Akai Force tutorial 2021: Making a full track only with samples and loops

[Laughter] hello techno synthetic groove box lovers welcome to another fourth tutorial in my last tutorial i introduced to you the latest 3.0.6 drum drumstick update and therefore we made a track completely from scratch only using plugins today we will also make a track from scratch but we will only use loops and samples i will show you how to do some time stretching how to make all your samples and loops sound in key and i will also give you some tips on eq mixing and mastering so get yourself a drink get your force ready and enjoy the tutorial with me but as always let's listen to the end result first [Music] so [Music] so [Music] now [Music] now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to a sunlit path of racial justice [Music] is segregation [Music] so [Music] [Music] all right guys in order to save us some time i've already created eight audio tracks and i've also labeled them on the first track we will have the kick loop on the second one the top loop then we will have percussion loops and fx loops on the third channel or third audio track number four would be the first synth second synth number five then we've got the bass track the martin luther king sample and last but not least least the atmo voice which is playing throughout the whole track in the background i've also prepared some return channels so let's have a look at them on the first return channel you've got the regular delay nothing fancy about that and then we've got three different reverb channels reverb with a really short rework time reverb with a middle reverb time and then finally a reverb which is pretty long has a long tail big room and the reason for these three reverbs is the following if you want to position certain sounds in your track then by adding certain reverbs you can decide where the listener hears them and you can also decide yeah what they sound like for example if you want to have sound really far in the background rather as some kind of atmo then you would have lots of the long reverb not that much of the middle reverb and only a little bit of the short reverb if you want to have a track or sound in the foreground then you would have lots of the short reverb a little bit of the middle and not that much of the long reverb and if you use these three different reverbs as return channels you can give your sounds and your audio tracks three-dimensional sounds which encompass the listeners ears and your tracks will simply sound better so that's everything i did so far set up those four return channels and the eight audio tracks so i think now it's time to make that be together so let's load our first loop here we've got the kick drum track selected and let's move over to my machine expansion folder there we will choose indigo dust loops construction and i think the loop that i used was the katakana kick drum 2. yup that one let's load this one after loading a loop the first thing you should do is hit clip and then point at the loop and then you can see if akai force got the loop correct or the standard bpm the source bpm correct um it should be 120 exactly here it's 120.08 so let's correct that and now no matter how i change the tempo it's playing perfectly and matching perfectly the tempo of the general project here let's just play that hold tempo you can see that it adjusts instantly to the tempo let's pick 126 here we can also see that the force realized and found out exactly that this kick loop is eight bars long so it's looping these eight bars we could for example just have it loop the four bars the first four and it's still perfectly fine then in the background of our audio track or of our martin luther king track we've got some admiral voice going on throughout the whole track so let's load that admiral voice therefore we will also have a look at the machine expansions folder i think it was from ignition code loops vocal oh the one so after loading it as always we hit clip and then we can see force got it right it's just a one bar loop let's see if the tempo is correct too 127 exactly so it didn't get the kick drum loop right but the audio loop that's pretty strange usually it's the other way around okay anyways anyways let's play them both let's go to the mixer tab here of course we don't want that background voice too much in the mix and too dominant in the mix and therefore we can already start using our reverb channels set screen so we've got the long long reverb a little bit of the middle and the short reverb too let's also add a little bit of delay here you can see the scent knobs turning and controlling them with the knobs here okay what i would also like to do you can already hear that the original sample has the stacking effect this compressor on it we will use another sidechain compression on top here therefore we use the kick track and we will load the mother ducker so let's have a look at that one mother ducker input select and this one affects the last channel here so let's have a [Music] listen still too loud yeah that should be fine now that we've got the kick drum and the atmo going it's time for our top loop first let's copy that row over here and let's add the top loop here so let me quickly have a look where did i get this from i think it was from this pack here [Music] i think it was the h loops yep that should be the right one let's listen [Music] so let's hit this one again so it's 120 exactly pretty sure get the source bpm right [Music] and i would also like to have the mother ducker on the second channel therefore let's go to fx on the decker [Music] it's time for our first synth part now therefore let's go to indigo dust again loops and then to the synth section our track is in f-sharp minor and here is our loop slow that one in and let's listen we can clearly hear it's playing way too fast luckily we don't have to use the tab tempo to find out which tempo this loop has we just need to have a look at the label therefore we click again the top bar of the loop it says 121 so let's adjust the original bpm to 121 here we can see that the loop length obviously does not work anymore so let's see how many bars we have 16 bars so let's set the loop length length to 16 bars okay let's have a look it starts at one here okay and it's perfectly especially with these synth loops it makes sense to have a little fade out and a little fade in in the beginning let's have a listen [Music] [Music] [Music] so now it's time for our second synth before we do that let's quickly copy that row delete this one here now we place our seconds in the sample here therefore let's scroll through [Music] i think it was wearing two yeah that was the one let's go to clip let's have a listen [Music] it almost got the bpm right not 100 though so let's get that one correct and we will also have a little fade in and played out first let me see if the loop length is correct yeah let's collect correct eight bars eight bar loop we have a little fade out here and also a little fade in [Music] [Music] so [Music] so we're already pretty close to maxing out here [Music] therefore let's reduce the volume of these different parts here [Music] look at the output here yeah so we've got enough headroom for the rest so the tutorial would be pretty boring if i just took loops from the indigo part and also only in f-sharp minor so let's use something else [Music] we've got rising crescent here pretty eastern and oriental sounding loops i think an ancient camel [Music] yeah that's the one it's in g sharp minor let's load that it got the bpm right we don't need to change anything here loop length is also correct so let's have a listen we need to copy that one in this row because with the arp synth synth 2 we already introduce the percussion part here which is not really percussion part but it will sound like like a percussion part if we listen to that in total yeah so we notice that those two loops are not in key that's because this camel loop has g-sharp at its root note that would be here and our root node that we have is f sharp so we need to go one two two semi-step two semi steps down to semi notes down as you like so now it should sound better let's have a listen yep [Music] in the next row we will introduce the baseline let's copy that one over here now let's load the suitable base loop here and that one is also in indigo dust loops base yeah and it's zelberg number two so if we load that bass clip we see the force got the bpm completely right however the key is a and our key is f sharp minor let's see if it works anyways doesn't sound too good let me show you why this is the case so the root note a is here we need to get over to f sharp minor therefore one two three semi tones down and then it should sound better let's have a listen [Music] and it also makes sense to put the mother ducker in here let's have just let's just solo the bass [Music] so [Music] to my taste the base is not loud enough [Music] my ears have a look at the output okay we're mixing already so i'll need to reduce the base a little more [Music] we still need to change the percussion part here let's delete this one load a new one from the sasha expansion loops construction it was the eclipse [Music] [Music] so bpm is correct loop length 2 is also correct okay let's have a listen [Music] okay we can also do at this point here is assign the kick to part b then if we move over the cross fader to a we can mute the kick let's have a listen [Music] so at this point we are already maxing out here you can see the two lines here and our mix also sounds a little muddy therefore we need to do some eq before we continue so let's go to the mixer tab effects and i always like to put a para eq on every channel let's do that here all right here we can now highlight certain frequencies or decrease certain frequencies and we can also cut the lows and the highs and this is what we will do right now so let's have a listen just to the top loop section you want to filter out the low frequencies without changing the characteristic of that loop too much for example if i go like that we changed or we took too much away from the low frequencies yeah that seems fine let's have a listen to the second one [Music] now we took too much away from the low frequencies [Music] that's okay so the power eq with the first synth let's also take away the low frequencies [Music] [Music] so let's have a listen to the second synth the absinthe hey [Music] so you see since we have already filtered out quite a lot of those frequencies the output is not too high anymore anyways we still need to change and filter out the low end of the atmo voices so that we have all the low end for the base and the kick so add more voices over here power iq let's have a listen let's just solo it [Music] that sounds good yeah now it sounds much tighter and the low end of the kick and the bass is coming through since we're using a sidechain compression here that ducks the base and gives room for the kick and we also filtered out all the low frequencies of all the other audio tracks all right it's time for the breakdown therefore let's copy this row in the break we don't need the kick we don't need the percussions and we don't need the base but we need the martin luther king sample so let's load that one i just loaded or downloaded the whole speech from amazon so it's quite long between 20 or 30 minutes so let's reduce the loop length to 16 instead of 436 it's better to work with that one so i have the pleasure to present to you dr martin luther we don't want to have the beginning of the speech we don't want to have the i have a dream part has been used too much too often definitely so let's find ourselves another part that sounds cool and that also has a nice message to it i think we're pretty close here let's have a listen we have also come to this hallowed spot to remind america of the fierce urgency of now this is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism now is the time to make real the promises of democracy okay that's the part now is the time so i only want to have this part therefore i will hit trim clip and now something from the beginning will be cut off so what we do is let's get this one over here and we wanna have the beginning of the sample now is the time it's good what's up brotherhood now we need more space at the end it sounds as if he's cut off right in the middle while he's talking so let's reduce the bpm a little let's extend the clip okay there is the beginning of something new so let's go over there a little fade out and let's give it another try [Music] [Applause] make justice a reality but all the thoughts choked now is the time to make real the promises of them i think it's even better if we don't fade out in there brotherhood to make justice a reality for all of god's children now is the time to make real democracy now [Music] okay we definitely need to have that synth part louder the beginning of the break i'd like to have an effect therefore let's just reuse a regular akai loop let's go to content audio clips i think it was some deep house swoosh effector so um two yeah that's the one slow that one in this will be probably way too loud [Applause] [Music] now so in the break i basically made my own loop so let's do that let's create a clip and this clip should be eight bars long so and in this clip i'd like to load a couple of samples therefore let's go over to german stems we need f minor f sharp minor it wasn't pen i think it was bingo yeah so we just have these f minor stamps so we start off with a really low one load that one to pool [Music] then this one more highs are coming through [Music] even more highs okay so let's go to our clip and let's start with the low one place at start then let's take the next one we won't place that one at the start but at the beginning of the third bar next one at the beginning of the fifth bar another one at the beginning of the seventh bar let's have a listen to make real promises [Applause] i don't think i want to have warp turned on here so let's turn that off let's reduce this one and last but not least let's enter that one on the beginning of bar eight but we want to reverse that one here for that cool effect to introduce the drop let's have a listen first okay [Music] yeah i definitely don't want to have this one right here it's too aggressive so let's delete this one and load not the v2 but the v3 it's less aggressive let's load that one to bar seven undo [Music] of segregation [Music] okay and i said before that now we are going to make our own loop and in order to do so we need to go to edit go to flatten clip now it's just one loop and it was a little too loud so let's reduce the volume let's listen now racial injustice [Music] right after the break we need a drop therefore let's copy everything over here we need the kick again let's have a listen now is the timeless valley of [Music] the promises of democracy now okay so i don't want to have the top loop part playing but of course i want the bass to kick in therefore let's copy it over here now [Music] the promises of democracy now is the time okay definitely can't have the effects on here so let's set them all to zero effects on base doesn't make too much sense here now [Music] okay let's hear this transition from break to drop again [Music] after we've created our first drop which is rather laid back let's create a second drop with a little more energy therefore let's copy that row over here we will delete this part copy the top loop over here and i would like to have a more driving percussion therefore let's load another loop this loop was also in indigo dust loops drums obviously not percussion probably [Music] yep let's have a look at the clip loop is five bars long then obviously something cannot be right uh yeah bpm is also way too low anyways let's have a listen yeah it doesn't make sense so we're already lucky again the bpm is labeled here so it saves you lots of time if you have samples where everything is properly labeled so we see that this is an 8 bar loop bpm is also correct now let's have a listen [Music] to democracy [Music] when it comes to mastering in the force i'm pretty lazy because usually if your mix down is okay then the sound is quite awesome let's have a look at the main output so we're not maxing out anything so this is why i would just use the maximizer which is also limiter pick the preset mastering light reduce the ceiling a little then you're basically good to go let's have an a b listening with the mastering device on without [Music] so i used many compressors limiters and tried all of the tools here but i've got to say they pretty much take away the punch of your kick drum and it doesn't sound that good anymore so i basically found myself just not using anything at all if the mix down is great or just the air maximizer and then the mastering light preset let's have a listen at the [Music] from the dark and output valley of segregation to ascending path of racial justice now is the time now is the time to make real the promises of democracy now is the time so there's no distortion everything is limited it sounds punchy and that's basically everything i do for mastering all right i hope this tutorial was helpful and you got something out of it see you next time peace out

Channel: Wolfgang Grows

Views: 14,980

Keywords: akai force tutorial, techno tutorial, sample tutorial, force tutorial, samples and loops, 4k, uhd, techno from scratch, beatmaking tutorial, dawless beatmaking, dawless beatmaking tutorial

Id: aQ0Z04_auog

Length: 55min 42sec (3342 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 08 2021