Composing your own music using BandLab's free web Studio (BandLab Tutorial)

[Music] hi this is mike from bandlab and in this video we're going to look at how you can compose your own music in bandlab using the included virtual instruments you can open this project yourself with the link in the video description if you find this guide useful please hit the subscribe button and the notification bell to be the first to know when new videos drop as well as offering many ready-made samples bandlab allows you to make your own musical compositions using virtual instruments these include realistic acoustic instrument sounds plus electronic instruments and synthesized sounds when you create a new project in bandlab you'll be presented with a new track screen here you can choose to add various types of tracks to create a virtual instrument track i click the instruments button this creates a new instrument track that sets the default instrument grand piano you can hear how this sounds by clicking on the virtual keyboard [Music] you can also play the sound using your computer's keyboard [Music] if you have a hardware midi controller hooked up you could use that too we've got a sound so let's make a chord progression first we need a midi clip to create one i right-click on the instrument track and select create region and then double-click this clip to bring up the midi editor here we can add notes by double-clicking i double click on c3 e3 and g3 this makes a c major chord i press the space bar or the play button to play the project back and hear how it sounds i do the same again to stop playback i return the playhead to the start of the project using return or enter or by clicking the go to beginning button currently our cord only lasts for a half a beat let's extend it out to a whole bar to do this i drag over the notes of the chord and drag the right hand edges out to the start of bar 2. let's hear how this sounds [Music] i could create another chord by adding new notes or i can duplicate what i've got already to duplicate midi notes or clips in bandlab select them then hold option on mac or alt on windows and drag them into a new position i can transpose this chord into a different key by dragging it up or down you can also use the up or down arrow keys or use the plus one or minus one buttons the plus 12 and minus 12 buttons transpose the selected midi up or down an entire octave i'm going to move the chord so that the bottom note is on e3 which makes the chord an e major then i drag the middle note down a semitone which makes the chord an e minor i duplicate this chord and move it down to d3 which makes it a d minor i then drag the middle note up two semitones making it a d sus4 i'd like this chord to last for two bars i could drag the notes ends out manually like before but there's a useful shortcut in the form of the legato button i select the chord and click the legato button this tells bandlab to extend the notes until the same notes play again or like in this case until the end of the clip to hear how these notes sound on repeat i activate the cycle button or press c [Music] i like how this sounds and i'd like to hear how it sounds with the drumbeat to add a drum track i click the add track button and again select instruments this new instrument is again set to the grand piano sound but i want a drum kit instead to change the sound i click the instrument drop down menu and set it to drums drum pads 808 kit with a drum kit rather than different notes each key on the keyboard plays a different drum sound let's use these drum sounds to make a drum beat i create a midi clip and move it to the start of the project so that it plays at the same time as the piano part i add claps on the third beat of the first two bars i then put kicks on the first and fourth beat of the first bar in between the first and second beat of the second bar i then add closed hi-hats on eighth notes [Music] i want this pattern to play for the whole four bar clip so i duplicate it out again holding option on mac or alt on windows [Music] this is cool but i'd like to hear how it sounds a bit faster i change the project tempo to 140 beats per minute by double clicking on it and typing in a new value [Music] i also set the project key to c major this doesn't affect how it sounds but it does tell collaborators what key the project is in and if we were to add any musical loops from band lamp sounds they'd automatically be transposed to the correct key let's make the hi-hat part a little more interesting i delete the hat on the fourth beat of the second bar you can delete notes with the delete button or by right clicking them and selecting delete i then set the view grid size to 1 32nd this allows me to add 30 second notes i use the zoom in button to take a closer look and fill in the gap with 32nd notes this gives us a cool little hat roll we can make it sound a touch more natural by selecting the second and fourth notes and turning their velocity down a little to 81. the velocity value usually controls the volume level of a note so this change emulates a drummer alternating between harder and softer hits i like this little flourish so i copy the notes and use them to replace the final hi-hat note at the end of the fourth bar [Music] i then return the view grid size to smart smart mode bases the grid size and how zoomed in you are next i'd like to add a melody line but before i do that i'm going to label my existing tracks to help me keep track of what's going on to rename a track i double-click its name and enter a new name i add a new instrument track and i set this one to keyboards synth leads g-funk sign i'm going to play this part in live using my computer keyboard i click the record button then play along [Music] when i'm done i press the space bar to stop as you can see my timing isn't perfect because the notes don't land exactly on the grid if i want to tighten up my playing i can select all notes by pressing command plus a on mac or control plus a on windows then clicking the quantize button this moves all the nodes to the nearest line on the grid i can then go ahead and manually edit any nodes that still aren't quite right with the snap to grid icon active any notes i move will automatically snap to the grid you can turn this off by clicking it or pressing g you'll notice that as we play the project back it's starting to clip the master indicated by the master meter turning red [Music] this is generally to be avoided so i'm going to turn each track's volume level down to -3 db at this point i'm going to name the project and save it so that i can come back to it [Music] later you can collaborate on your tracks with other bandlab users if you want to export your music to work in another piece of software there are a couple ways to do it right clicking on a midi clip and selecting export region gives me two options i can export as midi or export as wave exporting midi gives me a file that includes the note data that i can drag into an application to play back using a different instrument exporting a wave will give me the audio data which retains the sound of the audio but doesn't include the note data you can fork this project and make your own version of it using the link in the video description have fun you

Channel: BandLab

Views: 83,240

Keywords: BandLab, Make Music, Music Tutorial, Beat Making, BandLab Tutorial, BandLab App Tutorial, How To Use BandLab, How To Use BandLab Mix Editor, How to use bandlab, BandLab lessions, Bandlab Course, bandlab tutorial, bandlab lesson, How to make a beat in BandLab, BandLab beginner tutorial, Getting Started With BandLab, How to make music in BandLab, Make your first song in BandLab, Make a track in BandLab, composing in bandlab, compose your own music with bandlab

Id: DJy2Ba9t1ns

Length: 10min 11sec (611 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 01 2022