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TUTORIAL: cheap melodic supersaw arps (in midi) with ableton live
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| hereander |
Hi folks!
I have learned quite a lot of usefull things from this forum so I decided to write a little tutorial today when I was looking for some distraction from learning for my exams.
This tutorial is about creating those cheapo melodic arpeggios which many people want to do when they begin producing dance music. Many of them bought one of those big softsynth that are recomended here to do the big sound and think "hey this build-in arps sound so great and professional". That's where the problems start...
When they now try to integrate these in their first track they realize that it's almost the same as using loops because you have a predefined harmony (minor, major etc.) and you can't change it (the great z3ta-arps for example).
In this tutorial I'm trying to show how I sometimes create those sequences in midi when I'm not in the mood of "composing" or really thinking about the musical aspect.
Maybe this approach is interesting for newbies (I remember me searching for tutorials on basslines and those super-arps too).
Most of you experienced guys will say "that's cheap", "go away with that" or "I can't hear this anymore"... well, don't read on in this case!
Now some further statements:
1) I did this just as an example in a few minutes, it sounds cheap and boring!
2) It's not Trance! It sounds more like Euro-Dance, but it might be helpfull for trance too!
3) Theres is no EQ'ing or other sound enhancement in the examples, so stay away with complaining on that!
4) It's just one way of doing it, not the best or the only one. Maybe you want to show your "tricks" too!
5) I use Ableton Live for this example because I find it a very creative tool, but you can do this stuff with most other sequencers with midi-routing capabilities. If you haven't tried live yet download the demo and try it, it's great!
Let's begin:
First you have to make up a small sequence of progressing chords which the arpeggio will be based on. I normaly choose a pad-sound on one of my synths and play a chord progression on my keyboard or e-piano. If you don't have one you can try with a mouse-keyboard or something
similar.
The chords should be progressing in a way that there is at least one finger (note) that stays the same when changing to the next chord. You can make it up with some music-theory. A sequence of descending quints would be an example for such a construction (J.S. Bach is a good source of inspiration for chord progressions). If you don't know much about theory, just play a chord and try changing one or two fingers to notes nearby and you might come up with something that sounds good.
In my example I use:
g min, e-flat maj, b-flat sus4, b-flat maj, f maj.
When you have your chords you have to prepare ableton live for the next steps.
Step 1:
Create an audio track with your favourite synth (or sampler) with the fattest supersaw-sound or whatever sound you want. Superwave P8 would be a good starting point if you don't know and want something free.
Now create two aditional midi-tracks (right click in the empty mixerspace) and route their output to the track with your synthesizer. That means that the synth will play the midi data from both tracks.
Configure the monitor settings like shown in the picture below:
Step 2:
Record your chord-progression sequence into a clip in the first midi track (I called it "ARP") or draw the chords in the piano-roll (or drag my midifile into your clip :)).
your sequence could look like this in the piano-roll:
Here's the midi file:
http://www.ihud.com/file.php?file=1...progression.mid
And what it would sound like:
http://www.ihud.com/file.php?file=1...progression.mp3
Step 3:
Now you insert Live's Midi-Arpeggiator into the track with your chords:
Let it play and tweak the arp's settings till it sounds interesting in your ears.
It could sound like this:
http://www.ihud.com/file.php?file=1...hords_arped.mp3
Step 4:
Make up a small melody or phraze based on your chords. Thats not difficult, just play with the notes of the chords and their neighbours. You should locate the phraze like an octave or so higher than your chords so that the notes won't interfere. Let the phraze be sort of "rythmic". If you are not familiar with writing down rythmic phrazes (I alway have difficulties writing down a rythm I have in my head) you could use one of my tricks:
Take your microphone, lay down a basedrum oompa-oompa beat in your sequencer, arm an audio track for recording an now
you can:
1) clap your rythm
2) beatbox your rythm with your mouth.
When finished, you can lay a grid over the recorded waveform or put a midi-track beneath it and transfer the time signature
to your midi track by hand. Sometimes you still need to do some quantizing.
When you have your melody, record or draw it into a clip in your second midi-track (I called it "Melody")
This is my melody:
http://www.ihud.com/file.php?file=1128636709/melody.mid
It could sound like this:
http://www.ihud.com/file.php?file=1128636782/melody.mp3
Step 5:
Now you can playback both of your midi tracks together on your synth. It should now allready sound quite interesting :)
You might want to tweak the arp in detail now (shure you do :)) so here comes the trick:
Arm the track with your synth for recording and playback the two clips at once. You are now recording both midi sources into one clip in your main track (keep the original clips, they might be usefull later!)
Hint: Don't forget to mute the original midi tracks when you playback the new clip or you will send every note twice to your synth!
You should now have a midiclip like this... the final arpeggio:
http://www.ihud.com/file.php?file=1...ecorded_arp.mid
it looks like the picture below in the piano-roll:
It could sound like this (now played back with another synth I liked better and a basedrum):
http://www.ihud.com/file.php?file=1...ecorded_arp.mp3
With this clip you now have all the freedom to edit every single note, it's velocity etc...
Step 6:
You can recycle your original midi-clips for other purposes.
- You could use your chordprogression as a string-pad and put a rythmic gate on it
- You could take the melody and use it with another lead synth to emphasize it or to solo it.
I have done this in this final example... I know it still sounds cheap but maybe you understand what I want to teach you:
http://www.ihud.com/file.php?file=1128638004/all.mp3
Well... that's it for today. Maybe one or the other finds this usefull. It was kind of relaxing to write this down
and I will now clean-up my kitchen and go on learning (yes I know it's in the middle of the night now :)). If you enjoyed this let me know, if you find it stupid you can
tell me too ;)
cheers,
hereander |
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| djdustx |
hey thnx...i'min the process of getting ableton with my m-audio purchase...this helps me do some basic programming on it :D
Seb:D |
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| DJ Shibby |
Cool, good tutorial for the new guys.
A great arp is really a wonderful thing, and in my experience, making an arp really sound professional means building each note yourself and, like you said, playing with how it interacts with the notes around it. Just laying down a huge note and then having your synth or an FX turn it into an arp is trickier since you have less control, but it's definitely faster.
Quantity vs Quality I guess. Anyway, good job here.
Cheers. |
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| Sean Walsh |
| Cool, thanks man. I'm making the transition to Live 5 and found this useful. |
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