Puzzled Desire - Exploring Melodic House Production

Tutorial | Jan 19, 2023

In this video, I demonstrate how to create a melodic house/techno track from scratch. I start by creating a polygrid with a filter, envelope, and output, and then modulating the pitch with a step mode. I then add a kick drum, bass line, and percussion elements to the track, and use effects such as auto level, delays, and a reverb to create a more interesting sound. I also use the note side chain to duck the music with the kick drum.

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What is the key takeaway from this video? #

The key takeaway from this video is that you can use a variety of sound design tools and effects to create a melodic track of any style. You can use filters, envelopes, step sequencers, auto levels, transient splitters, delays, and a variety of other effects to create your own unique sound. You can also experiment with different grooves, melodies, and sounds to further enhance the track.

Transcription #

If you don't want to watch the Video, or search for a specific topic, here is the transcription of the video with links to video markers:

[00:00.000] So today I want to take you with me to create some kind of draft or music, track or project.
[00:22.560] I don't know if I actually finish it in this video, but I want to create something.
[00:27.640] So I'm starting with the polygrid.
[00:30.320] So my idea was to create some kind of melodic house, techno thing, maybe.
[00:36.600] So 125 BPM, I don't know if I stay on that.
[00:41.320] I haven't prepared anything, but I try to come up with something.
[00:44.800] But my rough idea is basically to create some kind of percussion sounds that are melodic
[00:51.640] at the same time.
[00:54.140] So what I do is I'm using a filter here, double click that.
[00:58.600] So we are switching to C3 and using here the bandpass filter, and I'm using some noise.
[01:07.600] And I'm using an AD, which is an envelope.
[01:11.160] So we're going into the envelope here, into the filter, and we use some resonance then.
[01:19.040] And we also need an output, of course.
[01:23.520] Since we need to trigger here the AD, we want to trigger that with triggers.
[01:30.040] Two of them, one is 16 notes, and the clock quantizer, then trigger.
[01:44.080] Then we use maybe 10 here, pretty short pink noise, so it sounds like percussion, right?
[01:52.760] Maybe stereo, perfect.
[01:58.800] So now we use that, and we use a value, and this value is controlled by a step mode.
[02:12.320] The step mode has a, yeah, I like it a lot because you have this dice button here.
[02:19.320] You can also switch this to bipolar mode, we have negative values.
[02:24.020] And the first one, first bars here, I want to have zero, zero value.
[02:29.440] Then I switch this value here to bipolar on the left side, right?
[02:33.560] So we have positive and negative values, exactly like we have here with the step sequencer.
[02:38.560] And then we modulate this here by 100%.
[02:41.520] When we hit play, you can see we modulate this here with the step mode, right?
[02:47.240] So we get basically values from here in here, we call this pitch.
[02:56.480] And then we use, because we have it here, when you look at this oscilloscope, we have
[03:01.600] a lot of values here, up to minus one and plus one, so pretty drastic range.
[03:09.440] That's not what we want.
[03:10.440] We want to have, we want to scale this down, but then attenuate, which is basically more
[03:16.040] like a volume slide up, but with the unit of percentage here.
[03:19.920] So we pull this down, you can see we have the same values, but they're all scaled down.
[03:27.400] We have a different range now.
[03:31.120] And with this, we can go into quantize, I am, and dial in the scale of D sharp polarity
[03:38.520] here, something like this.
[03:42.840] And we also need to transpose, and I'll show you in a minute why.
[03:50.440] So here we have this step mode.
[03:54.000] And when we have the value of zero here, you can see the node is selected as C sharp.
[04:00.680] Why?
[04:01.680] Because zero on a node signal is always C.
[04:05.880] And because we have C deselected in the scale, it switches up to C sharp, but I want to have
[04:12.120] the root node of D sharp.
[04:13.440] So I'm adding here three semitones, right?
[04:17.680] So we step up from C to D sharp.
[04:21.120] So the default when we have zero here, it's basically an offset.
[04:25.040] So when we have dialed in the zero value, then we land on the root node, which is D
[04:30.560] sharp, which is exactly what we want, because that's the scale.
[04:34.440] Okay.
[04:35.440] So now we can dial in here some nodes.
[04:37.720] What I want to have here at the beginning, zero, so the listener knows exactly in kind
[04:44.800] of which scale we are, because we want to start the melody on the root node.
[04:50.040] So this is my thinking about it.
[04:52.880] Go here into the SVF, we want to change basically the frequency of the filter here, and we also
[04:58.400] dial this down because we want to receive midi data from the outside world, from the
[05:05.840] keyboard or from the piano role, we want to change basically the frequency of the filter
[05:10.480] here, just with this input.
[05:12.120] So we pull this up to 120.
[05:15.800] And then we need and sample and hold, because now it sounds like, sounds like this, right?
[05:23.840] Every time we change here pitch, we have, yeah, the filter makes a noise, which is not
[05:31.920] what we want.
[05:32.920] We just sample and hold here, we hold only or update the value only when we have a trigger.
[05:42.360] So we have kind of the sound.
[05:50.840] So nice.
[05:51.840] So this is basically kind of a percussion sound with the melody or melody step or plug
[06:01.520] sound kind of.
[06:04.640] So what we can do now is we can duplicate this and do just the second one.
[06:09.880] Also duplicate your the step sequencer, randomize this.
[06:15.600] And instead of the first one, we use the second one here for this.
[06:25.480] We change the triggers here, we can also bring in here an octaver and say the second one
[06:41.440] is one octa fire, or maybe the first one is one octa floor, and this one is zero.
[06:47.680] So we get also kind of bassy sound with this.
[06:56.120] So dial back here the resonance, so it's not too, so it's not what I want, I want to also
[07:08.480] duplicate this side like this.
[07:13.960] So you dial in a different trigger setting and also duplicate this here again, delete
[07:24.920] that.
[07:25.920] It also sounds also nice here, but no, just on the root note, could be something.
[07:43.800] Okay, so I like this groove already.
[07:48.960] So we can put on here a super massive for some reverb.
[08:03.480] So now we can hear we have a lot of noise in this reverb because of the plug of the
[08:08.200] attack of sound.
[08:11.200] So I'm using transient split here, and just put the reverb on the tonal part, not on the
[08:17.760] percussion on the attack phase here, sounds much better, much smoother, so this could
[08:39.640] be a nice backdrop for a track, in my opinion.
[08:43.960] So now the problem is when we hit stop here, it's still playing, so we want to address
[08:49.680] that, and we also want to introduce here an auto level, which is a preset I made in my
[08:56.160] recent videos, which brings up the volume to zero db peak wise, that doesn't exceed
[09:04.960] zero db, and it's also always leveled, which is nice to have here when I tweak around all
[09:11.960] the time, so I don't need to care for the loudness or volume knobs.
[09:17.440] So I know everything that comes out here at the end of this plug in or this device is
[09:23.440] peaking at zero db.
[09:26.040] So because I know this, I can dial in here minus 40b, and I know exactly now this track
[09:30.720] is peaking at minus 40b, which is nice control to have.
[09:38.240] So again, back to problem was that it's still playing when we hit here to transport that
[09:42.600] stop, so we use a select, just do this here, pretty simple, or not select, that's what
[09:53.240] I want, select, select, and we choose the second input, so default is basically be quiet,
[10:04.520] and we switch the select on when we hit play on the transport.
[10:10.480] So now it's quiet, when we hit play, it plays, so when we hit stop, it stops, easy.
[10:22.440] So now to make this more interesting here, because it's really just one bar loop, we
[10:28.480] can select the grid here and make this whole sequence two bars long, which is also nice,
[10:43.760] we can maybe introduce some delay now, and we can also introduce here a step mode and
[11:03.360] change the speed of the step mode to maybe a quarter note, you can see it takes maybe
[11:08.640] now four bars or two bars to actually complete the cycle here, and at the end of these two
[11:15.880] bars we want to change something, and we want to change the melody by maybe let's say change
[11:26.200] the tenuator here, open this up a bit, so we have different note range, and maybe increase
[11:44.960] here the triggers speed, so to keep it interesting basically over a longer time period.
[12:03.440] Okay, let's add the kick drum, and I go straight for the Bitwig internal kick drum, so so far
[12:12.920] we only used Bitwig native devices besides here the Valhalla supermessives which is free
[12:18.600] to use.
[12:21.320] So let's bring in a kick here, and because we know we want to make a four to the four
[12:26.760] beat or four to the floor beat, we just cut this down here to one quarter note, play and
[12:39.600] the loops here in this clip launcher.
[12:46.240] So in here we want to use an FX2 and use an EQ in the top box here, just cut this out,
[12:56.640] so we cut basically everything out from three thirds upwards to one K, and use the distortion
[13:05.840] here after that, so we only distort on the top end here, we only distort basically at
[13:11.640] the top part, which emphasizes the click, so we can do this however you want, it's basically
[13:23.120] how you like your kick drums, distortion at the end here, that's too much, want to have
[13:30.880] more like a soft and electronic kick drum, and maybe at the end limiter, just to make
[13:40.280] sure we are picking at 0 dB here, bam, that's okay.
[13:51.560] So maybe we can add now some kind of bass line, and I would say I go here for Polymer,
[13:58.440] just make the solo, in here we dial in the root note, maybe here, I don't know which kind
[14:13.480] of bass we want this octave, it's probably better this octave here, so we have to kick
[14:20.720] drum below the bass, and then we dial in here a repeater, play, so we get this, we want
[14:36.640] to switch the Polymer to Monophonic mode, so we have only one voice active, and we want
[14:43.800] to dial in some noise, we want to restart the oscillator, and maybe we bring in here
[15:00.040] also a step mod, and make the step mod pretty short, maybe four steps, randomize, and you
[15:07.880] want to change something here, so how the filter opens up, so we have kind of a more
[15:18.800] interesting bass, we could also choose three steps here, we start with four, and then we
[15:44.080] need to use a quantizer here, and the quantizer is to a 16 note grid, and we also enable the
[15:49.560] groove, we get this kind of nice groove already, and I have here already dialed in a global
[16:01.880] groove, if you can pull it out, for now, yeah, the same old groove for now, so now the thing
[16:21.760] is that the bass starts basically every time we have a kick drum, we also have a bass sound,
[16:29.560] so we delay basically the first trigger of the bass here by just two steps, two 16 notes,
[16:38.920] so you can hear the bass starts on the offbeat, so first you start with a kick, and then becomes
[16:44.920] the bass in the offbeat, and then we use a step mod here, and dial in also a slower
[16:58.680] speed 8 notes, and then at the end of the sequence here, after two bars, we maybe change
[17:07.240] the speed setting here, so with a bit of variety in the groove also there, and then all we
[17:35.640] can do then is here just, and this one is a bit too loud, so maybe we use here again
[18:00.400] our auto level from here, just track this over here, in there, so we can pull this down
[18:12.040] to minus 4 dB, I'm not sure how I want to have, so let's try that again, and we can
[18:41.880] leave it at that for the moment, so we call this bass here, so maybe we add some percussion
[18:56.040] elements to it, so a lot of ways to do that, I'll probably start here with some claps,
[19:06.200] so I'll layer some claps, some organic ones, like this, and then here and here, then we
[19:31.720] nudge these a bit around, so this one comes a bit earlier, so let's try that again, and
[20:01.560] then here, again through the 8 Elements, but here we don't have any more sound, so what
[20:28.240] These are the claps here, we do some more stuff later on with the claps here but for
[20:46.240] now just to get an idea how we want to create this track.
[20:53.640] So we have some hi-hats here, in there we only want to have, also we have one four,
[20:59.840] one quarter, this is actually a quarter I have no idea, I have no idea, let's put this
[21:07.640] down so this is the offbeat here, offbeat hat, alright something like this, that sounds
[21:22.760] already nice, we use an expression here, we can use the velocity to increase the decay
[21:27.560] time for this one here because here the velocity is higher here, so we modulate this decay
[21:33.840] time.
[21:47.320] So modulate here the filter at the end, so this one has basically more lower frequencies
[21:59.840] than these ones, so we get a bit of variety into the hi-hat pattern, and with the velocity
[22:20.080] sensitivity here, you can basically remove the dynamics completely so everything is
[22:26.400] even then, oh yeah in the XO here we can use these two buttons, which basically delays
[22:51.520] one channel and you get the stereo effect, which makes everything a bit wider and top
[23:10.920] end, we also have here the width to 100%, which also makes stereo or uses stereo noise for
[23:29.600] stereo.
[23:41.520] So now that we have this, we probably want to introduce some percussion sounds here,
[23:46.720] or even more percussion sounds, so we select here some bongo samples, something around
[24:00.440] here, I don't care so much for how long these samples are because we cut them pretty short,
[24:21.440] anyway so here I dialed down basically the transient shaper, the decay time, I only want
[24:28.880] to have basically the tag, and I don't use the internal sequencer, I use the Bitwig piano
[24:38.800] roll, and just dial in here some off-beat percussion positions, so we get this kind
[25:06.960] of sound, and we probably also want to have an auto level, I really need to make myself
[25:19.720] here some kind of collection for that, I'm always using the internal browser, so cut
[25:38.440] here we can dial in some delays, and the benefit of that is here we can maybe use, or the benefit
[25:53.200] of using the piano roll is that we can use the operators here of Bitwig studio, so probabilities
[25:59.880] and stuff like this, and we can also use the global groove here, let's exchange the samples
[26:22.880] here.
[27:10.980] Let's play around to the bass here a bit more.
[27:36.980] Let's play around here some volume changes.
[28:00.980] I think this sounds a bit better because we have a lot of low end sound so we just shift
[28:18.980] everything up here and we maybe can use your macro for the resonators or for the resonance.
[28:38.980] We use here 1.1.
[29:06.980] We add some kind of drone sound or something like this.
[29:28.980] We know we are on the sharp here.
[29:38.980] We probably want to use the other sound.
[30:06.980] Let's scale it up and we also probably want to put the reverb on that.
[30:22.980] Or maybe first a random mod here.
[30:38.980] We also want to modulate the panning for all notes and for all voices.
[31:06.980] And on that we want to put the reverb when I use the new one I just bought today.
[31:22.980] We want to reverb at the end.
[31:34.980] Nice.
[31:54.980] Modulation.
[32:02.980] Degrades too much.
[32:12.980] Maybe a step mod to give it some modulation patterns here.
[32:40.980] Just for the background.
[33:00.980] Also level on there.
[33:06.980] Let's back to minus 16 maybe.
[33:34.980] Let's go back to minus 16.
[33:54.980] Maybe it's better.
[34:22.980] I can't decide usually what kind of groove I want.
[34:46.980] Here we introduce at least the side chain, note side chain.
[34:56.980] And we want to use the kick drum as an input.
[35:12.980] For kick drum plays we want to move the bass away.
[35:22.980] It could be interesting actually to use also your side chain, note side chain and also use the kick drum as an input.
[35:40.980] Let's switch to the second oscillator.
[36:10.980] Pull this down to minus 18.
[36:24.980] I don't want to have it that loud and we can also use here an AQ2 cut some frequencies.
[36:46.980] A little tap here with the resonator.
[36:58.980] Then modulate only here by what's that.
[37:16.980] So the sensibility of this macro is not too much.
[37:44.980] Let's go back to minus 18.
[38:12.980] I don't know if I want to have that much melody in the bass.
[38:26.980] Probably not.
[38:54.980] Kind of like it.
[39:22.980] Kind of like it in a way.
[39:46.980] Maybe let's try out some kind of melody on top.
[39:56.980] And maybe you'll see also the rich reverb after that.
[40:24.980] Maybe it's too much melody because we have already
[40:52.980] some kind of melody with this thing here.
[41:00.980] I can also change the melody here by.
[41:28.980] Yeah, we can.
[41:56.980] Yeah, we can later on bounce this out here and create multiple versions of this by just bouncing.
[42:14.980] Exchange the samples here and then bounce it again.
[42:30.980] There are two versions here.
[42:38.980] We can mute that.
[42:54.980] We can also use the bass here at the top and say all the rest of that stuff is just the music.
[43:06.980] Also in here.
[43:16.980] These are the drums.
[43:28.980] Drum and bass bass.
[43:32.980] And here on the music bus we want to have something like...
[43:36.980] Okay, let's implement that.
[43:38.980] We have a tool device here with a side chain.
[43:44.980] A note side chain.
[43:46.980] Get the kick here and just duck the music.
[44:04.980] It depends on how you like it, right?
[44:08.980] What kind of sound you're going for.
[44:12.980] We can also use this ducking effect here maybe on the heads.
[44:22.980] Just a tad.
[44:50.980] And then maybe here on the drums we want to have something in shape.
[45:16.980] We can also use a compressor if you want to.
[45:28.980] The compressor basically pulls the volume of the kick drums down and brings the rest up.
[45:34.980] And here we can just say everything that's not a kick drum or that's not a transient, pull it up.
[45:42.980] That's basically the same thing.
[45:44.980] It's probably nice to have some saturation on it.
[45:54.980] But I want to keep it clean for this tutorial here.
[46:14.980] That's pretty picky.
[46:18.980] Maybe bring in a small bit of attack.
[46:31.980] Or maybe pull this here down.
[46:37.980] I don't like the peaky attacks so you have a lot of space now.
[47:02.980] I know what's going to fit in here.
[47:08.980] This long lead.
[47:36.980] That's pretty good.
[47:46.980] That's pretty good.
[47:56.980] That's pretty good.
[48:06.980] That's pretty good.
[48:26.980] That's pretty good.
[48:36.980] That's pretty good.
[49:00.980] Something like this could be something for a part of the track where you have additional lead sound on top.
[49:11.980] Maybe some kind of chord steps in there.
[49:40.980] Yeah, too long.
[49:57.980] Also lead up on there or just delay.
[50:21.980] Maybe you don't want to play this pulligritcher all the time.
[50:27.980] You can switch to a different instrument.
[50:56.980] That's pretty good.
[51:06.980] That's pretty good.
[51:16.980] Alright, this one.
[51:36.980] So an idea could be that you have this maybe on the beginning.
[52:01.980] And then a second phase where you don't have this but we bring in here the melody.
[52:10.980] But we don't bring in the melody with the volume fader.
[52:16.980] We bring it in with the resonance.
[52:27.980] At the beginning it's just kind of percussion sound in the background.
[52:37.980] But then the resonance goes up and it becomes more and more melodic.
[52:52.980] Right, so.
[53:08.980] Yeah, we have this modulation which is okay and nice.
[53:23.980] You can also open this up here a bit with the modulation to have some sense of arrangement.
[53:49.980] You can also play around with the hi-hats maybe.
[54:08.980] Let me see.
[54:17.980] So instead of removing the hi-hats or removing certain things we can just say this is here.
[54:23.980] Velocity plus 60 dB.
[54:27.980] You only hear the offbeat hi-hats.
[54:35.980] This could be a break.
[54:47.980] So in here play this and velocity sensitivity is here.
[54:56.980] Super high.
[55:09.980] And here we pull this down.
[55:35.980] So the second part is more hi-hats playing.
[55:57.980] And here we can play with the claps and at the end of the sequence we bring up the delay or mix it in.
[56:27.980] Too much.
[56:56.980] Okay.
[57:25.980] We should save this.
[57:52.980] Maybe the sequence is too short here maybe we should extend this to four of these blocks.
[58:00.980] But for the sake of this tutorial thing it's okay.
[58:05.980] So you probably also can cut something.
[58:10.980] I only have headphones so I have no idea if I'm actually right.
[58:21.980] And then we probably want to have an all-boss here.
[58:26.980] Maybe we can put on some smart things.
[58:30.980] This is the smart compressor I am by.
[58:59.980] That's 58 minutes nice.
[59:03.980] So it's a small little draft.
[59:06.980] Melodic techno, melodic hours I don't know.
[59:10.980] Call it what you want but that's it.
[59:17.980] You can download this project of course on my Patreon if you want to.
[59:22.980] So make sure you subscribe there.
[59:24.980] Subscribe also to the channel and leave a like if you like this video.
[59:28.980] And I'll see you in the next one.
[59:30.980] Thanks for watching and bye.
01:00:00.980] I hope you enjoyed this video.