Akai Force 3.1.1 beat making tutorial [deep techno]

hello techno synth and group box lovers  christmas has come early because i've got a   brand new in-depth tutorial for you today we will  be making a deep techno track from start to finish   so that you can easily follow along all of the  steps we will only use the best features of the   latest 3.1.1 update and the previous updates  too like for example the new synthesizers the   randomization function the envelope follower and  much more if you haven't checked out my older   tutorials please do so in one i'll show you how  to make a beat from scratch only using plugins   and in the other tutorial i show you  how to make a beat only using samples   anyways let's check out the end result of  today's tutorial and then let's get started so what so okay guys in order to make it easier for you to  follow along i will just create an empty project   here only my mic is plugged in and we will  do the complete song from scratch so that   you have absolutely no problem seeing what's  going on so the first thing i always do is   set the tempo in this case it's set to 122.  usually techno is set to between 130 and 140   bpm but in this case we would like to have a more  deep and more laid back and relaxed kind of track   to begin with i want to pick some kind of key  group and therefore let's pick some pluck sound i think that was the one i used for my track exactly let's turn down the volume and let's also have a look at the effects here i think we still need a delay and we also need a kill eq in order  to cut off the low frequencies all right okay now the character of the tone hasn't changed  too much so the frequencies i'm cutting off   aren't perceived by our ear anyway  so let's have a look at the delay that's better let's have a little more feedback maybe a little bit more resolution okay the lower sounds could use a little more low end all right nice so the next thing we  always think about is which key are we in   for this track i chose d minor so therefore hold  shift and note and basically you can pick d minor   i've already done that and i always have the  pad rows set on start on root so that they are   not mixed up like this here i like to have them  neatly organized like that okay so in order to get   some nice background melody going it's a  little bit arp-like let's create a new track   and that track should only be one bar long   and what i like to do quite often is using  the step sequencer there i pick lanes mono and   here you can basically see the root  note it's highlighted that's our d so let's come up with some kind of melody let's jump to the second half of the first bar mm-hmm that sounds already quite nice however i would like to turn  down the low pass filter so that it doesn't sound too harsh it's nice  i have a nice melancholic background arp   and that is definitely a good  starting point for our track all right next we need some support melody um  therefore let's pick one of the new plugins   let's go with the solina plugin therefore  hit shift and clip let's pick solina and i think it was a preset called  brass organ there we go let's okay the sound should be more  stabby so let's reduce the sustain better too much formant the flavor could be different this is quite powerful all right let's have a listen let's record that in all right since we don't have a  beat yet i'll activate metronome   right here holding shift and metronome i  will on the track hit record and let's go okay that sounds pretty off  um let's have a look here um   we just need two bars let's see what the  first bars the first two bars sound like yeah thanks to time correction i  can use this additional melody   let's hit trim clip so we just have  this bar here are these two bars okay so let's also use the air kill eq here it's not really powerful enough let's use the maximizer too strong i would also like to have some variation in there maybe some auto pan so if you are listening to this with   good speakers or good headphones you  should basically notice the panning so let's get the third and last part our  last melodic part going therefore we will use   another of the new plugins  but i will load it differently   i will push load go to content and just enter  the name of that plugin i think it was pipe arp yeah that's it so as you can see it's loaded here velocity is turned to full let's jam along a little let's record that in so let's try it again yeah that was better so i didn't like the melody here  let's turn the metronome off   as you can see i've also  turned time correction off to give it a more natural  feel and our loop should start from here let's give it another try so do i would like to have this little note  here which is cut off at the very end otherwise it won't snap to the grid let's have this one at the end let's give it another try let's get it a little closer to the end to save us some time um let's just  load the drum rack from the original   from the original project i labeled it trippy  kick and as you can see there aren't many drums in there this is everything so let's  just have a simple four to the floor let's just double that and let's change this one and replace it with this and also let's put some more effects on it melody could also use some little modulation it's always definitely improved so so let's have a look at the master output okay it's not clipping but it's really close  so i need to reduce the levels a little bit so before we move on with the base to support  our kick i would like to use another   of the new features it's not from the 3.1  update but from the previous one i think 3.0.6   or five and there we have these envelope  followers and i just would like to pick ui glass and modulate let's do it with the learn function and i want to modulate the filter and also i'd like to have a second  envelope follower also the glass plug and here i don't want to have post fader but  pre inserts and i would also like to go with one of those elements here formant and now the very first melody the art melody  should basically change formant and filter here so let's go back to macros it's not activated do maybe a little too much so so okay so this melody basically changes  some solina parameters the filter   and the formant and i would like  to change the well i would like to   have odyssey pipe parameters also changed  not by this one but by the selena melody therefore let's go to macros again  let's create a third envelope follower   and this time we don't pick  plug ui but we pick selena and let's see what we would like to change um the high pass cut off let's have a listen changes so far let's go so so now we have some parameter changes   we also have some panning slightly  to the left and slightly to the right this way our melody is less  static and more appealing good time for the base let's put our kick with another synth let's have a  sub layer and therefore i'll choose another plugin and i think the preset i want  to have is called analog thumb let's see there we go and unlock thumbs up  that's the right one so let's have a listen and there seems to be some delay  on there so let's reduce the delay   also the reverb we just want to  have a dry signal and now we can use this bass sound to support our kick therefore  let's create a clip it should be only one bar long what i also like to use quite often is  going to the step sequencer go to melodic and now i can put this note on these steps  and go an octave higher put it on here and let's change the length  of the notes first this one and now the rest okay of course way too much low end that's why we need a mother ducker on our kick effects we can see that the mother ducker in is  already here because i copied this drum kit   over from my other project so we only need  to use the mother ducker here dynamics mother ducker there we go now we can see the kick from reducing the volume this way we still have some support of the kick drum with  the sub layer here but the punch is still there we could definitely use a maximizer that's too much let's see if the output signal isn't too loud it's  clipping a little so we definitely have to reduce also okay but that was only one part of the  base the dancy and groovy kind of bass   that's what we're dealing with in the next part all right it's time to give our track  groovy a bass line so let's open another instance of hype um let's go to base warm and subby thump we don't want to have any  delay we don't want to have any reverb less highs and more of the low frequencies okay time correction is on but let's only have a strength of 75 percent   and i would also like to give  it a little swing 53 it's okay let's record the bass line in let's have a look at the clip um i will just go with the  very first bar go to trim clip let's have a listen okay we definitely need and i need to so it's got a little more so without the support base sounds like this without our groovy bass it sounds like  this let's add our support base again and i would also like to throw a mother  ducker in mother ducker effect on the selena   let's go to mixer effects and choose mother ducker let's reduce the ratio okay let's have a listen what we've got so far so quite a lot of low and mid frequencies so  it's time for some high frequencies of course   let's add some shakers and hi-hats therefore i  will open a drum group and i'm not going to load   every single sample that would take way too long  i would just load the same hi-hats that i used in   the original project that you listened to in the  beginning so let's have a quick listen let's hit   shift and clip and there you can also  see the different samples they are not   all starting at the beginning sometimes i wanted  to cut off the transients in the beginning okay let's start with it with this  short shaker sound i've got 50 here so this sounds kind of static   let's use the new randomization  feature that came with the 3.1 update let's change the panning the level so the volume level some  shakers are now louder than others   offset is basically when the sample starts okay so the depth is way too  high let's turn that down   so this would be the result without  the randomization feature let's just that's okay and let's also randomize  the attack of the envelope you don't want to add too much  otherwise it wouldn't sound natural yeah that's definitely too much so let's  start here down at zero and let's go up okay much more variation that  sounds already pretty nice to me let's add some more heads so to give it a more human feel i  will again deactivate time correction let's record the hi-hats okay of course i am the wrong track we're dealing  with track 8. let's give it another try so let's pick this part here  let's go to time correction and   we just want to apply like a strength of 70 to it let's have a listen this one i had here is definitely  way too long let's shorten it up and let's add some extra stress here all right let's make our groove a  little more complex and add some congas   i've also saved the conga  drum kit that i made myself this time i didn't use single samples  i just chopped up a conga loop and i will try to get some groove going something like that let's have a listen so the good thing is if you save the drum  kit then automatically all the effects   um that you have are also transferred anyways  i've got the feeling the mother ducker is a little   too extreme let's just take it out completely let's have a listen okay let's hit record on let's have a look at the recording time  correction was on it saved me again   so let's have a listen and let's  play around with the mother ducker do as you can see we have so far our congas don't sound  too good let's have a listen so let's improve that a little  therefore we will add some texture we will pick an audio clip i've already  prepared it it's just a percussion loop   and in the tempo of 122. let's see the force recognized it and let's  just have a listen to this single clip here what we want to do is we definitely would like  to have the low end and the high end cut off probably like this and we also want to have the mother ducker  effect on there to give it this pumping feel maybe a little strong this sounds good so far let's  hear it in context with the rest okay so the loop here is definitely  too loud let's decrease the volume   and what i don't like about the congas is that you  only hear the accentuated part let's have a listen only here the loud parts and the quieter parts are  not audible really so therefore let's add a limiter to boost the quieter  parts and reduce the louder parts   let's have a listen to the presets here do i think i don't want to have  the mother decker at all now we can hear much the new audio clip is almost not audible   but as soon as i stop it you will  hear that something is missing yeah here some texture is gone and it  sounds better with that extra texture also let's trim the clip one bar is completely enough so let's play around a little so so let's nudge it a little more to the left yeah i like that so conga groove is complete finally let's add some ear candy and some admo  therefore we will open another instance of hype   go to sound fx atmosphere sound effects and there we pick hollow house let's have a listen sounds pretty scary good i would also like to take out  some of the lower frequencies okay that's better let's record a clip this clip  should be eight bars long let's make the first that's better and that was the first atmo part but that's  not all we will also add some one shots our track is already pretty busy so um let's do  some arrangement first before we add the last one   shots otherwise we wouldn't really hear them so  therefore let's just create a couple of parts here i think the original version is separated  into seven song parts let's do that here too   so copy and let's copy the row seven times two  three four five six seven and from here on it's   just reduction basically um i don't want to  have the odyssey type melody coming up yet the groovy bass can also be deleted congas so it's shots so four strokes and i would like to have let's have a listen what they sound like then the third one is pretty long this one is quite short i'm  probably not going to use that sounds nice and it's also in the key d minor  the key of the track this one is also longer okay so let's try a little bit  let's see what we can come up with so let's start with that one in the beginning so my so this clip is too let's have an eight short so let's move to the next  we'll start the section way i would like to have this so let's copy that a couple of times so let's keep it simple in the beginning let's assign a to this one it  was already assigned i deleted so now we've got the full melody here and next we will introduce and before we introduce the baseline it makes  sense to get rid of the kick for a second right next there could be a break the kick let's just keep the congas for the have the movie last now the congas and the final part includes all right that's pretty much it um i  also included some sweeps and swell   ups well down effects therefore i just use type  i can recommend definitely using the sound fx   rises noise and go just with the basic noise drop sounds like this and the basic riser  is also pretty cool noise riser and usually i just record these as  audio files and use them as audio clips   to basically support the  drops and also the buildups we are almost done guys the  last part are the effects i   employed pad effects as well as knob effects  let's have a look how that is done first of all   i only want to have the effects on the plug ui  glass and the selena part therefore i hit mixer   go to ins and outs and assign those  two to sub 1. next let's go to sub 1 there we are and let's   put in all the effects that i used um i  think i started with the stutter effect a stutter next one was the x y fx then the brand new granulator effect i think i already scrolled too far there  we are and last but not least the good old   low pass filter to slowly introduce these two  parts so let's open that one up completely granulator let's turn it off and pick the preset  beautiful octave let's increase the density a   little and the mix is too loud let's put that to  around 69 percent then x y of x should be a phasor there we go and the stutter should be eighth glitch  looks good steps should be around eight okay now we need to assign  these effects to the pads therefore let's go to macros pad grid  here you can see the different pads   the first one is the stutter effect  therefore i go to sub mix 1 insert   enabled next let's move on to  the phaser submix one insert two i picked the wrong one we  have two enable effects here i think that's the right one and last but not least where is it submix1 insert 3 and that should do it let's have a quick listen yeah the granulator is still too strong therefore   let's go to mixer granulator and  let's reduce that one a little further i did not only use the three pad  effects i also used the knobs   so let's take care of that too let's go to  macros knobs and i would like to have project one delete first and the second knob let's  start from scratch here i would like to have the resolution no not the resonance the  frequency first then next should be the resonance   kind of cumbersome to do it like that so for the  rest i will use the learn function therefore let's go to the stutter let's change the steps and also let's also change the pitch modulation okay a little bit so all right now we have assigned two times this one here should not  be frequency but resonance let's hit resonance turn  this one and let's go back deactivate learning okay the last effect that is missing here  is the master effect the master xy fx   and therefore we hit shift navigate hit insert  and if we now go to the master channel there let's hit effects there we can see the x y  of x and i also would like to have a limiter   on the master channel too  therefore let's go to dynamics   and limiter let's scroll through  the presets for listening much more powerful my voice gets louder too ah that's already too strong i think titan is  quite nice let's reduce the gain a little without limiter does what it has to do all right let's use our nx first we've got to  select the one we would like to have my favorite   one is the delay high pass filter let's use that  one to make the transition to the groovy bass line and now we can just jam out play  around with the effects a little all right you finally did it more than one hour  hardcore tutorial congratulations if you stayed   through the end i hope you got lot out of  it and see you around next time peace out

Channel: Wolfgang Grows

Views: 1,918

Keywords: akai force, force tutorial, akai force tutorial, akai force 3.1, akai force techno, akai force deep techno, akai beatmaking tutorial, beatmaking from scratch, making a beat from start to finish, techno tutorial, akai tutorial

Id: 0NdBfL87Skw

Length: 77min 29sec (4649 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 28 2021