Music Production 101 – Master Sound Design, Mixing, and Mastering in FL Studio

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 15:00: fabric, FL Studio, Mad Miguel, Monetunes
2. 15:00 – 30:00: fabric, FL Studio, Seimatics
3. 30:00 – 45:00: fabric
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00: Monetunes, fabric
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00: Euphoria Pack, FL Studio, Free Code Camp, Sematics
6. 1:15:00 – 1:30:00: fabric, FL Studio, Free Code Camp
7. 1:30:00 – 1:45:00: fabric, Sematics
8. 2:15:00 – 2:30:00: FL Studio, Free Code Camp, Mad Miguel, Sematics
9. 2:30:00 – 2:36:08: Monetunes

Notable quotes from "Music Production 101 – Master Sound Design, Mixing, and Mastering in FL Studio"

• Miguel guides you through the entire life cycle of a song using tools like FL Studio. You will master sound design and mixing before applying your skills to apply a high energy bass house track from scratch. The course also covers the.

  about FL Studio · at 0:10

• Told you yet is I'm also an entrepreneur. I have my own startup called Kais Club and we make music software and we have a partner page where we show off products of partners…

  about Kais Club · at 2:36

• Main digital instrument. we will be using for this tutorial and it's called fabric. It's our product. So there is some bias but I am an expert with this product so I can…

  about fabric · at 3:31

• Creating the song. And to use these samples, we're going to work with Seimatics. Seatics is a huge sample pack company. And luckily enough, they have a lot of free sample packs and you can find them here.

  about Seimatics · at 4:31

• And this for free which is quite rare and they're quite good. The second thing is monetunes. Monetunes will help you collect missing royalties. I will go more in depth later in…

  about Monetunes · at 5:26

• The simatics packs. There was one vocal pack called the euphoria pack from sematics which is also free and they have an ac capella.

  about Sematics · at 1:05:41

• We'll call it free code camp application.

  about Free Code Camp · at 1:06:57

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Mad Miguel — Person · 4 mentions · first at 0:00
  Join professional producer Miguel for a comprehensive music production course that bridges the gap between basic theory and professional execution.

Companies & orgs

• Monetunes — Company · 5 mentions · first at 5:32
• Sematics — Company · 3 mentions · first at 1:05:45
• Free Code Camp — Company · 3 mentions · first at 1:06:57
• Seimatics — Company · 2 mentions · first at 4:36
• Kais Club — Company · 1 mention · first at 2:40
• Route Note — Company · 1 mention · first at 5:08
  Last two things I'll just quickly talk about are two services. The first one is Route Note. Route will allow you to distribute your songs on the platform.

Products & tech

• fabric — Product · 14 mentions · first at 3:35
• FL Studio — Product · 10 mentions · first at 0:12
• Euphoria Pack — Product · 1 mention · first at 1:05:45
  The simatics packs. There was one vocal pack called the euphoria pack from sematics which is also free and they have an ac capella.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Join professional producer Miguel for a comprehensive music production course that bridges the gap between basic theory and professional execution. Miguel guides you through the entire life cycle of a song using tools like FL Studio. You will master sound design and mixing before applying your skills to apply a high energy bass house track from scratch. The course also covers the business side, teaching you how to distribute your music to major platforms and properly collect your royalties. By the end, you will have the practical knowledge needed to transform your creative ideas into a fully released monetized product. Welcome to this music production series. My name is Miguel and I'm a music producer. I've been doing it for the past 8 years semi-professionally.

0:50 I've amassed over 15 million views. I've co-produced for a huge acts such as Tongvak, Bass Jackers, Retrovision, Fire Beats, and many more. And I also have my own artist project called Mad Miguel. Check it out. And today my duty is to show everyone watching this video uh how music production works so that they understand the basics the theory behind it and in the best case scenario are also unable to apply the theory. So there will be two parts. The first half for 60 minutes will be about the setup and the theory.

1:32 So you'll understand what tools you'll need to use um which are free of course and you also understand how music theory works, what sound design is and how it works. Um as well as how to mix and master your own songs and also how music distribution and royalty calculation and uh recoupment works. So I'll also show you how to make money off music which is quite nice. And in the second half, I'll be making a song from scratch using the theory I've taught you guys and I'll show you how to release this song that I made from scratch on all distribution platforms and how to collect the money properly. So yeah, I hope you guys are excited as I am to do this video and watch this video and learn. And let's get straight into it.

2:28 The first thing we'll look at is what do we need to set up? So, what I haven't told you yet is I'm also an entrepreneur. I have my own startup called Kais Club and we make music software and we have a partner page where we show off products of partners and also of free tools that we deem these products to be good for the community. And the first product that we will be using for this tutorial is FO Studio. If you have watched the previous uh pre-codecap videos, you'll know what EFL Studio is. It's the best DAW on the market and it has a free version. So, if you go to chrysan.com/partners, you'll be able to find e studio here.

3:21 Just click on it like this. And here you can download the FL Studio free trial. The second product we'll be using is the main digital instrument. we will be using for this tutorial and it's called fabric. It's our product. So there is some bias but I am an expert with this product so I can properly teach you how sound design works using it. And I also believe it's quite an intuitive way to create sounds especially for coders because it is node based. So if you want to use fabric the product you can download it here. You'll have to sign up and once you have signed up, you'll be able to get the product. You can download it here. If you have Windows, you'll download the VST3 format. If you have Mac, you should download the AU format. You take the VST3 or the AU file out of the zip file and you place it into this directory. This is very important.

4:23 All right. Next up, we'll be using some samples. Samples are very important because they are the building blocks of creating the song. And to use these samples, we're going to work with Seimatics. Seatics is a huge sample pack company. And luckily enough, they have a lot of free sample packs and you can find them here. You would just have to sign up with their website, um, sign an agreement, which is very transparent, and then you'll be able to download all of their free packs, which we will be using. Um, so yeah, let's go. Let's do it. And the last two things I'll just quickly talk about are two services. The first one is Route Note. Route will allow you to distribute your songs on the platform.

5:14 So the finished song that we will create, you'll be able to release it at all distribution platforms, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Egypt Music, etc. and this for free which is quite rare and they're quite good. The second thing is monetunes. Monetunes will help you collect missing royalties. I will go more in depth later in the theory because this is quite a complicated topic but uh very unlooked and not very accessible. So with this video I want to shed some light on music publishing and explain you how it properly works and monetunes will help you collect your money.

5:57 All right, these are all the products. Um I think now it's time to get straight into the material. So let's get straight into the sound design. All right. So once you've installed all of the products, open EFL Studio. So if you have never seen FL Studio before, this is how it looks like. Um here is basically your arrangement. Here you can arrange your songs. So you can add patterns and in these patterns we can add certain elements. So for example in this pattern we could add a certain melody and we could use certain instruments to create this melody. And to create the first instrument we need to create the sound. And for that we need to use virtual instruments which you can find under ad. Here you find all the virtual instruments that FS studio gives you for free.

7:11 And if you want to add external softwares um you'll have to you go to manage plugins and then you need to once you've installed fabric you need to click on find install plugins and it will look through all your directories and it will find fabric. So once you found fabric, you search for it in this section. So you type in fabric and there it is. You'll drag it into this section and this will open up our first virtual instrument. So you can use any other virtual instrument. You could use the ones that FO Studio gives you. But I think this is very unique in the sense because it is node based. It's one of the only node based synthesizers and this will give you a more intuitive approach to sound design and it will make it easier for you. So let's use this. The vision behind sound design is what you mention in your head as a sound translated into the computer. That is what a good sound designer, a expert

8:31 sound designer wants to achieve is to get their vision, what they believe they want to add into the song onto the computer. That's what we all want to achieve. Obviously, that is very, very, very hard and it takes years of practice and experience and it's something no one really achieves fully, but this is always the goal we want to go for and this is just the big vision. Now I'm going to show you how we can do this and what you need to do. The key about fabric is that it is a node based system. You can connect nodes with other nodes and this is how you create sound.

9:10 And the first and most important note is the oscillator node. So the oscillator is basically the origin of the sound. This is where the sound is created. And here you have a couple parameters which you can change. This contra these change the pitch. So the pitch is how high or low the sound is being played at. If you want to test how your virtual instrument sounds, you click a random key on your keyboard and your keyboard will act like a piano. And if I change now these parameters, I would change how high or low the sound is being played as relative for all keyboard notes as well. Right? So if I press Z instead of E, this will change the pitch. And then we have different controls. So the octaves change the pitch. So it jumps to uh the same sounding pitch but on a different height. The semi changes the pitch according to the notes on the keyboard.

10:18 So, and the fine controls the micro tonality between the semmitones. And this is the sound source. Next up, we got the wave. This changes everything about the sound but not the pitch. We call this timber. And let's click through some waves. These are the basic ones. These are the basic ones. And as you hear, it changes the characteristic, the timber of the sound, not the pitch. And we have many different notes that can do this. So if you right click somewhere random in the space of this environment, right click, you'll see all of the nodes that exist.

11:24 And if you right click on a node, you can replace. And this is what we're going to do. We're going to use the shaper node. And this allows us to shape our own wave. So by right clicking within the shaper we can draw our own zigzag wave. We can also change how this the wave bends right. So we can make the bend.

12:01 Next up is how the sound is shaped in its amplitude. So here we can in the voice a we can change these parameters which will change the volume of a sound over time. So if I for example add the tech some decay and turn the sustain down then we will have the volume go up and then down. All right, these are the very basics of the pre-processing section, which is everything that happens between oscillator and voice ADSR. Everything that happens after the voice ADSR is post-processing. And let me illustrate you the difference between pre and postprocessing by just showing you the difference in how it sounds by using the same note in the post-processing and in the pre-processing. And for that we will use the reverb mode.

13:01 Reverb is like um an effect that you can use which recreates a sound being played in a room. So if I add reverb in the post-processing, the sound we've created before will sound like it's in a room. And we can change how long the room is, how big the room is, and how wide the room is. So this increases the length and this is the width. And to get back to my point, if we add the reverb in the pre-processing section, right, instead of the post-processing, then what happens is this. So the reverb effect in the pre-processing happens internally. So when I let go of a note, the effect stops.

14:08 Whereas if I have a reverb in the post-processing, the effect continues even after the note is being played. And this intuitively explains the difference. In the post-processing, things are calculated externally of the note being played. Whereas in the pre-processing, things are calculated before the note is being played and happen within the note. This is the key difference. And pre and postprocessing play key roles not only within fabric but in audio processing in general. So if you have a doll like E studio, you can add post-processing effects for example in this section. So here you can route your instruments to your mixer tracks and here you can choose post-processing effects which act affect the sound after notes are being played whereas virtual instruments usually create the sounds that are then being postprocessed. I hope that makes sense.

15:11 These are the core basics. Another important thing is parallel processing. So within synthesizers, you can add several layers. For example, I could add a second oscillator and I could add a separate shape such as a saw that goes, for example, into a different effect such as a filter. And that is then routed into the same voice. And I could change the pitch but also to break down the filter. Maybe the filter is a function which changes the frequency of a sound. So it doesn't change the frequency each note. It changes the frequencies that are in the sound itself. So we could remove the filter and you would hear the entirety of the saw. Whereas if I cut away some of the high frequencies of the song, the filter acts as a subtractor in a way. And we have different filter types.

16:23 High pass removes from the low end. I think it's quite intuitive because it's visual, right? And the band pass removes mids and highs. And the resonancy it ex it just changes how extreme the filter acts upon. Right? So so this is parallel processing. You can do this within a post-process a pre-processing section where as well as the post-processing. So you could run different effects in parallel such as the delay maybe which adds delayed sounds. It's also simulates room effects echo. So this changes how fast the delay happens.

17:25 And this is the dry signal without the delay uh with the delay only and without the dry without the previous signal. So if I turn wet down, this is the effect itself. Wet always means the effect and dry means the signal that goes into the effect. In this case, we want to turn dry down because we're running reverb in parallel. This is the basics of sound design. I don't want to go too deep into it because in application I will go more in depth. Um but yeah, this is the basics. I think a nodebased system makes it quite intuitive. If you want to see some alternatives that are free, this is the alternative I would recommend.

18:15 Um this is vital and vital is not a nodebased system but it is um based on a real synthesizer. So this is most synthesizers look like this. They are based on how modular sense looked back then. And here you don't have the flexibility um but you have a more compact overview of things. So here you have your oscillators. Here you can turn them on. You can change the pitch and you can change the waves here. Right? And the benefit of this is that you have everything compact, everything in a place ready, which can be easier for some users. And you have a separate effect section. So everything is more separated, more intuitive for some people. Um, but you have less flexibility. So in this software you have more flexibility, more possibilities, but that's not always a good thing. Sometimes it's better to have uh less flexibility. It can use more creativity.

19:28 Sometimes you want flexibility. So it really depends what kind of personality you are. Me personally was also I created this product and I know everything about it. I think I can give you a better overview about how things work in sound design using fabric. Hence why we use this during the tutorial, but it doesn't mean that this is better. Both products here have pros and cons. Both have certain things that the other product cannot do. And I would recommend you to actually get both. Use both in your projects. Uh learn both. So you will have a a different understanding, a more complex understanding.

20:08 Um but for the sake of the tutorial we will continue just using fabric and application. All right for the second half we'll be looking at samples. So samples are your building blocks uh of your song. So you use a combination of virtual instruments and samples to create your full song. And samples can include drum sounds, can include steps, can include hits, can include effects, can include answers. The it's a very widespread topic. And it really depends on you, how many samples you want to use versus how many virtual instruments you want to use. It really depends on how you would like to work in a DAW. Um, but yeah, I'll show you the basics.

20:58 Um, as I've shown you earlier, you can download low sample packs on the simatics website. I will be using the EDM starter pack from Seimatics because we're making EDM. And for that, I'll just show you. You can find your sample pack by searching the browser below. I'm searching Simatics. And obviously, I have many more packs than you because I been making music for a long time. But you should be able to find your pack that you've downloaded here. And let's first look into the oneshots. So let's look at a kick and let's drag a kick into the playlist.

21:43 So if I click play in the door, you'll be able to hear the kick. And if I create a pattern, you'll be able to hear the pattern. Important is this. This is the beats per minute section. So it tells you how many beats are being played per minute. And um one beat is basically one jump like this. And for the genre that we look at, we usually work in 128 beats per minute. And in this genre house, we always have a kick on every beat. So what we will do is we will create a four bar loop. So by highlighting the singular kicks with this tool, I can copy them with Ctrl C and then move the move the playlist uh tool to the position I want to paste it to. And this is how I'm able to paste my kicks.

22:52 So now we have a four bar loop of kicks. Sounds pretty chunky. And in house we also add a clap on every second beat. So for this we'll choose this clap because it's a nice one. And this is the basic house beat. We also have hats. For that we can use singular hats or we could use loops. And here we do should have some house loops. So let's add this loop.

23:51 And if we click on each element of each sample, we can edit it within here. So we could lower the volume of the clap. And there's many things we can do within this page. We could shorten the clap. We could uh remove the volume in the beginning. And um this is the basics of creating a beat using samples. So obviously you don't have to use loops. Loops make things much easier because they do a lot of the work for you. Um, but it really depends on your workflow, how fast you want to work or how detailed you want to work.

24:39 We could also even layer some loops, although I'm not a big fan. Um, I think we should add some hats. So, symbols probably closed. And then we add a hat on every offbeat like this and and we use the same pasting technique. Right? So and like this we have created our our most basic um our most basic song, right? Our most basic beat. And to add now some elements, some virtual instruments, we could use the preset that we've created, right? We could add it. So for that, um, yeah, you don't need to add it now. All right. And this is the basics of samples. You can obviously also add other elements. Um but we will get more into this during the application.

26:10 Now I actually want to show you how mixing works and mastering. So for that I'll show you first uh a visual. So a visual mix map. And this visual mix map is a good representation of what mixing is. So imagine you have a box and you want to fit as much things into this box. If you put too many things in the box, you won't have space for all of them. Right? This is basically what mixing is. In a song, you have a limited amount of space. And if you add too many elements in the space, they will not work together anymore. The box will be too full.

26:57 And what mixing does is make sure that you don't have too many elements and that you choose the right elements with each other. And if there is some clashing between the elements that we are able to fix that such that the elements don't clash with each other and fit together well. And there are three things that you can change in the mix which helps you to do this. So the first thing is a loudness. So we can adjust the loudness of each element. So for example, if we have two similar elements and both are equally loud.

27:35 That's not good. Maybe we should reduce one of them and increase one of them. Got to set priorities. It's like in life. You got to set priorities in your life. some things that are more important that are clashing with others, maybe you increase that. It's the same with mixing the loudness um is one way. The second way is to make sounds more thin or more thick or change the frequency. So for that we could use filters, something you've seen already in fabric. We also have filters in the post-processing section. And we can use filters to make sounds more thin or more fat. And if sounds have, for example, one frequency that is overpowering, we can filter that out.

28:19 So we can it's it's like with a box. You could reduce the size or change the shape of the object that you're trying to fit in the box to make it fit inside of the box. And the last thing is the position is how wide or how thin the sun is or if it's only to the left or to the right. And that is the last way to change things. So for example, here we have the vocal in the middle. This is just an example. You don't have to mix like this. But this is the vocal in the middle and the bass and the kick also in the middle.

28:57 Whereas the back vocals and the crashes are on the side because we don't want the crashes and the back vocals to clash with the elements in the middle. So changing where the sound is in the position of the box. So choosing where you put the elements in the box also helps for a good mix. This is basically what mixing is the theory and we will go very in depth during the application phase because there's a lot of things that you can do in mixing which uh help you uh solve these issues. This is only a rough breakdown and um but this is just the basic theory and to get back to FL Studio and show you how you could maybe mix is you take the elements of your song and you you link them to your mixer tracks. So if I want to add this kick to the mixer track, I can add it here in this field. I can choose mix track one. There's a faster way to do this. If you click on an element and you press Ctrl L,

30:08 you add an element automatically. So we can do it like this. And we could do it like this. And here now you can see how the elements are being displayed in the mixer track. If you want to add more mixer tracks, you can click here. You can add as many as many as you want. I think the upper limit is 500. So you'll be fine. Now what we could do in this case to mix this drum loop would be to adjust the volume. So the kick always needs to be highest volume. We don't want it to cross red though. We want it to be not red. And then we could decrease the hats maybe.

31:00 And it's important to listen to your how how it sounds to you, right? The visuals are good, but also how it just sounds to you in your ears is key. So this is the volumes I would choose. Now maybe we don't want the frequencies of the other elements to interfere with the kick. For that we can just filter out the unnecessary frequencies. Let's look at the hapt loop. Let's open a parametric EQ2. This is a filter. And as you see, there are some low frequencies that we don't need to hear because they are interfering with the kick. The kick is very low already. We don't need low frequencies in the hat loop. So for that, we can select this filter. We can choose different filter types and we select this one. And we can cut out the low frequencies like this.

32:07 We can also change the slope like this. And thus now we have removed the low frequencies of this loop that are interfering with the kick. You don't really hear a big difference, but think of it as an investment. Think of it in the long run. If you have even more elements, these small additional frequencies, they add up and then things become problematic. And that's why it makes sense to do this. So right now it doesn't sound like a big difference, but in the long run in an entire song, making everything fit well with each other um and everything well mixed with each other will yield a big result. But each singular change will not sound like a big change. it will only sound like a small change. But in addition, the end result is great.

33:14 So we can do this with the clap as well. And of course with the head as well. So And I feel like it has a bit too many highs, so we cut it up. And another thing you might have realized is that all of the hats and claps are happening at the same time. And this is where we could, for example, use stereo manipulation. So maybe we can make the loop more wide so that it doesn't clash with the clap and the hats. So for that each mixer track has these two knobs. This knob controls the panning. So this would be only on the left side.

34:15 This only on the right side. And this knob controls the width. So now the sound is very wide. And now the sound is very mono. What if we put this more stereo and this clap more mono and maybe the kick also mono. Now the track has more space more it breathes more. So these are the basics of mixing. To re recap, change the volume of elements to make them fit together. Change the shape of the elements. So filter them or add other effects. And last but not least, position them in the right space. More on the left side, more on the right side, more stereo or more mono.

35:18 That's it for mixing. Now let's get into melody creation. So this is a playlist. If we want to add a pattern and create a pattern, we click next to the playlist on the piano row. Right? So this is the piano row. This is the keyboard. This represents the notes. And by left clicking onto the piano, we can add notes. We can change the length of the notes by left clicking and dragging the length of the note on the edge. These notes don't really sound well together, right? But you get the point. And after I add three notes, you change, you see a difference in the background. So the lighter spots, those are the correct notes. Those are the notes that are on scale. Whereas the darker ones they are not on scale. So after adding your three notes you are in a scale and you should stay within the notes of the light notes. Right?

36:31 So if I would try a black one it doesn't sound good but it sounds good again. And using this framework of dark and light notes, it makes it very easy not to add wrong notes. Sometimes dark notes are good. Um, but in the beginning it's easier to stay within the light nose. How Tristan does it in his last video is he creates the baseline. This is a very smart way because from a baseline you can create chords and creating a baseline is quite easy. So, starting with the baseline, then adding the chords, and then the melody is the go-to way as a beginner. You can also start with the melody, then create the baseline and the chords. The order doesn't matter. The easiest way to do it is by adding a baseline first. So, let's create a baseline. We go down in pitch.

37:33 So now I've added three random notes and now I am in a scale. So the next note I choose should be this one. Could be this one. It could be this one. It could be this one. I think I'm going to choose this one. And for the second half I'm going to choose the higher one.

38:04 And to add the chords on the baseline, we just add notes that are light. This one doesn't sound so good. So let's try this. So now also the interesting thing is now the light notes change as well. And this can happen, but that's not a problem. So just stick to the light notes always. Even if they change, the other notes you place are still on light notes. So don't worry about that.

38:42 And here, this is also a good example. Sometimes the black notes are actually good. So sometimes you should just listen to what your ear says. So the light note here is this. It doesn't sound good at all. This sounds better.

39:08 Now I've added a a secondlay layer to the core. So we can duplicate it. Let's add another layer. And now we're done. That's how fast it can be. Obviously, I have a lot of experience and I know which notes to place where. Um because there's a lot of pattern recognition involved and a lot of uh listening to what your ears know is good. Um but with this technique on staying on the light notes and sometimes trusting your ears with black notes, you should be fine. A very important concept as well is symmetry. So as you can see there is an inherent beautiful symmetry within this pattern.

40:13 It goes down and it goes up. It goes down and it goes up. This one goes up and it goes down. It goes up, it goes down. This goes up and down and up and bounces back down. So there are these movements within the chord and the melody which are intrinsically beautiful and which make the melodine beautiful. And this is important because if there is no symmetry the ear the brain of the person listening it doesn't really understand what's going on. If there would be huge jumps and no symmetry it is hard to compute for the brain as a listener. Right? So this is how you create beautiful chords.

40:58 And now we could even add a melody on top. And for that let's use the patch we've created with fabric. And for that we just use the white notes. And I've created this melo quite quickly. Um, but basically we're using notes from the chords here. and we're building a motive around it. So this is the motive and we're repeating the motive in the second half and variating some notes. And this is also a key concept when creating melodies to have motives and add variations because this makes it easier to remember for the listener. if you have too much variation. So it doesn't really make sense. Let's listen to it in context.

42:46 And this is just with changing the frequency. Imagine if you would change the the rhythm. Things get even more confusing. It's hard to follow. Even though this is okay still, it's it's not as good as keeping it simple.

43:21 Also, this patch could be much less loud. Sometimes it's also good to have empty spaces. It doesn't need to be notes everywhere, right? So, I left this empty space on purpose because we already have some notes playing here, but sometimes it's good to let the melody breathe. We could also add some notes, rest.

44:13 This could also work. Actually, this is also fine because the notes already very long. You could also add notes there, but you don't have to. It's up to you. You want to have a lot of notes. You want to let the track breathe more. Maybe if you don't have notes here, you have a different element playing in this section. Um, there's a lot of variations, right? Um, also what is a very useful tool in creating melodies and chords is the concept of ab or aba. And this is refers back to the symmetry. So here for example we have an ab melody. This section is repeated again in bar three and this section is repeated again in bar 4. So this will be called a a b.

45:06 What also works is ab b a. So for that it's very simple to show. We could create an abba melody like this. We'd have to copy this section and listen again. Right. So it also works. And here we would here we we reconstructed a similar rhythm that is existing in the A part

46:04 also very good. A BBA and there are these patterns AA B are quite common. ABBA is quite common. AB A C is common. I would stick to those at the beginning. So, ABBA, AB AB, and AB A C. Obviously, you can there's more, but those patterns exist in all like 90% of the songs and the melodies in them on Spotify. So sticking on those, keeping things simple, uh is key when making melodies. And this is what you should remember whilst you're doing your melody. Um am I adding too many notes? If so, maybe remove some. See, look how it sounds like. Remember that. Try to stick to symmetries. Try to stick to flows. Try not to make the notes too far apart. It can work sometimes, but it shouldn't always be like this. And um also to get inspired by other tracks, listen to other songs, how they do their melodies. Don't copy them maybe, but getting inspired is totally okay, totally fine. And obviously, you will not create perfect

47:22 melodies in the beginning. It's a learning curve. Try to copy melodies, see how they sound like, get inspired them. That's the way I learned how to make melodies by looking at my favorite tracks, reconstructing them, and then um changing some things. That's fire. That's the fastest way to learn it. And uh don't be too overwhelmed if you think you your melody sounds bad. It's okay. In the first months of your music production, your melodies won't be good. Um, unless you've been classically trained before, it will take time, a lot of practice, and um, I've been doing this for eight years uh, professionally. So, I have a head start. So, don't be ashamed if you think your melody is good. If your melody is better than mine, awesome.

48:13 You're on the right track. So, that's it basically to melodies. I think I'll go much more in depth uh in application phase uh where I will show different types of melodies in regards to different types of elements cuz different elements regard take different melodies and different chords. Let's get into the next phrase. All right. So now I'm going to explain you what is music distribution and music publishment. And for that I've found this very nice visualization which describes very well the underlying structure. So let's say you have a finished song and you want to distribute it. Then you go to your distributor. In our case we'll be using root note.

49:02 There's many many more that are paid. There's alo other free ones. Feel free to check them out. And that one will send it to Spotify, to Apple Music, to all platforms and will say, "Look, this person wants to release a song in a month. Here's how the song sounds like. Here is the artwork. Here are the visuals." And they make sure that everything is landed on there. And then the distributor releases a song and the song gets a lot of views. There things get complicated because there are two different types of ways you get paid from each click.

49:40 There is the composition, the publishing which are your rights to the song that you own for the intellectual property. So for the art that you've created and then there are the rights that you own of the recording. And you get paid for both. The distributor only pays you though for the recording rights because they are releasing your recording of the song on all platforms. So they will only pay you the recording. The composition and the publishing side of things you can collect not through the suitor. You'll need to use as an external service. And in our case, we're using Monotunes since Monotunes is completely free and they connect all of the money that you generate from all your clicks for the composition. So, if you're only using a distributor, you'll be losing potentially half of your money.

50:44 You also get paid not only for the clicks of your songs but also for it being played in a TV show, for it being played in the radio and also for it being played in football stadiums etc. This is also publishing. This has nothing to do with the recording. So these are all royalties that you need to collect with a publishing company and monetunes helps you with that. Also very important, if someone is doing a cover of your song, what happens? You still own the publishing, the intellectual rights, but the recording is not yours anymore.

51:21 So people are allowed to cover your song and release recordings. They get the recording money, but you still own rights to your IP. So this is the basic breakdown of the difference between master royalties and publishing royalties. And uh you can write you can break down the publishing side into mechanical and performance which mechanical is basically the streaming things you get and the performance is basically TV shows and the same applies to the recording right. Um but this is the key the key difference and most people forget about the publishing right um because no there's no transparency about it but if you don't use the the publishing if you don't collect publishing you're losing half of your money and you're losing your intellectual rights to the song. So this is very important and this is the basic breakdown of how music publishing works and later on once we finish a song I'll show you how to

52:35 distribute the song such that your recording is on all platforms and how to later on um collect your money using a publishing company. So this will come in the application phase. Let's get into the application phase. Now, I'm going to show you how to make a full EDM song using the theory that we've learned. We'll be looking at a subg genre of EDM called bass house, which is basically house music, but more aggressive and with more bass. Hence why it's called bass house. And I'll be showing you how to create all sections of the song. So, I'll show you how to make a breakdown, which means I'll show you how to make a baseline that is the the foundation of the whole song and a chord progression fitting to that baseline. We'll also find a fitting vocal um to the baseline. So, we'll find the right vocal sample and we'll be also adding ambience and ear candy. And I'll show you how to make the main drop. So

53:45 that is the section where the song has the most power and that emotional release. I'll show you the how to create the main drop sound design as well as a catchy melody for that baseline and that sound design and of course some drums and some patterns that evolve around that baseline. And we'll make sure that it fits with the breakdown that the motors of the breakdown are integrated into the main drop. Next up, I'll show you the section that is between the breakdown and the drop, which is called the buildup. And we'll be using elements from the drop and elements from the break to create the buildup.

54:26 And then we'll have one half of a sound finished. We'll have a breakdown, which is the introduction, a buildup, and a drop. And we could just copy and paste it, but we will add some variations to the second break. So, I'll show you how to create some variation uh such that the song doesn't feel like a copy pasted version in the second half. And I'll also show you maybe how we can change the second drop a bit such that the song has more variation. Once we have a full arrangement done, we have to mix the song. So, we be using the theory about mixing and apply it directly on all elements. And once we have a good mix sound, we'll master the song.

55:12 Then we'll be able to render our full song and I'll show you then how to release that song. So I'll show you how to distribute the song on all platforms via root note. And then I'll show you how to collect your royalties from your publishing rights using monetunes. So yeah, let's get straight into it. this time.

55:40 All right. Now, we're getting into the application part of this course. Um, and yeah, I'm going to start with the breakdown. And for that the key elements are the baseline, the vocals and the ambience, the ear candy, and also potentially chords. So the first step um would be to open a new project. To open a new project, you click on new from template and we will choose basic. This is the best template to start with because it doesn't have any extra post-processing effects. So yeah, we will begin with the baseline and for that we will create our own bass for the core uh for the breakdown using fabric.

56:47 And for the breakdown, we don't want a sound that is very aggressive. We want something that is more on the background. Hence we will do choices in our sound design which will result into a sound that is more subtle. So let me show you how I would start sound designing. I would create something called a respace which is a deep base which wobbles but in a very slight manner. So I'll show you how to create this. You'll need two oscillators and you'll need two saw waves running in parallel. So like this. And the wobbliness is created by adding a pitch shift to both in the opposite direction for the finetune. So if I play a note now, you can hear how the bass is wobbling.

57:55 And this is this happens because both parallel sounds are slightly off key and in combination it creates a bubble. So let's pitch it down. And right now it sounds very harsh, right? So we were talking about creating a bass that is more in the background. So for that in the post-processing section we will add a filter. And now it already sounds very much like a bass sound for the background. I would also add a unison layer. So a unison layer such that the bass is more stereo

58:52 and I would run it in parallel with the normal bass and the unison layer. It should not have any low frequencies, only the middle and highest. So, we'll add a filter and we'll highpass it. And we'll turn off the anti-aliasing because anti-aliasing increases CPU load. And in our case, we don't need high fidelity since we're filtering it out. So, if we remove anti-aliasing, sound like this. Sounds almost identical. All right. And with this sound, I think we can create a baseline. Um, to clarify, we want to create a song in the genre of bass house, which is an EDM genre, uh, which is basically described as house music. If you don't know what house music is, it is music between 120 and 130 beats per minute. And there is a kick drum at each beat. So you got basically uh in a pattern your kick would look like uh it would repeat every beat like this and then you have a clap and you usually have hats on the

1:00:24 offbeats. So this is a b this is basically what house is at its core and bass house is basically house that is very bass heavy as the name suggests quite simple. Uh, so this is the genre we're going for. And for this type of music, we want the bass to sound good in the sound system, right? In the club, it needs it's the primary element. So that sound needs to work well in the club. And there's certain frequency ranges where the bass works well. So in the keys of C sharp to um F# G um the base works well in the club. If the bass goes higher, you will not feel it as well as in the club system well as if uh it was in that range. Or if it's too low, you will not hear any bass. So that's important to keep in mind, especially in the beginning.

1:01:26 even though we're just creating a background bass right now because in the long run we want the bass in the draw to sound well in the club system. So we'll choose a key that is in that range. So let's choose D sharp minor.

1:01:48 And to help you out to create a good baseline we can add a ghost scale in the backgrounds. So um the ghost scale mute the element of mute the synthesizer that is going to play the ghost notes and put in the scale. So you can just copy me using the scale but we are using D# minor. So this is a minor scale and usually in EDM you only work with minor scales. Um in a music theory perspective minor scales and major scares scales are basically the same thing because there always exists a major relative to a minor relative. And that goes very technical. Now though at the end of the day you can just use minor scales to create your songs and just copy this minor scale and you can shift it up and down and choose a different key if you like. But for now, copy.

1:02:57 And using these ghost notes, now we can create a baseline. And we can, this is already pretty solid, but we could probably add some variations as well. And here you can see an AB pattern. AB AB pattern starting to form. So we got this long note on A and two notes on B. long note on A to notes on B. A cool thing you can do with the respace is make it slide between notes. And for that you go onto the output, you select mono and we this case we don't want to select always slide. Um and we turn up the slide. And if we layer nodes above each other then they will slide into each other. So

1:04:45 if we would add always slide then they would always slide literally maybe we'll keep it on always slide actually sounds quite nice and yeah like this we've created the core baseline of the on and we can add it to our arrangement. So, a break usually is 8 to 16 bars long. For now, we're going to keep it at 8. If we feel like we need to increase it after adding more elements, we'll see what happens. And yeah, that's the first main element of the breakdown. The second thing we need is a vocal. So for that you can go to the simatics uh packs. There was one vocal pack called the euphoria pack from sematics which is also free and they have an ac capella.

1:05:57 We could probably also check out some other phrases. I'm waiting for you. I'm holding. I could be the one for you. Turn up the music. You don't know these streets like a wave. Mama said,

1:06:36 there's definitely a lot of cool vocals. I think we'll we will actually go with the ac capella.

1:06:43 And here I'm already occurring into my first issue. I'm not able to load a sample into the

1:06:50 into the projects by dragging it. If this happens to you, you just save the project. We'll call it free code camp application. You just close it and reopen. Sometimes if you occur to an issue sometimes just closing and opening FL Studio is what will stop it. So there's sometimes bugs that happen but you will get used to it. And uh we just reopen it now. And now we should be be able to access the book. So here we here it is.

1:07:42 Now you may realize this vocal does not sound good at all with the baseline we've made. And that makes a lot of sense because this vocal as it is stated here is in F# minor and our baseline is in D# minor. So there's two options. First one is we pitch down the vocal and we do this by double clicking onto it and then pitching from F# to D#. So that would be F# F E. So we'd have to pitch down I think by three semmit tones.

1:08:30 And there's one other thing which is off. It doesn't sound like it goes with the same rhythm of the baseline. Right? So this is because the BPM is different. Our project is at 130 BPM. The vocal is 150. So to fix this, we right click on this icon and we click on fit to tempo and then we type in BPM and we write the original PM which is 150. Now it should be correct.

1:09:20 And now we realize, okay, the breakdown can be maybe 16 bars, not eight bars. So we'll just copy paste the patterns. for bigger things. This place keeps killing our dreams. So now we have a vocal and a bass and it work together, but it sounds pretty empty. And for that the next step would be either to add chords like a pad or something or to add ambiences. And that really depends on your tastes. I think for us to make the process easier, we'll just add ambiences. And for that there are some ambiances in the vocal tech.

1:10:17 So there are some vocal ambiances. So we will add some of that. And the same rules I play with the vocal. So this is in a sharp and BPM is 160. So, we got to fix the BPN.

1:10:49 And sometimes you don't have to fix the pitch of the ambience. In this case, you don't because it's only playing one note. Um, usually you should, but here it sounds good. So, we'll just leave it as it is.

1:11:12 And we'll look for some more. Um, there were some simatics packs with more ambulances. Um, I think maybe here synth loops. These are not amemes. These are arbs. Um, all right. Here's one. I'm sure there's also like entire ambience packs that are for free on the Seatics website. Um, but for now, we'll just use this. And the same issue again. Fix the BPM. This is 128. And the key is wrong. So, this is G. So I think I got a pitch down two.

1:12:12 Okay. So this is G minor. This is G major. So for that we only need to uh experiment a bit. Trial and error. this town.

1:12:38 This is the right one. So you can either do this by trial and trial and error like me, which is not the efficient way. The smart way to do it is if you have a ma a sample in a major key, you you convert you take the major key, you go to Google and you say tell me the relative minor. When you know the relative minor, then you use that as a reference to change the pitch. And then you'll be able to uh get the sample in the right key. And now we already have a much more full break. There's still some empty parts and it feels a bit static. And for that we'll need some effects. And here we I'll be using the EDM starter pack. will need an impact.

1:13:31 This is something for the beginning. It creates u some tension in the beginning and release. So with an impact sounds like this. And maybe we'll add a second impact to add some tension and release again.

1:14:08 And one cool trick I can really recommend is reverse sampling. And for that I'll create some space. This technique is very useful for many different samples, but especially for impacts. And for that we'll create a duplicate. We will make it unique by right clicking on the icon. And then we'll double click and we'll click reverse. And this will flip the sample uh horizontally. And this allows us to create more tensions. So now we have a reverse sample. and make sure always that everything aligns on the grid. And like this, we've created now a small sweep into the impact.

1:15:10 And we can do the same for this impact as well. Make unique and reverse. And Lower the volume.

1:15:32 And while you are creating sections of the song, you can already start mixing a little bit. So the vocal is way too quiet. So we can just increase the volume by finding a the point in in the sample here. It looks like this. and dragging up.

1:15:57 This place keeps killing our dreams. All right. Important for an house break is as well as some drums in the breakdown. So, we will need a clap. A small clap is very long. So we'll add like some claps.

1:16:42 like this and copy it again. And we'll need some hats. So hats are usually in symbols. And there we have a cool half. Bang. And we do the same process for the heads. Since we want to create some progression, we can add some even more drums in the second half. And for that, I like to use a loop. So, drum loops and top loops. Something that has more hats. And this could be a good fit. So, we we'll add it. And here again 128 BPM. So we fit it to the tempo.

1:18:22 This place keeps killing our dreams. So now you may notice that within of the vocal there are some empty spaces and there are two ways to fill those empty spaces. The first way is using a synth that acts in a call in response way to the vocal. So the vocal sings its phrase and then in the empty space the synth plays a melody that acts like a response to what the the person sinks. And for that I can easily demonstrate that um using another patch of fabric. Um, with the pro version which is paid, you will have access to a lot of presets and I'll be using a pluck preset.

1:19:18 Um, important to notice if you haven't watched the previous tutorials on free code camp, FL Studio free version has all functionality. Um, but once you want to save the project, uh, you won't be able to do this. What you can do though is render the project. Meaning you will still be able to save the MP3 or W file of the song, but you won't be able to save the project. So if you want to reopen the project, you won't be able to do this. The same applies with fabric. So every time you use fabric in a project in the free version, you will have access to the full functionality, but you will not be able to save the states.

1:20:05 Meaning if you close a project using FL Studio and reopening it and you have fabric open, the preset that you've created will not be saved. Uh but once you feel comfortable with e studio and fabric you you have the option to buy products uh beforehand you should just use a free to get a feel for what is going on. So here's a plug and we have some cool plugs here. I would be using maybe trying this one. What about this? Let's try this one. And let's create a new pattern. And let's add it to the vocals. Let's also maybe copy the ghost notes just for your to help you understand what is going on.

1:21:13 We'll copy the ghost notes like this. And now we'll add create a plug melody. town. One of the town Say if you want to go on down. So now I'm creating response melody. And here the same concept applies with A and B uh as discussed in the theory. So the vocals singing the A part.

1:22:25 This is the B part. Meaning for the next phrase, it should have the same rhythm and the same structure.

1:22:43 Okay, this was a bit off. This should how it should be. And um we can still create variations in the notes in the B part in the second iteration but uh we should still keep the same structure. Let's add some variation maybe.

1:23:17 And like this we have now created pretty catchy um column response theme for the breakdown. Um, I think the plug should be more in the background though. So if you want to create things more in the backgrounds, remember you can add a filter. So we'll add a filter.

1:23:45 And we'll add another reverb to make it even more spread out. bigger things. And we'll make that lay more loud.

1:24:12 One last thing I want to add to the break is some vocal ambience created directly from the vocal. And for that we can just copy the vocal make it unique and we will now pitch it up one octave. So 12 cents. So this was I think 30 minus 300. So you want to increase it by one octave. It has to go to plus 900.

1:24:55 And we will post-process this element only for the last phrase. Um, and that will add more ambience. So, we're going to cut up most of the phrase and we will post-process the last parts. And before we do that, it's important to keep everything in a mixer track. That will make mixing the song later on easier. So for that, you click on every other song and you press Ctrl L. That's going to start routing things to the mixer song. So we're going to do that for every element.

1:25:45 And don't forget the synthesizers as well. So those also need to be routed. And to check if you've forgotten something, you just play the song. You right click on the one empty mixes track. Okay, so we've forgotten the reverse impact. We can add that to the impact. So that was channel 8. Same here. This we've forgotten this one as well. So let's add it. And like this we we will know if we've forgotten an element. So we forgotten this as well.

1:26:39 All right. So now we should have every element in the mixer track. If you've watched the previous tutorials, you've noticed there's something different. Now we have um much less mixer tracks, but it's just a new system. Now you can add your own by clicking on the plus and you have actually many more mixer tracks. Now we have 500 maximum mixer tracks in FL Studio. Right now let's get back to the last part of the break. I want to make turn this into an ambience in the background. For that we'll apply the same concept as we have done for all the background sounds. We're going to filter it and we'll be using parametric crew. So um to add a parametric Q you click on the slot left click and then you left click on parametric EQ under filters and then we can filter the sound.

1:27:47 All right. So we're going to roof some highs. We're going to add some reverb. town.

1:28:01 And maybe also some delay. And here, actually, we're going to be using Fruity Delay, too. And we're going to um select ping pong. So, ping pong delay is basically delay that ping pongs from your left to the right ear. It's quite intuitive. The delay is a bit fast. So, we're going to select a higher time.

1:28:44 And the high pitch vocal sign sounds kind of childish. So to fix that there are different stretch types to stretch the vocals because we stretched what we've done by pitching the vocal up we've stretched it and here on the mode you can choose different types and to make it sound less as chish we'll be choosing stretch pro what it basically does is it retains the original formand frequency which is the frequency of the timber of the vocal not of the pitch as I've expanded In the sound design theory, there's a difference between timber and pitch. And here Stretch Pro pro you can adjust the timber, the frequency of the timber. So in this case, we can increase it maybe a little bit.

1:29:39 And I think like this, we've already created a pretty subtle breakdown. And now we're going to go into the All right. Now, let's get into the drop. For that, um, we're going to create, uh, a drum loop. So, we're going to have kick, clap, and hat loop playing as well as the main baseline. And the main baseline we will do later. First, we will create the drum loop for the drop. So, in the first step, we can already copy our pre-existing hats and claps and we can paste it in. And of course, we need a kick since we are creating a house track. So, we go into our sematics pack and we choose a kick we like. I like this kick.

1:30:49 And here we have the glitch again that the project doesn't let me load sus. So, I save it. I close it and I open it again. All right. Now I should be able to drag in samples again. Let's see. There we go. All right. And then we add the kicks.

1:31:32 And we'll copy paste till we fill all 16 bars. Important for the drum loop is that we leave an empty space after um eight bars. This helps us release tension before the second half of the drop kicks in. We do the same in the second half as well. We could also probably increase the loudness of the hats cuz the kick is so loud.

1:32:11 And I'm not a big fan of this clap during the drop. It's too small. So, let us choose a different one. This one sounds good. Now, we'll replace those claps and remove them in the elements in this section. And now we've built a very basic house beat

1:32:51 and this will be the structure we will build the drop around. zone. The next element we need is a a main baseline because we're creating base hose. So, let's add a new instance of fabric. Here we go. To make this clear, if you haven't if you haven't watched the previous free code cab video series, F studio the free version has all the functionalities, but once you save products, the states are not saved. meaning that if you open and close a product, everything is removed. The same applies with fabric. In the free version fabric, you won't have a presets. In this case, I will use a preset I use quite often, bas. It's called the uh German triangle. And if you have the free version, you won't have directly access to it, but it is quite easy to rebuild. So, the challenge for you guys um is to recreate this preset. Uh feel free to pause the video and try to recreate what is happening here once

1:34:03 you're done. Let's listen to how it sounds like. And you can choose between different types of math functions in this preset. So, we can swap around and see what sounds good. I personally like uh sign function and this is a great preset to use in bass house. So to create the baseline we will use the respace as a reference. So, we copy the respaces pattern and we create a new pattern. And we'll just paste that MIDI for the um we will paste that MIDI for the main base in the drop.

1:35:13 This sounds very static though. So one way to fix the staticity is to add some rhythm. So we can cut the real space into certain parts and experiment and try to create a rhythm that is catchy. So we have created a good rhythm for the first half and using music theory again we're going to apply the abab rule and take the same rhythm for a E again for this part A and B. So we'll have to place the notes like this.

1:36:31 And like this we have now created a pretty uh catchy loop. Um there are some empty spaces though and I like to fill up these empty spaces with um groovy kicks. So for that I'll take the kick I'll make it unique and route it to a new channel filter it using the parametric EQ plugin. So select parametric amplitude 2 and filter out the highs and lower the amplitude. And then we can fill out the empty space with some with some with some movies and like this the beat sounds less as empty. Obviously, we want this in the second half as well.

1:37:25 So, let's copy it. The bass melody is groovy, but maybe the in the second quarter of the 16 bars, we could have a variation in the melody. So let's make this unique and let us add some variation maybe at the end. Sometimes only changing one note is enough. Small changes have a big impact on a song. So no need to change that many notes. Keep things simple but adds slight variations. We forgot now to add this to the mixer track, but we'll do it now. And important is adding post-processing to the main synth. And especially if we have some emptiness, reverb can be a great post-processing effect. So, we're going to add fruit to reverb 2.

1:38:36 And we're going to use the venue preset. And what is a cool thing is that you can automate certain parameters in a doll. And you can do this by right clicking on the parameter and creating an automation clip. And if we only want the reverb to be playing in certain sections, we can do that by automating the wet in certain sections. And that's exactly what we're going to do. So let us highlight the auto section we want to automate. And then we'll click right click on the parameter that we're automating, create automation clip, and bam.

1:39:18 add reverb into the empty spots. So, let's do this here. And now the sound is much more cohesive. To add some variation to the second half of the drop, what I like to do is to change the synth a little bit. So I like to go into the feric and sometimes bury the oscillator pitch or sometimes change the wave function I'm using. And in this case, I think what makes a lot of sense would be to automate the oscillator. So I'm going to increase the oscillator pitch of one of the oscillators by one octave. And to demonstrate how it sounds like, let me show you.

1:40:30 And I think that could create a great contrast to the first half of the drop. So that's So to automate states in a synth, it's a bit more complex. You move the parameter you want to change. Then you click on tools last tweaked create automation clip. And now we don't really know where exactly the parameter is. It's hard to scale, right? So in this case we'll just create another automation clip. And instead of creating it at two, the new pitch we wanted to get to, we're going to create it at octave pitch one. So let's do that.

1:41:12 And now we're ensuring that we're staying on the old pitch in this section and on the new octave here in the second half. So al together it sounds like this. pretty cool. One cool thing is to integrate elements from the break into the drop to keep motives all along the track because motives uh are good for the listener. They keep things memorable. So using elements throughout the entire track makes the listener remember certain things and that's exactly what we want when we create music. So in this case, I think what would could be cool is to use these um vocal things but without the reverb effects. So in that case, we'll just make them unique, add them to a new mixer track, and we're going to try out to fill out some empty spaces with these chops.

1:42:44 Heat. Heat. This loop could be Yeah, this could work sometimes. Just chopping up loops and seeing how they can fit up empty spaces out. I'm just trying things out and seeing what happens. You just sometimes you just got to try things out and not just get a result immediately. Experiment and see what happens. and maybe find something good. Maybe not. Sometimes it takes more time, sometimes less. I would add some post-processing to this part. Probably filter it a bit. Add some distortion.

1:44:20 probably also as a reverb and make it more back. All right. And this covers the core structure of the drop. Now I'm going to get into the

1:44:58 build up. We're going to combine elements from the drop and from the break. So usually what you do is you take the main synth sound from the drop and you add the elements from the break. I'm noticing the drop is also not shifted correct. So we add elements from the drop and we add elements from the break. So ambiances, we also add the vocal of course and um the drums.

1:45:52 And by doing this we create we can create a cohesive transition between both parts. So the goal is to create a transition between the break elements and the drop elements. And to achieve this we often times like use filters. So we like to filter in the drop sound. So we have for that we'll add this parame and we'll choose this preset and we will automate this parameter. So we right click create automation clip and we start with a a low filter. I'm singing tire.

1:46:46 And this is already a decent transition between the break and the drop. It's also pretty classical to add a build up snare. So, I think the EDM pack probably has some cool um buildups. So, let's check them out. This could work. This Let's try this. Again, this is 128 BPM. So, let us make sure we are aligned. I'm sing

1:47:32 and this is pretty empty actually. I think this would make the most sense to shift it because I'm s tireing like a pre-rop. Let's try creator on. So for that we'll use some drums, some snares. We'll add some percussion.

1:48:39 We copy the pre-rop into um the second half as well. Like this All right. And now we've pretty much created a cool buildup. Effects can help. Sometimes like a white noise down like a riser can help. Oh, let's let's see how it sounds like. time. Let's go. Let's go. Yeah. Now we've pretty much created the first half of the song.

1:50:01 How do we create a full song? So, the easy way to create a full song is just to copy paste the first half after the drop. Um, that can work. This is obviously not the best way to go about this. We want to create some variation the second half so the listener doesn't have to listen to the same thing again. And because making a lot of variations is pretty complex in this tutorial, I'm just going to keep it simple. What often times is done is that in the second break, you just add a kick, a smaller kick, then a drop kick. Um, so we take like a house kick and we add it to the breakdown and that adds a little bit of variation already.

1:50:54 So, let's see how this sounds like. That sounds already pretty good. So, we'll add it to the entire breakdown. Also here the main set is one octave higher. We want to bring it back to the lower octave. So we'll add that automation clip here.

1:51:37 This is a very fast way to add some variation to the second break. Now how do we add variation to the second drop? One technique that is often time used is called a fake drop. What basically is done is we remove some of the kicks in the first part. We make the person believe the drop is coming. Then there are no kicks and then we bring the kicks back in. It creates kind of a hesitation. So we would just remove some of the kicks here like this. Sometimes you can also remove the hats and the clamp.

1:52:27 And what often time is also done is that during this part we also filter Alperson. Now we can use the uh automation clip that we used for the filter in the buildup and apply it similarly in this little section to create some tension. And now I think you understand what's happening. Like we remove the tension, we remove the kicks and we add tension. And then we bring back all of the kicks.

1:53:12 This is pretty much it. This would be a full arrangement of a song. And now the question is, is this finished? No, it's not. We still have to mix it. We still have to master it. And we have to um yeah, maybe check again if everything is as it is. if everything is correct.

1:53:42 So, mix and master the three things we talked about in theory um leveling um changing the shape of the sound and uh stereo. So, let's start with leveling. Uh we go through each section to break down And we make sure everything is leveled correctly. And before we do all this, we make sure that all elements are mixer track. So let's check this.

1:54:25 So we'll add this to 22. Hey hey hey. All right. Now all elements are on the mixer track. So now we go through each section and we make sure that all loudness levels make sense. Want to leave this town.

1:55:56 I feel like the impact is too loud. So, we're going to reduceable. The arp is also too loud the the synth that we've added. So, we're going to reduce it as well. Say if you want to call them Don't be scingwise

1:56:52 the break and build already make a lot of sense. In a drop, the main sense needs to be louder though. So what we need to do is we need to automate the loudness of the synth. So in this case, we'll just do exactly that. We're going to increase the loudness of the main and uh only in main drop because in the buildup, we don't want it to be that loud.

1:57:31 That's a bit too loud. If you want to increase the loudness without using the mixer volume, you can add fruity balance and you can lower the volume here. The rule of thumb is that the bass should be equally as loud as a kick. This cake is also way too loud. want to leave this town. I'm saying if you want to go on down

1:58:35 right now, I think the lapises are around about correct. Next step is the shape of the sound. So now we're going to start filtering and reshaping sounds so that they fit together. And here we just go through each element and see how we should shape them. So the ambiances they are more in the background. They don't need to have any low end. So we will remove all the low end.

1:59:10 Same here. This place keeps the rebase has too much noise. We want to be more on the back end and have more low. So, we're going to remove some of the mid frequencies.

1:59:39 The arb has to be in middle frequencies. So, we're going to remove the low frequencies and see how it sounds like.

1:59:55 And now there's so much more space in the song that the vocal was too loud. So now we have to lower the vocals volume down. Say if you want to calm down.

2:00:24 I think the vocal also needs some more reverb. I wanted to sound like more it was recorded in a room. So, let's try this. The high hats don't need that many low frequencies. The clap that's sealed low frequencies. It has a lot. Let's cut it out.

2:01:07 The buildup sounds are way too loud. Let's check the riser. Maybe it has some unnecessary lows. It does here. We're going to keep all the highs, though. All right. Now, the breakdown seems to be mixed down. Obviously, I'm doing it very fast cuz I have a lot of experience. It's going to take much more time. But at the end of the day, you just have to apply the theory um step by step and you will understand uh how to mix. It comes down to volume, to the shape, and to the stereo. In the drop, um this is where mixing gets really interesting. Since the synth is clashing with the kick, there is a concept called sidechaining.

2:02:11 So, we side chain the kick against the synth. And this concept solves a problem between kick and bass. So what we do is we will automate the volume of the synth whilst the kick is playing such that there is no synth playing when the kick is playing. And this creates like a ducking effect. And this makes sure that the synth and the kick don't clash because the synth has bass frequencies and the kick has bass frequencies. Um and how to side chain is it's quite simple. You um create a bus mixer. Um so this is a bus. We're going to call it bus mixer and we're going to route our elements to this mixer that need to be side chain. So um we want the main cell to be side chain.

2:03:08 We're going to route it to our bus mixer. So we're going to click click on the track. Click on the arrow below the bus and click on route to this track only. That's going to route the track into the bus instead of into the complete output. We also want this to be side ch. So, we're going to route this track only to pulse. And then what we can do we is just to automate the volume. So, we're going to use a fruity balance um the one I used before. And we're going to automate the volume whenever the kick plays. Just like this. Create automation kit.

2:04:04 And we're going to duck the volume in the shape of the kick. So it's like a reverse kick intuitively. And this adds a lot of power. Even though we're removing something, it adds power. It's counterintuitive, but it makes sense.

2:05:06 All right. This is how we've shaped the bass such that it is fixed and such that it fits with the kick. And yeah um one more important concept is the concept of um subbase versus main bass. So in a club system we want the low frequencies to sound as clean as possible. And to achieve this we separate the main bass into two parts. We take the main base, we duplicate it, and we add it to a different mixer and we use a bass preset that is very low and heavy. We can also build our own preset. Yes. So a nice subbase is a sine wave with a little bit of noise uh into the sign and some distortion

2:06:32 and some filter. Okay, now we have a good subbase and this subbase will just follow the melody of the main bass. This needs to be routed to a mixer track though and it needs to go into the side chain. the main bass we remove the low end from it. That's how we achieve a clean low end. This is how the we can ensure that the low frequencies are as clean as possible and in a club system it will sound good. Of course, we got to make sure that the subbase is playing in all patterns. Last but not least, um we're going to make sure that everything is in the right position in the mix, mono and stereo. And ambulances usually are more stereo. So, let's we're going to check out the break.

2:07:59 And with this button, we can make things more mono and stereo. So, we're going to make this more stereo. It's more stereo.

2:08:14 The vocal stays in the middle. The vocal layers are usually a bit more stereo. Hats can be a bit more stereo. Clap a little bit more mono.

2:08:31 The resp mono. This place keeps killing our drawer. the main layer. We will add the stereo layer to it. So, we're going to route it to another track. And we're going to make that layer stereo. There's a lot of effects you can use to stereoize. Um, I can really recommend using hyper chorus. This also needs to reward to the side chain though, right? So,

2:09:27 and this adds another like a surrounding stereo layer to the main synth, but obviously it should be that loud. It should be more in the background. That's how we create a more stereo drop. Uh creating stereo layers of the main sound. And this is how we're positioning elements in the room in the box I was talking about. deciding if something should be more on the outside of the room or something more in the middle of the room.

2:10:16 This kick, for example, should be in the middle. So, we'll make it one. I think that's pretty much it. Um, we've applied all the concepts of mixing. We've made sure that, um, everything is in the right position. Stereo on mono. Low frequency is more mono. higher frequencies, more stereo. And now we're ready to master the song. So, mastering the song is quite simple. Um, first of all, the song should not be peing. What is peing? Peing is when the loudness is in the red area. So, to just eliminate that, we can add a fruity balance and just lower the volume till it's not picking.

2:11:37 Sometimes it's also good to hear the song in different levels because your ear has a a perception of frequency that is different on different audio levels. So at lower audio levels, the way you hear certain frequencies relative to each other is different. So right now I'm noticing some other issues in the mix just because I lowered the volume of the entire song. The vocal.

2:12:23 Also, I am noticing that the transition from the second drop into the first second break, the transition of the first drop into second break is not great. And this because we're not filtering out the main synth. Let us add um an automation. Like this. And like this. Let's add it to the second drop.

2:13:34 All right. And now we can get back to mastering. So mastering, we've lowered the volume so it's not peing anymore. And the first step is to just listen to the whole song. and find some frequencies that we could maybe reduce.

2:13:55 So, usually I have when I mix I usually add too many low mids. So, I like to add a small dip there.

2:14:08 And I have a little bit of too many highs. So, I'm just correcting a little bit the mistakes in the mix, but not too much in the master. The EQ should be as straight as you can. Also a important trick is in the master the buildup um we can add some automations to make a transition better. So one way to do this is to add a reverb and we don't add the reverb all the time. We just add it when the buildup is building up. So we automate the wet during the buildup just like this.

2:15:06 But since we are also having low frequencies and the reverb and low frequencies create a very muddy sound, we also filter out the low frequencies with a filter such as this one. We just copy the automation for the reverb and we apply the same for the filter, but we don't do it that aggressively.

2:15:37 that makes the buildup much more um anticipating and it allows to create more hype for the drop because we're removing more power out of the buildup such that the drop has more power at the end of it.

2:16:03 All right. And the last step is to add a limiter. We want to push the volume as hard as we can because the song should be as loud as possible without clipping. And we use something called a limiter for that. So, you can either use uh fruit limiter uh but I really recommend you using this new plugin from FL Studio uh which is called emphasis. It has a couple cool presets you can just try out. Um and what you do is you increase the input gain till you feel like it's loud enough.

2:17:10 Not sure about this one. Let's try and um harsh electronics. I'm see That should be pretty much it. Um, mastering is quite simple if you've done a good mixdown. All you really need is a limiter. Um, try out as many presets as you can here and find the right one. Um, I recommend using harsh electronics or the clean filters and with a good mixown um, you will have an easy time mastering. All right, the last step is once you've done your full song, you export the song by clicking on file export. And here you can choose your format. Wow files are the highest quality. For distribution, MP3 is the type you should be using.

2:18:46 And you choose any order any uh any file you any name you want for the file name. And then yeah you can save the file here where you render again you can choose between different file types but MP3 is the best for music distribution. And the bit rate here tells you how high quality it is. So if you reduce the bit rate, the quality of the sound will decrease. We want maximal maximal quality. So 320 kilobytes per second. And it's important to copy these points highlighted. So we don't want to mix the tracks. And these should be highlighted.

2:19:32 Then you click start. And it's going to take you a couple minutes, maybe 1 minute to render. And yeah, then you have your full song. All right. Now that we have a full finished song, we just have to distribute it now and collect our money. So, I'll show you how. Go back to the partner page on our website. And first of all, we'll be signing up for root node. So just click the button here and log in. This can take some time. All right. Now I'm logged in and the first thing you see is a lot of a lot of different things, but we'll stay focused on only the distribution. So we click on distribution. We hover above distribution and then we click on create a release.

2:20:47 And the first thing you'll see is the release data section. We don't have a UPC/ EAN. You could just ignore that for now. And here you choose the name of the song. So, so in this case we're going to call it freedom because I mean we're free code cap and the sound should be called freedom maybe right? And if the page is slow for you, this is I guess normal. I mean for me the page is slow as well. And here we are now in the album details and release details section. So let's click on album details. So the language we are choosing is English because our song is in English.

2:21:46 So because the lyrics are in English. Uh this is the title. And then it will ask us does this release contain cover versions which means songs that are that are that we are covering that we are using to create a new song. But we're not doing this. We're just we have created everything ourselves. So we click no. It's also a compilation album. Compilation album is a collection of songs at once. It's not that. And then here artist name. You can create your own artist name, right? Um, in my case, I already have one. It's night.

2:22:29 And if you already have an artist account, it will find it for you. So, this is my artist account. And here you got to write your real name. So, your composition name and also from all the people who were involved in the song. Obviously, in our case, we created everything ourselves. Um, but if you're collaborating with someone, for example, you you'll have to add their names as well. Does this release containers? It does, but in our case, we used a sample which was royalty-free from sematics. So we actually in this case we don't say that it contain lyrics because we don't have a lyricist.

2:23:23 And next up the primary genre in our case it's EDM but you can choose uh the the genre that makes sense for you. So electronic and secondary genre is not really necessary. Decently important. This is basically your copyright tag that will be listed on Spotify and all platforms. And in our case, you could choose anything you want there as long as it's unique. So I'll be choosing Mad Miguel for both. And the record label name I'll be choosing the same thing. You don't have to choose the same artist name as your record label name and the composition and sound recording copyrights, but I just want to do this.

2:24:13 You can choose anything you want. And here you now choose your release date time. So I recommend releasing at least a month in advance. So this helps you have a better performance for your release and it makes it easier for your distributor RTO to do a good job. So that means we'll choose um the 19th of December. In general, releasing December is not ideal as well because the stores don't um put as much effort in and pitching the song, etc. But on all other months, it's great to release. So, everything except December is great. In our case, obviously, we're planning it in December, but this is just a mock. This is just an example to show you guys how this works. Yeah, explicit content. This is important. So if your song has curse words, click explicit content. If it doesn't, then don't.

2:25:24 So okay, I forgot to fill up it. It's not explicit. Or the date has to be before the release date. So I think I what I know is that it should be one week before. Okay, now we're in step two. So here we're going to add our audio and this is important. So root note only takes MP3 and it takes 320 kilob bytes per second MP3 at a sample rate of 441 kHz. If you render MP3 in FL Studio, it should be automatically assigned to these parameters. If not, I'm sure there's many tutorials showing you how to render properly. Um, if anyone has some questions about it, um, just DM me on my socials and I'll happily help you. Once you've rendered your MP3, you just upload. It will process it a bit, so it's going to take some time.

2:26:35 Okay, now it's fully uploaded and you got to add the track title. So in our case it's freedom and then we continue. All right, save and continue for the audio metadata. that you see the the process of distributing your song is takes some time setting everything up, but it's worth it because then you've managed to get your song out there. And that's what most artists struggle with is they make great music, but they don't they don't release it. And that's such a that's such a bummer because there's so much good quality music not being released that so many people could enjoy. So, I really hope that you guys once you start creating your music that you also start releasing it ASAP.

2:27:31 All right, next up we're going to add an artwork. So, there are so many ways to create artworks now, especially with AI. Um, I'm just going to use the free code cam logo. I've created a lot of artworks working with audio uh visual designers or just visual designers, 3D animators, um 3D designers. You can also just use AI. We're in the new era. So, choose what you want. And yeah, next step is managing the stores. So, the stores are basically your different uh platforms where your song will be released. So, for example, Spotify, YouTube Music, Anami, these are there's so so so many. And you just select all stores unless you don't want to be on one specific one. If you have some predisposition, I think it makes sense to release on all. And here, these are the pricings for the song buy. So some patters you can buy songs and selecting standard is is is great and yeah if you want to only release on certain

2:28:53 territories you you can choose it here. I would not recommend doing that as well. I would try to release everywhere. Um, and yeah, then you click on sir and continue. And now you're basically at the final step. So you can distribute the song for free here, but root note will take 15% of the royalties. So from the income that you make on your master royalties, they will take 15%. Um, I recommend using the free version in the beginning because you don't have to pay anything up front and once you are starting to make a regular income where you can cover the costs of releasing with a with a paid plan and then I would switch to the premium model. But as we're in free code camp, using free tools is great. Use the free version first and later on if you feel like releasing a ton of music and you feel like that you are already making a decent decent money from it that can cover your costs, switch to premium.

2:30:09 All right, that's basically it. Um, then you're pretty much done after you've distributed the song. It will then be reviewed and then accepted hopefully. So in most cases they accept and yeah then your song will be released in all platforms in one month. And if we fast forward the future and it's already released then you have to collect your publishing royalties. Monunes will help you collect your publishing royalties. So the master royalties they will be paid by their distributor. The publishing royalties the distributor neglects. Hence why you need monitors to do that. So you click on the page and you click on sign up and then you just sign up here. So you write your email, you write your password that you want to use and then once you sign up you have to log in again. So, I'm logging in again.

2:31:13 And then you'll land in the dashboard. This is where you'll see how many works you have, how many shows, and how much money you can withdraw. If you want to create a new work, you click on works and add work. And then once your song is already released, you can import it from Spotify. So, you'll search for your song. In my case, it's going to be an old song of mine. It's actually my first release ever. It's called Ignite. And okay, somehow it didn't it it found it here. So we just click on it. It will fetch the credits and sometimes it manages to get all the credits correct.

2:31:55 So all of the data can be imported from Spotify. Sometimes it will import it correctly. And in our case it has done it incorrectly because there's no writers involved. So for that case um you can either add a new writer or import an existing writer. In my case I will import one because I already am a writer. If you've never written a song before you click on add new writer and add the details there. I'll just click on import existing writer. And this is me and the share of course is 100%. And I really want to collect the royalties.

2:32:42 I can show you how it looks like if you add a new writer. So you'll add your names and everything and your email and it will ask you are you registered with an pro. So a pro is a performance rights organization. It will help you collect a part of your publishing royalties, but it costs money. It's not free. It costs €50 a year, at least for me. Every country has their own performance right organization, and it will collect a lot in that region, but it will have difficulties collecting worldwide. And I personally have a PRO in Germany. So, if you already have one, you can click this and it will exclude the collection in those areas. Um, if you don't have one, you just don't click on it. And monotunes will do a great job of collecting the royalties that PRO would also collect. There's not really a need to get it. Um but you can save some money because monetunes takes 15%. Like um like the distributor root node it

2:33:49 also takes 15%. Hence why if you already have a lot of streams a pro can make sense. Um if you're starting out I don't think you need a pro. All right. And then you fill out all the data. And yeah in my case there's only one writer. We don't need to add the second writer. And yeah, then we can create work and it will be sent into their system and they will look at everything, make sure everything looks right and once they've accepted it. So it will say registered the next steps is that they will collect your royalties. It will take like 9 months. So in the next year you will get your money. That's the thing with music.

2:34:37 takes time to get paid. Um, but see it as an investment. And yeah, that's basically it in regards to money collection and distribution. I really hope you guys could learn from me in regards to the theory behind music production and the application behind music production and as well as of course as I just show you how to release your songs and collect your mind because the music industry is quite complex especially as a beginner and there's a lot of things that are not properly explained and My goal with this video was to shed some light on these topics, the core basics of music production.

2:35:27 And I think this once you've finished watching this course fully, you'll have a great understanding to start making your own music, exploring your own genres. I really recommend watching a lot of more YouTube tutorials. YouTube is a great platform to learn music production. There's so many talented music producers in so many different genres. I've just shown you one dill perspective. Uh I've only shown you bass house. There's so many more indium genres. So explore. And yeah, I I hope you have a great day and goodbye.

Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "Music Production 101 – Master Sound Design, Mixing, and Mastering in FL Studio"?

In order: 0:00 fabric, FL Studio, Mad Miguel, Monetunes; 15:00 fabric, FL Studio, Seimatics; 30:00 fabric; 45:00 Monetunes, fabric; 1:00:00 Euphoria Pack, FL Studio, Free Code Camp, Sematics; 1:15:00 fabric, FL Studio, Free Code Camp; 1:30:00 fabric, Sematics; 2:15:00 FL Studio, Free Code Camp, Mad Miguel, Sematics; 2:30:00 Monetunes.

What is mentioned in this freeCodeCamp.org episode?

10 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including fabric, FL Studio, Monetunes, Mad Miguel, Sematics, Free Code Camp. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Music Production 101 – Master Sound Design, Mixing, and Mastering in FL Studio"?

The episode runs 2 h 36 min; the transcript is about 17,200 words in 175 timestamped sections.

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