themongrelfm

[themongrelfm]

Making your first song from start - Part 1

Today, I would like to write some information about the basics of music production. I saw several people asking about this, so here we go. First – I am going to explain everything on an .flp file, which you can download here. This file contains a song fully made in Flstudio, just extract it, open it up and check what I am talking about as you read this. So onto a couple basics, starting with a few shortcuts to make you more familiar with Flstudio.

F5 – This opens the playlist – the place where you put all your samples, melodies, automations, etc.

F6 – Channel Rack – you will find all your samples and synths here – everything that makes sound and you put into your project, you can find here to edit.

F7 – Piano roll – basically the place where you can make your melodies using the synths – plugins – that you add to your project.

F9 – Mixer – you assign stuff from Channel Rack here. The Mixer is used, you guessed it, for mixing, which is a thing we will go through some other day, as it is a bit more difficult. All you need to know now – It is wise to use Equalizer to get rid of certain frequencies for your instruments – the leads – you don’t really need anything except of the mids and higher – sometimes leaving the lows is alright too. You can also put other plugins that change how everything sounds here and it is the place where you do your mastering.

Well, those are the places you will do most of your work in. So now that we have this covered, onto the next step. The song itself. If you do not have the project open yet, now is the best time.

The song I have made is a simple Big Room House track (you can listen to it here), which I have divided into parts to help you understand the song structure. In this tutorial, we will talk about the horizontal structure of the song – from left to right, in next parts, we will talk about the vertical structure, mixing process, idea behind making melodies and some other steps which lead to making a whole track. I will be using the term segment in this tutorial – which is one part of the song, which has a started and finished melody in this project. For instance, the Verse 1 consists of 3 segments. This is only my own terminology for keeping this whole tutorial simple.

I have tried to use mostly native plugins to FL Studio, so you should be able to open the projects without problems. Only one that you might not have is SPAN, which is an analyzer for your sound, you can get it free on splice.com.

(Download the project file here)

The Intro

You can’t start your song blasting the full volume at the listener. The intro is the part which announces the song, you should keep it simple, adding a fade in into the beginning is a good idea. In this project, I have decided that some drums and simple instrument playing a simple melody would be nice. The length of an intro is subjective, it can be something short, or something longer, like in my project. Keep adding to the atmosphere as the intro develops and at the end, try to make a nice transition into the first verse of your song.

Verse 1

This is where your song starts. There is a Break in front of this part – breaks are the parts of your song where you change it up a bit, add some interesting element, and make it go quiet or change the instrument. They serve to break the repetition, create smooth transitions, and keep the attention of the listener.  My Verse 1 consists of 3 segments – each adds on something else, either slowly introduces a new instrument or changes the melody a little bit. Make your song evolve from something simple to something more complex and introduce the atmosphere and the main melody of the song.

Buildup

The buildup of the song is where you will want to start building a sort of suspense, trying to foreshadow that there is a storm coming up. You can use instruments to build up this suspense, risers, various drums, snare is used mostly. Buildups usually start slow and keep getting faster as they play. It is up to your imagination and fantasy how you design your own.

Drop

Well, this is where you want to go all out. Depending on your style, you can make the drop loud with a lot of reverb and strong bass, or make a sort of anti-drop, where everything goes a bit quieter and there is one instrument playing, think of Garrixes song animals, where you can hear loud instruments in the beginning, and simple clicking sounds in the drop. Since the drop is probably the most important part of the song, you will want to give it some attention. You can use your main melody from your verse, change it up a bit, add a different instrument, or several instruments, depends on your style and genre. The drops usually have 2 parts, one where you present the melody, second where you develop it a bit more by changing the sound, adding elements, etc.

After Drop

The noise has ended, it is time to go a bit quieter and prepare for the second verse, second buildup and the second drop. Keep it simple here, make a fluid transition and tell the listener that you are going to start the second verse.

The Rest of the Song

The first verse and the first drop are your first half of the song. It is the ground stone. So what do you do now, do you just copy it and play it one more time? No! Of course you can copy the structure of the first song, but add some new elements. Maybe change the melody of the second verse a bit (see how I changed verse two from verse one by making the melody different, keeping the same instruments and adding a beat instead of just claps), add a new instrument, and make it interesting. When approaching the second buildup… well, copy it. The buildups are usually not changed, but be sure to have a different approach to the second drop, since it is usually more developed than the first one. A rule of thumb, copy the first drop and keep it as it is, then add third, possibly fourth part of it and change those up. It can be a completely new melody, maybe inspired by the second verse, it can be change of rhythm, change of instruments, different sound. Be creative.

Additional tips

Making music is about repetition and evolution. You need to have some degree of repetition in your melody, since the listener expects that you will make everything in the same mood. You need new elements, since you want to keep your song interesting. When making a new song, you don’t have to have a linear attitude. When I was making this song, I started with just simple drum intro, made the first verse, then the drop. I listened to each part and added transitions between them, then gave it another listen and thought about how to make the song evolve. I have added some fade in’s, new instruments and simple elements like sound effects. Always ask yourself questions – what can I add or change to make the song more interesting? Are these two parts too similar and is it bad, or is it ok this way? How could I get the attention of the listener? There are no rules how to make music, so don’t listen to anyone telling you how your song should be structured. The project I have showed you is just one of my many approaches. You can make the intro one half shorter, you could make the verse one part shorter, it is completely up to you.

I hope this breakdown of structure of this song has gave you a bit of insight on how you can approach to creating a new song. Next time I will talk about the vertical structure, what elements there are in the song, how it evolves and why I chose to put in what I did.  

[themongrelfm]

Upcoming:

Life has been busy this week, but i have not forgotten or neglected my work with music. I have finally obtained album cover art, so that is one thing going on - I hope soon I will be able to release it, hopefully in a week, I plan to work on finalizing the whole thing during this weekend.

I have been working on new songs, got one finished actually and other 4 in progress. Might release some of them free to download once they are finished, same as all my songs on my soundcloud - if you need music for your projects, go check it out and hopefully you will find something yourself.

I have been more active in an Amino comunity, Music Producers, and have talked to some people about making music. They have asked about some basic tips so I have decided to write a more complex tutorial on this. I hope it will be up tomorrow, so stay tuned! Work in progress, the .flp will be free to download, so that you can see everything for yourself

[themongrelfm]

Zero to Hundred is the last song of the Byproducts playlist. A quick paced energetic Drum and Bass song with mainly synth based sounds. I have tried to create a changing atmosphere in this song, switching between somewhat quiet and calm moments and more energetic ones.

I hope you have enjoyed these 7 songs, remember, you can download them for free from my soundcloud and use in your own projects.

[themongrelfm]

The Switch is a song inspired partially by Dead Mouse, in some aspects. In others, not quite as much. A slow paced intro flowing into a simple drop, hope you enjoy it.

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One of my many takes on Big Room House, although it does not follow the song structure of the genre. Enjoy the slow paced intro going into a quick paced loud drop - which evokes the idea of a summer beach party to me.

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Salvation is one of the first songs i have ever made, that is, not in the state posted here. The original song consisted of piano and organ. I have made it long before i understood any music theory and have decided to remake it after I have learnt what i know now.

The song has a sentimental value for me, a slow paced dance/house song inspired mainly by Swedish House Mafia. I hope you enjoy it as much as i have enjoyed making it.

[themongrelfm]

A simple dance song with a melodic entrance and two drops - first one, the quiet and simple one, second one, after a short break, utilizing the power of GrossBeat and its glitch ability.

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The second song of the Byproducts arrangement. Drum and Bass based on piano sound, synth and a synthetic vocal made in Sytrus. A slow start flowing into an explosion of sound.

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Drum & Bass 002 - Beat Mix

Last time I showed you how I arrange a beat for a Drum & Bass song. Arranging is one thing, but how do you make your basic product sound better? Through mixing. So, what s mixing? Simply put, it is a process of adjusting the characteristics of the sounds (instruments, sound effects, etc.) in your song to make sure none of them are too loud and that each of them has enough space to be played. By space i mean space on the frequency spectrum - if you have too many sounds using the same freuencies, you wont hear all of them clearly.

Well then, what are the steps to mixing? First of all, you need to have your sounds assigned to the mixer channels. Keeping it organized helps a lot. On the picture below you can see the mixer channel of the drum loop i have shown you in the first part of this tutorial.

I have assigned each of the sounds to its own channel - Kick, Snare, Snare 2, Attack Hat 05, Attack Hat 04, Ride 1 and Ride 2. On the right side, you can see the hierarchy of the channels. The hats are routed into another sepparate channel - Hat + Reverb, the Rides aswell - Rides Reverb (more about the reverb part later). This means that the sounds going from the Hat and Ride channels are going through the Reverb channels before they go any further. Both reverb channels, Kick, Snare and Snare 2 channels go through Drum Compression, from where they are routed through Pre Master to Master channel. From Master channel they are played through your speakers. This hierarchy allows us more control over the management of the sounds themselves.

It is important to adjust the volumes of each sound in the channel mixer to make sure none of them are too loud - notice the sliders of each channel are moved. This is usually the first step i make to make sure i can hear everything clearly when played together. Another important step is equalization.

This is the EQ i use for the snare of the drum loop. By cutting the low frequencies of the sanre you give more space for other instruments, like bass or kick, to be played. It is wise to make this step even if the snare doesnt use many frequencies under the 200hz value, as it offers higher sound clarity. You can go further and adjust the rest of the EQ to make the sound even clearer by looking for frequencies which are not needed or ones which actually shouldnt be there. I will show you this in another tutorial. It is quite usual to put an EQ on every channel in your mixer track and to cut off frequencies of each instrument accordingly - you dont need high frequencies of a bass, you dont need low frequencies of lead instruments - always check by ear how the arrangement works and adjust the EQ until you are happy with the sounds. Also, a rule of thumb - it is better to cut, rather than add - imagine composing a song as cutting a stone into a statue.

As i have said, all of the drum sounds end up going to the compression channel. I put a simple Fruity Compressor on it, which adjusts the sounds going through this channel. Basically what it does is that it adjusts the volume according to how you set it up. Threshold - anything playing louder than this value will be compressed. Ratio - 2:1 is the reatio at which the sounds are lowered in volume. Gain - make up gain for what you take from the sound. Attack and release - values at which the compressor starts and ends. By putting a compressor on the drums with low ratio you add a bit more of a snap to the sounds, you make them more punchy. You dont have to do this, but before you condemn this tactic, try it out. You will have to play with the settings though, since for every song there is a different way it works the best. Or you can try copying the settings i have used here and try adjusting them until it sounds good for you.

Last thing - the reverb i was talking about. The hats and rides are routed to their own reverb channels, where a reverb plugin adds just a little bit of reverb to them. I did this to glue the whole beat a bit more together and to give it a more atmospheric vibe - to make it sound more wide and fluent. You dont have to do this, but it can make your hats and rides, even snares sound better. Remember - be careful with adding reverb on kicks, since it can mess the whole mix up. And never add reverb on a bass. Never. The Settings i used for the hats reverbs are on the picture below.

This concludes my short mixing tutorial for drums, which can actually be used in any genre, not only Drum and Bass. I hope you have learned something new and that you will use it to make kickass songs.

[themongrelfm]

The Mongrel - Cheeki Trip

Teaser for the soon to be released album. Hope you enjoy the hard sounds of this song. Make some noise!

[themongrelfm]

Drum & Bass 001 - The beat

Before you add the bass to the drums, you need to arange the drums themselves. A drum and bass beat originates from a 6 second loop called the Amen break. The bpm we will work in is 172 bpm, though the range of DnB goes anywhere from 165-175 bpm. The picture below is a simple drum and bass loop which i have made to explain these basics. Listen to the beat we will work with on this link.

You can see that the beat is divided into 4 layers, each being a specific element. From top to the bottom, first is the kick, then the snares, hats and rides. The Kick and the Snare are the characteristic elements of Drum and Bass. The secondary snare can be used to create a typical DnB shuffle, the hats and the rides give it a quick paced atmosphere and fill in the space between the hits of the kick and snare. The loop i have created is 4 blocks long - 3 blocks for the beat itself and 1 for the break. The break is a small change in the beat to give it more variation, break the repetition. Breaks are often used to tell the listener of the song that there is going to be a change - for example transition between the verse and the chorus.

The picture above shows the structure of the beat more closely. Each layer has its own instrument group. The top arrangement is the main beat (it is one block of the main beat which repeats itself 3 times before the break comes in). The blue layer is the Kick - the characteristic of the kick is that the second one is played not on the 3rd bar, rather in its middle. You can see the shift to the right on the picture. The main snare is played every second bar, it has a regular tempo. I put the secondary snare at the end of the second bar, two hits to create the shuffle before the second kick comes in, and one more secondary snare at the end of the segment just to fill in the space. The hats are in the red layer - i used two different hats playing one after the other, nothing complicated. The rides are in a kind of organized chaos structure, they add a bit more groove to the beat, give it a fuller sound.

Same instruments were used in the break, though the structure is different. I left the hats and rides unchanged, but the kicks and snares are arranged in a different manner. There is no way to explain how to make a break, you have to go by your own judgement. Try experimenting with different arrangements of the drums in the break to give your song an interesting element that gives it a bit more life and breaks the repetition.

This concludes the simple explanation of this beat, i hope it was helpful and gave you a bit more insight into how DnB works. Next time we will look at at mixing of the drums, from a very simple point of view and learn how to treat the frequencies of each instrument and how to give your drums a bit more oomph.

[themongrelfm]

Music Producing

I have got to music producing by random after watching a video of Martin Garrix producing a song on the go on a radio show. The beginnings were tough, now that I look back, but it has never been something I did not enjoy doing. On the opposite, it is a form of meditation to me - a way to escape the real world and focus on one thing. The song I have layed out in front of me.

The daw of my choice was Flstudio, and it still is. I absolutely adore the simplicity of it and the fact that even though its simple to use, it offers absolutely complex ways to make a track. After about a year of producing I am making the final steps to releasing my first album. Time flies.

If you are interested in music and would like to give making your own songs a go, there is nothing complex about it. You will have to invest some time into it, but in the end, you will learn an amazingly interesting skill. Dont be scared and give it a go. You only need to do the first step and start.

If you are still reading and are interested in learning about music producing, you will find some of my own tips on this blog. Some of them will be more advanced, some not, but hopefully, they will help you. I am going to ommit the absolute basics, like how to use a daw, and skip right into the song arrangement and getting the sound you want. Everything from plugins to the journey of making an idea into a song. The first tutorial I have prepared will be about Drum and Bass music, the beat. You will find it here soon enough so stay tuned!

[themongrelfm]

The Mongrel FM has been launched

Hello and welcome to this blog.

I am The Mongrel, a beginner music producer and I will write mostly about music here, my music or music in general. I produce mostly Drum&Bass and Dance songs, though from time to time, I delve into different genres, like Hardstyle, Reggae or crossovers genres.

You will find the most recent information about my music here, aswell as explanations/tutorials about producing - anything that I cannot cover on twitter due to the 140 character limit, I will write about here.

I hope that the information you will find here will be helpful and interesting and that you will enjoy my music.

For more information you can follow me on the following social networks:

Youtube - Officially published songs

Twitter - General information about my daily life

Soundcloud - Music I release under Creative Commons license - you can use it in your projects as long as you give the appropriate credit - artist name and source