PRODUCTION

MUSIC LIVE –
The Insta Tip Compendium

Over 120 Tips to become a better producer –

from songwriting to mix & master

productionmusiclive.com 1
CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 – SONGWRITING

CHAPTER 2 – ABLETON TIPS

CHAPTER 3 – DRUMS & GROOVE

CHAPTER 4 – SOUND DESIGN

CHAPTER 5 – SCALES & CHORDS

CHAPTER 6 – MIXING & MASTERING

CHAPTER 7 – FREEBIES & HOW TO USE THEM

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Hey there,

thanks for checking out this collection of tips taken from

our Instagram account @productionmusiclive.
We always want to cater your wishes, that’s why we put
our most valuable posts from the past year together in this
E-Book.

We hope you learn a little something from each tip and

keep producing music.

„Always produce music for yourself – even if it drives you

crazy sometimes“

Ben Böhmer, DJ/Producer

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CHAPTER 1 –
SONGWRITING
Starting to write a song can be intimidating at times. In this section
you find useful tips to get started, to find a productive way out of the
loop you might be stuck in and to improve your overall writing skills.

But like always: your ideas matter the most to make you an
outstanding producer / musician. Be creative! Want to get started?
Read on and get inspired!

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Tip 1: parts

Be sure you create parts, that are different to each other in order to
achieve dynamic.

In music theory there are many concepts on how a song needs to be

arranged - and quite as many exceptions. Frankly, there is no right or
wrong. But throughout the decades certain structures and similarities
stood the test of time.

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The good old “Pop Form” is still valid for most of the productions
today - not only in Pop Music. Intro, Verse, Pre-chorus, Chorus, Verse,
Bridge, Chorus, Chorus - even by intentionally neglecting this form,
most songs have at least some pieces of this concept. Why? Because it
works!

Tip 2: explore the vertical

Make sure you don´t use all instruments at the same time all the time
- no matter how much you love their sound. The listener gets tired to
hear the same “full stack loop” over and over.

Leave the kick out, cut the bass before a massive drop, to make the
impact even bigger, insert a dynamic drum roll that fades into your
chorus - be creative! One bar of silence is also a way to make use of
the vertical ;).

Tip 3: reference track

This is pretty obvious - but to create something outstanding, you

need to know the basics. Most songs work, because the are not
randomly put together and follow a red line, that guides us through.
Drop a track into your DAW and analyse the hell out of it, until you
understand why each part is where it is.
Extra tip: the waveform will be very useful as a visual support.

Tip 4: proportions

Most tracks have an even amount of bars that follow each other. For
example are most verses 2 times 8 bars followed by 8 bars of pre
chorus or directly 16 bars of chorus.

You can play with uneven proportions of course, but be sure to use
them fully intentionally - good position is 1 bar of silence before a
drop, to give it more emphasize and let the listener out in the blue for
a moment. . .
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FOCUS ON NOTE LENGTH
While every DAW´s editor has a default note length (mostly a 4th), it
does not mean, that it has to stay that way!

When you are a producer, that does a lot in the editor, this tip can
lead you to more organic sounding melodies and leads, because it is
more rhythmical and less predictable.

Imagine Ed Sheeran mumbling some sounds over a chord

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progression - he introduces all kinds of note lengths, while he
improvises.

Tip 1: improvise

Try to sing, whistle, clap or dance a rhythm, that differs from 4/4.
Mumble, stutter or sing a melody in that rhythm and try to translate it
to your editor. You might want to record it first, so you don´t forget.

Tip 2: randomize

Although randomizing can be identified as such in most cases, here it

can come in handy. Just drag some notes around as you like. Maybe
they start overlapping and create a cool gliding sound. Maybe you
find inspiration for a “real” melody or maybe you hit the jackpot and
get something nice out of it. . .

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5 FINGER MELODIES
You think that is not enough to write a hit? Zedd “The Middle” consists
mostly out of 5 finger melodies - although he jumps to different
octaves, but still stays in the same concept.

Also for an example in a minor scale: the harmonica melody in the

drop of “X” by Nicky Jam and J Balvin, consists only out of 4 notes.

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Tip 1: proximity

Do not write notes too far away from each other. Do not choose an
interval bigger than a 5th, if you want to write a catchy melody (for
anything else, go crazy on your keyboard). Try to go back and forth
with some repetition, to drive the screw into the listeners ears.

Tip 2: hit your chord notes

Most of your triads will give you that 5 finger melody material you
need. Just take your chords and chop it into a cool hook.

Tip 3: ascension

Depending on your scale, you can write a melodic figure, which can
be started later on another note, but with the same proportions, note
lengths and intervals.

That way you create repetition without actually repeating. . .

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IMAGINE YOUR SOUNDSCAPE
Yes, sometime you just start clicking some notes together with no
real intentions and create a cool song. But if we are honest, that does
not happen too often and is mostly up to fate - and music follows
rules.

In most cases though, you have an idea that you have been whistling
on your way home or a song that inspires you, to come up with a
similar sound.
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In rare occasions you even have your song already laid out in front
of your eyes and ears and you just need to put it together - train that
situation!

Instead of just using trial and error, practice your imagination and
start composing your song in your head!

By envisioning the soundscape, the mood or feeling or even the

instruments supporting your song, you will get much faster results,
because you do not have to start at point zero.

Tip 1: feeling first

By recognizing the feel you want to go for, you can already dismiss a
lot of possible instrumentations or sounds. That saves you time and
energy and the risk of getting lost in flipping through synth presets.

Tip 2: orchestrate your ideas

Follow your inspiration, but set limits in terms of the arrangement.

Try to hear, where your pads need to be in the mix, before you place
them around randomly. Listen to a reference track for guidance.

Tip 3: prepare your project

If you have a custom preset for different moods, feeling or styles, you
will achieve your goal much faster.

Take a rainy sunday to prepare project presets with pre loaded synths,
samples, you name it, to dive right in, instead of setting up the
necessary and lose your ideas. . .

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DON´T START ON THE DOWNBEAT
You know the scenario: cool beat is at 80%, the first pads or even the
bassline is in and you feel, that it is time for the melody to enter your
listeners ears. With or without a MIDI keyboard at hand, you might
tend to start on an even beat or most of the time “even” on the first.

True, many great melodies of our or former times are or were written
that way, but it is very easy to spice things up a little and add a
boatload of groove and funk, by starting before or after your “1”. Not
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only that, many super catchy melodies do not even start on an even
(sorry did it again) downbeat in the first place. Try to kick of your
melody on an off beat in the middle or the end of a bar, to create
something unusual for your style and gather new ideas for future
tunes.

Tip 1: move your bar

Don´t put your 1st bar right in the beginning of your Ableton project,
if you are in arrangement mode. Leaving space prior to your “real” first
bar, gives you the opportunity to start off beat and kick in with the
music.

Tip 2: 4 and

Try starting your current melody on “4 and”. Yes, go to your project,

grab your newest melody in the editor and move it´s starting point
to “4 and “ of the previous bar. Your ears are probably set on the way
it used to be and you can always change it back, but you will like at
least 1 unexpected turn, that might lead you to starting on a different
beat next time.

Tip 3: breathe

Imagine taking a breath on your first beat of the bar and starting to
“sing” or write the melody after that. It will add a human feel and can
be easier to sing along. . .

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Sometimes melody notes do not completely fit their underlying
chords - which can sound very interesting or just amateur and bad.

A perfect example for that can be, that you are in A minor (natural)
and your melody plays a G. If your bass note is A and your chords play
the standard A minor chord triad A-C-E, this G can feel out of place
(poor thing). You can easily make that G more welcome, by adding
it to the chord already. So instead of playing A-C-E over your bass A,
play G-C-E. This will create an Am7 chord and sucks in that G in the
melody.

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This works with sooo many different chords and notes of course, but
you get the concept of adding melody notes to your chord material.

Tip 1: repeating figures

By adding your melody note to a chord, you can swirl around

different notes with the same musical figure and create the juice for
catchiness: repetition!

Tip 2: go easy on the semi tones

While whole tones work most of the time for this trick, do not trust
too much in the semitones, because they tend to create disharmony
in your chords. There are beautiful chords like the Major7, that
integrate a semitone, but if you want to please your audience, listen
to it first, before you send it to your buddy.

Tip 3: leave notes out

When you add a note to your chord, you might want to get rid of
another one, to not clutter your chord too much.

In our example above we left out the A as a root note.

If you add a D to a C Major making it a Cadd2 or Cadd9, which creates

an open feeling, it is better to leave out the 3rd, which gives a chord
it´s very own character and push your listener into the void. . .

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Ever faced a creative block, because the options seem to be infinite?
There is just too much stuff out there, that your song might need?
A new synth you want to check or a sample pack that boils your
productive juices - we have all been there and it is exciting! But is it
making you a better producer? Sometimes we need to limit ourselves
to evolve.
Try picking one sample to create a whole track from - yes, you heard
me!

Grab a HiHat Sample and pitch, reverse, redux or granulize the living
hell out of it, until you have enough material to start producing a
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track. Get rid of a certain genre idea for this exercise: if you are a Big
Room EDM guy, try to compose an atmospheric Noise Track or a
soundtrack for an apocalyptic B-Movie. If Techno is your passion, grab
a vocal sample and create kick, snare and hats from it and make a
Trap beat - everything is allowed to get you going.

That way you limit yourself, learn new tricks and realize, that
sometimes you just need to start to create something truly amazing.

Tip 1: limit yourself

By using only one sample, you train not only your creativity, but also
your production skillz, because you can not load a preset. With this
method you learn something and might come up with a great sound,
you can use in your next real production.

Tip 2: audio effects

You always wanted to use audio effects excessively? Here is your

chance to learn, what they really do and how you can use them
properly.

Tip 3: change genre

Do not stay in your trodden paths, but stray away to new grounds! By
letting yourself and your creativity go, you will be surprised of what
you are capable of. .

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Get rid of distractions

Sometimes it seems, that our whole existence becomes a distraction

from what it used to be. But even without sounding dramatic one
thing is clear: distraction kills creativity!

It might be ok at work to be cut out of your productivity by a cute

puppy video, that your friend sends over, but when you are knee
deep in the guts of your DAW, it can kill your flow or even ruin a cool
idea you had.

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Flow and coherence is crucial to music and to get that back after
watching a “drunk guy tumbling on the street”-video or organizing
the next dinner with your family, can be very hard.

Even if no incoming messages arrive, with all your social media

channels loaded or your phone in reach, you are never fully there.

Also removing yourself from your usual setting to a bar or cafe - just
you and your laptop - can initiate a sparkle, that you will notice.

These tips are of course super easy to understand, but very hard to
put to reality:

Tip 1: phone off

Tip 2: browser closed

Tip 3: TV remote out of reach

Tip 4: snacks and drinks prepared

Sounds too easy? Try it! . . .

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It is from a rather recent musical era, that songs start with the hook,
that most older tracks only reveal after a huge build up of verse and
pre chorus.

Probably this is rooted in the way many of us consume music these

days - it is the golden age of singles, Spotify and YouTube. We need
to be hooked a lot faster than some years ago, when artists used to
have a 5 minute Intro to a 9 minute track. The competition for your
attention is just one click away.
If you have the right bait on your hook, you can not be deep in your
listeners ears soon enough.
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Here are some ways to do that!

Tip 1: pitch your vocals

If you have a vocal sample or a real singer on your drop/chorus,

extract the main phrase from the melody and pitch up or down an
octave, to just give a hint on what is coming. That way you introduce
the catchies part of the song first and get peoples attention.
Especially useful for producing future bass or trap.

Tip 2: alternate the main sound

If your lead sound is a cool Serum patch with a heavy super saw, take
the melody and play it with a plucky mallet and a lot of reverb. You
expose just a little sequence without getting naked ;). Tip 3: filter the
master

Oldest trick in the book, but not often used for the introduction of
a hook. Cut out a phrase of your drop/chorus and apply high or low
pass and let the filter dive right into the “real beginning” of your
composition.

Tip 4: cut and repeat

Just cut out a fragment of the main hook and let it repeat in the
beginning. Effectwise you can apply all of the above mentioned
methods. . . .

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You dream of a career in music? You want to make it in the business?
Then stop playing around and start finishing tracks!

No one on earth will hear “all those cool ideas” that are stored on
some hard drive or whistled into your phone.

Your song will always only be as good as you can make it in the
moment - it is called evolution. You will get better with every song
and will look back at all the stuff, you would do differently now, but
if you don´t finish and publish, there is nothing to look back at - no
point of reference to get better and improve your skills.
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Tip 1: set deadlines

If you want to be a successful producer you need to meet your

customers expectations and deliver. Also if your customers are your
fans - you don´t want to be that producer that takes forever to release
a new track.

Set realistic (!) deadlines, but try to push yourself.

Tip 2: re-visit old track

Go through all these hard drives, dig deep and unearth some of the
“hit-songs” of old times and practice finishing songs. Your emotional
attachment is probably less intense and you can just do, what the
whole lesson is about - finish it.

Tip 3: let it go

Yes, it can always be better or different, but it will never reach some
ones ears, if it stays at 70%. Break your habit (if you have it) and finish,
publish, release and celebrate.

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Unarguably, the drop (also known as chorus) is the most important
part of the song.

It contains the main hook, probably the biggest instrumentation and

and is usually mixed louder then the rest of the song.

That´s why it is so essential to let all previous parts build up to the

main section of the song.

But sometimes we get caught up in sound design or lose focus while

composing idea after idea, that the arrangement suffers and we
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wonder, why the drop just does not „hit hard enough“. Most of the
times it is not about making your drop harder, but to soften the parts
leading up to it, because contrast is what makes a good track!

When you fire up everything and shoot your bombs before the
listener even heard the drop, you can´t make them go „yeah“!

Tip 1: create contrast

Contrast is what it´s all about! You want to add or leave instruments
or musical figures, to create dynamic over the period of time that is
considered to be a song. By doing that, you devote yourself to the
idea of keeping the track interesting for your listener.

Tip 2: no bass in build-up

By introducing the bass in the verse or intro, you make people crave
for more. When you suddenly take away, what they already love, you
create a feeling of „give it back, I need it“. Now mute the bass line in
the 4 or 8 bars prior to your drop, to let the feeling of satisfaction set
in right there with the bass in the drop.

Tip 3: raise tension and release energy

All parts leading to the chorus are there to raise tension, which you
want to release in the chorus. The level of tension goes down, while
the level of energy needs to rise as high as possible.

Tip 4: repetition

Repeat the whole thing before the last chorus and take away even
more! This time maybe add some new rhythmical figures in the last
drop, to make it bounce more. . .

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No matter if you are a Techno DJ, an DnB Junkie or a Rock Musician,
the Pop Form influences all your lives and even more so your
compositions – because this arrangement structure is proven to
work. So many hits are and were composed with it, that we can say it
is probably the most successful song structure in the world – from the
Beatles over Madonna to Zedd.

It´s important to know why the sequence of Verse, Pre-Chorus,

Chorus with different repetitions catches everyones attantion.

Here are some tips on how to improve your arrangements:

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Tip 1: analyse

Try to analyse as many songs as possible, to figure out, which parts

raise which emotion. Grab the best or most successful songs of your
favorite genre and examine all parts and their function. That way, you
can find out, why and where your drop/chorus needs to be placed.

Tip 2: variety

Rules or structures are there to be broken, but before you define your
own guidelines, try to find out, why the Pop Form works – for almost
every genre.

Once you figured out the differences and most important distinctive
features you can implement them in your songs and whitness more
coherent songs in your portfolio.

Tip 3: history of success

Even if you don´t like Pop music, this structure has influenced your
live without you noticing, because most songs we hear in public (not
only radio) are catchy for a reason. Google your way through different
forms of arrangements and try to adapt it to your latest track 1 on 1. If
you don´t like it later, you can still press cmd+z. . .

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For most producers, musicians or beat makers creativity or coming up
with ideas is no problem – but putting them in the right order in the
right proportions can be sometimes.

Here are 3 easy and very practical tips:

Tip 1: create change

Duplicate the initial idea a number of times, so that you have lets say
4 identical copies. Edit the first duplicate until you have made one
meaningful change, like modifying the lead sound.
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Now go to the next loop and change something else – this time we
mute most of the tracks, to create a break part.

The next loop will be armed with a snare roll, to have the right
material for a build up.

In this loop we change the harmonies for a possible bridge.

You get the point – by moving forward loop by loop in a very playful
way, you find enough material to arrange your complete track.

Tip 2: create patterns

Take your 4 or 8 bar loop and duplicate it once. Then apply a major
change on one or two elements. Maybe change the sound of the
pads together with the harmonies.

Then duplicate this modified loop and apply another change.

This time you could go for the rhythm, by leaving only the top loop
active and mute our kick. The next loop will build up tension, by
repeating one part of the melody and a swoosh effect made with
white noise rising up.

By applying change by change, you organically evolve your ideas and

end up with a coherent change.

Tip 3: substraction

Arranging as a subtractive process - if the traditional arranging

workflow is analogous to painting, the subtractive workflow is
analogous to sculpting. Duplicate your 8 bar loop across the whole
timeline. Now start to shape your song by deleting elements.

You can start doing this eratically and will figure out for every track,
what is working and what just does not sound right. . .
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LAYER CHORDS TOGETHER
For an exotic sound, try combining regular major or minor triads
together to form polychords.

Let`s start with C major as the first chord (C-E-G). For the second, we
need the major chord that has its root a perfect fifth above the root of
the first chord, which is G major (G-B-D). Combined you get a Cmaj9
chord (C-E-G-B-D). Try to go for combinations that already have a note
or two in common.

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Recording your own drum samples does not mean, that you have
to be a drummer or that you even need a drum set to do it! It just
means, that you need to be creative to sound different.

In addition to yesterdays´ tip, we want to strongly encourage you to

record anything anywhere, to have a huge library, that NO ONE ELSE
will have! If you haven´t read it, yesterday we were talking about
layering drum samples to get unique one shots for you productions.
If at least 1 of the samples you layer is recorded by you, chances are
really high, that you come up with a snare, kick or ambience sound,
that no one has used before.
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Tip 1: get a mic

We will not recommend any product today, but there are so many
different devices out there. What really works for us is a small mobile
phone mic, that you plug in the jack and can get out of the pocket,
whenever creative hits you!

Tip 2: start listening, stop hearing

We hear stuff everyday all the time. But once you start listening to the
sound surrounding you, you start noticing pattern, loops, rhythms,
sounds and all kinds of weird and unique shapes and sizes. Use this
tremendous pool of inspiration to fuel your productions with life.

Tip 3: process

Of course most of your recordings will not sound like right out of
a sample pack right away. Train your skills and process them to fit
your demands. Try to limit yourself to only using EQ, Compressor
and maybe a saturator at first and apply the real effects later in the
production. If you come up with a cool sounding pack, you can
always hit us up and we might want to make it accessible to a bigger
community.

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We can all spend days on our arrangements, but sometimes they just
don´t work. There are many reasons for that and the one that occurs
the most, is that we want to create something completely new - and
then neglect the rules of a coherent arrangement. There are certain
structures and most of them are still valid, because they simply work.
One of them is the Pop form: Intro, Verse, Pre-Chorus, Chorus, Verse,
Bridge, Chorus, Chorus.

The most important thing about an arrangement, is to keep the

listener interested by dynamic, raising tension, releasing energy - or
to sum it up, by creating contrast.
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You need to get aware of your parts, to make them work together.
Start with naming them the way you seem fit, as we did in the second
row of our posted pic today.

Tip 1: descriptive approach

You probably already have a set of names for all the different parts in
your song. Set markers in your grid and write them down. Try to be as
descriptive as possible. You can be as fragmented as “Beat” then “Beat
with Vocal Sample” or “Beat with top loop”. Go through your whole
song and try to recognize patterns you use.

Tip 2: set climax

Once you know, which the most energetic part of your song is, you
can start building up to it more clearly. Every drop or chorus needs
a build up or pre-chorus to shine. Give your song time to breath in
the end and the beginning by substracting melodic or harmonic
elements.

Tip 3: reference with Pop Form

After you identified patterns in your track, try referencing it with the
Pop Form, by analysing their function. Even if you do techno or house
music, there are parts telling a story and parts that clearly build the
climax or lead up to it. While naming and arranging them in the Pop
form order, you can practice to start with a more precise vision at your
next song.

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We are surrounded by sounds all day, every day and technology
happened to equip us with a recording device, that could capture
them.

This can of course range from cool patterns of a passing train for
example, a nice one shot while hitting a lamp pole or just when you
let the recording run to record what is happening around you.

In this QUICKTIP we want to encourage you to incorporate field

recordings to your tracks more often, because more often than we
think, they are the secret ingredient to a unique sound!
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Most of you are probably already doing that, but maybe forgot in
your last productions - the weekend is the perfect time to dedicate
yourself to sound.

Step 1: hit the button

Go out - to a bar, the woods, a crowded area or just your balcony and
hit record on your phone.

It does not matter what sound it is, but you will definitely not find it in
any sample library.

Step 2: tweak it

Now throw it in your project and apply a low pass or high pass filter
to it - depending on the mood of your track. Try some reverb to give
it some room - you can go a little more crazy here than usual and
maybe try some of those spacial presets. Now remove some excessive
frequencies with your EQ and sidechain it to your kick, to give it some
movement without cluttering the mix.

Tip: create a library

We tend to forget to do this so often, that when we do it , we “bulk-

record” a bunch of different samples to stack up for those long winter
nights, when we are craving for some unique beach sounds. So just
order two beers and hit record. Don´t forget to transfer the files to
your computer at some point ;)

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You know how to type in a destination in your navigation to actually
get where you want to go? Now try to see knowing your song
structure before you start composing as the equivalent to that. That
does not mean, that it has to be the first step of the whole process,
because you would probably feel restricted in your creativity. But
right after you came up with your 8 bar loop or the first ideas, it it
time to sit down and decide where you want to got with your song.

Tip 1: define dynamic

Contrast and dynamic are the two main ingredients to an interesting

38 productionmusiclive.com
arrangement. If you can not manage to keep your listener interested
over the whole length of a song, you probably have some more work
to do. Depending on the genre, there are certain rules to make a track
work. Try to find a reference song, that matches your expectations
and slightly adapt the structure - you can still change that later. 

Tip 2: set markers

Now see yourself like an architect, designing a skyscraper, before

actually building it. Think of the right moment for a break and build
up and how to create tension to lead up to the biggest possible
impact of the drop or chorus or whatever part it is that marks the
climax of your song.

Now name these parts, give them some approximate lengths and
draw in the markers in the arrangement mode.

Tip 3: feel and follow

Of course there will have to be changes applied to the initial marker

structure, but try to follow it as closely as possible, once you like it,
and adjust accordingly, when a transition part or a bridge part needs
to be longer than intended.

That way you will end up with results much faster, because you are
not getting lost along the way and you learn which parts are more
important than others. 
But first of all, you start finishing tracks

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We all have hoarded loads of 8 bar loops and still think, we will turn
them into complete tracks one day - we probably won´t. 
These loops do not belong on your hard drive, but on YouTube and
Spotify, so open them up again and start arranging them.

This post is about getting pumped to finish some old tracks - by using
this basic and super easy technique.

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Step 1: spread your 8 bar loop

Copy your 8 bar loop various times, until you have the desired song
length. Now try to apply our #pmltipoftheday from a couple of days
ago and “Set Markers”. After you have an approximation of where
you want to go with your track, you can start subtracting parts and
elements.

Step 2: build a climax

The picture in the post is of course exaggerated, but basically

building towards a climax -which is usually your drop- is what you
want to do. 
Try to create a full beat first, then break it down and build it up again,
to enter the first real drop! This can all be achieved by subtracting and
adding bits and pieces from your initial 8 bar loop. 

Step 3: tweak transitions

Of course the transitions will sound “made up” or not thought

through with this technique, but at least you almost got a song by in
just a few minutes.

Now it is time to get creative again and give the different parts what
they need. 
Drum rolls in the build up, a new lead in the drop, swooshes and
risers, crash cymbals, a bar of silence - now you know a lot better
what your song needs.

Step 4: finish it

That´s it.

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Unarguably, the drop (also known as chorus) is the most important
part of the song.

It contains the main hook, probably the biggest instrumentation and

and is usually mixed louder then the rest of the song.

That´s why it is so essential to let all previous parts build up to the

main section of the song.

But sometimes we get caught up in sound design or lose focus while

composing idea after idea, that the arrangement suffers and we
42 productionmusiclive.com
wonder, why the drop just does not „hit hard enough“. Most of the
times it is not about making your drop harder, but to soften the parts
leading up to it, because contrast is what makes a good track!

When you fire up everything and shoot your bombs before the
listener even heard the drop, you can´t make them go „yeah“!

Tip 1: create contrast

Contrast is what it´s all about! You want to add or leave instruments
or musical figures, to create dynamic over the period of time that is
considered to be a song. By doing that, you devote yourself to the
idea of keeping the track interesting for your listener.

Tip 2: no bass in build-up

By introducing the bass in the verse or intro, you make people crave
for more. When you suddenly take away, what they already love, you
create a feeling of „give it back, I need it“. Now mute the bass line in
the 4 or 8 bars prior to your drop, to let the feeling of satisfaction set
in right there with the bass in the drop.

Tip 3: raise tension and release energy

All parts leading to the chorus are there to raise tension, which you
want to release in the chorus. The level of tension goes down, while
the level of energy needs to rise as high as possible.

Tip 4: repetition

Repeat the whole thing before the last chorus and take away even
more! This time maybe add some new rhythmical figures in the last
drop, to make it bounce more.

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It is from a rather recent musical era, that songs start with a hook, that
most older tracks only reveal after a huge build up of verse and pre
chorus.

Probably this is rooted in the way many of us consume music these

days - it is the golden age of singles, Spotify and YouTube. We need
to be hooked a lot faster than some years ago, when artists used to
have a 5 minute Intro to a 9 minute track. The competition for your
attention is just one click away.

If you have the right bait on your hook, you can not be deep in your
44 productionmusiclive.com
listeners ears soon enough.

Here are some ways to do that!

Tip 1: pitch your vocals

If you have a vocal sample or a real singer on your drop/chorus,

extract the main phrase from the melody and pitch up or down an
octave, to just give a hint on what is coming. That way you introduce
the catchies part of the song first and get peoples attention.
Especially useful for producing future bass or trap.

Tip 2: alternate the main sound

If your lead sound is a cool Serum patch with a heavy super saw, take
the melody and play it with a plucky mallet and a lot of reverb. You
expose just a little sequence without getting naked ;).

Tip 3: filter the master

Oldest trick in the book, but not often used for the introduction of
a hook. Cut out a phrase of your drop/chorus and apply high or low
pass and let the filter dive right into the “real beginning” of your
composition.

Tip 4: cut and repeat

Just cut out a fragment of the main hook and let it repeat in the
beginning. Effectwise you can apply all of the above mentioned
methods.

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There are songs you hear while shopping or in the car, that
immediately make you move your head, snap your fingers or get you
going at it with your slickest moves. 
In many cases these songs follow a certain structure and are very
rhythmical. But in many cases it also comes down to the tempo
around 120bpm.

This is of course not coincidental. The human heart rate should be

around 60-65bpm when you are not doing sports or raving in the
club. Maybe also not after 4 extra espressos.

46 productionmusiclive.com
If we see this as a given, it is not surprising, that so many songs we
instantly dance or start moving to, are actually around the tempo of
120.

You don´t believe it? Did you ever catch yourself -drunk or sober-
dancing to one of these tunes?

Tunes in 120bpm (or slightly over or under): ---

Carly Rae Jepsen

Call Me Maybe

Journey
Don’t Stop Believin’

Lady GaGa
Poker Face

Bon Jovi
It’s My Life

Whitney Houston
I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Michael Jackson
Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

Michael Jackson
Smooth Criminal

Bruce Springsteen
Born In the U.S.A.

Diana Ross
I Will Survive

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Queen
I Want to Break Free

Baby Bash
Suga Suga

--- Probably this selection of hits will let you question, why many
DAWs are set to 120bpm per default and might want to write your
“tap along song” too, this weekend.

48 productionmusiclive.com
Arranging a track is an art in itself, that many struggle with. Here are 5
key factors you need to consider, when you want to produce a sonic
track!

1 contrast

The concept of contrast is probably valid for many things in life - but
very much so for music. You need constant changes to keep the
listener interested and surprised. Contrast can be achieved in many
different ways.

productionmusiclive.com 49
2 dynamic

Contrast can be achieved by dynamic - but also dynamic itself is key

to a good song. Parts need to build up and break down, before they
can erupt again and culminate in a drop. That is why these parts are
called that way ;) .
You want to create dynamic between the different parts, but also on
a musical level with varying levels of loudness or e.g. cut off in the
synth settings.

3 tension + release

You need to build tension in order to be able to create these

moments when the crowd goes crazy. When they do, the drop is not
the most important thing there - it is because the build up was good!
Concentrate on summoning enough tension, so that the potential
energy that everyone is anticipating, can actually be released.
Without tension, no release!

4 energy

You need a driving force in your song, but the highly energetic parts
should not outweigh the softer parts leading up to it. Again it is about
contrast with many different tools and elements. When you don´t feel
the energy, no one else will.

5 story

Yes, even if you produce instrumentals. Your music needs to tell a

story - and as you know from many great examples, a guitar, a lead
synth or even just a little percussion element can sing and tell a story.
Put these sound with the right melody or rhythm in the right context
and you can tell the story you want the world to hear!

Who is interested in a course on arrangement and what do you want

to learn?
Leave us a comment!
50 productionmusiclive.com
We know, that starting to put all your ideas together to a complete
song can not only be a little intimidating sometimes, but also pretty
difficult. We tend to lose track on what we do - at least we experience
this now and then. “Glueing” part on part, but it doesn´t feel like a
song.

There are many things to take into consideration here - for example
the 5 key factors to a good arrangement we posted some days ago:
contrast, dynamic, tension+release, energy and story.

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We need to treat these factors all the same, which can lead to losing
the feeling for the song sometimes.
A very good approach to not lose focus, is to divide your material into
2 sections in the beginning - story and emotional impact.

If you want to learn more about Arranging Tracks, check our brand
new “Arrangement Course” - link in story!

Story in Verse

Yes, this is also valid, if you do not use vocals in your song. You need
to tell what you want to get across in the part we call verse - if you do
Techno or House music we refer to this part as the “construction part”.
You introduce the different elements, foreshadow the drop, stack up
your instruments and set the mood with your sound design. In this
part you tell people, where the song is about to go.

Emotions in Drop

All foreshadowed emotions by raised tension, get released in the

anticipated drop - both musically and thematically. That´s the part
where you let go and “show everything you have got”. No time for
holding back. Pack it with your best hook, unleash your harmonies’
full potential - maybe write the progression for your drop, but
only play one or two chords of it in the verse. That way people get
emotionally overwhelmed and your drop is the climax it should be.
Of course also make it “drop” your listeners jaws, by letting it sound fat
and bulky after a minimal build up part leading up to it.

52 productionmusiclive.com
CHAPTER 2 –
ABLETON TIPS
We know from our early days, that starting with a new DAW is hard.
On the next pages you will find some handy tricks and cool things
you can do with Ableton.

But even if you use a different software, this section can solve some
problems for you.

No matter which DAW you use – get started and create your own
sound!

productionmusiclive.com 53
MAKE SOME SPACE WITH CMD + I
Did you ever need to insert a certain passage in your song, but the tail
got already really big?
Grab the length of the pause or space you need in your project file
and hit “cmd + i” to create that space without having to select the
whole tail of your track and dragging it along.

It is a really easy trick, that saves you tons of time and energy.
54 productionmusiclive.com
There are only few things that are more time consuming, than
navigating and clicking with your mouse or track pad for every action
that you do.

Every DAW has amazing short cuts already built in and they actually
save you time and improve your workflow by a huge amount.

Do you have these rainy Sunday afternoons sometimes where you

are? Great, then use one of them in the next weeks to sit down and
learn short cuts - it will have a bigger impact on your productivity
than you can imagine right now!
productionmusiclive.com 55
You will not only be faster, but also don´t have to focus on the
unimportant stuff like clicking that record button and moving your
hands back to your MIDI keyboard - get rid of these unnatural work
flows, even if you are used to them.

Tip 1: read the handbook

Yes, these times we live in we expect things to just work - plug and
play. But there are reasons why the printed version or a PDF copy of
the handbook can actually come in handy. Take it out of the shelf or
google some sheets and study the short cut section.

Tip 2: customize

Of course there is always the possibility to set up every button exactly

the way you want it. You are recording a lot of audio tracks? Then you
might want to have your transport control or at least the rec button at
a position you reach naturally. Being ready to record after just hitting
a button makes your life easier.

Tip 3: use a controller

If you want to step up your game even further, you can get a MIDI
controller with a built-in transport section and lots of faders and
knobs to map your effects or synths to. It is not really a short cut, but
has the same effect: a more natural feel and way faster flow.

Yes, it can be painful to customize and set it all up, but the time you
spend on that, will be given to you thousandfold after - promise! . .

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Yes, making music is a creative process and we all know, how chaotic
that can be sometimes – also sometimes genius lies in chaos. But stop
using this as an excuse to be disorganized, because this just costs you
time.

Imagine you have a genius idea and you find the right kick sample
RIGHT AWAY, because you thought of a system and know exactly
where to find and not only where to look.

We are not saying it is easy – bringing order to a historically grown

productionmusiclive.com 57
sample base of thousands of different one shots, loops or packs will
take some time.

Tip 1: systemize

You know your workflow best – so only you can find the right system.
Start with your kicks and order them by genre, length, impact or
amount of sub. Maybe you are synthestetic and can see sounds –
order your samples accordingly then ;). Tip 2: make room

I make a bet: at least 30% of your samples will never be used – but
it is probably more. Let´s be honest, it is a great feeling to think to
have the perfect sample for everything, but that one sound you once
downloaed is utterly useless, if you never find it again, when you
need it. So just delete as many samples as possible – or if you can´t let
go, just put them on some external harddrive, so you know where to
find that stuff. Keep what you think of as hugh quality samples and
start systemizing them!

Tip 3: tools

There are some promising tools out there, that seem to do a good
job. If you want us to do a review, tell us in the comments!

58 productionmusiclive.com
Sure, we all know, that there are multiple ways to find and determine
your own sound in all the VST synths out there, but one technique
that is often neglected is creating your own macros. By patching
different effects, LFO movements or anything else basically to a
macro control, you hold the key to new sound dimensions right there
in your mouse clicks or even better, your MIDI keyboard knobs.

By routing several of your most used or favorite effects to just one

knob, you have the control over a much bigger range of modulation
and manipulation.

productionmusiclive.com 59
Tip 1: choose wisely

Seek before you tweak! There are most certainly parameters that
go well with each other and some that just do not seem to match
at all. Try to envision the sound you want to achieve and choose
your parameters accordingly. The classic combo of an opening cut-
off, some delay wet/dry and opening the gates of valhalla with a
huge reverb is always a no brainer - at least for Melodic Techno and
atmospheric sound designing.

Tip 2: hands on

While tweaking knob or mod wheels with your mouse might

feel second nature to you, try to get your hands on a simple MIDI
keyboard/controller with knobs. Now map your macro to that knob
and wonder where it gets you! By actually “touching” your sound,
you will find combinations and levels of intensity, that are almost not
accessible with only using the mouse.

Tip 3: be crazy

Where the above mentioned combo feels like the go to solution

for an impressive effect, you can start thinking outside of the box.
Map for example detune of OSC 1 and OSC 2 together and mix it
up with some saturator or overdrive, if available. Basically try out
combinations, that leave trodden paths - and maybe even create your
own presets or instruments.

60 productionmusiclive.com
Melodic Techno is on the rise everywhere and why wouldn´t it, since
the sound is highly dance compatible, but also harmonic enough to
please almost everyone’s ears. Artists like Stephan Bodzin, Tale of Us
or Victor Ruiz to name just a few, fuse upbeat Techno stampedes with
beautiful harmonies and catchy melodies. Of course most of them
use (not only) analog gear and go crazy on their Sub 37s or Prophets
live or in the studio.

But there are ways to recreate these signature sounds with your DAW
and a VST synth like the Legend or the Arturia Mini (check todays
story). To add some analog feel to your digital synth you can also use
productionmusiclive.com 61
built-in Ableton effects like the saturator.

Tip 1: enhance your sound with overtones

The saturator will enhance your bass for example with some nice
overtones.

Choose a waveform in the drop down, that fits best and start
adjusting - you will be thrilled how easy it is to add warmth and
depth to your sound.

Tip 2: shape your sound

The waveshaper however is a powerful and very creative tool, to

deconstruct your current sound entirely. Click it in the drop down
and start messing it up in all ways possible. A U.F.O sound from your
snare? No problem!

62 productionmusiclive.com
An arpeggiator is one of the tools, that you either love or hate. There
are many producers, that write every single arpeggio that they do
manually in an editor - which can be a real pain in the ass.

But as long as you see the arpeggiator not as a tool that does the job
for you, you can get a lot of inspiration from using it.

Tip 1: melodies for techno

Especially when you want to come up with daring and totally

individual melodies for melodic Techno or basically any other genre,
productionmusiclive.com 63
you can start with this little trick: take the chords of your chord
progression and copy them to another MIDI track. Choose a rather
plucky sound and launch your arpeggiator. Now play around with
the knobs until you have a cool pattern. Record the pattern to a new
MIDI track. Delete most of the notes from this new MIDI track, while
keeping the main theme alive.That way you will come up with very
individual sequences, without actually having to write every single
note.

Tip 2: harmonic stability

Instead of layering sound over sound to get some harmonic stability,

you can use arpeggios to spread the sound for you! Where a pad
is sometimes not enough to give your song the foundation that it
needs, a pad in combination with a plucky arpeggio can do the work
and also enhance the feel of the song, due to the interesting figure
and movement.

Tip 3: voicing

Even though the arpeggiator plays all notes separately, you still have
to take care of the voicing of your chords. The feel of the melody or
the supporting plucks will be totally different with a different voicing.
Try messing with all kinds of inversions of your chords (you can learn
more about inversions and cool chords in our Harmony Course - link
in todays story!) Check out our shop (link in bio: productionmusiclive.
com) to learn more about voicing, inversions and arpeggiators. 

64 productionmusiclive.com
QUICK TIP
Steps:

1 Create a new return track

2 Apply a Frequency shifter and a simple delay

3 Move down the fine-knob, until you like the sound

productionmusiclive.com 65
4 Now set the mode in the simple delay from “Sync” to “Time”

5 Choose different time values in milliseconds for left and right - but
keep the range under 20ms

6 Make sure to have both dry/wet knobs on 100%. Now apply the
send effect to your desired track with your percussion sample, but
keep in mind, that you can not apply this trick to melodic elements,
because they will sound off key.

Enjoy an easy little effect chain, that will provide you with loads of fun
playing around with!

66 productionmusiclive.com
You know the feeling of searching for that one pad sound for hours -
preset pack after preset pack, but you don´t even get close.

The problem might be, that it is not played by a synth in the first
place - or better not first hand.

We are going to show you, how you can create an abundance of

totally unique pad sounds, with just some reverb and a sampler.

Step 1: choose your origin

productionmusiclive.com 67
Since we want to record reverb, we need a source to create a sound. I
chose the Ableton Grand Piano today - you can go with anything you
like, of course also samples.

Step 2: record

Create an audio track and record your MIDI to audio (check our
Beginners Course if you don’t know how to do that).

Step 3: choose your reverb

We all have our favorite reverb plugins. Take that one and choose a
preset with a really big and long setting. In Ableton´s Reverb tool we
took “Frozen Build Up”, because it gives us a lot of space and harmonic
content.

Step 4: freeze track

That´s it.

Step 5: flatten file

Right click, hit flatten. Done.

Step 6: simpler

Take that sample and throw it into the simpler, choose your favorite
part, loop it, apply some faders left and right.

Step 7: create

Now hit your MIDI keyboard or controller and be amazed of the

dimensions of this pad you built. Tweak with EQ and/or compression
and make some atmospheric tracks! . .

68 productionmusiclive.com
We are some of the blessed and can enjoy a summer like in the
movies. But that forced us to be as inventive as MacGyver in his best
years, when it comes to prevent overheating our production laptops
- just a little hint, it involved blocks of ice and an external cooling
device.

But there are of course also some tips you can apply production
wise, to make your projects less heavy and give your computer and
especially the CPU a break.

productionmusiclive.com 69
Here are some quick tips:

1 Temporarily deactivate plugins you are not using in the current loop
- (by hitting 0 in Ableton).
~
2 Record your pad sound, throw that sample into your simpler and
deactivate the original plugin (check today’s story for our YouTube
Video on “Creating your own ‘Synth’”).
~
3 Increase the buffer size - this will probably have a big impact on the
performance of your computer.
~
4 Freeze plugin-heavy (MIDI) tracks. Extra tip: you can even keep
your sidechain on a frozen track, by creating a group channel with
your MIDI track and applying the sidechain compressor to the group
channel!
~
5 Many modern synths like Serum or Massive have high and low
quality switches, that not only in- or decrease quality, but also the
impact on your CPU. . .

70 productionmusiclive.com
Drawing or playing arpeggios, is one of these time consuming tasks,
that can sometimes take days to get it just right. Perfectionism is
always appreciated, but every other day you just don´t have the time
to waste hours, coming up with a fresh idea, dragging around 16th
note after 16th note.

There is a quick little tip, to spare you some time.

Step 1: record chords

Take your MIDI controller or your piano roll and record long chords
productionmusiclive.com 71
- maybe half a bar, before you apply changes, but basically to your
taste.

Step 2: load the arpeggiator

Now load the arpeggiator MIDI effect and tweak it, until you like what
you hear. Try different styles, grooves and rates.

Step 3: record it

Now create a new MIDI track and route the pad to that track. Hit
record and capture the MIDI information of the arpeggiator to the
new track

Step 4: customize

Now you have a great starting point, to create your own arpeggios or
just tweak what you have already designed.

72 productionmusiclive.com
A good DJ knows when to apply effects. Most of the time, that is
exactly 1: no effect at all!

But there is a cool exception to that, the “Fade to Grey” effect,

which allows you not only to blend 2 songs, but also to create some
dynamic, tension and contrast in a loop, to move the crowd, where
you want them.

In addition, this effect is very helpful for your productions, too,

because it enhances your transitions with a live feeling.

productionmusiclive.com 73
This effect is super easy to do with built-in Ableton plug ins.

Step 1: load plug ins

Load a reverb, a simple delay or the Ableton echo, an auto filter and
maybe a utility into an audio effect rack.

Step 2: map

Now set the filter to low cut, map the frequency knob to the macro
control and name it fade to grey. Set the simple delay to 2 & 2, with
feedback about 50% and map the dry/wet knob to the same macro.
Set a reverb, e.g. the preset “large stage” with a decay time of about 2
sec and again map the dry/wet knob to the fade to grey macro.

Finally, to compensate the loss in amplitude, add a utility device. Try

to copy the exact settings from the picture.

Turn the knob - and fade to grey.

This is not only super helpful for DJs, who spin tunes with Ableton,
but also for producers, who like to enhance their tracks with a bus
load of live feeling.

74 productionmusiclive.com
Sometimes you do not want to use a delay as an effect, but try to add
some atmosphere, room or “background movement”, to let your track
sound fuller.

Some of those plucky sounds like mallets or pianos, tend to sound flat
or even boring sometimes. When you do not want to treat this with
a reverb (which should not be your go-to-solution for this anyway),
because other instruments are already consuming the room, you can
always try applying just a notch of delay. 

productionmusiclive.com 75
Step 1: simple delay for a simple delay

Of course we also love  messing around with the new Echo Delay
from Ableton, but we do not want to get creative, but add some
texture to your track, while still keeping it mono compatible.

Load the simple delay and tweak the settings according to the pic.

Step 2: start listening

Now it´s time for the headphones you know the best - or your mixing
room with your favorite speakers, because it is about nuances.

You do not want to build an effect that is recognizable as such, but to

create an atmosphere, that gives your track another dimension.

That is why you should start with a lot of feedback and the dry/wet
knob all the way down. Start bringing it up and stop, before it sounds
like a real delay or echo effect.

You can treat many different instruments with this technique of

course, but it is easy to understand the concept with some plucks.

76 productionmusiclive.com
Sure, it does not happen every day and there are other ways to get
a similar result, but sometimes you would love to treat different
frequency ranges of the same sample differently than the other. For
example when it comes to bass samples and you want to give the
mids or highs a little stereo spread, but that would mess up your lows.
You want to keep the lows mono and maybe even apply sidechain
only there, while EQing the highs completely different.

Here is how you can do that with a multiband compressor.

productionmusiclive.com 77
Step 1: frequencies

Load your sample and a multiband compressor. Now tweak the 3

frequency bands to your taste by soloing, until you have isolated the
frequencies you want.

Step 2: group

Now hit cmd+G to create a group in the multiband compressor

and duplicate it twice, until you have 3 chains. Right now they are
identical, so take care of your output level, since the signal is going
to be louder. Go into each chain and solo the different bands - name
them accordingly.

Step 3: apply effects

Dial the multiband-comp “amount” knob all the way down, if you do
not want to have any compression applied.

Now comes the cool part: you can throw different effects on the
newly created chains, allowing you to e.g. sidechain only the subs,
while having a delay effect on the highs.

You do that by dragging the effect to the chain you want it on!

As if you had 3 individual samples on 3 individual tracks.

78 productionmusiclive.com
Many hihat or top loops from sample packs sound too mechanic or
sterile. Of course there are many ways to breathe some life into them.

One way is a quick fix with using only the frequency shifter from
Ableton.

By adding subtle LFO movement, you can create some interesting

textures, that make your loop or MIDI hats deeper and less
monotonous.

productionmusiclive.com 79
Tip 1: change wave shapes

There are many different wave shapes like sine, saw or square and
they all give different results. Try to listen closely, how they change
the mood of your groove while soloing the drums.

Tip 2: change mode

Change the mode from the preset “shift” to “ring” and add some drive,
for creative loops. Now you can really shape the sound, to something
entirely different.

Tip 3: against the beat

Set the rate against the beat with 1/12 or 1/6 to inflict with your 1/8
or 1/16 beat. This way you get some natural sounding modulations of
your loops.

80 productionmusiclive.com
No one likes to talk about it, but we all face it sometimes - writers
block. Nothing seems to be good enough and all sounds boring to
you. Maybe you are stuck with the same default settings for too long
and everything sounds the same. There are of course multiple ways
to get out of there, and first of all talking a walk, doing some sport,
having a nice meal or meeting with some friends always helps to get
your mind off.

Since psychology plays the biggest part with this problem, we can
just suggest some ways to approach this from a producers point of
view.
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There are sooo many tools, plugins and VSTs 
that will cook up some creative juices. But why not give the Ableton
built-in effects a go.

Like the resonators.

They will transform your MIDI or audio from subtle 

Tip: try the Los Angeles Preset on a sterile piano and tweak, to get
nice texture like Nils Farm in there

Stuck on a song? Throw one of the presets on your main instrument

and see where it takes you.

This will not rescue a bad song idea, but it might be the ignition to a
great new one!

82 productionmusiclive.com
Feeling stuck in repetitive drum loops or you can´t come up with
something better than sidechaining long bass notes?

One trick you can use, is converting your drum tracks or basically any
drum loop you can find, into catchy bass figures and there are several
ways to do it:

converting your audio drum loop to a MIDI file - with Ableton´s very
own function “Convert melody to MIDI”

if your drum loop has a lot of layers, treat it like a multi-voiced pad
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or synth and convert it to a polyphonic MIDI file using Ableton´s
“Convert to Harmony”

Slicing your audio drum track or a random drum loop to MIDI (there is
a built-in function in Ableton “Slice to MIDI”) and get inspired by the
rhythmic variety, that you might not have come up with yourself

Techniques

No. 1 With the technique described in 1, you will most likely get a
very basic “translation” of your drum loop, highlighting the kick and
the snare in your bass line.

To actually hear the automatically designed bass, just assign your

favorite synth (or one of our huge-sounding bass presets for Massive
or Serum$$$) to the newly created MIDI track and give it a go!

Tip 1: Don´t use standard or boring sounding drum loops!

Go through your library or capture a cool loop with your audio

tracking device, to insert a loop that has some interesting rhythms
going on.

Tip 2: Try finding a drum loop with some additional musical info
like a fuzzy synth or a crazy atonal sample - since a bass is not multi-
lingual and speaks only one voice, this technique might trigger your
bass to speak in a cool dialect, that no one has heard before ;) !

No. 3 This technique requires the most tweaking, since you probably
do not want to create a chromatically ascending bass line every time.
If you hit the “Slice to MIDI” button in Ableton, you will get a file,
that is layed out on as many MIDI notes as you have cuts (or better
transients) in your sample.

84 productionmusiclive.com
When you follow us for a while you know, that we are fans of
efficiency - but also fans of stacking synth for a fat and unique sound.

Like always there are multiple ways to deal with many instances at
once. 
Let us show you, how to set up a “multi sound synth” in Ableton with
an instrument rack.

Why you ask? Because you do not want to treat 3 or more individual
sound sources separately, when they react to the same changes. 
Step 1: set up your sound
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Load an instrument rack and drag the first plugin or Ableton sound
in there. Then hit the little round button in the middle on the left side
of the device. You will see the first instance you loaded appearing
there. Now start composing your sound with multiple instruments.
Be creative and mix mallets with a bass and a pad or build a super
synth with DIVA, Massive and Sylenth, to get all the benefits of every
individual synth in one sound.

Tip: adjust levels

The instrument rack gives you the possibility to adjust the levels of
each sound individually, since you deal with three sound sources
here. Keep an eye on your master level and tweak accordingly.

Step 2: effects

Now is the time to shine. Apply multiple effects like autofilter,

compression or reverb to your chain and automate 3 synths or
sounds within one track.

Tip 2: macros

The instrument rack also offers you macros, just hit the top of those
round little buttons to access them. Now you can create and apply
macros, that affect all sounds at once.

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Sometimes we know what kind of feeling we want to create in a song,
but we can not come up with the right melody. If you find a cool
vocal, synth, piano or saxophon loop, that sets the emotional tone
and has the desired sound, but does not have the melodic structure
you are looking for.

There is an easy trick, using Ableton`s simpler and an arpeggiator to

generate some ideas, you probably would not have come up with.

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Step 1: find loop

First you need to find the loop you want to work with. It should
contain some clear tonal material, but can also have some ghost
notes or crackles (like in- or exhaling) to add unique textures. Now
load this whole loop into a simpler and hit the slice button. This will
create individual one shots, starting at each transient, that can now
be played with your MIDI controller or laptop keyboard, like a normal
plugin.

Step 2: arpeggiator

Create a MIDI clip on your track and draw long MIDI notes, so the
arpeggiator has something to work with. Now load the arpeggiator
and set it to a mode you like - this technique works well with
“diverge”, “converge” or “play order”. Tweak the arp until you like it and
apply some effects, to give your melody more depth - the classics like
reverb, delay and chorus will get you good results.

Tip: automations

Try playing around with the transpose button within the clip, to give
your melody a climax - transpose it 12 semitones after the first 2
hooks, to create some variation.

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Sometimes we tend to do things over and over again - although it
would be smarter to do them only once.
Especially when it comes to defining defaults or presets, because
something deep inside of us whispers into our ears, that we might do
it differently this time.
But if you are honest you find yourself using the same settings for a
kick drum for e.g. again and again, because most of them need the
same treatment of a low cut, a little bell where it hits the most and
some accenture in the high-mids or highs. 
And an EQ is just the tip of the iceberg here. You can use this for
compressors, delays, reverbs and all other effects - this especially
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makes sense, when you are working on an album or EP, to make your
tracks sound more coherent and sonically sounding together.

Step 1: tweak

In today’s tip we start with tweaking. Find the settings that fit your
sample, clip, track or complete song best.

Step 2: save

Now right click on the plugins upper bar and hit “select as default
preset”. Now every time you load your EQ8 for example, this setting
pops up, without you doing the “click dance” to set a low cut.

Tip: proof of concept

After saving your default, try it on other songs, to see, if it is still
helpful.
You can always change it or set it back to factory preset.

Want to save time? Try this!

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Exceptional musical ideas or moments of genius are a very rare
phenomenon and should be harvested to the fullest, while they
occur. We just sometimes seem to stand in our own way, by starting
and stopping the flow of our recording or production process.

Tip 1: keep the flow

Instead of stopping your playback, of the already recorded clips in

session view, just hit “enter” and not the “space” bar, to keep your
groove rolling. That way you stay focused and are able to record
multiple ideas, without running into the trap of instant correction of
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your recorded MIDI.

Tip 2: one thing at a time

You feel the creative juices cooking up? Good, focus on recording
cool ideas then! You still have plenty of time afterward (on a boring
bus ride or while waiting for your girlfriend) to fix the timings and
look for sounds. Keep recording, until you feel you have tried it all - or
if you got the perfect take!

Tip 3: auto quantize

To give you an instant gratification and a feeling on how your

recording may sound later, set the “record quantization” in the “edit
section” of the nav bar. Set it to your liking, similar to quantizing
after recording. Now, after hitting the “enter” button, you will get an
already corrected version of your newest take.

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Sure, all of us who use an external keyboard, play an instrument or
track vocals regularly, are used to the basic 4/4 click pattern, that
highlights every 4th note. 
With this type of metronome, we are always in time for a huge
percentage of todays music - which is usually in some kind of 4/4 beat
(with exceptions of course). But sometimes we tend to get stuck in
the process of coming up with fresh ideas for lead rhythms, drum fills,
hihat grooves or topline melodies.

The Ableton metronome offers many different time signatures you

can play around with. This is probably a little difficult when you are in
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the middle of producing, but might be helpful to get started with a
uncommon idea.

Tip: start and switch

You can of course start your track like you always do, which is
probably 4/4. Save your project, open a new one and start your click
at a different time signature. You will come up with loops, licks and
riffs, who wouldn´t have played in the good old 4 to the floor beat.
Now record and import that idea to your project. It might take some
tweaking, but you will have an entirely different feel, that might help
you achieve a new type of sound.

Tip 2: leave your grid

As an exercise, you can try to built an entire song in another click grid!
That way you are forced to use different time frames, count differently
and will eventually come up with fresh ideas, you can use in other
tracks later.

If you come up with ideas in new measures, feel free to tag us in a

quick video story and we might give you a shout out!

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Especially when it comes to all sorts of Techno or House, the job is
not done, when there is a kick drum on all 4 beats. Sure we add some
snares or claps on 2 and 4, some off beat hihats and we already play
around with a little “off quantization” to implement some human feel.

But now our beat sounds like most beats - and usually that’s not what
we want.
When we are lucky, a strike of genius hits us in this moment and we
find exactly the right idea. Sometimes, we do not have a clue on how
to enhance the beat and make it more interesting.

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We need “more going” on, but without cluttering it.
Here is an idea to get your hands on totally unique sequences for
your beat.

Step 1: find loop

Choose a drum or percussion loop you like and and load it to the
simpler. Now hit the slice button, which will cut at every transient / hit.

Step 2: load the arp

Drag the arpeggiator on the same track.

Step 3: MIDI and magic

Create a MIDI clip on the track and draw looong notes on all or at
least have of the hits, that got slices up - depending on the amount
of hits in the original loop. Let’s say you prepare 30 MIDI notes in the
piano roll.
Now the arp can start doing the creative work for you, when you have
an off day.
Start playing around with the settings, to come up with you unique
new loop!

Tip 1: randomize

Hit “random” or “random other” in the “style” drop down, to get the
most drastic effect.
Now try to set the “groove” to “Swing 16” maybe. After that it is fun to
tweak the “rate” knob, until you get what you want.

Tip 2: record

If you want, you can record your new arp loop back to audio and start
messing with it.
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CHAPTER 3 –
DRUMS & GROOVE
A solid and groovy beat is the foundation of almost every track –
especially in modern dance music.

We have collected the best tips about writing and processing drums,
to give you punch and groove – even for beginners.

1, 2, 3, 4 – GO!

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Yes, programming drums can be painful sometimes, but it always
pays off!

Most of the samples that are out there, have already been used and
do not give your song a unique flavor. But with some tricks, you can
edit cool sounding drums for different genres.

Tip 1: record your own samples

Wherever you are, things and people are moving in rhythms that
can be recorded. Grab your Zoom Device or your Cell Phone and
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record your every day life - as far as sounds are concerned it is more
interesting than you think!

Tip 2: take your time

Getting the drums right in club music is the most important part.
Don´t leave it to mixing or mastering, to get your drums right. As
Armin van Buuren says, the Kick drum is the holy grail - if you get it
right, people dance. So take a day off and make your drums sound
perfect.

Tip 3: effects

Use reverb, delay or any other good audio effect on kick or snare to
create patterns and structures. You want your drums to sound alive.

Tip 4: humanize

Go into your editor and move around the single MIDI notes just
a notch. You can deactivate the snap function with cmd+4 and
place your hits just slightly off the grid. That way you will get richer
sounding drums, that keep people interested longer! .

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Getting the perfect drum sound is a lifelong quest and some of us
are not fortunate enough to ever have that sweet feeling of hearing
a song in a packed club and knowing, that the clap sound was a pair
of flip-flops smacked on the ground ;) . But it is a great feeling, that is
why we want to encourage you to start layering your drum sounds.

BUT as always there is a huge BUT.

The technique does not have the best reputation, because before you
just start piling sample on sample, you need to know what kind of
sound you are aiming for and how to achieve it.
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Also check todays story for the link to our bestseller Drum Sample
Pack “Deep Premium”!

Tip 1: different sample packs

The chance is pretty high, that samples from one pack have similar
EQ and compression settings, why they probably match too perfectly
and do not add up to a unique combination of transients or harmonic
frequencies.

Tip 2: glue them together

At first the result of lets say a fat, subby, digital kick, a fly swat
recorded hitting the table and a stomp on the ground might sound
dysfunctional together. But there are ways to glue them together. Use
an overdrive, fuzzbox or saturator on your drum bus channel, adjust
the dry/wet signal and witness magic happen. In Ableton you also
have the possibility to use the new Glue Compressor, that really does
an amazing job. If you never used it, this is your chance!

Tip 3: set them off

Do not place the samples with every transient EXACTLY on your one,
but wiggle it around a little. You can play around until you get the
feel you intended - which in most cases does not mean being straight
here. . .

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We agree, that using loops to get an idea on your screen very quick,
is a real time saver - but is it always the most creative? Probably not,
because in times of open sample bases, the likelihood of using the
same sample as your neighbor is pretty high and we want to sound
original, right?

But sometimes after building a beat or a complete song with the

initial samples, you feel kind of weird, replacing or changing them,
because you got used to the sound too much.

So if you do not want to distort or alienate the sample excessively,

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you can still apply some changes, that make a difference.

Tip 1: mute individual sections

By doing so, you can keep the feel of the sample and probably even
the whole song the same, but still get some variation. In contrary
to applying a kick side chain, by muting in the automation line, you
can act a lot more unexpectedly and less predictable. Try to define
the unique sections of the sample and keep them “alive”. Muting
randomly can also create interesting patterns.

Tip 2: fill the gaps

When muting, you are always creating space for something new. In
more cases than we think, silence is the best choice, because it cleans
up the mix and makes headroom for the mastering. However, when
we mute eratically, the created space can be used for another sample
to fill in with a new or complementary sound. That way you can
create space and crazy sound scapes at the same time. . .

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Although we might have the feeling these days, that drum machines,
kick generator VSTs and percussion samples & loops of all kinds have
been around forever, they have all been modeled after a real drum kit
one day. 
Most producers know, how a fat kick has to sound or how to EQ a
snare to make it pop, but without the understanding of how a drum
kit is played, miced up and mixed, fundamental basics of drum
sounds are simply lost. In many modern genres that does not really
matter, because music is and always will be free in how it is written
and recorded. But there are certain tricks to enhance the impact of
your drums and make a lot of room in the mix, when you know a little
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something about panning it right.

Tip 1: imagine sitting behind drums

Most of us have been sitting behind a drum kit one day - being it in
a store or drunk after a show or a band rehearsal. So now imagine
hitting the crash cymbal: you actually have to move to the left or
the right, depending on which crash you want to hit. This already
indicates, that space has to do a lot with drumming.

Tip 2: proximity

How do you know how far you should go with your panning? Well, by
imagining how far you would have to move to hit.

Kicks and snares are usually on “zero” directly in the middle, whereas
claps can have a wider spectrum, when a layered sample is also
spread across the horizontal sphere on maximum 15L and 15R.

Hihats for example should have some panning to one side only -
exception: you use different hihat sounds, then you can pan left and
right to get a nice stereo feeling. the same goes for crash cymbals.

Toms are a topic on their own, but maybe so much: try to install a
panoramic progression from left to right, when you use more than
one tom sound.

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Sure we know, that tuning the kick drum to the key of your song is
absolutely basic and we don´t want to annoy you with it. But how
come, that there are so many tunes out there, where they just seem
to have forgotten to do it - and that goes not only for Soundcloud,
but also Spotify.

Whereas every Trap producer needs to deal with kick or 808 tuning
every day, Techno and House guys often have different focus
points. The high majority does it right, others don´t tune the kick
intentionally, but there is still a little group left, that might not hear it.

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But how to make sure in an easy way? The most simple solution
would be to have your samples labeled or to buy them according to
their pitch, that way you know, that when your track is in F# and your
kick in G, you need to tune it down 1 semi tone.

Or of course you can detect the pitch with a spectral analyzer and
adjust it.

But there is one more quickfix, that might help you faster:

Quicktip: crank up your kick

Put a saturator on your kick track and boost the drive up to max or
slightly under it (take care of ears and speakers though). That way you
will over-highlight the tonal or harmonic content of your kick sample
and it´s tone gets apparent. Now compare it to the root note of your
bass track, which is usually the one you are starting your composition
with and tune it with a pitch shifter, until it is the same key.

This is especially helpful, when you are doing bass heavy low end
Techno, Deep House or Melodic Techno tracks, because kick and bass
need to form a tonal unit, to unfold their full potential. . .

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A producer spends approximately 96% of his time finding the right
sample or the right sound! Although this number is completely made
up, it definitely feels like this.

There are certainly many different ways to start your writing process
and finish without losing too much time. Luckily there are methods
and techniques to shorten this whole thing and get you results faster.

Tip 1: drums second

Drums and rhythm is a major part of almost every modern track. But
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still, it is only complementary to the harmonic and melodic elements
of your song. Start recording your carrying elements first - like bass,
pads or guitars.

Then loop the passage, activate the click and flip through your
samples to find the sound that is fitting your composition.

Tip 2: double drum rack

Since you want to get a complete groove on, create different MIDI
tracks for different percussion elements. One rack for kicks only,
the next for snare and another one for hihats and shakers. These
sections or instruments usually need different treatment in EQing or
compression, so try to separate them from the beginning. Also, that
way you can focus on one element at a time. Try to throw in different
snares or claps for example, to create unique grooves.

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It doesn´t really matter what kind of music you like or produce,
diversity and dynamic are always crucial for a sonic composition.
There are infinite ways of achieving that - even from the very
beginning. While flipping through your countless samples, try to load
more than one of each sound into your sampler / drumrack, to create
variability right away.

You should be consistent with your main snare, main kick or main
hihat, but by loading additional samples of each kind, you are more
flexible, when it comes to building grooves, nothing beats ghost
notes, blue notes or rhythmical counter parts.
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Tip 1: snare groove

Load 2 snare sample, that are not too similar, but also not entirely
different to each other and choose your main snare. Now dedicate
some time for that second one and decide where and how it can
contribute to a good groove. Whereas in most genres the main snare
will snap at 2 and 4, let the second one hit at “4 and” or even with one
beat later.

Tip 2: swing

Choose your main snare and let it set the tone on 2 and 4. Create a
more vivid groove with the second one and give it some swing - but
only that second one. That way you preserve your solid beat, but have
some movement.

Tip 3: multiple hihats

This tip is even better for hihats, because there is a lot of room for
high end sounds in most styles. Most producers are using multiple
hats anyway, but if you have the feeling, that your beat is lacking
groove, try to apply one of todays tricks on your hats as well.

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Do you often end up with almost the same one shot samples from
your libraries?
Although we all seem to have every sample in the world, we tend
to get fooled by them, while pre-listening without any other
instruments or when we want to start producing our track with the
drums. Some sound good on their own and some do not.

Here comes a little tip to make sure, that the drums sound good
together and to mix up your sample game, by using not the usual
one shots.

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Step 1: find loops

Find loops, that sound great together. Usually that is easy - just open
your session view, flip through your loop packs, create clips with the
ones you like and let a couple of them play together. By muting them
individually, you will find your matching loops - sound and groove
wise.

Step 2: find hits

Now create a one hit loop in your sample view and skip through that
loop, beat by beat or better drum hit by drum hit. You will identify
your favorite sample quickly that way and can always change the
length, to give it more room or ambience.

Step 3: create drum rack

Create a MIDI track and load a drum rack. Now drag that clip with
your looped favorite one hit sample in into the desired position of
your drum rack. You can of course always change it afterwards.

Step 4: fill it up

Do that with as many loops you want, until you have a decent drum
set in your rack, to start producing. . .

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Not only Armin van Buuren says, that the kick is the holy grail of
dance music. We have all been there and want our kicks to be punchy,
a little subby, but well designed at the same time. Choosing the right
sample(s) is definitely more than half of the deal - but there are some
tricks to modulate your kick drums in many ways. 
One way, is to use the warping function of your sample view, to not
only add punch in the beginning, but also to extend the sustain or
the boomy main body.

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Step 1: play with markers

Load a kick sample and open the sample view by double clicking.
Then activate warp (if not already active) and set the warp mode or
algorithm to re-pitch in the drop down. By double clicking the small
bar right above the sample, you set your yellow warp markers, that
you can move around as you want. The area between two markers
can be modulated now, by moving them around. Try and you already
feel the possibilities of this technique.

Step 2: add punch

You add punch, by shrinking the area of the first impact - so

beginning of the sample until your second marker. That will pitch
only that part of your sample and increases the higher frequencies,
which add punch.

Tip: more markers

Add several markers to treat the different parts of your sample

individually. Maybe some more sustain for the tail and less boom for
the body? Just set the markers accordingly and find your setting.

Extra tip: change warp mode

By setting the warp mode to tones for example, the pitch will not be
affected and you can change different parts of your sample in length,
creating interesting and unique samples on your own.

You can of course use this technique with any other sample - try long
claps! . .

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Sure, there are certain types of music, where the robotic and highly
quantized sound is what you want to achieve, but even genres like
dark underground Techno are open for swing, added groove and a
more human feel.

Of course it is always possible to draw in some velocity or less

accuracy in the quantization yourself or go and hire a session
drummer, to perform your beats, but if you do not want to do any
of that, Ableton comes with a very handy feature, to add groove to
every beat! The Groove Pool.

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Yes, this is a basic function, but very effective!

Step 1: choose groove

First choose a MIDI file or sample, that you want to apply groove to
and create a clip. Start with a hihat or top loop, for the biggest impact.
Then open your groove pool in the left corner of Ableton. Now go
to your browser, open Core Library, search for the folder “Swing and
Groove”.

Step 2: adjust it

Now you just drag and drop a groove file to your clip and start
adjusting it. Try to really finetune it, since especially the “random” or
“velocity” settings can mess with your groove. 

Step 3: keep it simple

Although it is super fun to add grooves to your beat with this

technique, it is like with everything else that is too much fun - do not
overdo it. Try to identify the loop or MIDI with the biggest potential to
add groove - mostly that is the hihat loop, a drum roll or even some
16th note synth sound.

But if you choose a lot of different grooves and use them on different
loops in one track, you will probably end up with a grooveless shell of
a beat again.

Extra tip: change up the base to triplet beats or mix them with
another groove on the same clip!

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Quicktip:

Groove often comes from odd counting measures or added swing. Try
to apply syncopation to your hihats, shakers or percussive elements.
For a start, shift your open hihat or clap sound by 16ths and see what
you come up with. You can of course apply this technique too as
many instruments as you wish.

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Although it sounds super rough, using this technique is smooth and
simple. You are basically applying a tight gate, without having to set it
up in the effect chain.

Whenever you want to get really tight drums and you have the
feeling that your samples are all over the place, setting up choke
groups can help you a lot.

You have a MIDI loop of maybe 3 hihats. What routing them to the
same choke group does, is cutting the tails, exactly when the next
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sample hits, so they do not overlap and create unwanted layering of
fading frequencies.

Step 1: route in drum rack

Load your samples to a drum rack, create a loop and open the choke
group settings by opening the chain list and hitting the I-O button.

Now route the samples that you want to “cut” with the start of the
next sample to the same channel number in the choke dropdown.

Step 2: mess with samples

Try loading different samples to get different effects, like open and
closed hats, long and short claps or snares. By gating or “cutting” a
long snare with a short one, you are adding tons of tightness and
groove.

Tip: experiment

This technique is not limited to drum samples (although the term

drum rack might indicate that). Load in various hits, long and short,
and see where it gets you.

The weekend is long, so put it to use!

Have fun producing!

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All of us got these artists, we just can´t get enough of. And there is a
reason for that: since all of us are coping with music production every
day, we know how hard it is to produce a killer track.

Also we do not want to be copy cats and just rip people off their
ideas.

However, there is a technique, with which you can adapt a certain

groove or overall feeling of a track with the click of a button.

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Step 1: find your tune

Go through your list of favorite songs, pick one, load the wave or MP3
into an audio track, right click and hit “extract groove”.

Step 2: trim

Now try to hit all the transients or better all hits of a groove. Cut it,
maybe to a 4 or 8 bar loop.

Step 3: be creative

Now open your groove editor (take a look at our previous posts), drag
the groove to the drum file you want to attach it to, and adjust to
your taste. You WILL get unorthodox results - and probably you will
write a masterpiece with this advice.. If you do, send it over ;) .

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As you can see in our recent posts on YouTube (also check video in
todays story), we are completely in love with Melodic Techno these
days, like many of you guys. 
Labels like Afterlife or artists like Bodzin are just killing it and a huge
part, next to the beefy synth and bass lines, play evolving hihat
sounds - especially live!

The mixture of organic hats with a human feel and long, distorted
white noise hats is essential to this genre. Complex macro effects on
hats, snares and synths make these tracks move and take you on a
ride. if you do not want to spend hours setting up the perfect macro
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effect, there is an easy way to simulate these effect chains.

Here is how to get the best out of both worlds with a vocoder.

Step 1: hihat loop

Search or create a groovy hihat loop, consisting of closed and

open hats. Keep the crucial 16th hats in another loop and treat
them separately. This technique works best for off beats with some
rhythmical figures and variation in them.

Step 2: vocoder

Load the vocoder to your loop track, set it to noise (it is probably the
preset) and activate enhance-mode for smoother sound. Now play
around with the release and the depth knob, because they will give
you the biggest modulation, with the dry/wet knob all the way up.
Once you found a cool sound, try to shape the formants a little bit.

After you found sounds you like, take your MIDI controller knobs and
record or just draw in automations, so that these hats come to life!

Tip: delay or reverb

Alongside with this technique, you can add some delay or reverb to
give them some space in break parts - be sure to also automate these
effects and not keep them active the whole time.

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We are all looking for that one sound, that can carry a songs for a
whole album or at least an EP. A kick drum for example, that has just
enough punch to cut through the pads, but still massages your upper
stomach when played on the dance floor. Or a snare with a hard hit,
but a short decay. 
Sometimes we wish we could create our own Frankenstein sample.
We can! Why don’t we?

Here is a very simple technique, that makes flipping through samples

more interesting again, because you need to listen to all parts of your
sample.
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Step 1: define punch

Choose a sample, that provides the right amount of punch and tweak
it, until you achieved the sound you are looking for. Do not focus
on the second part or the tail of the sample - or even cut it before
processing.

Step 2: define sustain

Now find a sample, that offers exactly that kind of sustain or tail, you
want for your Frankenstein kick.
Maybe add some saturation, to make it even longer or more tonal.

Step 3: merge

Now cut the first sample right after the punch. Detach the punchy
attack transient of the second sample. Now drag them around on the
same track, until you find the sweet spot, where they fit. The short
cut „CMD+ALT+F“ will create a crossfade over the marked area of the
two samples - just left click and drag to mark a section. Try to let the
crossfade not be too big, to sound natural.

Tip: bounce

Now record your new created sample to a new track and start
processing it as one sample.

With this easy technique you can merge the best parts of each
sample into one, create your signature sample - and become a crazy
professor even before Halloween.

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This is for all you Techno guys - we know you are out there! Not only
since Techno in all its forms is living through a big revival these days,
but since day one!

We get asked pretty often, how these rumbling Techno reverb kicks
are done - and in this 2 part tip, we are going to show you. Big shout
to @johannes.berlin for sharing! So without the usual blabla, let´s get
started.

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Step 1

Choose a good kick sample which is not over-processed and sounds a

little bit dirty already. Create a simple 4 by 4 loop with that kick.

Step 2

Duplicate the loop 2 times to get 3 tracks of the same kick drum and
rename the tracks in “MAIN KICK”, “REVERB KICK” and “GHOST KICK”
then switch off the GHOST KICK track.

Step 3

Apply a reverb, an overdrive and an equalizer on the REVERB KICK.

The right order of the effects is important here.

Step 4

Now play around with the following parameters of the REVERB KICK
to find the typical techno bass sound:
- Reverb: room size, predelay, decay time, dry/wet (should be
something between 75 and 100% wet)
- Overdrive: overdrive frequency, dry/wet
- EQ: Put it in high cut mode and play around with the cut frequency

Important

Listen always together with you MAIN KICK and lower the volume of
your REVERB KICK if necessary!

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No matter which Techno festival you attended this year or which club
PA penetrated your system - this type of kick drums was probably,
what you were dancing to!
Let´s take a look at the last steps and at some tricks to improve your
kick design.

Step 5

Now move to the GHOST KICK, put also a high cut EQ or filter on
it, switch the track on and change the pattern to get some groovy
rhythm
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Step 6

Group all tracks together or put them on the same bus and apply
some tape saturation, compression, final EQ’ing and some slight
limiting on the group/bus.

Extra tips

- Apply some sidechain compression before the EQ of the REVERB

KICK
- Be sure that your low frequencies are in mono - add a mono tool at
end of chain
- Add a TOP KICK which can be a short hi-hat sample to emphasize
the MAIN KICK`s punch
- Add some extra overdrive or/and saturation to the MAIN KICK
- Always play around with the volume of your tracks
- Change the sample of the REVERB KICK and GHOST KICK

Try it out yourself and, create a little video and tag us in a story.

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Yes, you got us - we wanted to post something with a ghost today
(Halloween Post). 
The word “ghost” is pretty common in the music production
community - ghost kicks (check our feed post from 2 days ago), ghost
productions (of course nobody does that) or todays post about ghost
notes.

Ghost notes are those almost unrecognizable drum hits or barely

strum guitar or bass strings, that often make a song groove a lot
more.
Originally derived from the blues and funk lords back in the day,
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ghost notes tear down walls to modern productions - or they
flew right through them (hahaa). The velocity of MIDI notes can
be adjusted, until you start to just “feel” the samples, but can not
completely hear them.

Tip 1: play off

Ghost notes or blue notes are said to be the backbone of groovy jazz
and funk songs, by adding a percussive layer, where there used to be
only long precise notes.
When editing your next drum beat, try placing a lot of short snare
hits on off beats (8ths notes is a good length to start) and turn the
velocity down all the way. Now start bringing it up again, until you
get the feeling, that the groove is enhanced, but without really
hearing them.
Also try using a different snare sample for the ghost notes.

Tip 2: choke notes

Especially when it comes to the bass, ghost notes can make the
whole song.
Try to find two bass samples (or create them yourself ), where one has
a lot of mid and high frequencies in it and the second one with a high
cut. Try to play around, which one is more suited for the main bass
and let the other one play very short notes on the same key, but with
a lot less velocity. This will create a more elaborate groove fast.

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CHAPTER 4 –
SOUND DESIGN
Understanding synthesis is very complex and can take quite some
time to fully grasp. We are not giving you the full blown theory here
– but practical tips to get you closer to the sound you have in your
head!

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You have a certain sound in your head, but even after hours of
tweaking Serum or Massive you could not get it just right? Maybe it
is not thick enough or it does not cut through – then it is time to start
layering!

Where one instance of sound generation might not be able to

produce what you have in mind, a second or third layer can add the
missing quality to your intended sound.

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Tip 1: EQ

While layering different sounds seems fairly straight forward, there

is also a benefit to that technique – you are able to differentiate your
sound on many levels through EQing or compression. Powerful lead
sounds are well balanced and rich in nuances. To still cut through in
the mix, you can highlight the necessary frequencies with subtractive
Eqing on all combined tracks individually.

Tip 2: context

While a certain sound might be too weak on it´s own, layering it with
can add exactly what you need. So 2 sounds on there own are not
fitting the song, but layered together it works.

Tip 3: limit

Don´t overdo it! Layering does not make mixing obsolete – in

contrary! Having more sounds or even sound sources, can result in a
messy mix pretty fast. Know which sound you want to achieve your
vision and add accordingly. .

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Using presets or pre-defined patches not only to get to your sound
faster, but also to dissect how the preset was created can help you
immensely in gaining a lot of knowledge on how a certain synth works
– or synthesis in general. Try to look behind the fasade and really
understand how the sound comes to be. After that you can still use it
of course ;).

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Serum appeared almost out of nowhere and is now used in almost
every Future Bass Production (like our Marshmello Remake - CHECK
STORY) out there these days. We all know how intimidating the mask
can be, but once you mastered it´s variety, you will be more than happy
with what it can do!

We do not get money for saying this (Xferum you can always call ;) ),
but we just love to use this synth - there are also insane combinations
possible with Massive from Native Instruments and Serum.

Of course there are sooo many tips or tricks we could list here and you
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can drop a comment below, if you want us to shoot out more of these.

Tip 1: alt + 

By pressing “alt”, you can instantly access extra functions like 

changing the mod depth instead of getting surgical with the fine blue
line

if you want to change all LFO curves at once

to snap the LFO to the current grid

Tip 2: descriptions

If you forgot what a knob or fader does or never knew in the first
place, just hover over it with your mouse and wait - until a nice little
description pops up and you can improve your knowledge right there
where you need it!

Tip 3: get creative

While holding shift, you can draw in steps in your LFO! That way you
can create arpeggio-like sounds and do not need an extra plugin. 

Tip 4: start again

Sometime we get lost in the process of designing a new sound. And

sometimes it is helpful to reset - in your mind and in your plug-in. To
do that perfectly integrated into your workflow simply press CMD
while you are clicking with your mouse. That will reset your settings to
default.

Tip 5: how does your face sound?

You can find out, while just dragging and dropping a picture of yourself
or something else entirely into the wavetable of Serum. Do not expect
too much, but you will get inspired nonetheless.
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It was, is and probably will be one of the biggest points of arguments
among producers, musicians and creatives of any kind. But in the end
it doesn´t really matter (sic!), because it is all about creating music -
use whatever tool you need to do it!

We at PML really appreciate getting our hands on an old Juno-60 or a

nice Prophet, because by working with analog gear you understand
and permeate the concept of a synth and synthesis in general much
faster. BUT we are maybe even happier with being able to work from
around the world and have our favorite synths with us at all times as
VST plugins in Ableton.
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Tip 1: touch

If you have the chance to work with an analog synth in a nearby

studio or at a friends place, do it! Every synth is patched in a unique
but thought through way, which allows you to understand how
patching works in its entirety (and how easy this is in a VST compared
to an analog equivalent) or how sensitive a cutoff knob really feels at
old gear.

Tip 2: transfer

Get a cheap MIDI keyboard or controller with faders and knobs, to

be able to simulate everything a real synth can do, but with your VST
software. Only by actually “moving” it, you can have the best out of
both worlds - the mobility of a VST and the creative feel of analog.

Tip 3: add dirt

Some people might argue, that VSTs sound “too clean”, but that does
not really count anymore, since there are multiple tools to throw
some dust in the ring.

Use distortions, saturators, tape machines or vinyl sound samples into

your wavetable synth or an additional sampler, to add that organic
feel.

Another huge PRO for VSTs, is that you can benefit from other
peoples´ work immensely, by using presets with all the sounds you
want.

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Almost every genre, from Techno to Trap, uses gliding notes in the
lead sounds to create that one little moment of “wow”! Sometimes it
happens by accident, because your MIDI notes overlap a little bit, but
if you want to use it on purpose there are a lot of possibilities to make
your melody more interesting.

Tip 1: increase the span

Try to use gliding lead notes to bridge a rather big interval - a fifth is
a good starting point, but it works really well for sixth or even bigger
distances. You can also set the reaction time pretty quick, so the synth
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or sample does not reach its destined endnote, but gets “stuck” in the
middle. That way you can write unpredictable hooks.

Tip 2: controlled gliding

In Melodic Techno for example your don´t want your lead to glide at
every played note, but want to set certain accents.

One of the most powerful synths for that genre is without a doubt
the Arturia Mini (we do not get paid to say this), which has an extra
knob to enable gliding only when overlapping. Check our massive
weekend sale for the Arturia Mini Sound Design Course!

Tip 3: find the moment

If you are gliding all the time, it is like having beer all day - it still tastes
good, but you ruin the special moment of having after long hard
day´s work.

Find that one spot in your track, where the glide fits and put real
emphasize on it. That way you make sure it gets heard, but people
are not getting sick of it. But since it´s the weekend, a beer is ok now,
cheers!

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Indeed it is one of these defining questions from the middle ages (of
modern music producing), that many producers argue upon - is a
preset the end or the beginning of sound searching?

While some might state, that the built-in presets of a synth are boring
or that they have been used too many times or that they do not
sound original enough, presets are designed to be a time saver - and
that is exactly what they do. No one says, you should use the pre-
defined sound 100% the way it comes, but use it as a starting point to
make your own sounds. 
Throw in some LFOs, oscillators or effects to customize, get a preset
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pack from a friend (or from us) and start with professionally designed
premium presets, that only a very low percentage of people have
ever heard - that way you sound unique AND save time.

Tip 1: MIDI first

By writing your melody or chord progression first and then flip

through your collection of presets, gives you the chance to
concentrate on the sound without needing to get your ideas out.
Once you find a sound that you like, go in there and change it until it
fits your song. 

Tip 2: sound first

But sometimes you need to get your creative juices flowing first.
Then it can be better to load a bunch of presets and just start fiddling
around with them, until this magical strike of lightning hits you
and you can start recording. The risk of getting lost in just “playing
around” instead of producing is big though, so try to set yourself
limits.

Tip 3: save your own presets

You have probably more than once created a cool sound with your
synth and did not save it. This is not only important to be able to
recreate that particular sound, but also a missed chance for you to
spread your sound to other users of that synth. You can also always
contact us and show us your presets and we might present them to
our community over on YouTube. . .

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Our sound designer Tom reveals one of his favorite tips for creative
sound design in Massive today. If you have already written that synth
off, think again, because it is a massive tool for massive sounds!

With the tip below you can achieve more attack, harder transients
and a much fuller sound, because all wavetables are starting at the
very same time. 

Massive Tip: restart via gate

Activate “restart via gate” in the oscillation tab like on the picture, to
reset all wavetables to the exact same starting point.

You can of course be creative and set the OSCs to different points -
just trust your ears and design some cool sounds.
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People tend to say, that Massive does not sound “real” enough to use
it for Melodic Techno or other analog influenced genres. While it will
never reach an original Moog for example, there are ways to make it
sound closer to the synths it was derived from.

Here is a Pro-Tip from producer and synth enthusiast James Wiltshire:

“Massive is known to be a digital sounding synth, but we can get
some analog sounding juice out of it. To do that, we want to create
instability and randomness and the best way to do that is with LFOs.

Step 1: In Massive´s LFO5, we blend a sine wave with a hint of noise

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and use that to modulate Osc 1 pitch very slightly.

Step 2: LFO 6 is used to gently waver Osc 2 pitch and pulse width.

Step 3: Then for even more random drift, LFO 7 and 8 are used to
alter the rate of the first two LFOs.

Step 4: To wrap up, we assign LFO amplitude to one of Massive´s

macros.

Now, one twist of this “drift macro knob” blends in some analog style
pitch instability - especially with chords.”

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Throughout all genres people love or are maybe already even
obsessed with 808 sounds and the variety of possible sound
combinations. From Techno to Trap and from House to Hip Hop -
these low frequency monsters mean the world to us all. 
While we tend to throw them in our tracks to either build the tonal
foundation, indicate the key and provide the production with plenty
of low end, we sometimes neglect to get creative with them.

Especially when it comes to wobbling Techno Bass sounds or Trap

subs, the pure, unprocessed sample alone does not do the job
sometimes.
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Step 1: pick your sound

Now picking your sound does not only mean to choose a sample, but
also to envision what you are going for! Try a long 808 sample with
much tonal quality to it to be flexible.

Step 2: envelope

Enter sample view and apply a Volume Envelope first to add

movement. Try to go off beat and start the sample on an odd beat, to
make it less predictable.

Now draw in another envelope and modulate the pitch. This way your
bass gets even more interesting for the listener and you can start
building your loop.

Step 3: tweak

For a mumbling techno bass you need to filter out a lot of

frequencies. Apply HP & LP and try to find the “sweet spot” of your
sound, usually somewhere between 50-250Hz.

Although you already created interesting textures with the envelopes,

you can still sidechain the bass to the kick, to make the mix more
transparent and bouncy!

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Of course guys, the concept is simple, but sometimes we just need
that little reminder, how easy it is sometimes, to create an individual
sounding and definitely unique bass.

We have so much music at our fingertips or maybe even done

different genres ourselves, but never thought of sampling one of our
own tracks. Or maybe you have an old rehearsal recording from your
band, that could end up being the pumping bass for your next house
or techno track.

The only limitation: it needs to have some subby frequencies.

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Step 1: find

Browse through your folders and dig deep, until you find one of your
old beats from your Hip Hop phase. You are doing Rap beats now?
Kick of a house beat and learn something new!

Find track with maybe even too much bass, extract a cool sample and
drag it to an audio track.

Step 2: design

Now you can get creative, but one thing is obligatory: the autofilter.

Apply the high cut filter and adjust, so that most highs are filtered
out. Take care, that you do not boost your low end too much. Maybe
place an EQ right after that, to subtract some of the aggressive low
frequencies. 
Pitch it, reverse it, cut it, warp it - as long as it stays subby, you are
good. Also load a sidechain compressor.

Step 3: shape

Load a kick drum and route the sidechain to it. You can be pretty
harsh here, since this is going to be the main bass of the song.

By adding some tape noise or atmosphere sounds to the sidechain as

well, you give it more texture.

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CHAPTER 5 –
SCALES & CHORDS
This is probably the section many of you got to know us for, since we
got many requests to put all these tips together in an E-Book. That’s
why we put almost every post we did on this topic in here.

A lot of little helpers and song starters to get your new production
going or to spice up some old beats you got laying around on your
hard drive.

Get creative with all these crazy scales!

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The Dorian Mode is not only very versatile, but also ambiguous in
sound, because it contains melancholic and uplifting qualities - due
to possible minor and major thirds in important chord positions.

The Dorian Scale starting from D is: D E F G A B C D

Famous songs in the Dorian Mode are: The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby,
Miles Davis - So What (CHECK IT OUT!) or Chris Isaak - Wicked Game.

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Tip 1: take 4

Try using as many notes from the scale as possible. 3 very cool and
fitting chords with 4 notes are: Emin7, Cmaj7 or Dmin7 - the maj and
min refer to the corrensponding 7. Try writing a song with only these
3 chords!

Tip 2: practice

Memorize the step sequence of the dorian scale: whole, half, whole,
whole, whole, half, whole.

Now apply it to another root note. Starting on A that would mean: A B

C D E F# G A. Now it´s your turn! . .

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We are exposed to boring chord progressions every day. Boring in
the sense, that we as a listener know exactly what is going to happen
after the first chord. You can mix this up by introducing modes or less
used scales into your productions. One of the most versatile modes, is
the mixolydian mode, originally starting on G creating the following
scale: G A B C D E F G - all white keys starting from G.

Songs like “Clocks” by Coldplay, “Royals” by Lorde or “Hey Jude” by The

Beatles were written in mixolydian.

The characteristic feel comes from the signature sequence of whole

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and half steps: whole, whole, half, whole, whole, half, whole. This
provides us with the these chords: Gmaj, Amin, Bdim Cmaj, Dmin,
Emin, Fmaj, Gmaj.

Tip 1: take 3

Settle for 3 of the above mentioned chords (maybe with excluding

the Bdim chord) and write a new chord progression. Try mixing it
up, but limit yourself to 3 chords - that way you will train the chords
inherent movements and voicings a lot faster.

Tip 2: transpose

Go and write a mixolydian scale and then the accompanying chords

starting on a different root note. You can post them here and we will
correct them for you if necessary ;) ..

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To come up with fresh sounding and actually fitting chords or chord
progressions can be a real hazzle sometimes. Of course you know
about the progressions that always work, like I - V - vi - IV and the
multiple variations possible with these chords.

But when you want to come up with a new progression and do not
play the piano, the editor view can become your enemy.

This little trick, will help you turn 1 chord into 3 or 4, by just changing
the bass note. 

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Step 1: define your root

You can start anywhere, but for this trick to work, your first chord
should be rather “basic”. In the example, we used an A Minor chord
with A as the first bass note.

Step 2: flip through the scale

Find bass notes that actually fit to the harmonic material in the triad.
Try using only notes from the A minor scale - so in this specific case
no black keys.

The second bass note in our example is F - creating a Fmaj7 chord. By

just changing the bass note, we built a completely different chord. 
Try to have as many chord notes in the triad as possible - in this Fmaj7
for example, there are 2 notes from the simple F Major chord also
in the new chord - only the doubling of the second F changes to E,
creating the Maj7 chord.

The D in the third chord has only one note from a Dmin chord - the
A. With this technique the second D gets swapped for the C, which
creates the 7 and the F or the third, is replaced by an E adding a 9.

Step 3: tweak

After you found interesting chords, you can of course always change
notes in the triads too, to get an even more individual sound.

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Ever wondered how to create this jazzy House beat feeling without
knowing how to play the piano? Sometimes you just don´t want to
load a sample, that has been used in every second house track. 
This trick will not teach you how to write jazz music, but it will definitely
help you coming up with a beat that sounds immediately like groovy
house.

Step 1: chords

You want to create Minor Chords with a minor 7 and Major chords with
a major 7 - pretty easy to memorize. In combination, they sound great.
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In our little example we used a Fmaj7 - F A C E (abbreviation not
intended), e7 - E G B D and d7 - D F A C. 
Double to root note in the bass (F, E and D) and you are good to go.

Step 2: beat

for a starter and to get your inspiration juices flowing, try the following
pattern.

Place your stabs on: 1 - 1.2 - 1.2.4 - 1.3.3 - 1.4.2

Only the last stab on 1.4.2 should be a different one. So in the first bar
you play Fmaj7 4 times and then e7 on the last hit.

Tip: use more chords

Of course these 3 are not the only chords that work. If you start with
Fmaj7, you can also throw in Cmaj7 in a bridge or a7 as a little variation
for the first part every 3rd or 4th time.

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Today you are getting 2 tips in 1.

First we are going to show you the Hijaroshi scale, which is excellent
to create some deep, melodic, spheric and kind of mysterious sound.

The second trick is on how to make writing in this scale easier in

Ableton.

Hijaroshi Scale:

This scale is originally from Japan and was usually played on the Koto,
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a Japanese instrument, that only allows you to play certain notes. You
can hear the “asian flavour”, when you start playing around with it.

When you start on a C, your scale is: C - D - Eb - G - Ab

Like in a standard pentatonic, this scale consist only of 5 notes, but

you will realise, that you can do a lot with it.

Tip: build chords

Although you are limited in notes to choose from, try to build chords
out of these notes and then lay some melodies on top of it. This scale
goes perfectly with a busload of delay.

Extra tip: fold your piano roll

Go into your piano roll, move the starting point of your clip one
measure to the right and draw in the scale notes (this works of course
with all other scales as well). Copy it to one or more higher octaves.

Now hit the “fold” button in the left corner and your piano roll will
collapse and only display the notes from the scale you drew in. 
Check todays story for a free YouTube Tutorial on this scale!

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All you guys playing the piano already probably know all about this,
but we can not underestimate the power of sonic voicings in your
chord progression.

If you have a mental keyboard always with you it is easier, than being a
guitarist for example, but inversions are not had to master.

Every triad has a root position and two inversion. The root position
starts with the root note in the bass. You can determine that, by
stacking a major third on top of a minor third. In C major that would be
the third from C to E and the the third from E to G. An inverted major
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chord consists out of two different intervals:

First Inversion of C Major: E - G - C

You can see, that we deal with a major third and a fourth now.

Second inversion of C Major: G - C - E

Here the fourth is the first interval of the chord followed by a major
third.

So what do we need this for? Many MIDI packs or chord collections

are just a rudimentary set of all chords, that you can copy and paste
into your piano roll to create your own progression. But in many cases,
these “made up” progressions sound a little icky, because they do not
feel natural.

Tip 1: avoid jumps

By this we mean, that especially the highest notes of the chords should
stay as close e 3together as possible. When you dive deeper into
creating chord progressions with voicings you will see, that the more
notes you can keep close, the more sonic your progression will sound.

Tip 2: leading notes

In a sequence of chords, there are often leading notes, that close a

progression. Let´s take The most basic progression in C major: Cmaj -
Fmaj - Gmaj.

Try to let the last chord lead back to the first with a half note to the root
note of the root chord.

Example: use the first inversion of Gmaj B - D - G to lead back to the

root position of Cmaj the B being this half note to C leading back to the
root.
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A good melody is the combination of a catchy sequence of repetitive
notes and a rhythm, that matches or counteracts the main beat of
your song. We all tend to write a melody with finding the right notes -
but sometimes, finding a groovy rhythm first, gives you better results.

While every DAW´s editor has a default note length (mostly a 4th), it
does not mean, that it has to stay that way!

When you are a producer, that does a lot in the editor, this tip can
lead you to more organic sounding melodies and leads, because it is
more rhythmical and less predictable.
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Imagine a singer mumbling some sounds over a chord progression
and introducing all kinds of note lengths.

Tip 1: improvise

Try to sing, whistle, clap or dance a rhythm, that differs from 4/4.
Mumble, stutter or sing a melody in that rhythm and try to translate it
to your editor. You might want to record your voice first, so you don´t
forget.

Tip 2: randomize

Although randomizing can be identified as such in most cases, here it

can come in handy. Just drag some notes around as you like. Maybe
they start overlapping and create a cool gliding sound. Maybe you
find inspiration for a “real” melody or maybe you hit the jackpot and
get something nice out of it.

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Sometimes we just do not have a clue how to achieve a certain sound
or a certain feeling. Modes help you do that, because they guide you
through your composition, by allowing you to use only the notes of
the scale. Once you have the feeling of the track you want to write,
you can of course break out of that corset and try to mix it up.

The Lydian Mode

It is the 4th mode, meaning it starts on F. The basic modes do not

use black keys. So if you only use the white keys on your keyboard,
starting with an F, you get the Lydian scale.
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If you want to transpose it to other keys, you need to follow it´s
structure or sequence of: whole step, whole step, whole step, half
step, whole step, whole step and a half step back to your root note. 
Which song use it?

Movie or series themes like: Back to the Future, The Simpsons, Zelda
or Mrs. Doubtfire. But also rock and jazz bands of all kinds. Are you
also humming the Simpsons theme right now ;) ?

How does it sound?

Very dramatic, cinematic, open, wide, majestic, but still very

emotional, fragile and with a sense of danger in the air.

What is exceptional?

The distinctive feature of the Lydian mode, is the sharp 4 (#4). If we

would want to write in F Major, you need to use B flat (Bb), but Lydian
gets it`s openness and dramatic flavour by this note!

Tip: build chords

Build your chords with the tonal material of this scale to stay in one
specific feeling at all times.

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As many of you know (and also commented in earlier posts), we
use modes and scales unconsciously very often, because we maybe
found a cool scale by accident e.g.
The basic 5 are of course omnipresent, but what if you want to create
a feeling not covered by any of the usual suspects?
If you want to go for ambiguous, mysterious sounding leads or pads,
you can try using the Octatonic scale.

Octatonic scale
This scale consists of half-step (HS) and whole-Step (WS) following
each other. So start at your desired point and go HS, WS, HS, WS, HS,
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WH.. until your reach the octave from your root note.
This scale is super easy to set up and will give you very unique
sounding results.

Inverted Octatonic scale

It just seems like a little thing, but try letting your scale start with the
WH, followed by the HS, and so on. It will reveal a whole different feel.

Tip: fold your piano roll

An easy way to edit your melody or chords, is to fold your piano roll
view, by hitting the fold button in the left top. This way, after drawing
in your scale (this can be any scale of course - take a look at our older
posts for more scales and inspiration), you will stay in that scale,
without having to count.

Try it and tell us, what kind of sound you could create with it! What is
the overall feeling you get from this scale? Feel free to comment!

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As we know the A minor scale consists of only white keys. Starting on
A that makes it: A - B - C - D - E - F - G -A.
This scale gives us the material for chords and progression in Natural
Minor - which is what probably most of us use most of the time. We
are used to the sound of it and melodies are easy to write.

But if you want to shake things up a little, you change the whole
dynamic of a progression or even the whole song, by changing (or
adding) one single note.
Taking A natural minor as our starting point, this note would be the G
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that gets elevated to a G# - giving us the possibility of changing the
5 chord to a E major instead of an E minor, which changes the feel of
the progression drastically. 
Especially when you are trying to write Latin influenced songs (but
every other genre uses this, too), this little trick will come in handy.

Tip: elevation

Try to change the minor third of any chord to a major third and see
how the feel changes.
Remember to adjust the melody accordingly - do not let it play both
notes over one chord, because it causes unwanted disharmonics.

Feel free to leave us a comment on your favorite scales or modes!

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The different chords of a major scale also serve different functions,
but we will not dive too deep into tonic or dominant relations. We will
give you some hints and indications, on when to use which chord in
your progression.
If you want to get hands deep into the topic, try our music theory
course on “Chords and Chord Progressions” - we will link it in the
stories!

The “I” Chord

It is your root and base. Progressions tend to go back to this chord, to
release the tension, that you have built along the way.
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The “II” Chord
This chord creates a feeling of movement, but also melancholy. The
most familiar and obvious next chord would be the “IV”. Try another
chord.

The “III” Chord

The three chord is more stable than the two, but due to its minor
quality, it seeks resolution. Depending on where you started, this
chord dissolves perfectly into your “V” chord, because two mutual
notes.

The “IV” Chord

The four is very likely to be in any major progression, because it
creates a feeling of unrest and can be the vehicle for a new melodic
idea.

The “V” Chord

Especially when used with the 7, it needs instant resolution, mostly
into the “I” chord, to achieve the feeling of “coming home”. You can of
course play with this quality and let it merge into another chord.

The “VI” Chord

This is the parallel of the one chord and is often used right after it to
open up your progression. Its sad but yet driving attitude makes it the
perfect partner in crime.

The “VII”
” This is the diminished chord of the major scale and is seldomly
used in modern pop music, because it can sound very odd and
unsatisfying. But when used correctly, for example to transfer to
another key, the seven can do wonders. Try to play around with it a
little.

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In a lot of world music, this scale is used, because its sound
symbolizes and expresses the East like no other set of notes.
The specific order of whole and half note steps, makes the “Algerian
scale” sound like the soundtrack of a movie and you can smell the
grilled fish on the streets.

Algerian Scale
W-H-3H-H-H-3H-H-W-H-W
Especially the two 3 half note steps set the tone in this scale. These
“jumps” throw you back to the mid 90ties computer game “Prince
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of Persia” and let you compose ominous, but yet beautiful sounding
progressions or melodies.

Tip: mix it up

Try to use a more regular scale for the main parts of your track and
sprinkle in a little bridge or C-part with this scale - or just the 3 half
note steps. That way you keep it fresh and exciting for the listener,
without overdoing it.

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We have been dropping some crazy scales here in the last weeks,
which all create a different feeling for your compositions.
With the Byzantine Scale we add another one to the collection, that is
especially suited for long and epic guitar solos. 
You don’t even play guitar? That does not matter, because there are
also some very interesting ways to make this scale work for electronic
music.

Byzantine or Double Harmonic Scale

It consists out of this set of half (h) and whole (w) step notes:

H - 3H - H - W - H - 3H - H
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Here is the scale starting on C:

C - C# - E - F - G - G# - B -C

How to use it
Of course your creativity sets the boundaries here, because that is the
beauty of the anarchy of music. But as we mentioned earlier, many
guitarists use this scale for long delayed epic solos - often on hardly
changing root notes/chords.

In electronic music you can make use of this ominous feeling to this
scale, by letting some kind of drone or pad sound simmer in the
background and laying out some long lead sounds with a looot of
delay and/or reverb.

This way you pay tribute to the openness of this set of notes, but use
it in a context that people might not expect it, but are still used to,
because it is common in other genres.

We are especially curious for what you are coming up with, using this
scale! 
So please feel free to always link us with @productionmusiclive in
your videos, posts or stories, so we can check out what you guys do -
and maybe even give a shout out of some exceptional stuff!

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We all know, there are chords and progressions that simply get to us -
universal of the genre or the presentation. For many Melodic Techno
or Deep House producers, today’s progression seems to have a very
special effect on them, because we hear it in so many songs.

The progression can start from different points, to reveal different

feels, by changing the resting chord or the transition. 
Like in many other posts already explained, we can get wonderful
progressions by just changing the bass note. The same principle is
valid here.

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Chord: C 2nd inversion 
Let’s take a look at the chord first. We play a simple C major chord in
the second inversion, meaning we start the chord on the G, followed
by a C and ending the triad on an E.

Bass notes: F - D - A
Like we said in the beginning, these notes can be changed around
to your liking - but you probably want to end the progression on
the A, because together with the chord notes it is the strongest
combination, transforming it to a A minor 7 chord. Strong means,
that it shares 2 notes with a regular A minor chord. The G makes it a A
minor with a 7.

We started the progression on F, making it a F9 with a maj7. In

combination with the D we end up with a Dsus9 also with a 7.

If these numbers freak you out, you can learn all about them in our
“Harmony & Chord Progressions Course” - check link in todays Story.

Tip: play around

Now try starting your progression on D and maybe end it on F with a

little rest on the A. You will soon realize what feels right.

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Many scales are pretty restricted, when it comes to accompanying
chords. The flamenco scale however is a little more open and
ambiguous, since one of its key features is the intended clash of
major and minor thirds here and there.
this allows us, to move around more freely and get various moods
transported, with just one root note.

Of course you are free to change chords and bass notes, to get some
variation. 

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Flamenco scale
As always we start on the C for an easy overview, although most
flamenco artists play this scale in E, due to the tuning of the guitar.
It consists out of: C - Db - E - F - G - Ab - B - C

Tip: learn transposing

Maybe you have seen some of these posts on our profile already, so
you are familiar with the concept of transposing. Try to figure out
where the half-note and the whole-note steps are and transfer it to a
root note other than C. In a piano roll of a DAW you can of course just
draw it in and drag it up ;) Where to use it
This scale is perfect for very dynamic, evolving tracks and sound
scapes, since you have so many possibilities without changing the
root note too much. So if you want to get a hypnotizing techno beat
going on, this scale can help you do that, without sounding boring.

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We dropped many scales in the last weeks and all of them have very
special feel. The Bohemian Scale however evokes a feeling of unrest
and pleasure at the same time. Of course it is mostly used in gypsy
music and accordeon based bands - often with brass leads or female
vocals.

This feeling however can be transferred to dance music too, to create

an atmosphere of otherworldlyness and ease.

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Bohemian Scale
The Bohemian Scale starting from C is: C - D - Eb - F# - G - Ab - Bb - C

Tip: use syncopation

The type of music, this scale is used in, often uses syncopation to
get an “off feel”. With sixteenth notes you get this quite quickly. Try
creating a lead rhythm with the first note punctuated to get a bouncy
situation going. Then add swing in the quantization and boom, you
got a bohemian feel to your lead.

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Many of you were stating in various comments to various posts:
musical rules are there to be broken. And on many levels we agree! 
Especially when it comes to writing chord progressions.
We all feel like most of the possible progressions have already been
written - some are just so good, that it does not matter if we use them
again.

Two of those would definitely be: 

I - V - vi - IV 
or 
vi - IV - I - V
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Just type “Axis of awesome” in YouTube and you will de-mystify these
chords in the 5.31min.

But fortunately, there are so many chord progressions we can use - or

at least that’s what we think.

Substitution Chords
As the name says, these chords substitute for another chord. Mostly
they change from Major to Minor and change the feeling of the song
completely. The progression we look at today is: I - iii - IV - iv.

We see, that the minor chord follows the major chord. If you
downloaded our MIDI now and give it a listen, you will have realized,
that it sounds very familiar. That’s because many artists have used this
progression. Probably the most know would be “Radiohead - Creep”.
The simple trick is to here in C major to play an F major and let it end
in an F minor - listen to the example in the story.

Tip: hold suspense

Try holding the suspense for as long as possible. Which means, that
you reveal the minor chord not in the first run of the progression,
but in the build-up or bridge of your song - if you want to learn
more about arrangements, you will find a course on our page:
productionmusiclive.com

By letting the listener believe, that he/she is in “safe waters”, you can
catch them off guard and place your substitution chord in the 4th or
5th repetition.

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Of course it is already in the name - blues stands for voluptuous but
yet fragile sound. No matter what genre you produce, you can always
learn from the godfathers and get their spirit and feel in your songs. It
is also very much up to taste, but in my ears this scale always sounds
cool!

The blues scale is probably the easiest scale to improvise in (watch

video in the story ;9). Blues Scale
C - Eb - F - Gb - G - Bb - C 

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Tip: half notes

Try to play around the half notes as much as possible. My favorite is

Gb to G with different root notes in the bass. That is the good thing
about this scale: you can shift and change the bass notes around a lot
and still sound “intended”. Tip 2: create chords 
Create some chords out of the tonal material of this scale. There are so
many good sounding chords to be found in it. One of them would be
C - Eb - G - Bb, which is a simple C minor 7 chord, but sound fantastic,
when you improvise with this scale on top of it!

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Like deep sea divers, we are going on treasure hunts to find cool
scales for you, that make your productions stand out. By doing so, we
come across really beautiful scales and modes with more and more
crazy names. The culmination of this is for sure today’s Miyako-Bushi
scale - often also called Sakura scale, which is a traditional Japanese
scale. It is used for dark, ominous and “fearful” sounds and songs,
since it also contains minor degrees, which are absent in most other
Japanese scales.
This combination of notes works perfectly for a dark yet still very
open lead melody, but we think it is even more suited to built very
intense chords with it. You will get the MIDI file to this and all other
scales and chord posts in the BIO and today’s STORY.
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Miyako-Bushi Scale
The notes are: D - Eb - G - A - Bb - D
So as you can see it is a pentatonic, that can easily be transposed to
any other key using the following steps: H-2W-W-H-2W

Create Chords
Start stacking up notes out of the scale to form these dark chords
- you will probably have a certain “asian feel” to it. Play them back
with a pad sound, that still has some attack in the beginning, so the
individual notes get some accenture and tonality. 
Tip: Techno
With a deep kick drum (tune it to D, if you use the scale like from the
free MIDI), the ominous chords in a pad and a “plucky” lead sound,
you will get a powerful tool set for a dark underground techno track.
Feel free to tag us in a video trying it - you might get a shout out.

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The Iwato scale is one of many Japanese scales (also check yesterday’s
Miyako-Bushi Scale or one of our all time favs the Hirajoshi Scale) that
always offer a very open feel, but with a dark twist. 
This one in particular is perfectly suited for mesmerizing electronic
music to get lost in. The repetitiveness without being boring is key
here.

Iwato Scale in C
There are 2 different variants of this scale, that differ just in 1 note.
Version A: C - Db - F - Gb - Bb - C
Version B: C - Db - F - Ab - Bb - C
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Both are very inspiring to get jamming right away. We used the
second one in today’s post.

Tip 1: build triads first

Try stacking up scale notes until you like the chord. Give it a bass
note. Change the bass note 1 or 2 times and see how the feel of the
whole chord changes.
We built the following triads: 
C - Db - Ab
C - Db - F
C - Db - Ab
Db - F - Bb
Which were accompanied by these bass notes: F - Bb - Db - Bb

Tip 2: the melody will fit

If you stick to scale notes in your progression and your melody, they
will blend together nicely. Of course there are nuances and you can
not choose every combination, but you will have a very good starting
point for your own composition.

Check our Instagram Account, to listen to the video examples:

https://www.instagram.com/productionmusiclive

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Natural vs Harmonic Minor
As we know A natural minor consists of only white keys. 
Starting on A that makes it: A - B - C - D - E - F - G -A.
This gives us the material for chords and progression in Natural Minor
- which is what probably most of us use most of the time. We are used
to the sound of it and melodies are easy to write.

But if you want to shake things up a little, you change the whole
dynamic of the progression or even the whole song, by changing one
single note.
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Taking A natural minor as our starting point, this note would be the G
that gets elevated to a G# - giving us the possibility of changing the
5 chord to a E major instead of an E minor, which changes the feel of
the progression drastically. 
A Harmonic minor: A - B - C - D - E - F - G# - A
Especially when you are trying to write Latin influenced songs (but
every other genre uses this, too), this little trick will come in handy.

Extra Tip: elevation

Try to change the minor third of any chord to a major third and see
how the feel changes.
Remember to adjust the melody accordingly - do not let it play both
notes over one chord, because it causes unwanted disharmonics.

Check our Instagram Account, to listen to the video examples:

https://www.instagram.com/productionmusiclive

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Ever wondered how to create this jazzy happy House feeling without
knowing too much about playing piano? 
This trick will not teach you how to write jazz music, but it will
definitely help you come up with a beat, that sounds immediately like
groovy house. To keep it really simple we only use white keys!

Step 1: chords

You want to create Minor Chords with a minor 7 and Major chords
with a major 7 - pretty easy to memorize. In combination, they sound
great.
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In our little example we used a Fmaj7 - F A C E (abbreviation not
intended), e7 - E G B D and d7 - D F A C. 
Double to root note in the bass (F, E and D) and you are good to go.

Step 2: beat

For a starter and to get your inspiration juices flowing, try the
following pattern.
Place your stabs on: 1 - 1.2 - 1.2.4 - 1.3.3 - 1.4.2
Only the last stabs on 1.3.3 and 1.4.2 of every chord should be a
different one. So in the first bar you play Fmaj7 3 times and then e7
on the last hit.

Tip: improvise on white keys

We are in F lydian here. Even if you don´t know anything about

modes, you can start playing around on the white keys of your
keyboard or placing notes in your piano roll. Either way, you will come
up with cool sounding combinations pretty fast.

Extra Tip: use more chords

Of course these 3 are not the only chords that work. If you start
with Fmaj7, you can also throw in Cmaj7 in a bridge or a7 as a little
variation for the first part every 3rd or 4th time.

Check our Instagram Account, to listen to the video examples:

https://www.instagram.com/productionmusiclive

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No matter how old you are, you probably grew up with the iconic
sounds and songs of games like Super Mario or Zelda. All these
“legends of leisure” have a very special soundtrack with insanely
catchy melodies and odd scales - of course we heard them so often
while completing a level, that they got stuck forever.
What unites many of them, is the use of odd scales, modes or
enharmonic shifts, that create a certain atmosphere. Syncopation or
different speeded triplets help to sound beautifully weird.

The Byzantine Scale is one of these odd sounding scales, that many of
you wanted to hear in action. Here the hard facts again:
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Byzantine or Double Harmonic Scale
It consists out of this set of half (h) and whole (w) step notes:

H - 3H - H - W - H - 3H - H

Here is the scale starting on C:

C - C# - E - F - G - G# - B -C

Sound design
We all have this lo-fi sound in our ears right now. Often the init /
default patch of a synth comes shockingly close to the Nintendo or
other 8-bit based music.

Compose your own

Try to compose your own little game theme over the weekend and
tag us in a story - we might shout you out!

Check our Instagram Account, to listen to the video examples:

https://www.instagram.com/productionmusiclive

198 productionmusiclive.com
You probably know, that each chord can be played in different
variations - this is called voicing.
Voicing means, that you work with the same notes of a chord
progression, but place them in differing orders.
A basic triad usually sounds boring, because most people use it and
there is nothing special to it.
If you spread the notes of a chord over more than an octave and play
with the third or the five on top, you will come up with something
new.

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Today’s video shows you, how rearranging the chord notes, affect the
feeling.

Tip: create melody with rhythm

The last example in the video shows you, that by just throwing in
some rhythmical variation, you can generate a melody that tonaly fits
the chords.
Just place the upper note on another measure and spice it up with
some transition notes.
This is probably one of the easiest ways, to come up with a catchy
melody!

Check our Instagram Account, to listen to the video examples:

https://www.instagram.com/productionmusiclive

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We all know, there are chords and progressions that simply get to us -
universal of the genre or the presentation. For many Melodic Techno
or Deep House producers, today’s progression seems to have a very
special effect on them, because we hear it in so many songs - but
today we show you a cool variation!

The progression can start from different points, to reveal different

feels, by changing the resting chord or the transition. 
Like in many other posts already explained, we can get wonderful
progressions by just changing the bass note. The same principle is
valid here.
productionmusiclive.com 201
Tip: C 2nd inversion 

We start the progression with the basic triads, but will apply a simple
change.
Let’s take a look at the substitution chord. We play a simple C major
chord in the second inversion, meaning we start the chord on the G,
followed by a C and ending the triad on an E.

Bass notes: F - D - A
Like we said in the beginning, these notes can be changed around
to your liking - but you probably want to end the progression on
the A, because together with the chord notes it is the strongest
combination, transforming it to a A minor 7 chord. Strong means,
that it shares 2 notes with a regular A minor chord. The G makes it a A
minor with a 7.

We started the progression on F, making it a F9 with a maj7. In

combination with the D we end up with a Dsus9 also with a 7.

If these numbers freak you out, you can learn all about them in our
“Harmony & Chord Progressions Course” - check link in todays Story.

Tip: play around

Now try starting your progression on D and maybe end it on F with a

little rest on the A. You will soon realize what feels right.

Check our Instagram Account, to listen to the video examples:

https://www.instagram.com/productionmusiclive

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Today we want to dedicate our video to the subtle tweaks in a chord,
that make a huge impact, because they instantly sound better.

Used chords - in detail

In the beginning you hear the full progression we will build - the
result if you will.
The second sequence shows you the basic triads we used: F - Amin -
G - Emin. Nothing crazy.
In the third example you hear only 1 shifted note, but it changes the
dynamic of the progression entirely. 
The simple G major chord gets rearranged to a Gsus4 chord, which
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means that we get rid of the third (the note B in that case) which is
displayed in the chord description by “sus” - sus from suspended.
The fourth sequence adds more notes - the 7 to the F, which is the
major7 E. Also the Amin chord gets a 7 with the added G and the
Emin is topped off with a D, which makes it Emin7.

Melody
Now you can start playing around with some melodies - just take
notes from the chords.
Try to implement an interesting rhythm, but one you can still whistle,
if you want to make it catchy.

There will also be another post shortly, where we elaborate on “sus

chords”.

Check our Instagram Account, to listen to the video examples:

https://www.instagram.com/productionmusiclive

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May be you have already watched the video in our previous post - if
not just hop over for a sec. “Sus chords” are a VERY powerful tool
derived from classical music, where they created “suspension” -
meaning they were longing to be resolved.

There are 2 types of “sus chords” - the sus4 and the sus2. 
What they have in common is the omission of the third, which usually
indicates the gender and feel of a progression. By substituting them
with either the 4 or the 2 we build sus chords. 
So instead of the third we play the 2 or 4 of a chord and create a very
open feel, because the distinguishing note is left out.
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When to use?
You can use this when you want to “link” to the next chord. Very often
a “sus4 chord” is used as a 5 chord resolving in the 1 - but keeping
tension high.
In modern music, especially pop tracks, people are used to
these chords, so you can use them freely, whenever they fit your
composition.

Chords from the example

1 Csus2
2 Fsus2
3 Amin7
4 Gsus4

When using this progression, you will notice, that it gives you big
freedom for your melody, because you can build it with more notes.
The sus notes are allowed and so is the omitted third.

Check our Instagram Account, to listen to the video examples:

https://www.instagram.com/productionmusiclive

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Is this the 2015 discussion “the dress is black, no the dress is white”
meme all over again?
Calvin Harris “one kiss” can be analyzed as a song in F major or
in A phrygian. In both cases, the notes are exactly the same. The
discussion is about whether you feel “at home” on A minor or on F
major - which one feels like the tonic to you.

The one note that makes a lot of music theorists go nuts is the “Bb”,
which is regular in F major, but not in A natural minor. The reason
why people debate over this is, that the song starts on A minor
and lands on it again, when the loop ends. If we see it as A minor,
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it is A phrygian. The cool second chord, that would emerge in A is
a Neapolitan chord: Bb D F A - making it a regular Bmaj7 chord in F
major.

There are many more reasons to state here, but maybe we can solve
this together. We have a favorite. What do you think? Is it F Major or A
Phrygian? ---
More on Harris and his Chords
Calvin Harris is without a doubt one of the most influential producers/
musicians/DJs these days - and by far the highest paid at the
moment.
Yet most of his music seems really simple and not too elaborate -
but there is a reason for that. In the song “One Kiss” for example, the
vocalist Dua Lipa sings only 3 notes for most of the song, but she
does so on some quite uncommon chords.

The chord changes are very minimal, meaning he tries to move

around on the keyboard as few as possible. This voicing glues the
chords together, because the jumps between the single chord notes
are no giant leaps, as you would get from most MIDI packs.

Check our Instagram Account, to listen to the video examples:

https://www.instagram.com/productionmusiclive

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In my eyes everything about Michael Jackson’s super hits is
outstanding - the song writing, Quincy Jones productions and how
he put them on stage.
So to see, that in many cases he just used basic techniques like
modes, makes this achieve even bigger.
Of course “Billie Jean” is not entirely in dorian, since they switch
between multiple modes and keys, but the main bassline in the
beginning and the chords is pure dorian goodness!

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Dorian
The Dorian Mode is not only very versatile, but also ambiguous in
sound, because it contains melancholic and uplifting qualities - due
to possible minor and major thirds in important chord positions.

The Dorian Scale starting from D is: D E F G A B C D

Other famous songs in the Dorian Mode are: The Beatles - Eleanor
Rigby, Miles Davis - So What (CHECK IT OUT!) or Chris Isaak - Wicked
Game or Post Malone “Better now”.

Tip 1: take 4

Try using as many notes from the scale as possible. 3 very cool and
fitting chords with 4 notes are: Emin7, Cmaj7 or Dmin7 - the maj and
min refer to the corresponding 7. Try writing a song with only these 3
chords!

Tip 2: practice

Memorize the step sequence of the dorian scale: whole, half, whole,
whole, whole, half, whole.
Now apply it to another root note. Starting on A that would mean: A B
C D E F# G A. Now it´s your turn!

Check our Instagram Account, to listen to the video examples:

https://www.instagram.com/productionmusiclive

210 productionmusiclive.com
Ariana Grande is a vocal chameleon - if you have seen “Wheel of
musical impressions” with Jimmy Fallon, you know what I mean.
But also her own songs get more and more popular - leading her to
being No 1 in the Spotify Global charts with ‘Thank u, next’ at the
moment.
The song is super fluffy and easy going, which is of course because
of the very rhythmic style of singing with a lot of syncopation and
triplets in the melody. But also because of the soulful harmonies, that
never seem to end or stop somewhere.

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Secondary Dominants
This is created by the use of secondary dominants. If we assume,
that we are in the key of F major, the second chord E7 would not fit,
because it contains a G#, which is not part of the F major scale. Yet it
fits perfectly. This has to do with the chord it is leading to - Amin7.
The E7 can be seen as a dominant to Amin - which it actually is in A
harmonic minor.
A major chord dominant is way stronger in its power to be resolved as
a minor chord - you can hear that in today’s example.

By leading the listener astray with the F major chord in the beginning,
we think we know where our home chord or tonic is. But the second
chord paves the way for a temporary second tonic - A min, only to
celebrate a big comeback with C7, which is the Dominant 7 chord to
our original tonic F major. So this game is played twice here.

PML example
We tried to take this even a step further and wrote a little progression
also starting on F but eventually landing on D major via secondary
dominant A7.
Chords:
F - A7 - Dmin - F7 - Bb - A7 - Dsus4 - D

Try to write your own secondary dominant progression and tag us, so
we can shout you out!

Check our Instagram Account, to listen to the video examples:

https://www.instagram.com/productionmusiclive

212 productionmusiclive.com
Often we don´t really realize how important the right sound(track)
for a movie is. Composers like Hans Zimmer or John Williams are
probably the most famous and successful of their guild.
They often state, that you do not need a full orchestra or the best
musicians, sometimes a good idea can carry complete movie - like
the piano theme from ‘American Beauty’. The Japanese Akebono scale
is a perfect starting point for a dark and ominous feel - and playing
around with it creates images of an apocalyptic scenery.
You can of course play around with different sounds, too.

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Akebono Scale
Starting from C it goes: C - D - Eb - G - Ab

Chords
The chords we used are built with scale notes only.
The first is a Cmin9, which means that we added the D as the 9 to a
Cmin chord.
The second chord is only a transition and could be described as a
Gsus4. Since the B or Bb, that would determine the third of the chord
is not part of the scale, we can not build it completely. But it feels like
a Bb would be a better fit for this dark scale.
The third chord is Ab, but without a five. We land back on an open
C chord without the three. We cheated on the last transition chord
leading to the final C chord and added a Bb to create a cool and
heavy Eb chord. Please don´t tell anyone ;).. Like we said: using scales
is a very good starting point, but when you intentionally break out of
the corset once in a while, we will create your very own sound - and
that´s what it is all about anyway!

Check our Instagram Account, to listen to the video examples:

https://www.instagram.com/productionmusiclive

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CHAPTER 6 –
MIXING & MASTERING
After you transfered all your ideas into the DAW, you want them to
sound over the top, of course! That’s why we included this section to
help you achieve the sound you have in mind.

Pumping bass sounds, sonic sounding drums and little secrets for
your mastering chain – get some insights on the next pages!

Our friend Guido always says:

„Listening to music is a skill. Try reverse engineering music so you

can listen in layers. Only stop recreating once every part is 100.“
Guido Werner, Mix & Mastering Engineer

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How often do you find yourself using numerous instances of VST
plugin to achieve basically the same effect?

It does not only pollute your CPU or clutter your tracks, but it might
also have a negative effect on your sound!

Using different delay or reverb plugins for creative reasons does

definitely make sense - if you know exactly what you do.

If you just load a new plugin to every track in your arrangement, you
might end up with different room sizes, that don´t match or fit and
just sound weird.
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Using send effects helps you to spare on CPU, keeps yours project
clean and gives you a more defined sound.

Tip 1: define your sound

You are the master of your DAW! You can customize almost anything.
You need a granulizer in every track? Make it your custom send effect
preset for all compositions you start.

Tip 2: invest

Spend some time on defining and tweaking your send effects.

Don´t be satisfied with the “init patches” and create your own sound.
Remember: the effect is used on multiple tracks, so invest some time
and make it shine.

Tip 3: parallel compression

Use send effects to parallel compress a drum track for example. Leave
one track untouched and treat the duplicate with an overload of
compression. By finding the right level of mixing them together, you
get the best out of both worlds - dynamics and tight sound! . .

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Quick recap:
You use parallel compression, when you don´t want to lose the
dynamics or the transients of a track completely, but need some
compression and just more punch. This technique is mostly used on
drums.

Tip 1: grouping

Group all your drum tracks to a bus and apply your favorite
compressor to the group channel. Now you can go a little more crazy
on the compressor than usual, because you still keep the original as
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the main source of sound and just mix in the compressed one to a
certain degree.

Tip 2: start here

A good ratio to start would be 2:1 or 4:1. The bigger difference is the
release time, which should be pretty high - let´s say you start around
600ms.

Of course, if you solo the compressed track, it will sound way

overdone, but that way you get the best out of both tracks: punch
and dynamic!

Tip 3: attack, attack

Since we don´t have to care about the transients that much, we

can adjust a very fast attack. That way the results gets even more
aggressive.

Tip 4: level

Now comes the most important part - finding the right level!

It is kind of like the balance between a proper meal and the amount
of drinks you can take on a Friday night. A little bit too much of either
one and you don´t go out or you go home way too soon.
Decrease the level of the original and start increasing the compressed
track. You will instantly notice, at which position that effect you wish
for, is right.
Don´t forget: the original is your main channel!

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Of course you should never overdo it, but in some cases 2 sidechain
compressors can get the sound you want – if you want the ducking
effect AND enough pump.
With two busses you can gain more control – use one for the
„Sidechain effect“ and one to maintain the desired amount of pump.

But remember: it is not about „the more the better“. Each instance
also creates more CPU. Music is about experimenting – this trick can
help you get results faster.

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As careful as you might be when adjusting your effects or even effect
chains - after a while your ears just get tired and you might settle for
“good enough” or just don´t recognize the differences anymore. Some
basic techniques help you train your listening abilities and prevent
overdone effect sections. We all love certain effects, that we want
to throw on everything, but by A/B testing more efficiently, some of
these favorites don´t stand the test of time.

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Tip 1: bypass

Try making it a routine to bypass the effect your are currently working
on more often. Sometimes that way you realize early on, you chose
the wrong device or that your settings are off. Also try not to leave it
on, if you really don´t hear a difference or just because a tutorial says
so - develop your own opinion on your sound!

Tip 2: use the output gain knobs

To adjust and level your dry and wet signals, the output gain can
unveil the “true colors” of the plugin, that might have been burried in
the mix before. If your plugin does not have this function built in, you
can always use a utility plugin, to simulate the output gain, by routing
your signal accordingly.

Tip 3: A/B function

Most modern plugins already have a built-in A/B testing function,

which allows you to verify A or B in only one device - which saves CPU
and time. Try drastically different settings first and assimilate slowly,
until you have your intended sound.

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The 80ies have been a very special decade – especially in music. One
of the defining sounds of that era is the gated reverb, usually used on
snares. You will find a lot of tutorials on how to achieve that sound.
Today we show you how to twist this technique around a little.

How to
Apply sidechain compression on your dum reverb bus. Use your dry
drum hits as a trigger.

This will give your sound enough punch, but still a lot of space!
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From the whole range of frequencies, the top end, meaning the
highest frequencies, are the ones with the biggest potential of really
hurting your ears, when you don´t have them under control.

There are a bunch of tools and techniques out there, to handle the
problem. Without a doubt one of the flagships plugins of home
mastering is Izotope`s Ozone. The possibility to compress and EQ only
certain frequencies with the multiband dynamic function, let´s you
keep your transients or sizzling top end, but helps you getting rid of
all the annoying fillers.

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Tip 1: solo the problem

In most multiband compressors you can solo the sound area you
want to EQ. That way you really hear which nuances you want to
keep and what is just “garbaging” your mix with unnecessary noise.
By doing this you also train your ears to hear these frequencies in the
mix, before even soloing them.

Tip 2: before and after

Try to reference as much as possible, to not get caught up in making

the problem even worse. Listen back to the original sound and
compare it to your current settings after each and every major
change you applied.

Tip 3: dynamic EQ

Try dynamic EQing, because it can be such a game changer for mixes,
that just won´t come out. By having the chance to filter out single
frequencies only on impact, leaves the mix much richer in sound, but
without the little annoyers in the way.

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Frequency-sculpting is one of the most important production
techniques out there, and there are a multitude of equaliser plugins
on the market, so it’s vital that you know your tools and use each in
the right situation.

While there are no hard and fast rules, the accuracy of ‘precision’-style
parametric EQs make them great for tight filters/cuts, pinpointing
resonances and removing harshness. Analogue-modelled equalisers,
while somewhat less accurate, usually introduce more ‘vibe’ and
character, making them better for broad tonal tilting and shaping
tasks.
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Don’t think that you have to perform all of your EQing tasks within
one plugin - instead, try using each for its respective benefits. Don’t
get too carried away with multiple EQs in series, either, though. Make
sure each performs a defined role in the plugin chain, or you may find
your settings conflicting or fighting with each other - for example,
boosting the treble on the first EQ, then cutting treble on the second
one to “fix” this bright treble.

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After applying some EQ and maybe a multiband compressor on your
master, your transients or the punch of some elements seem to blurr.

There is a very basic setting for your Ableton compressor (or any
other compressor), that will shape and carve out some of these hits
back into your track. Do not expect wonders or a magic setting that
fixes everything you messed up before, but you will hear a noticeable
difference.

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Step 1: bring your ears

Always listen closely while applying effects of any kind. Do not just
copy settings from somewhere, because every track is different and
needs different tweaks.

Step 2: settings

Set your ratio between 2,5:1 and 4:1. For this setting we need a pretty
slow attack, between 40 and 60ms together with a short release time.
Play around with the dry/wet knob, until you feel your transients pop
again - here is one of the few situations, where do not always have to
give a full 100% ;) .. Step 3: listen on multiple speakers

Now it is time to run your new settings through as many speakers as

possible. While your studio monitors may transport exactly what you
wanted, the often cited kitchen radio may not. Take your buddy for a
ride in your car and listen to the details.

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Mastering is indeed a craft you need to master, before you can
succeed. Many, if not all of us had big troubles with their first
attempts in our early days, when we just wanted to make our track
louder. But of course mastering is so mich more.

We put together a simple mastering chain with Ableton only effects,

to get you started and inspire you to do your own variations. Of
course it can always be claimed, that the order of the effects should
change due to different results you want to achieve.

If you want to learn more, check our Mastering Course - which is still
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on weekend sale today (sunday). Also check our website, for a free
download of the mastering chain (link in our story). Chain:

EQ8: Lowcut - This EQ is operating in mid side mode. We are cutting

out frequencies below 100hz on the side and freqs below 35 hz in the
mids. That way we have a clean low cut and our bass is operating in
mono

Glue compressor: We are catching some of the peaks over the entire
frequency range

EQ8: We are flattening out some unwanted resonances

Multiband Dynamics: We are balancing the low, mid and highs with
3-band multiband compression

Compressor Punch: We are adding punch to the mix, emphasizing the

dynamics

Compressor Sustain: We are flattening out the mix a little bit (in order
to be able to make the sum louder in the end)

EQ8: Final touches, we are pulling up the bass a bit and adding a little
bit of brilliance in the top end

Limiter: We are increasing the loudness of the sum of our track. Note:
don’t push it too far, Ableton’s limiter starts distorting the sound quite
quickly. . .

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Many of us tried at least once to produce a bass heavy track, that
mainly focuses on the symbiosis of kick and bass - but somehow we
weren´t really satisfied with the result. There are many reasons for
that, but one of the biggest is definitely, that we start with those two
elements and lose focus on what we originally wanted to do, because
we piled up tons of other sounds on top of the scripted protagonists.

That way not only headroom gets lost, but also the listeners attention
shifts to random points in the composition, because - more options,
more distraction.

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Tip 1: stay lean

Once you have the perfect six pack, you should not start eating junk
food again. So as an equivalent to that analogy, you should not start
adding unnecessary elements to you arrangement, because it will be
like a layer of fat on top of your six pack - once you have the desired
kick and bass combination, stay lean!

Tip 2: trim 

Now, of course a track with only kick and bass needs to be an

absolute masterpiece to work. So even if your song needs some pads,
vocals, leads or FX, you should take care of excessive frequencies,
that get in the way of the two players in the low end. Most samples
or synth sounds are stuffed with extra frequencies down there (even
if you don´t hear them), where you need your bass to shine, so make
sure to detect and extract!

Tip 3: reference

The importance of that can not be overstated, because this is where

you actually learn how to sound like you want to. Even if you are
thriving for a sound that has not been done before, reference with
something that comes as close as possible, to minimize mistakes and
maximize the accuracy of your sound.

CAN YOU GUESS which song this is, only by the bassline? Drop us a
DM on Instagram, write “E-Book Quiz” and make your guess ;) !

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We have all been there, that after flipping through the third chorus
effect we come to the assumption, that “the right” chorus does not
exist or the sound just needs a different effect.

But more than often, we just give up too early. There is a very easy
way to create your own custom chorus effect, that not only sounds
great and really wide, but also adds some organic and human feel to
your leads or percussions

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And here is how you do it:

Tip 1: record twice

Let´s say you want to widen your background piano. Record it twice
and don´t quantize it. Now pan it left & right and be amazed on how
natural and wide the sound feels.

Tip 2: widen mono leads

Although most leads do not sit on zero all the way, they should not
be panned too much. To fatten leads with this technique, you need
to record your lead sound 3 times like explained above. By hand, no
quantization and then one panned 15-25 right, the other 15-25 left
and one in the middle. That way you keep the mono compatibility
and hit your listener in the face, but still get the desired widening
effect.

Tip 3: audio

All of this works even better, when you can get your hands on an
analog synth, a piano or some real percussion instruments. If you do
not own real instruments, get one tomorrow - you can still start with a
big book and the floor for some percussions.

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Of course there is no “magic” in music production, but Ableton´s glue
compressor can improve your drum sound drastically.

The most important thing here is to trust your ears, because this
setting is only the beginning - you need to do the fine tuning and
adjustments yourself, since in- or output signals will vary a lot
sometimes.

Step 1: group channel

Create a group channel and throw all your drum tracks in there. Try
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to level, pan and EQ them as good as possible, before applying the
compressor.

Step 2: listen and adjust

Now load the glue compressor to your group track and set the attack
time to 30, but ratio and release all the way down. Turn the threshold
all the way up, close your eyes and slowly bring it down, while
listening closely, where it starts sounding sonic! Your fader should feel
comfy around 5db. You can always bring up the level again with the
make up knob. Remember, this technique is not about making your
drums louder, but to make them sound better together.

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We all get drawn to a nice sounding 808 coming from a massive
audio system or to bounce to in the club. But sometimes it tends
to get too “weak” when you listen to it on your cell phone or laptop
speakers, because the tonal material tends to get overshadowed by
other rhythmical elements like the hi hats or even the vocals.

There is one easy trick though, to enhance and fatten up every 808,
but still make it audible with all it´s tonal content.

Step 1: duplicate

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No matter if your 808 comes from a sample you use on an audio track,
in your simpler or if you created it with Massive, Serum or any other
synth - duplicating it, is the first step to tighten it up.

Step 2: cut the duplicate

Now you have to analyze your sound spectrum and see, where the
main 808 frequencies are. Leave those in, in the original track, but low
cut them pretty steap in the duplicate.

You want to get rid of almost all of the low end frequencies, to
concentrate on the high end.

Cut the high end just a little bit in the original.

Step 3: unite them

The “cut bass track” is also the track you want to add the distortion to,
when you want to go for a more beefy sound.

Create a group channel with these two tracks and load Ableton´s
Amp plugin, selecting the “bass” preset. Now also apply a glue
compressor, to make them sound as one.

There is a whole post on the “Magic Settings” for the glue compressor
in the feed - this will help you a lot!

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This quote from our buddy and masterclass instructor Guido,
is probably one of the most valuable lessons, for producers -
independent from their abilities or experience.
We all know, that music comes from the heart and should touch other
hearts again - therefore it needs to sound and feel right!

By only “watching your screen” or thinking the settings “look right”,

you will probably not be able to get these feeling across.

Tip: EQ & Compression

Especially when it comes to the fine tweaking of these 2 audio effects,
240 productionmusiclive.com
you can trust your ears and with it your gut feeling more. And the
good thing about it is - you train your ears and perception every time.

Tip 2: compare
We will not advice you, to do things “blindly”. Do a referencing AB test
of your “with and without looking” versions. We are sure, this will give
you a different perspective on your tracks!

Tell us in the comments, what differences you witnessed or if you

ended up with the same result - we bet you will
not ;)

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CHAPTER 7 –
FREEBIES & HOW
TO USE THEM
Last but not least, we also included all of the latest freebies we posted
in our feed – also with a link to download them again, if you missed it.

They vary from the super intuitive Chord Generator to a free

Mastering Chain, that has done us some good deeds.

Especially when it comes to creating from scratch, here is a littel

quote from our friend Clawz SG:

„Never over compress in the beginning. Leave room for dynamics,

because that's what keeps your music alive!“
Clawz SG, Producer
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Today’s freebie: Chord Generator Ableton Device.
If you’re not very fluent with playing the piano, or just want a quicker
way of creating chord progressions, this chord generator is for you. 
Basically, any note you press is going to be transformed into a triad
chord. Then, according to the settings you choose on the generator,
it’s going to give you a chord variation. The first knob is a major/minor
switch (even in the minor position the generator uses the white keys
only). The second knob allows you to drop the bass by an octave.

productionmusiclive.com 243
The third option is to add extensions, 7th, 9th, 11th or 13th. You’re
going to have to switch from 11 to 13 with the additional “11/13
selector”. There’s an option to play rootless chords and to drop the
7th, 9th, 11th & 13th by an octave. Once you’ve made a progression
and you want to tweak it, you can record your MIDI pattern onto a
new MIDI track - just like you do it with Audio track recording. 

Hit this link to our complete Freebie Page:

https://m.me/productionmusiclive?ref=w3805723

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Today’s freebie:
Free Vocal Sample Pack (11 Tonal Chops)

There’s a few kinds of vocal leads you can make:

1 Short tonal chops

This is probably the most common vocal chop technique. Basically

you find a tonal vocal shot and make a melody out of it. Now you can
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put it in a sampler and draw in a MIDI sequence, which is easy. You
can also do it on an audio track and pitch every sample individually.
What’s cool about this is that you can choose the warp modes and
(in Complex Pro) the Formant settings for each note. That’s because
some “pitched” notes may not sound great at first. Tweaking Formants
can give the sample more of its original character and make it less
“chipmunky”.

2 Gliding vocal lead

This technique can only be done in Simpler or Sampler. All you need
to do is choose a tonal vocal shot (preferably long), and create a loop
with fades, so that the note plays continually, as you hold a MIDI note.
Then (in Simpler) go to Controls and choose Glide - that’s going to
activate the effect famously used in Flume’s “Sleepless”. Now you can
choose the length of the glide effect in milliseconds, and your vocal
should be ready.

3 Chopped up acapella

If you’re feeling more experimental, try to chop up an acapella. You

can manually cut and paste bits of vocals to create a sequence on
an audio track. The other approach is to select an acapella clip, right
click on it and select “Slice to new MIDI track”. This is going to slice the
acapella to a Drum Rack according to the settings you choose on the
popup window. This approach is for you if you want to mess around
with your vocals on a MIDI controller, which can be fun!

Enjoy and go nuts!

Hit this link to our complete Freebie Page:

https://m.me/productionmusiclive?ref=w3805723

246 productionmusiclive.com
Today’s freebie: 3 Bass Patches for Ableton’s Operator

This tip is going to cover 3 techniques for making bass sounds with
Operator.

1 Create a basic FM Bass

Operator’s oscillators can be routed one into another via FM

Synthesis. It works like this - you use the A oscillator as a basic
sinewave and route the B oscillator to it to make it beefy. You can use
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the B oscillator’s envelope to make the sound less beefy over time. If
you change the Coarse pitch knob on the B oscillator to 2 (you pitch it
up), you create the famous-but-basic FM bass sound.

2 Make it futuristic with harmonics

If you’re into futuristic bass sounds, try routing the C & D oscillators
(pitched way higher) to A & B. This way you can create upper
harmonics - just for the attack of the sound, or for the whole sound.
Tchami is a famous producer using this technique.

3 Use the filter

If you’re still not satisfied with your bass, try shaping the high end
with a lowpass filter. Set the cutoff to a value where you’re muting
the high frequencies. Then just use the ADSR envelope of the filter
to create movement. This can result in very nice old school type bass
sounds!

Hit this link to our complete Freebie Page:

https://m.me/productionmusiclive?ref=w3805723

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Today’s freebie: Kick sampler device for Ableton Live

With today’s free download, you’ll be able to take out the kick drum
from any track you want, without any tonal content on top. 
Here’s how you use it. 

Step 1

First, you need to find a kick drum in the track where there’s little
playing on top. Most likely kicks like that will be found in track intros
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or drum outros. Once you’ve located the kick you want to sample,
select it, press “command/control + E” to split it into a separate audio
clip. 

Step 2

Then you need to load the kick sampler onto a MIDI track and drag
the kick clip onto each simpler layer (low, mid, high) inside the device.
All you need to do now, is tweak the rack’s settings. The idea is to
make the highs longer than the lows. Most kicks don’t use much high
frequency content for longer than a few milliseconds. The mids play
for a bit longer, but it’s mostly the low end of the kick that’s long. 
With the rack, you’ll also be able to change frequency bands between
the layers. Happy kick sampling!

Hit this link to our complete Freebie Page:

https://m.me/productionmusiclive?ref=w3805723

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Today’s freebie - “The Cat’s Checker”, an effect rack for
checking the mono / stereo image.
While mixing, it’s very important to check your mix’s mono signal
frequently. That’s because when mixing, you may get tempted to
create a stereo image that’s too wide. In this case, the mix is going to
collapse completely in mono. To avoid this, put “The Cat’s Checker” on
the master and use it frequently. 
You may also monitor the side image with it, as well as the frequency
spectrum.

Hit this link to our complete Freebie Page:

https://m.me/productionmusiclive?ref=w3805723
productionmusiclive.com 251
Today’s freebie:
Evolving Pad Preset for Ableton’s Operator
Pads are great synth patches for adding atmosphere to a track.
However, sometimes they can sound a bit boring. To combat this, use
a filter and automate some of its parametres. Ableton’s Auto Filter not
only lets you automate the filter cutoff. There’s also a “Morph” option,
which allows you to blend between different filter curves. If you
automate the “Morph” knob, you can create some original sounding
filtered pads.

Hit this link to our complete Freebie Page:

https://m.me/productionmusiclive?ref=w3805723
252 productionmusiclive.com
Today’s freebie: Drum Rack, Synths & Bass from Post
Malone’s “Rockstar”

Every beat’s core is the drumbeat. Most trap drum patterns follow a
similar formula. The hihats are often 16th notes, while the snare plays
in the middle of each bar, so twice for our clip. 
Another snare may play in the “bounce spots” - along with the 8th
and 11th hihats. The kick must play at the beginning, but may also
play in one of the bounce spots. The 808 bass sample is most likely
going to play at the same time as the kicks. 

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Following this simple formula should give you the most basic trap
rhythm - now try to experiment with it and make it your own. For
example, you can try speeding up the hihats, using pitch bend or
making a gliding 808 bass pattern.

Hit this link to our complete Freebie Page:

https://m.me/productionmusiclive?ref=w3805723

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Today’s freebie: “Ableton Only” Mastering chain

This tip is going to cover what each effect in our “Ableton Only” Future
Bass Mastering Chain does. When “mastering” on this basic level,
we are trying to accomplish 3 things: - balance the mix, - clean up
resonance and - add loudness (punch) to the track

EQ8 - This EQ is operating in mid side mode. We are cutting out

frequencies below 100hz on the side and freqs below 35 hz in the
mids. That way we have a clean low cut and our bass is operating in
mono. You can also use the EQ to adjust the volume of the signal with
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the Gain control in the lower right corner.

Glue compressor - We are catching some of the peaks over the entire
frequency range

EQ8 - We are flattening out some unwanted resonances

Multiband Dynamics - We are balancing the low, mid and highs with
3-band multiband compression

Compressor Punch - We are adding punch to the mix, emphasizing

the dynamics

Compressor Sustain - We are flattening out the mix a little bit (in order
to be able to make the sum louder in the end)

EQ8 - Final touches, we are pulling up the bass a bit and adding a
little bit of brilliance in the top end
Limiter - We are increasing the loudness of the sum of our track. Note:
don’t push it too far, Ableton’s limiter starts distorting the sound quite
quickly.

Hit this link to our complete Freebie Page:

https://m.me/productionmusiclive?ref=w3805723

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Thank you very much for your support and for reading this
thing top to bottom obviously ;).

We will continue to post daily production tips over on

Instagram – make sure you follow @productionmusiclive
for more!

Also check us out on YouTube: youtube.com/

productionmusiclive
on Facebook: facebook.com/productionmusiclive
and take a look at our Shop: productionmusiclive.com

If you produce in FLStudio, you can

check our friends from
@flstudiotips on Instagram.

Keep up producing cool stuff and – let’s get started!

Best,
Tom&Francois&Alex

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