FAWM from Scratch 4 - Minimal Melodic Dubby Techno
Tutorial | Feb 06, 2024
In this video, I take the opportunity to create a new tune with a Finnish vibe. Starting with a kick drum and bass, I add in a simple saw melody and some chords for depth. I also incorporate hi-hats, claps, vocals, and percussion to enhance the composition, resulting in a complete track that captures the essence of Finnish music.
You can watch the Video on Youtube - support me on Patreon
I crafted a new tune starting at 123 BPM with a focus on creating a dynamic and engaging composition. Here's a summary of my process:
- Kick Drum: Began with a four-to-the-floor kick drum pattern, tweaking it to remove overtones and applying effects like a peak limiter for a tighter sound.
- Bass Line: Used the Polymer synth for the bass, keeping it simple with a G note and a saw wave, and adding a peak limiter and ADSR for shaping.
- Chords: Added a minor seventh chord progression in G, enhancing it with unison, reverb, and delay for depth.
- Hi-Hats and Claps: Selected hi-hats from a 909 sample via XO and organic claps, applying groove and MIDI export for integration.
- Drone and Melody: Introduced a drone in G and a subtle melody, using macro modulation for dynamic variation.
- Vocals and Piano: Added vocal elements and a piano with reverb, focusing on enhancing the track's emotional depth.
- Ducking and Grouping: Implemented ducking with a sidechain to the kick drum for the bass and melody, and organized tracks into buses for structured mixing.
- Transients and EQ: Adjusted transient control and EQ for clarity and punch, particularly on the music bus.
- Percussion: Created a percussion grid with ADS, noise, filters, and modulation for rhythm complexity, integrating it into the drum bus.
- Final Touches: Concluded with crash cymbals, adjusting bass patterns, and refining the mix with transient control and a limiter on the master.
Throughout this process, I emphasized simplicity, creativity, and texture, aiming to produce a finished tune with a distinct sound. This journey exemplifies my approach to music production, showcasing techniques for crafting a track from scratch.
Questions & Answers #
Maybe you dont watch the video, here are some important takeaways:
What type of music is the video creating? #
I am creating new finished tune in this video by using different instruments and effects to create a unique sound. The tempo is set at 123 BPM and the focus is on creating a loop with a kick drum and bass.
How is the video showcasing the process of creating the music? #
The video showcases the step-by-step process of creating the music by starting with the kick drum and adding layers of instruments such as bass, saw, and chord. The video also demonstrates the use of effects and tools like peak limiter, ADSR, and groove to enhance the sound.
What techniques are used to add depth and variation to the music? #
To add depth and variation to the music, the video incorporates techniques such as modulation, automation, and layering. The use of macros allows for easy control and manipulation of multiple parameters, while the addition of vocals and percussion adds texture and dynamics to the composition.
What elements contribute to the final mix and production of the music? #
The final mix and production of the music are influenced by elements such as EQ, reverb, delay, ducking, and mastering techniques. These elements help to balance the different instruments, create depth and space in the mix, and ensure a polished and cohesive final product.
Transcription #
This is what im talking about in this video. The text is transcribed by AI, so it might not be perfect. If you find any mistakes, please let me know.
You can also click on the timestamps to jump to the right part of the video, which should be helpful.
[00:00:00] You can look at it from all kinds of directions, but I need new tunes.
[00:00:04] I need new finished tunes.
[00:00:06] So I want to take the opportunity of this video to do something new.
[00:00:13] One hundred twenty three BPM.
[00:00:18] Loop is on and we start with the kick drum.
[00:00:21] It's always nice.
[00:00:23] Maybe something fall to the floor.
[00:00:25] So we lay down your one kick drum, make the loop pretty short.
[00:00:32] That's cool.
[00:00:33] Let's remove some overtones here.
[00:00:37] Let's go to nineteen.
[00:00:44] Let's put some effects on it.
[00:01:01] And the peak limiter.
[00:01:07] That's cool so far.
[00:01:09] Then I do a bass.
[00:01:13] Let's go with the polymer.
[00:01:15] Let's call the space.
[00:01:19] And let's keep it simple.
[00:01:27] Let's go for G maybe.
[00:01:28] Something like this.
[00:01:31] Then we take here the saw.
[00:01:37] Pretty simple like a set.
[00:01:56] Let's find a nice pattern.
[00:02:04] I think the first one was okay.
[00:02:09] So we restart here the oscillator.
[00:02:12] Let's go to mono.
[00:02:22] So let's use a peak limiter here to limit this.
[00:02:44] Maybe we can do here an ADSR.
[00:02:48] Let me switch to the saw in the beginning for the attack.
[00:03:07] Pretty simple.
[00:03:08] Okay.
[00:03:09] Now on top maybe let's do some kind of chord.
[00:03:17] We are on G.
[00:03:21] Maybe at the end here.
[00:03:25] Let's go for minor chord.
[00:03:26] One, two, three.
[00:03:28] One, two, three, four.
[00:03:31] One, two, three.
[00:03:32] Let's go for minor seventh.
[00:03:36] You need to use your unison, the tuning, the fat.
[00:03:41] This one on.
[00:03:45] bit of reverb, bit of delay.
[00:03:50] Delay two.
[00:04:00] Maybe one ocatave.
[00:04:03] Maybe not a cement.
[00:04:09] And then we only want to play this every second iteration.
[00:04:22] A bit darker.
[00:04:39] Okay so we need some hi-hats.
[00:04:41] I go for XO.
[00:04:48] Let's go for a nine on nine.
[00:05:05] Let's try it.
[00:05:09] Play.
[00:05:10] Oh, that's a sample.
[00:05:15] Oh, let's do some different.
[00:05:26] Let's try these ones.
[00:05:51] Oh, that's a vert sample.
[00:06:09] Okay, that's fine.
[00:06:16] I take you this MIDI file, take it out.
[00:06:21] So again, hit stop here.
[00:06:23] And then I can use inside of Bitwig here the groove.
[00:06:42] Once I need another XO for the clap.
[00:06:52] Maybe something organic.
[00:06:53] Let's try this one.
[00:07:16] Okay, I kind of like it.
[00:07:36] So let's export here also the MIDI.
[00:07:41] Disable this.
[00:07:43] Maybe it's time for a drone.
[00:08:00] That's the chord.
[00:08:03] So we are on G.
[00:08:10] Let's do this longer scale.
[00:08:17] One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.
[00:08:23] Take this one.
[00:08:24] Put this here into a unison.
[00:08:29] Fat.
[00:08:34] Open this up.
[00:08:35] Some kind of free burp.
[00:08:53] Kind of like it.
[00:09:07] Let's remove some of the frequencies here.
[00:09:36] Just for the background.
[00:09:58] Okay, so maybe we add some kind of melody to it.
[00:10:01] So we have something.
[00:10:06] Let's go for G.
[00:10:17] So we are here from one, two, three, four up.
[00:10:40] Let's double the size.
[00:11:06] Just a hint of a melody.
[00:11:07] I mean it's already too much.
[00:11:37] Yes.
[00:11:40] Let's use a macro to modulate everything here.
[00:11:44] Let's go back here to zero.
[00:11:57] Oh yeah, let's double this.
[00:12:12] The second time I do something like this, maybe.
[00:12:29] Let's put this here on the range arm.
[00:12:59] Okay, so this is the...
[00:13:09] That's the first main idea here.
[00:13:11] Maybe we let this run for two segments.
[00:13:16] And then here we do another trick.
[00:13:29] These are the claps.
[00:13:58] Okay, so let's use a page here for some vocals.
[00:14:15] This is G minor.
[00:14:31] The name of the line.
[00:14:32] Oh yeah, this one here.
[00:14:37] Maybe something I haven't used.
[00:14:42] So we are in G minor.
[00:14:56] Playback input quantization.
[00:15:01] Let's try this.
[00:15:24] There's a lot of "ooh" in there.
[00:15:38] Okay, that's kind of cool.
[00:15:46] Put a lot of reverb on that.
[00:16:04] Here different "ooh".
[00:16:21] Oh, that's at the piano.
[00:16:42] Okay, let's see.
[00:16:53] Let's start with the reverb here.
[00:17:19] I'll play a little bit here.
[00:17:23] Let's record it.
[00:17:51] Okay.
[00:18:12] I want to bring the melody slowly in.
[00:18:27] And then I want to add some rites at the end.
[00:18:33] I want to duplicate this here.
[00:18:45] Nice.
[00:19:02] [MUSIC]
[00:19:12] [MUSIC]
[00:19:22] [MUSIC]
[00:19:47] Oh yeah, this one. It's annoying.
[00:19:53] [MUSIC]
[00:19:57] [MUSIC]
[00:20:07] Okay, so we can add a bit of ducking here. So use a tool device.
[00:20:13] Sidechain, you know, sidechain. I will take the kick drum.
[00:20:19] [MUSIC]
[00:20:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:20:27] [MUSIC]
[00:20:37] We can put this on the bass. We can put this then on the melody.
[00:20:45] Oh, let's actually group here. Music, chord.
[00:20:53] It goes also in the music bus, hats, bass, this is the drums.
[00:21:01] Yeah, nice. So we have here, let's put it there,
[00:21:09] 487, 121 milliseconds. Okay.
[00:21:17] So there's a transient control. And you can use here, 121 milliseconds.
[00:21:25] Push this up by 40%.
[00:21:35] Let's put the peak limit on that.
[00:21:39] Maybe an EQ5.
[00:21:53] Let's clip this.
[00:21:57] [MUSIC]
[00:22:15] This one is a bit annoying.
[00:22:21] Still.
[00:22:25] [MUSIC]
[00:22:33] [MUSIC]
[00:22:41] [MUSIC]
[00:22:57] Oh yeah, so now we can take this ducking device and put it on the music bus.
[00:23:05] Oh, it's the wrong one.
[00:23:07] This one here. The ducking tool.
[00:23:13] [MUSIC]
[00:23:33] [MUSIC]
[00:23:51] Bit of mixing.
[00:23:59] And here I want to switch the rides.
[00:24:07] Or maybe just use one.
[00:24:09] It's a different coloring.
[00:24:11] Wait a minute. Different coloring.
[00:24:19] [MUSIC]
[00:24:29] [MUSIC]
[00:24:39] [MUSIC]
[00:24:49] [MUSIC]
[00:24:53] That's cool. So now we create some crash sounds.
[00:24:59] Crash.
[00:25:03] Oops.
[00:25:07] So here's one crash.
[00:25:13] And you put a lot of reverb on it.
[00:25:17] [MUSIC]
[00:25:39] Yeah, that's okay.
[00:25:41] I just need to tweak here to reverb a bit.
[00:25:45] [MUSIC]
[00:26:09] Okay, so this is the crash.
[00:26:13] It's bounced this. Bounced post-fader note.
[00:26:19] [MUSIC]
[00:26:27] Bam.
[00:26:29] Okay, so now we need another crash.
[00:26:33] [MUSIC]
[00:26:41] Something like this.
[00:26:43] [MUSIC]
[00:26:47] Maybe a bit more reverb.
[00:26:49] Bounce.
[00:26:53] So this one is reversed.
[00:26:57] [MUSIC]
[00:26:59] Reverse it. Bam.
[00:27:05] Maybe let's do it this way.
[00:27:09] [MUSIC]
[00:27:25] A bit too loud.
[00:27:29] [MUSIC]
[00:27:43] Okay, so let's do something with the bass here.
[00:27:47] So we have this and we can maybe...
[00:27:51] [MUSIC]
[00:27:55] So let's do this every two bars.
[00:27:59] [MUSIC]
[00:28:27] [MUSIC]
[00:28:45] Okay, these two five iterations at the end.
[00:28:51] Maybe eight at the end here.
[00:28:55] Okay.
[00:28:57] [MUSIC]
[00:29:07] [MUSIC]
[00:29:17] [MUSIC]
[00:29:43] Claps are okay.
[00:29:47] But maybe I start here with different claps.
[00:29:53] [MUSIC]
[00:30:03] Something like this, very short.
[00:30:07] [MUSIC]
[00:30:29] For the first segment, the third corner and here.
[00:30:35] [MUSIC]
[00:30:53] We add another one.
[00:30:57] [MUSIC]
[00:31:03] Let's go for a 9-0-9 clap.
[00:31:07] [MUSIC]
[00:31:09] [MUSIC]
[00:31:19] [MUSIC]
[00:31:29] [MUSIC]
[00:31:39] [MUSIC]
[00:31:49] Nice.
[00:31:51] 30 minutes into the video.
[00:31:55] [MUSIC]
[00:32:05] And here, this melody is going up one octave.
[00:32:11] And we remove here the middle parts.
[00:32:15] Let's give this a different color.
[00:32:19] [MUSIC]
[00:32:29] And let's...
[00:32:33] [MUSIC]
[00:32:35] Let's modulate this maybe here.
[00:32:39] [MUSIC]
[00:32:43] Let's take a macro.
[00:32:45] Make the decay times longer.
[00:32:47] Open this up a bit.
[00:32:51] So you can bring this in there slowly.
[00:32:55] [MUSIC]
[00:33:23] [MUSIC]
[00:33:27] Oh, we only changed only this.
[00:33:29] Okay, I want to change this.
[00:33:31] [MUSIC]
[00:33:57] Maybe we split the bass and put the delay on the top.
[00:34:01] [MUSIC]
[00:34:19] Yeah, we open this up here, the end.
[00:34:23] Then we bring this down and open it up again.
[00:34:27] [MUSIC]
[00:34:51] We can take another vocal sample here at some point.
[00:34:55] [MUSIC]
[00:35:01] [MUSIC]
[00:35:11] [MUSIC]
[00:35:21] [MUSIC]
[00:35:31] [MUSIC]
[00:35:41] [MUSIC]
[00:35:51] [MUSIC]
[00:36:01] [MUSIC]
[00:36:11] [MUSIC]
[00:36:21] [MUSIC]
[00:36:31] [MUSIC]
[00:36:41] [MUSIC]
[00:36:51] [MUSIC]
[00:36:57] Okay, so let's add some percussion maybe here on this part.
[00:37:03] Copy this over.
[00:37:05] [MUSIC]
[00:37:17] So here we want to turn down the bass.
[00:37:21] [MUSIC]
[00:37:31] Maybe remove the vocals here, the piano.
[00:37:35] [MUSIC]
[00:37:41] And this melody.
[00:37:43] [MUSIC]
[00:37:51] Okay, so let's construct something here on the grid pretty fast.
[00:37:57] Let's take an ADS or AD.
[00:38:03] Let's take noise.
[00:38:07] Let's take one of these new filters here.
[00:38:11] There you go for Fizz.
[00:38:13] [MUSIC]
[00:38:19] Out and go for some triggers.
[00:38:25] Let's use some gates here.
[00:38:29] And then clock divide.
[00:38:33] Clock quantizer.
[00:38:35] 16 notes.
[00:38:39] Let's use shuffle.
[00:38:41] That's on.
[00:38:43] [MUSIC]
[00:38:53] Let's increase the speed here.
[00:38:57] [MUSIC]
[00:39:13] Do I want to use notes? Maybe.
[00:39:17] [MUSIC]
[00:39:21] Okay, so use pitches.
[00:39:25] [MUSIC]
[00:39:33] Some random notes here.
[00:39:35] [MUSIC]
[00:39:37] Pitch quantizer.
[00:39:39] [MUSIC]
[00:39:43] Let's use, I don't know.
[00:39:45] [MUSIC]
[00:39:49] That's T sharp minor.
[00:39:53] That's what I know, but we are in G, so we need to go up.
[00:39:57] 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, go up.
[00:40:01] [MUSIC]
[00:40:17] One octave higher.
[00:40:21] [MUSIC]
[00:40:25] Maybe distortion.
[00:40:27] [MUSIC]
[00:40:37] Flanger maybe.
[00:40:39] [MUSIC]
[00:40:53] Let's go for C6.
[00:40:57] [MUSIC]
[00:40:59] C4.
[00:41:01] [MUSIC]
[00:41:05] Bit of reverb.
[00:41:07] [MUSIC]
[00:41:17] Low cut EQ 2.
[00:41:21] There it is. Nice.
[00:41:23] [MUSIC]
[00:41:33] Bam.
[00:41:35] [MUSIC]
[00:41:45] [MUSIC]
[00:41:55] [MUSIC]
[00:42:05] [MUSIC]
[00:42:15] [MUSIC]
[00:42:25] [MUSIC]
[00:42:35] [MUSIC]
[00:42:37] So here the switch is on. I use a gate.
[00:42:41] Gate input and we use select at the end.
[00:42:45] [MUSIC]
[00:42:49] Okay, so now we can use here just one note
[00:42:53] [MUSIC]
[00:42:57] to switch this on.
[00:42:59] [MUSIC]
[00:43:03] It's a percussion grid.
[00:43:05] And we put this here in the drums.
[00:43:09] Pass.
[00:43:11] [MUSIC]
[00:43:21] [MUSIC]
[00:43:31] [MUSIC]
[00:43:41] Yeah, and then we use a macro here to bring
[00:43:45] the X slowly in.
[00:43:47] [MUSIC]
[00:44:15] Maybe too much.
[00:44:17] [MUSIC]
[00:44:25] [MUSIC]
[00:44:35] [MUSIC]
[00:44:45] [MUSIC]
[00:44:55] [MUSIC]
[00:45:05] [MUSIC]
[00:45:15] [MUSIC]
[00:45:25] [MUSIC]
[00:45:29] It's also nice.
[00:45:31] [MUSIC]
[00:45:47] Let's use this mix thing here to reduce the decay.
[00:45:51] [MUSIC]
[00:46:01] [MUSIC]
[00:46:11] [MUSIC]
[00:46:21] [MUSIC]
[00:46:31] [MUSIC]
[00:46:41] [MUSIC]
[00:46:43] Nice.
[00:46:45] I think that's it for me for this video.
[00:46:49] I put maybe here on the master.
[00:46:53] Let's see if we can take you to the same transient control
[00:46:57] on the master.
[00:46:59] Volume shaping only 10% maybe.
[00:47:03] And then push this into the limiter here.
[00:47:07] [MUSIC]
[00:47:09] Not too much.
[00:47:11] [MUSIC]
[00:47:15] Maybe a clipper.
[00:47:17] [MUSIC]
[00:47:25] Not a clipper here.
[00:47:27] [MUSIC]
[00:47:41] The rides are not perfect at the moment.
[00:47:45] [MUSIC]
[00:47:55] This ride is better.
[00:47:57] [MUSIC]
[00:48:07] [MUSIC]
[00:48:17] [MUSIC]
[00:48:27] [MUSIC]
[00:48:37] [MUSIC]
[00:48:41] Yeah.
[00:48:43] Okay, I think that's it for me.
[00:48:45] That's the first idea.
[00:48:47] I probably finished this then in two hours.
[00:48:51] But I need to take a break from this.
[00:48:53] But I want to take you on the journey of creating this tune
[00:48:57] or another tune for this form website.
[00:49:01] So if you like the video, like it and subscribe to the channel.
[00:49:05] Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.
[00:49:07] Bye.