio tutorials and fl studio tutorials and stuff like that. This was actually the theme song for that website. And then I like the tracks so much that actually added onto my Volume five beat tape. So this is what, like the baseline sounds like, OK, so we'll listen to in context of the whole track and just repeats like this over and over. That's that's the baseline. And I just followed the court progression. I guess, of this track based place very, very often in this track. This is it right here so we can have a take on the baseline. Okay, so let's just load up a new project and I'm gonna walk you through just a couple ways. How you could be programming your baselines. Okay, A good starting point for your tracks. Okay, let's put this temple to about 1 28 This is kind of a nice popular rhythm for, like, kind of dance music. And I'm just gonna go to vengeance dance. Sounds super good companies for quality Sounds, Honestly, they get a kick drum here. Okay, We're gonna play on every single beat. Let's just make just a little drum loop. Just so it's a little bit more fun to listen to. Okay, there's one clap. Can you take this clap? And what we'll do is we can use the trim knob. We're just gonna trim it up a little bit, and then we're also gonna use the out, and that was going to cut the length of this sound. Just sounds a little bit too long. Case that's that look easier to work with. And we'll just play that on the two and on the four. So so far, we just have this. Okay, so let's just get too high hats. Okay? So I'm just gonna get a high hat to play on every single beat. Well, maybe we'll play on every single beat. And, um, do something like this with it or something. Cabled us out a little bit of swinging there, just for a little bit of bounce. Um, and then I'm just going to go and open hat. And this is just really good to put on like the off beep. So you'll there, too? Something like this. So what I'll do is just click this in, and then I'm gonna copy and paste it that we don't have to do it twice. So so far, this is like a little drum that we have Now, this may be a little bit loud. Okay, So what does work with this? Okay, so I'm just gonna put this drum up in here. We'll just stick to four bars F two. I'm gonna go drum loop, have to again, Okay? And now what I'll do is let's just create a court progression. Okay? Now, you can't be clicking in your notes just like this. You don't like 1234 But again, that could be getting a little boring, fearless, and depending on the track, you're working on. So in this case, let's just put it to 12 Okay? And then what we'll do is our next court case. So it was Bring this down. I'm gonna go to G Sharp. So have the see. You don't have the B. And I'm just gonna extend this until the end of the second bar, okay? And what I'll do is I'm just gonna hold on control and click and highlight and then holding out shifting, clicking, I'll bring it over. So I'm gonna highlight these notes were gonna go for the D shirt, and that has the G, not the f sharp. And then we will go down to the A shirt again. If you want more information on cords and stuff like that again, just check out my course music theory and cords for beat makers. And it will really help you also on efforts to do keys. There is a sensitivity. Now, this goes hand in hand with how hard you're pushing the note on your midi keyboard, you know? So this is super sensitive right now, I can touch it lightly, and it's just super loud, so I'm gonna probably leave it just a You don't back it up just a little bit. So, like this What I was trying to say is, you know, rather than have the notes like 1234 this and kind of get boring. So I'm just gonna leave like this is gonna be a little more fun now, I'm just gonna wrote this to the mixer. This the piano here. And let's just add some reverb on, and that's gonna make it some bigger. If you click the arrow appear you goto helpers. There's a thing called ghost channels. Or you could just hit old V OK, And this is just super super powerful because now you can actually see the notes. So typically look like I was trying to say you wanted to play on like the root note. Now, you know, if you're using inversions, you still want to be playing the route know of that court, because with chords again, we have, like, the root position we have it the first inversion and then the second run version, and then it just goes to the root position, but just an octave higher. Okay, so I'm just gonna be following the route position here. Just as a starting point. Just so you can hear, you know, this is the simplest way to do it. Click and drag this one over. Okay, so now in fl studio, hold on control and down on the arrow key, and she brings it down an octave. Now, this might be too low, but we're gonna listen. Okay, so there we go. OK, so let's just listen to this. We'll like the drum loop. Okay? So now a popular thing to do in dance music, for example. So I'm going to sign the baseline to here, Okay? Now, what I'll do is it's gonna put on a compressor, and I'm gonna use it for side chain compression. Okay? Just to get some kind of balance out of it. Okay? So just to break that down for you quickly So I've routed the kick jump to insert eight down here. I voted the baseline to insert nine on the kick drum. I right click to one side chain to this track. So now the baseline is able to see the signal, but we can't hear the signal. If we increase this now we can hear it. We don't want to be hearing it. We just want to be able to for the baseline to see the audio signal within the plug in. I went up to the gear, went to the car gear on processing, and then now I have enabled Ah, the kick drum to be an external input. And then unprocessed e, I went external. And then now I just went super low on the threshold. Super aggressive on the ratio. You know, you could play around with the settings to fine tune it for your track. But this is like what it sounds like this is to get, like that pump sound. Okay, We'll be really aggressive with it. So without it, get with it. And I just want to show you that because that's a popular technique that people do. Okay, so another thing you can do his unders gonna go control and up in the air. Okies. So, typically it's nice to program your baseline against records like this because you can see So, like, I was showing you earlier, you can actually replaying your notes like this and this is a nice little way. And again, I used to just make this a little bit of a gap there. That way, the original sound plays again. If they're butted up, sometimes you can't hear, like, the initial pluck of the sound. And I could describe these two now and we'll bring them over, and then I was gonna bring it down an octave. We're gonna listen to it. So this is what the baseline sounds like. Okay, so that's a really, really popular way to do it. And so, like, I was saying before, you can actually just walk your baseline. So, for example, here is this baseline. So you know, it is all about the melody and trying to find a groove. But this is how you could do stuff like this, right? So, for example, I'm playing within the same courts here, so I can just kind of play like this. Maybe like this, and I'm just clicking around here, Okay, But let's just maybe keep this extended or whatever, and I'm gonna bring down an octave. Let's listen to the baseline. Now, I just want to show you one more cool way, how you can be working with your baseline here. It's just on the off beat, and I use this quite often in my tracks. So what I'm doing is I'm literally playing this on the off beat. So what's happening is the kick drums playing on the 1 to 2 to three and the four, right? So the kick drum is able to play nice and clear. This is really similar to use, Like that side chain compression, like I just showed you. But this is even a bit of a cleaner approach, and I'm just literally putting this on the off beat for the whole court, okay? And you can get a little bit more creative. Like, for example, it doesn't have to just play like this. I'll show you here in a second. So, for example, we just just listen to the baseline, so go down lower. Okay? So now what you could be doing is instead of playing every single No, unlike the G sharp here. So again, let's just go up in octaves so you guys can reference this, you know, completely went up. You can kind of again walk like that baseline. So, for example, and then this kind repeat something here. So do something like this and they will go back up or something. So again, now, let's go down an octave. Let's just listen to that with everything, okay? It's just all about playing around, trying to find a catchy melody that works with your track. For example, maybe you want to bring this one up. Maybe you don't want a baseline. There may be connects. Tend this one. Maybe you can, you know, this is where the clicking and tweaking comes in. But this will give you a really good reference point on where to start with your baseline. OK, so these are just all just different approaches. Hopeful that hopes your with your baseline again. It's really important that you take the time out to make sure that your baseline has a catchy groove, because it really is like the gel of your track. You know, it goes hand in hand with your kick drum. You just want to make sure that that groove and everything is there. Okay? 12. 1-11 - The Catchiest Part: the Lead: Okay, So in this video, we're gonna be talking about the lead. Okay, So the lead is typically the most catches part of the song. It's when that lead comes in. That's what the listener was waiting for. That's what you have built up for. However, in your arrangement, you can actually tease your listener with a little bit of this lead. So instead of play like the full deed, you could maybe just take a couple of the notes and maybe you could just kind of repeat those. And then once it comes into the chorus, you know, you would then just fully play it. You can also maybe filter these out with an e que Just automate that so that, you know, you're just kind of teasing the listener again. It just kind of prepares that listener. It kind of teases them. It's like the anticipation and tell the actual chorus drops. Like I was saying, I kind of tried to do like a, of course in a pre course. However, as a whole, it sounds kind of cool to this whole thing. Could be a chorus, even with these notes being different. But just as I was building the beat. I just thought to myself, Oh, well, maybe all use something like this to kind of transition into the chorus. And again, a pre course is typically after reverse. It prepares the listener for the course. And if this set of MIDI notes right here always played before the chorus than the listener would know that okay, the course is coming in. So this is what the lead sounds like. OK, OK, so as you can see nothing special going on at all again, I'm playing in the scale of C minor and I'm using a lot of d sharp. Sorry, it's up higher. So and again, I have that port aumento so you can hear Wanna play between different notes on again If you go down lower to higher, you get more of that effect between the pitch bed and they will just check out the pre course. So I just use the same sound. Just different Midi notes. Ah, game. When you add something like this near the end of your loop, it kind of prepares your listener for the loop is going to repeat again. All that is is just playing notes. Other downwards or upwards, or you can go like, uh, like, you know, down, up, down or whatever you want to do. Um, but typically, I usually find doing something like that near the end of my loop. Just kind of gives it that catchy flavor. So let's just listen to this lead in context of the beat just for you to hear, you know, the power of it. We'll take it all. Added back in. In my opinion, I feel that this is like the chorus. This is like the lead. This is what the listener would be waiting for. This is what helps complete the track. Okay with it. So for the lead, typically it is, you know, a type of lead like this. And it was pretty aggressive sounding. It's a sound that you want to cut through the mix again. I really like to use, like, even baselines up high. So, for example, I think I use the Syncopation. This is a base, and this is a super, super powerful way. So let's just open up this filter a bit. So right now it sounds like this. Okay, with the filter open now it's more aggressive. A little bit less distortion and I'll just show you always try and kind of improvise something over the beat here. Caso So, for example, it's apply law to delay on here. Okay, we'll make it really, really aggressive. So we just go dialing lots of mix. People die all the feedback down just so that's not clogging in the mix. But we're still hearing the feedback. Kate will make the delay. Love it faster. And you gonna set the left and right differently. Sometimes it is a cool stereo effect. Yes, maybe like 16th And, um, an eighth Casey here, like that Syria Effect writes, That sounds pretty cool, careless to supply some reverb on. And then I'll also may be compressed at the end of it, and I'll compress at the end just so that the delay and the river are closer in volume with the original signal making it kind of more audible. Like these effects like reverb and delay, it makes the more audible. And then we'll turn off and on to see a fair comparison kind of come and go, but little bit louder. But lead is typically a sound that's very, very aggressive, you know, not always many times. It's just like that catchy part of the song. But in this case, you know this sound. You know, it is pretty aggressive if the way how I was playing it, you don't rate. They're improvising for you. But again, it's typically the most catches part of the song. You can tease your listener with kind of certain notes every once in a while, throat your verse. That's a cool technique. And even if you want to play that melody, sometimes you again you could be using like a filter with an e que to kind of build it up into the chorus or again, you can get into that the layering and now inverse one. You only play one of those layers, you go to the chorus. Now you're playing all three layers. Now you go to the second verse. Now, maybe you're playing that second layer. Okay, then you go back to the course and you're playing all the layers. So you know, it all comes down to arrangement and how you want to prepare your listener. But at the end of the day, a lead is typically what the listeners always waiting for and usually applying effects like reverb, delay and even like distortion, really helped that sound to sound bigger and help it to stick out better in the mix. 13. 2-1 - [BONUS] - Breaking Free from Being Stuck in your Beats: Okay, so I just want to make one last video is gonna be kind like a bonus video, and it's gonna be focusing on when you get stuck how you can fall back to these patterns to help you get past that point of, You know, when you get stuck. Now there's two different ways how you can approach making beats. You could start with your instruments first, and then you build your drum loop. Or you could build your drum loop and then add your instruments in. I don't have a preference. It just depends on how I'm making the be at that day. In this case, you know, let's just say I have a little drug like this, Okay, we listen to it, okay? Just have some percussion here. Like I was showing you in the pad video. A pad is typically always a sound that you could add in, and it's always going to sound big and powerful. And again, typically, you can even start clogging up your mix. So I'm just gonna go to this pad layer because this pad right here has, like, that side chain kind of sound. Okay, so we'll go to this layer here so can go to turn up just a little bit to help it compete with this drum loop and make it sound bigger. Knowing cords and music theory is really important here because as soon as this trial moves playing, then you kind of know the cords you can play. You know, the timing that you could be playing these chords on again. You guys could check out my piano for beat makers and producers. If you remember, it comes included. So all I'm saying here is when I hit play here, the beats gonna happen, Okay? And then now what I usually focused on is I usually like to pick four chords. I will just kind of keep improvising on the piano until they find four chords that kind of are the direction that I want to go with. After those four chords are played. I will be playing pretty much those four courts again on the next four bars, but I might change up one or two chords just for a little bit of variety for the listed her . If I feel that the track suits that, you know, it's kind of hard to explain because Every track is kind of subjective to the producers opinion, right? Like if I'm gonna be big making this beat, you know, I'm gonna want it to be to sound like this, but someone else might be like, Oh, well, I don't like it. Sounds like that. So to keep this simple, I'm just gonna select four chords here. Okay, So I'm gonna hit play with the drum loop. I'm gonna play some chords and you're gonna instantly here is like, OK, well, now we kind of got a starting point. And then now, with the pad is laid Now, you can kind of reference back to these videos in terms of what will now. Well, what are you gonna add with that pad? So in arpeggio is probably a super powerful tool to use with a pad, because they're both, you know, really, really emotional and high energy. Ah, I guess depending on the sounds that you're working with, but typically, like this sound right here very, very emotional to go to the AARP, you know, you know, that's pretty emotional. It's pretty aggressive. So let's just hit play here on placing course. Okay, So now I didn't record there, but a cool thing. You could do an fo studio. And I'm not sure if other dogs offer this feature. I'm just gonna go to a new pattern. Make sure nothing's on there. Okay, so what you can do is you go to tools and you can dump Ah, score logs. So everything I've played in the last two minutes, As you can see, I have all these different notes here. But what I want to do is I just want to grab uh, right here. Okay, So this is me playing, and those are typically the course I want to play. I think near the end, I want to change it up. So I'm just gonna hit delete hit control V because I copied that. And if you click and hold first and then hold on shift now it locks my vertical so I can't go up and down now, and it's gonna press control and cute quantifies that. Okay. And so let's just play in the pattern. So appear we a pattern song mode. So I just want the pattern to play, and I'm just gonna edit these many notes quickly. Okay. So Okay, so we got to turn off all these notes. So I'm gonna turn this off, Turn off the Arps and that again because I dumped the score log it put in all the instruments I played with in that last two minutes. So I just want the paddler within this pattern. So here we go kiss. So I'm just not sure how this is gonna sound, so I might have to add this in and play it with the drum loop. Okay, this will give me a better reference point. Look at the two fast. We're gonna go on the three. They bring back a little bit. Okay, So this court right here, I want to change this up. So maybe I'll play all night to see there and then the G. So I think I like that. So let's just ah, hit control and B is in Bob. And now it just duplicated that pattern. So, as you can see, this is like a reference point of, you know, Now we have some course going right. Okay. So now where can you go from here? Now you can reference all these different types of patterns I've shown you to try within the track. So, for example, we have a pad here. Now we can do the art. So again, with an art, you could be playing a chord for, like this. Like this, for example, you could just depending on a single note. Since I have the ghost channels, maybe I can just click it in and it's maybe follow the route, Know of the court again. That's like the bottom note. Okay. And again, if you're playing like an inversion, you'll still want to be playing like that route. No. So this is the matter of me clicking this in. Sometimes it's like a starting point. But many times when I am on my own, you know I'm not recording because, you know, we don't have a certain amount of time where I can talk. Otherwise, you'll get so long, right? If I'm trying to improvise this stuff. So this is a good starting point, just clicking it in with some ghost notes. And if you don't have ghosts, don't you can always just copy the notes over. So, for example, it would say go copy and then paste right. You could just delete the upper notes so we'll do something like this no longer. Or maybe not these two, Okay? And not Thies too. Yeah. There you go. So hit. Delete. So is like, now these are the root notes. Okay, so that's just a little shortcut if you don't have ghost channels within your dog. So now this. Just listen to the pad and the AARP again. This art is only playing on the root note, so we'll listen. Okay, So now what you could be doing is in between these silent parts, you can maybe either continue on this art. So, for example, or you could be balancing around with the different notes within this cord. So, for example, may be up here. You know, maybe I will ah, do something like this and then bring it back down to here, right? So listen to this again. And even though I'm playing right here, maybe I could still play here, So I'm gonna go here and then be up or something like that. And as you could see, I'm just kind of referencing what I did previously, because music is all about kind of repetition and similarity, you know? So just because I played it here like this you know, it doesn't mean I have to play it like that, but it's a good starting point because it's kind of like music. Many times has, like that tension and then release. So because I've kind of spoke to them this way, I'm kind of speaking back to them again. This way, right. Like, for example, like this is like, the third beat because one, 23 and four Right? So I'm playing it on, like the third and 1/2 and again three. So 3.5, if you want to call it that and then, um, playing on the four to write. So again, I'm just saying it's kind of symmetrical. Music doesn't have to be, But many times that creates a nice, pleasing sound for your listener. So let's just listen to it with the drum loop, OK? Okay. So let's maybe just continue with that. So, um, right now I'm just gonna go to the AARP, and as you can see, the check marks on the other sounds that I'm using within this pattern, and we're gonna continue so again has to be on the four and make for 3.5. So again. I'm just referencing the cord that I played here because this no is actually continuing until we hit here. Okay, so maybe let's just go down lower, okay? And again, I'm just playing this No, right here. And we will maybe finish it all former time. So over time. So again, you know, I am rushing. I'm not really hearing it through. I'm just kind of passing on ideas that you could be using. So now let's get into maybe, like, this lead kind of sound. The when I was sound designing with you previously. Oh, Okay. So I'm just gonna go to the piano roll. I'm just gonna program it down here, and then I'm gonna bring it up in octave. Um, again, I can just hold hold on control and the up arrow and sorry that just brought it out of you . But there you go. So that just brings up an octave shift and up goes up and no. Okay, so let's just maybe go like and I'm just going to make a space in between here, because again, some v ST's don't allow that initial transient to happen, and I don't know what this is going to sound like I'm just kind of creating a little melody within this. So since I'm in c minor, typically, D is kind of a hard no toe work with. So how it works is the seventh. No, in Major is hard to work with, and the second no is hard to work with in minor scales. Okay, so this is going to be interesting to hear, so I'm gonna bring it up in Octave and let's just listen to it, okay? So maybe I can be kind of copy something similar to that, but I don't have to keep it like this. So So maybe I can do something like this. Make it fast. So So that's a little bit rushed. And then instead of playing it down, lower media will put played up higher. And then let's just do something similar here. So maybe instead of going down low, maybe I'll go up to, like the d Sharp or something cause again in the scale of C minor. I really liked to play D sharp a lot. It sounds really pleasing for my ears and stuff. So again, you know, this is like the same melody were playing. But now, in the second part of it, I've just changed up right here. And this could be all you need to do to make it sound different, but still pleasing. Okay, so let's just listen until we get to these, uh, no two areas again, I don't know what is going to sound like I'm clicking it in with you as we're going. So Okay, so, again, that's that sounds rushed. So maybe I could do something like this, and it will go up in October. Okay, so here we go. So far, we have a pad. We have an AARP, We have a lead sound. Okay? It's like that lead filler. You know, let's maybe add like a baseline, and okay, so again, the baselines really, really simple because all we have to do is just follow, like, the root notes. Now, I don't have to keep the notes, Um, you know, playing like this. Like, I could maybe, um, play it, like, off beat or something. That but this is just a reference point. Ah, and then we're going to hear where we can go from here. Okay, so let's just highlight all of them on this. Just bring it out. Okay, so now I'm just gonna highlight Ah, these notes and I would extend them, okay? And then I'm going to highlight the longer notes kiss. Maybe you gotta send this one here. Um, maybe will make thes shorter a little bit, but to see how it s sounds shorter sometimes again, silence is a really powerful thing in your tracks. Okay, So see how that transition and maybe it's just a little bit too long. We needed maybe allow more room for maybe like that drum to hit like that clap to hit, you know, stuff like that. So, um style that's been back to And this might sound okay. Here again, maybe we can spice it up. So in our C minor chord, we have d sharp as well as G. So let's try G. OK, eso let's go down. Well played g here and then in a sharp we have d as well as F. So let's play the f there. But let's just check it out. Okay, So in this case, I'm not liking this sound like this. So maybe I will play the same Noah's that lead sound that plays there, we'll play it nice and short, and I'm gonna bring it down. Let's just try us as the d sharp there. Way. Have a pad. We have our AARP. We have a lead sound. We have a base. Okay, so maybe let's try some quick stabs. Okay? So you can see it's like, now it's getting really busy, and I don't know which notes go where and what belongs to what, Right. So it gets kind of confusing, which is why it right now I'm just gonna copy and paste these in. And now this is a good reference point. I know we're like, these notes are so let's just kind of hear how it sounds just by called being the pad. Okay, so first of all, these stabs are too low. So let's bring that up an octave because you sound design and selecting the right sounds. It's really important, because if all you're sounds or kind of down low, it's gonna make it hard to mix like you're gonna have to be really aggressive on your e que and stuff. So by me bringing this up an octave, it's gonna help with this pad because the pad will be able to breathe more. And now these stab notes will be able to breathe as well. Okay, so up in octave, it sounds like this not right. Okay, lets go up one more time. So again, if I take all the stabs, but with the stabs Okay, so now let's talk about the filler. So the filler is typically a really powerful sound that typically has a long note, and it's just played in the background. But again, when you take it away from the track, it feels that something's missing. But when you're listening to the track, you really don't even notice it's there. OK, so it's kind of tricky. Let's just copy the stab notes into the filler, and I'm just going to remove some notes. Okay, so maybe let's put like the upper note. So let's remove these. Make it simple. Unjustly, most of them. So again, I'm just focusing on the upper note. In most extend these out a bit. Case is a bit aggressive. It could be too high of an octave. But again, you know, mixing does wonders to write like, you know, maybe Aken cut some hives with this sound and maybe would make it blend a little bit better case. So let's go down an octave more. Okay, so let's cut this. Let's try a different sound care. So as you can hear sounds, selection is really, really important. Like the filler kind of fit a little better. The lead was a little bit too aggressive, so let's just try this county. Okay? So I think it landed on a sound. So it's not super aggressive. I'm gonna sold out by itself. The octave isn't super high, and you'll hear it. Okay, So now if you listen to that in context of the beat, okay, so it's not super noticeable, right? But if I mute it, case is kind of missing back in. Okay, so I hope that kind of gives you a good reference point of where to go when you kind of get stuck. But as you can see, you know, as I walked you through, I try to, you know, implement all these different kind of sounds and then, you know, when it comes to the improvisation, like, for myself, it is just a matter of time. Just, you know, sometimes is tapping notes and just kind of staying within like that same scale within the same kind of court progression. And as I'm tapping these notes, I'm just trying to find a melody. And the melodies don't have to be super complex. Sometimes when they're super complex, it's It makes it harder for you to find a melody. Um, but once you kind of get a simple melody laid out, then you kind of go back in and just start, you know, manually clicking things around again. We have these ghost notes, that super powerful stuff. So I hope that helps you out when you get stuck. You know how you can kind of reference this stuff to kind of, you know, break free from producers Block, Okay. 14. Musical Rhythms [OUTRO]: OK, so that's our course on musical rhythms in all these different patterns that you can apply into our tracks. So if we go back to our original patterns here and again, I tried to implement you know, pads, stabs, arpeggios, pitch Ben kind of sounds with Porter Bento Syncopation playing on lengthy, off Be again instead of floating on like the one the 23 and four you can play only the off beats and stuff like that super super powerful stuff. That way I tried to create like a counter melody again. It's kind of goes hand in hand with the beat, but it's just a different rhythm, a filler track of super super powerful again. When it's taken away, you actually miss it. But when it's there, he don't really notice says that you got to take it for granted A baseline. There's lots of different approaches you can take to that. So when it comes to that slide knob, you kind of got a dial it in, according to the song, Um, again, if you're too aggressive with it, it can kind of sound overbearing in a sense of like it's kind of too much just kind of sounds annoying or cheesy sounding. So I hope you guys really like this course in terms of these patterns. If you guys have any other questions about certain instruments of how you can play them such as, like the piano or that the guitar. Ah, good starting point. I can easily create another video and added to this course as well. So let me know what you guys think. I hope you guys liked it. I'm gratuitous. Thanks for checking out the course, and I will see you guys in the next course.