Ben Böhmer In The Studio: Beyond Beliefs | Ableton Tutorial

[Music] i think i'm most influenced by the music itself once i have a specific vibe in front of me this invites me to continue with that hey my name is ben burma welcome to my studio in berlin today we're gonna make a little walkthrough of my track beyond belize for my new album begin again most important inspiration i have yeah it's the music [Music] and i have a wonderful guest here francois from production music live is here and together we will have a look into the project hey ben so this track you played it the first time at your circle set in the balloon so what was the initial reaction of people to this track i think there was the most asked track in on youtube i saw so many comments and people were asking about the id i also looked up on youtube and people started to recreate that track before it was actually released and there was a yeah a huge number of people who were asking for it so when you wrote the track what was the first element you started the track with what was the initial idea i remember that i started with apache which is going from beginning to the end of the track it sounds like this and yeah there was a very first element of the track and once this was written it directly set the mood for the whole track and i immediately had a vision to complete this vibe can you open that thing quickly sure i made it with a sample i did many years ago i used the pluckers of the track fluke file i pitch them down they sound like this [Music] and the region is sample maybe you know it sounds like this so i just pitched it down by six semitones had a kind of distorted effect chain and put it in the stereo panorama and now it sounds like this this is really setting the groove and the vipe and the energy of the track that setup what was the next element that was written to it i remember that i started with the theme sound with the main synth that was this sound let me play it most of the time when i have sounds like this i just sit on the piano and start to play and i had already like this in mind like a very strong and deep placard sound which is supporting um this arpeggio and which is leading into new chord progressions and this is a very um yeah that's why you also like played at the end of the four or eight bars always to give it the chance to introduce something new it's it's a good element to introduce something new so it starts this is one one two three four can we take a look at the midi quickly [Music] right i can put it maybe together so we can have does it make sense so the main idea of that melody is always the same it's kind of an introduction to two new bars and new chord progressions and what is special for me with this sound is is that all endings are always a bit different so there are huge variations in that very easy melody and that makes it for me very interesting it keeps it sounding interesting it's not like easy to anticipate what what the next one will do so long-term hearing pleasure is probably higher because of that right exactly for example this is always the beginning of the the the first part of that theme so and this is all played by the piano right [Music] and in the end they're coming even more changes and yeah something like this i really like this one as well maybe make a new check out of this melody okay oh there was a crazy automation here but yeah okay so um you you have your theme and then you let it loop or something for a longer period of time and then you sit down at the piano and like i'm just going to play like two three minutes of ideas and then and then you pick the best ones of those exactly yeah yeah this was uh all played and uh yeah then i choose the ones i like and put them all together and start to create the structure okay so one of my favorite plugins crystallizer difficult to describe this tool it's technically a delay in echo with some great features so you get very weird pitch sounds i really like this recycle button here you can create wonderful new audio parts [Music] i was working on some question answer elements um they sound like this i call it waves here they're always coming in between the main synth so it's really kind of an answer it's a nice game they're playing [Music] these are actually recorded of the records of the mainstream which i did with the crystallizer it's an effect to make wonderful echoes and weird delays so i was just recording those and placed them in the perfect position so this basically recorded a version of the diva sound but you put the crystallizer behind it and then messed around with different settings of the crystallizer first i put the crystallizer on this on the on the diva stem and i put it on 100 wet so it sounds like this and i was recording these dams as you can see here they're pretty long audio fights and then you're picking the the parts you want exactly yeah here as well and so [Music] eq'ing off the high frequencies you don't want maybe sidechaining it a little bit so it's a very easy way to create some new sounds within the sounds with the sounds you already have so basically you're using the crystallizer as a generator for creative movements of the sound here exactly i was supporting this also with some pads here with an omnisphere [Music] pretty easy midi notes but there are creating a unit with all these stamps here same with the diva a typical lfo pad with some very weird movements of the frequencies of delay [Music] the lfo rate is changing all the time and you're also automating the delays here yes the timing has changed so you have a nice pitch sound [Music] oh yeah sounds very interesting over here and all together it sounds like this [Music] and your base is also done with diva yes most of my electronic sounds are made with the diva my favorite bst to create sounds that's a pretty easy regard to baseline playing f sharp and c sharp pretty easy chord progression here as well but it works great with the mainstream i usually once i start with a new idea and i know that this idea is a good idea then i can't stop working and i can't stop to think about anything else so in the following days i'm just super focused on doing everything together while i'm composing melodies and while i'm arranging i also mix in between and so that's always the same way and then let's play a part where we also have the kick for example [Music] so you have this nice rich and deep bass uh bass drum or kick sound right here so how do you do that they always sound so smooth somehow i do all of my bass drums with the vst kick from nikki romero a very nice tool to shape your own bass drums you can use presets here and what's special about it is that you can yeah just paint your own bass drums you can adjust all the frequencies here you have six different parameters you can control the length of the bass drum you can add some click sounds some high heads and so uh you can create some very unique bass drums it sounds like this i also always like to add some top kicks which have a different timing so each kick sounds different and kind of organic very very very subtle yes and a small group kick maybe i can play the whole drum group [Music] very easy one with a lot of white noise inside i do often my heads and my snare sounds with a white noise tool of the operator they are very very simple but effective and technically that's it and it works great with the arpeggio [Music] and of course we forgot one element the chord progression which is coming in the breakdown the very first time it's also um like the bass line actually with uh some more intervals and proper chords using f sharp um major and c sharp major here with some small wavy movements here i'm gonna play it [Music] and it really connects everything the main synth is guiding into the chord progression the waves are the answers of the main synth and the arpeggio is keeping the or is gluing the whole harmony together and you like combining three different instruments here to generate the chord sound yes i have one on the center typical diva sound diva pad it's also the initial part and some very distorted ones which i painted a little bit on the stereo panorama oh nice how do you achieve this distortion effect on the sides i'm with using my favorite plugin or apartment distortion i can highly recommend that okay because it's just 50 euro and there are so many features inside different ways to distort your element and also to widen i'm not using it on this pad but this is a very cool tool to place your elements in the stereo panorama i did that for example with the arpeggio here let me show you the a and b result [Music] so this is without this is with a wonderful tool suddenly directly in the stereo panorama it has a very nice low-fi sound and it sounds completely different so i was using this on the chords as well [Music] to have a very powerful distorted sound [Applause] frustration never helps and just continue what you're doing and even if it's not that efficient at some point it will be i sometimes also remember the points where i was writing music for five hours and i was about to stop because i didn't feel something but in the following hour then the magic happened and i always remember this and so that keeps me going to i'm tired [Laughter] maybe let's have a look into the arrangement it's a very easy one i'm starting with a few patterns bringing slowly some new ones in and it's actually split in three main parts besides of the intro and outro this is the very first one this uh second one the breakdown and the build up and this is the third one where everything is coming together and technically the second one there's a complete new element coming inside the chord progression then the third one everything is coming together so i'm starting very melodic with the arpeggio i'm bringing in the theme and the bass drum and the bass line [Music] slowly some high heads [Music] some more elements snare the wave sounds to create a nice build up here [Music] till i um come into the breakdown where i really go to zero and i slowly build up everything um the theme has the powers the arpeggio is going down the baseline of course and the drums of course as well and slowly i bring in everything together so and the main part of the breakdown it sounds like this [Music] create another layer [Music] string tangent sounds [Music] [Applause] [Music] and again zero till i come back again to this [Music] and now you're kind of building it up again right you decided against the full-on drop and you're going again building it up again to have the full drop a bit later exactly so now we slowly bringing everything together it's technically like the beginning but the chord progression is coming in now [Music] so this is a moment where everything of a and b coming together so i create a c part technically and of course the final moment of the climax there's also some different changes inside the main sim is one octave to create more space and something else as well it's really blowing up [Music] the new ride as well [Music] everything opening up here right [Music] till i go to the outro [Music] the album was entirely written during the lockdown and also in a time where i was completely a part of my girlfriend because of the global travel ban so this album really helped me to get through that time and all these emotions mixing um happens at what stage of your production actually during the composition during i create and i write most of the things are already in place so um once the track is done the arrangement is done and everything what i want to include is there i always feel like i'm 80 of the i achieved 80 of the mix so in the end i'm not doing that much maybe some minor changes uh to to bring something more up and down to make some volume changes okay so with the production 80 90 of the mixing is already done and then you start playing it or how does that work usually i start playing it when i finished or when i was on this stage with this track i was in the middle of the lockdown and there were no shows by that time but shortly after that i think two weeks after that i played it for circle and what i've said and what happened in the balloon yes great and that was basically the first time you played it to an audience in front of their computers and on the internet the very first time yeah wow all right so thank you so much for taking a look into the project with us i wish you a lot of success with the new album and with this track and with your upcoming live sets and i hope to see you soon thank you very much i hope you enjoyed this little walkthrough and maybe you learned a little bit see you soon on stage [Music] you

Channel: Production Music Live

Views: 111,404

Keywords: Production Music Live, Ableton Tutorial, PML, Tutorial Ableton Live, How to use Ableton, How to make a track in Ableton, Francois PML, Music Production, Track Start To Finish, Ableton Live, Ableton Live Tutorial, Ben Böhmer In The Studio, Ben Böhmer Studio Tour, Ben Böhmer tutorial, ben böhmer ableton tutorial, ben böhmer beyond beliefs tutorial, ben böhmer begin again, Cercle Ben Böhmer, Cercle, Amazon Music, König Galerie, Ben Böhmer, Francois Rengere, ben böhmer cercle

Id: cs8CCqMwISc

Length: 19min 40sec (1180 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 10 2021