How Armin van Buuren Became the Trance Legend

last week I spoke to Arman vanur one of the world's greatest trans producers and picked his brain over the secrets that have led him to such Stellar success I've compiled six of those most potent secrets and created a track in the style of Armen from scratch I'm a little bit religious like that but I think there's a reason your higher power puts the melody in your head so it's it's God's given that is your higher power sending you that Melody that is very valuable the melody that's sent to you s to you send to you [Music] yes now I want to see if you can guess what these secrets are as I'm producing this track so as and when they come up let me know in the comments below and before we jump into the door I want to say a huge shout out to our accelerator student Fay who djed for Martin Garrick's last week in Amsterdam and had her first release on stamped records you can check out fa's music below this video and without further Ado let's hop into the door and get it done okay first thing we need to do is get a kick in there now I'm going to go to my favorites kicks it really helps to have favorites folders guys so you can work quickly I'm going to load in what I call the Armen kick and we're just going to hit kick on every beat now first we need to actually talk about arman's Vibe so there's not much to be said that you don't already know about Arman vur and he is one of the world's leading trance producers has been for 30 years but he's got a combination and a contrast between really kind of hard aggressive drops but lovely melodic breaks as well and it's that contrast that stops IT getting too cheesy so that's what we're going to attempt to do today so we've got our kick in there boom boom boom want you in my room lovely and let's build a lowend Groove with another kind of filtered out kick it doesn't really matter which one we're going to go for cuz we're going to make it quite low in the mix anyway so let's just program in a Groove like so now we want these kicks to end before the other kick plays and this is going to stop those kicks fighting with each other so if we go to our second kick we want to make this have a basically no release so it stops as soon as that other kick plays you could do this with a choke but that's just going to keep it nice and tight in the low ends so that's our low end Groove let's just copy that lovely jly and next thing we have on our magic list magic list magic list is the Arman sample so this is what I sampled from Arman talking at the ad masterclass last week let's just bring it in and we can see him there and there's a particular part of what he said which I really liked so I'm just going to find that it is a little quote about Melodies I can actually play you if you guys want all right let's fast forward uh I'm a little bit religious like that yeah this bit this is cool it's about Melodies and that they come from I'm a little bit religious like that higher power puts some melody in your head it's God's given cuz sometimes I I love that so we're just going to fast forward this bit whilst I pick the best parts of the sample the melody that's sent to you okay cool so now let's put these all together we're going to use these in a little while we need to process them and make them sound really good but we're just going to leave them there for the time being okay on to the next thing on our magic list and that is creating a future Rave riff for our drop now Arman focuses on his drops first because that's the most important part of the track so we want this to sound really good without any effects on it let's just call this future riff and we're going to color this cyan the natural color of syns and we are just going to use I think we're going to layer a couple of things for this but let's try and use wave table first so I'm going to try and keep this enabled in as much as possible but we will be using serum as well cuz I know a lot of guy you guys have got it so let's firstly program in this beat now I'm going to choose a scale I'm going to choose a minor natural it's the simplest scale in which to write because you're only using the white notes so even if you don't have the scale feature in your door which you do you just need to concentrate on hitting the white notes and then you'll never really hit a wrong note so let's just like draw in a riff that's going to interplay with those kicks and that secondary kick oh we need to name this bad boy what am I thinking arm and vuran what are we going to call this this is AD we are going to call this armed and dangerous that is a badass name I mean he must have used that for a track surely it's not [Music] really on Vibe with the vocal but hey we might rename it later we won't so nice and [Music] simple and we are now going to make this sound completely not rubbish so what we're going to do is choose a sore wave so we can get that future base sound that square that's better we're going to set this a mono get the attack right down and then tweak down the [Music] Decay let's just move this a little bit out the way hopefully it's not on the way of the screen okay next thing we want to do is layer this up so I'm going to just group this and I'm going to duplicate this like so and let's make this a noise oscillator in fact I'm going to get rid of the wave table for this I'm going to load in a different synth I'm going to load in the operator because then it's easy to get a nice white noise oscillator so let's choose White Noise take the sustain down [Music] cool so now we can just feed that [Music] in like so and I want to get one other oh I could actually add let's see if that works better an octave below yeah I like that octave below last thing I'm going to do is add one more wave table and I'm going to spread this out and make it wide using Unison if this this is a bit complicated don't worry about it too much just feel free to rewind and rewatch this bit as much as you need so let's just listen to this and we'll do a bit more rooting on this make it a bit more interesting let's choose a more interesting shape and this is going to give it some metallic kind of twang now I'm going to go over to the Matrix and then I'm just going to assign this [Music] fold actually that warp I'm going to assign that warp to a different envelope and is going to play through every time that note hits is giving that kind of twang sound and let's add some Unison to that to make it nice and wide detune it a bit add some more voices all [Music] together okay now this still sounds really kind of cheap so what we're going to do is use some careful rooting again something else that Armen is a master of and lots of layering so we've already looked at the layers next thing we want to do is create a Reverb for this so I'm going to use a room Reverb sorry I'm going to use an auxiliary Channel Reverb I'm going to call this future Reverb and we're going to create some extra groove by adding some side chain compression to this so first thing we need to do is add the Reverb this is a bit Professor level this stuff now but that's okay you can handle it I'm sure so we got our Reverb but it kind of blocks things out and kind of covers up that synth so what we're going to do is we are going to take a normal compressor just hit this button here and take the side chain input from that future synth and it's going to now duck it whilst the reverb's playing or duck it whilst the dry synth's playing and when when the dry synth stops it allows the Reverb to kind of breathe back [Music] through [Music] so this is off and this is on cool and last thing we're going to do is our one more side chain compressor and I'm going to take this from the side chain trigger input which is up here and all this is is a really short sharp tick sample that you can't hear because I've got it set as sends only so you never actually hear it but what it does it can duck in time with the kick and then we can allow that to bounce that even further so let's do it I'm going to have to speed this up aren't I and what we're going to do is actually add let's just call this side chain pump and we're going to copy and paste this onto our future riff as well so we got all sorts of side chain compression there so already we can hear something that's a lot more interesting rhythmically boom okay on to the next thing we need the chord progression this is where the magic happens so this is an A Minor so what we can do let's process these vocals a bit first and see if they kind of inspire us I'm a little bit religious like that but I think there's a reason your higher power puts a melody in your head it's God's given you have a melody in your head melody in your head that is your higher power sending you that Melody that is very valuable you know that's the melody that's sent to you that's cool like that's that's going to sound epic for sure so what we're going to do to Epic ify this yes that is a technical term we're going to put vocal in fact let's just call this Arman and we're going to hit the color natural color of the human throat which is actually actually this purple color and now we need to add a gate to that so I'm going to add a normal Noise Gate and that's just to take some of the background Buzz out of this recording so it was just done on one of our students phones bogo's phone so let's look so when it dropped beneath a certain threshold the volume of the signal the gate just completely closes it off and that's a great way to get rid of some background Rumble but now let's EQ this bad boy not calling Arman a bad boy I'm just using the term bad boy a little bit religious like that but I think there's a reason you're now we're going to take out some of these kind of resonant frequencies where there's a lot of buildup a little bit religious like that so let's go to Five I'm a little bit religious like that but I think there's a reason your higher power puts a melody in your head it's a little bit religious like that but I think there's a reason your higher power puts some melody in your head it's a little bit religious like that but I think there's higher power puts some Melody next thing we're going to do is just put another EQ on and just I'm a little bit religious like in fact before we boost it we're going to use a compressor so let's just compress it now I like to use arox by waves which is actually it was nice to see Arman use that as well cuz I use that but I want to keep it as much plugins for this tutorial as possible so let's do it Reon your I'm just going to compress it religious like that but I think there's a reason your higher power puts a melody in your head it's a little bit religious like that right so this kind of sounds cool but now what we're going to do is feed it out to some Hall Reverb and that's just going to make it sound bigger and more mystical a little bit religious like that but I think there's a reason your higher power puts a melody in your head like just think of that before the Epic breakdown that's exactly what we're going to do now okay cool then we'll put another delay on this as well to make it more interesting but straight on to those Melodies so I'm going to work out the chords first let's just call This chords then we're going to work out Melody afterwards as well because that really is what this song's about it's all about the melody so let's go and loop this bit and I'm just going to get I think I am going to use a serum for this because there's a pre made patch which I made before which I want to use in a minute I'll show it to you in a sec but first let's just use a S Wave to work out the the chords and I might add some Unison to make it a bit thicker okay that's making zero sound taxi oh that's a bit too D- tuned cheeky chappy okay so what we're going to do you could use your keyboard if you can play the keyboard and actually hit the arm button or you could use the piano roll editor so if we hit scale mode again hit a minor it just makes it very very easy so let's start on the root note and we'll work out the base notes first cuz that's the easiest way to do it that sounds pretty epic [Music] okay and then maybe sustain that last chord there and now we can copy these up an octave so we can just drag them up that sounds good well well done good job son and now we can build out the chords by just skipping a note each time so let's try that and that's your a minor chord because we're just using the scale notes from with an A Minor but what I want to do is actually I'm going to get rid of these ones here and I'm just going to use this this root chord and we're going to tweak it a little bit cuz I really want this like epic feeling and I'm actually going to use some notes from outside the scale which would be a borrowed chord maybe a bit in depth for this tutorial but you can check out the video I'm linking to now if you want to find out about borrowed cords oh you got me you got me heart [Music] melter oh there is another note I want this to hit oh now it sounds like I'm in [Music] church so this is a borrowed chord it's from outside the [Music] key I think we can hold that though and then move it for the second part of that chord and this one too so this would be a suspended chord so we're going from the fifth to the fourth but I'm throwing in this extra note here [Music] we can do the same here I don't know if the editor wants to skip past this neral I'm leaving it in your court man but I'm feeling this no we'll leave that there okay that's pretty much the chords we're going to tweak this a little bit later but that is amazing so we're going to go from something like this come on me pip up you know that's the melody that's send to you send to you send to you send to [Music] you [Music] oh and then we can add that same effect there but because it's in the base it's even more oh Epic yes yes yes okay let's build in a respace now I may as well do this in serum as well you know so we're going to go respace we're going to layer up that future rff as well because a style of music like armen's layering is important to get that huge sound you know if you producing minimal Tech or something like that you're going to use less layering so it depends on the genre you're producing now let's get this reace in what am I doing see I got over fields I got too many fields up in my my body so let's just call this respace I do know what it's called a respace but let's not go into it okay now let's add the Unison and we are basically using exactly the same patch as the previous one except we're going to whack a filter on there and just play it lower down I'll just copy the bass notes to make it easier from the chords uh and then let's paste them in the reace and we might drop this down on octave as [Music] well I might switch that note beforehand to make it even more maybe but let's make this respace even bigger now nice so now we're going to add that second oscillated octave down just so we can hear the upper harmonics of it cuz that's too much so we just want to kind of feed in a little bit and listen how it richens this sound [Music] up that's pure dread pure dread whatever that bloke from Predator 2 said yes okay so now we've got this feeling we're going to add some Reverb to these chords as well might pick them up an octave [Music] [Music] action oh yes okay that is just epic now what I want to do is create the trans riff magic list magic list tell me what to do you tell me to make a trans riff that's what I'm going to do so this is going to be a bit inspired by these cords kind of sound a bit like OT quartet but you know that ain't a bad thing this is going to take us back back to the future that is right rip Michael right now let's bring in another serum for this I'm going to use the pre-made patch that I spoke about earlier this is actually based on fer coron's cart blanch one of my favorite tracks of all time met fery in Bangkok a few years ago top top bloke another top trans producer so now we've got this riff I'm going to just program it in and this is going to be like an arpeggio riff so I'm just going to delete all this that's pretty much what we're going to do I'm going to set it to 16th already there yes instant yes and what I'm going to do is just copy the three notes and that's going to create a polymeter that gives a syncopated Rhythm and groove so if I just play this with a metronome you're going to hear what I mean just keeps on rolling okay but I want to repeat it there so I'm kind of resetting that polymeter there and I'm going to have to do this with the cords really to hear what I'm doing and with the base oh je let's have a sip of tea [Music] yeah and then we're going up [Music] m let's turn off the cords and just go with the bass [Music] notes that's the one that's the very ticket son that is the very ticket let's take that filter down where are you onvelope [Music] how you talking okay I'm going to have to stop this now like it's just self Indulgence now okay on to the next thing we have got female vocals but I wanted to put females vocals on this it would be epic let's just hear what that might sound like but I'm going to stick to the initial theme because I wanted to use armen's voice on this so if we search for yeah we search for female vocals and hit the right key so that's a Min I'm just using splice for this if you want to help support the channel you can use my affiliate splice link below but now let's listen to this with some female vocals uh you would have heard them before so sorry you've heard these so many times but they here we go so we're just going to add some to your arms again let's just maybe I do do need to use these open up you want to be reminded of the pain and love yes today okay but we're not going to do that as beautiful as that is cuz we're going to stick to the initial plan let's save this bad boy let me know if you're enjoying this guys in the comments below give me you hell yeah or an Armen brother if you're feeling holy okay next thing we want to do is look at the drop because as I mentioned earlier if you get the drop banging then all the effects and stuff are just like extra ear candy again from the words of the master himself Armen but it's nice to have these things corroborated of course by one of the world's biggest producers so let's work on this drop first we need a proper base Sun so we're going to create another one and we're going to make a kind of Blade public domain reverse base kind of sound so let's do that again we'll just use serum I know I started off saying it would just be plugins but you know again as Armen says there's no one way of working you just go with where the inspiration takes you I personally love starting working from vocals it gives you a Vibe straight away so now let's program this in first and then we'll actually start making it sound good we do not want a gash Basse sound do we no we do not reverse bass okay again simple on the a just take it down I'll leave a little gap before the next Bas note starts actually and this needs to not fight with the kick of course so we'll we'll figure that out now instead of using the envelope I'm actually going to use the LFO for this just cuz it's a slightly bigger display gives me a little bit more control so if I hit trigger I can just use that as I would an envelope now so I'm going to choose analog basic mode maybe that's the sound we're going to go for cuz it's kind of got that grittiness already but what we want to do is then turn on a filter low pass filter and just apply this LFO to the cut off and now we we've got that kind of sound but let's just shape it as we want so we're already getting that reverse bass type sound I'm going to go and choose mirror as War mode and just tweak this a bit and that gives it a nice feel as [Music] well I'm going to put a subbase on there and we want to assign that LFO to the level of that [Music] subbase I think I might leave it on the sine wave actually that sounds quite good could add another oscillator might not be [Music] needed might be just getting too busy [Music] now let's listen to it with our kick and of course we're going to put a side chain compressor on here as well so I'm just going to copy the same one with all the same settings from the future riff let's whack it on there whacka dooodle do and then just listen to the kick and the bass and just get this kind of sitting nicely together yeah I don't think we need all of that extra stuff let's turn this one off we could add some Unis to this I like that but because this is stereo and if you saw saw my subbase video recently this Unison in the low end is going to cause phase cancellation issues so what I'm going to do is go into this wave table editor and I'm just going to remove the fundamental frequency which is the lowest Octave of this waveform because we just want that stereo effect kind of higher up in the sound okay that sounds pretty cool already nice okay next thing we want to do is add some incidental syns so we want to really get this groove going so let's just take this down to there the future riff is going to be super important in a second it's all going to tie everything together especially when we get to the arrangement so stick around for that but first let's really get this groove going then we're going to work on arman's vocals as well so to make this a bit more interesting we need to get some random synths or incidental synth this is probably the best way of putting it so let's call one beep and let's call one pulse we'll do pulse first and this is going to be as much rhythmic as anything else this is just going to add extra texture to the whole drop so let's call it pulse and then we'll add some drums as well ah got so much to show you still weot to add the drums let's get that pulse colored the natural color of syns which is cyan and again let's just put a serum on there for every's sake and let's program in a 16th that's too loud why your necking let's program one on every 16th super simple and then we're just going to make it a short pluck and it's going to sound like this so it sounds a bit rubbish at the moment but that's okay might take it down because we just want to add some interest rhythmic interest with a pitch to it as well and let's make this a little bit more interesting we're going to try adding some FM some frequency modulation from B assign that to the envelope so it's giving it a slightly laser lasers in the house and now we can just whack one of those side chain pumps on there as well then we've got this kind of effect let's put uh EQ on there as [Music] well like that's all we need from this you know it can be just a really subtle effect in the background just to keep the let's put another oscillator on there maybe try it one below that's cool I like that square wave just adding a little bit more interest okay now we want to kind of get the groove going and that's what this beep synth is for before we start working on that future base the future Rave sound sorry so again we're going to use serum for this but um should we use serum no let's go switch back to wave table for this just for a bit of Interest so [Music] again we're just hitting the root note that's all we need to do we don't need to make things super complicated it's just about having a Groove that works with the rest of the [Music] elements put the filter down and let's assign envelope 2 to the filter cut off [Music] and then make it a bit more of a sound let's put it down an [Music] octave add some Unison it's a bit brassy now [Music] turn it down and again I'm going to feed this out to a nice big Reverb so let's color that keep it organized again armen's a huge proponent proponer prop a big he likes to organize things okay right so naming projects naming the tracks color coding everything really important that's something I love to do as well just helps to work quickly which is what you need to do if you want to kind of get the vibe from your head and your heart into the door as soon as possible you want as little friction as possible to that so what I'm going to do is I'm actually just going to copy the same Reverb and you might ask why am I not just sending it out to the same Reverb the reason is this middle side chain compressor I want this to be triggered by the beep that we've just created so it's not being triggered by the wrong track that's the only difference now let's feed some of this brassy beep out there there we go let's make it slightly shorter [Music] Decay that's [Music] quiet and that's because it's actually a longer sound than I want so I'm going to turn the amp down [Music] and now the reverb's got time to breathe through and it's still bouncing from the okay now when everything that we've done together so far let's bring in that future riff as [Music] well so it's all into playe [Music] so we've got all of these elements into playing together which is a really important part of this track okay next thing we want to do is add a few drums to really get this groove going and then we're going to get onto the break and the arrangement which is going to going to be a lot of fun so drums we want that nice kind of fresh ride symbol so let's go and find a ride symbol first and this is to help give that really big room [Music] feel think that sound That's a classic let's use that and then we'll get an open hat in there as well so let's go and find that open hat now it really depends on listening to it in situ so we might change this open hat in a minute but first first let's work on the ride symbol we're definitely going to want some EQ on that and then we're just going to whack it in on every eighth so let's stop myy about now we'll speed it up so on every kick so that's every fourth not every eighth what are you talking about okay so now it's like this let's filter out some of these frequencies that we don't [Music] want so it's nice and [Music] fresh again we're going to take the release right [Music] down and what we're going to do is add one of these ozone imager twos they're completely free and I'm going to use this to spread out the stereo width on this symbol sound this ride symbol so let's listen to the ride symbol and watch what happens so now we've spread it nice and wide just more air [Music] candy right now we really want to make this future Rift knock so what I'm going to do is actually layer this and I'm going to do a bit of a sample hunt or a patch hunt rather because sometimes just stumbling across a pre-made patch that's taken someone hours to make is the right course of action you don't need to create every sound from scratch just think of yourself as a chef more than the person that makes the eggs and you know makes the milk no you get those components you bring them together so let's just hunt for something that's quite Punchy [Music] plucked that's kind of cool nice and aggressive maybe take it down an octave see what that sounds [Music] like I like [Music] that that's off that's with it now with everything else come [Music] on [Music] okay okay so you can see how this kind of music does take a lot of time it takes a lot of attention and layering as well and just careful choices so what I'm going to do is put this side chain pump on the entire future Rave group now and I'm just going to take out the low end of this new layer that we found like [Music] so you can hear it already sounds big without any of the effects and stuff like that the drop should sound heavy just with the kick and the Basse and the melody so now let's add these open hats and just listen to the effect that all these side chain compressors are having on this track it's making it sound huge and it's all kind of an [Music] illusion that's kind of cool that's already working so now I want to introduce this cord before the main track kicks in just a hint as to what's coming harmonically so let's do some arrangement and we've also got the ninja synth coming the Ninja's coming to town guys and he ain't taking no prisoners because he's a badass ninja so let's just get this Arrangement on the go we are just going to copy and paste that now a common tactic to use especially if you are making an extended version of a track is to just roll off the low end of your kicks for the first eight or 16 bars it's a nice way to introduce the track and it makes it easy for DJs to mix and we're also going to just introduce harmonically some of these synths before the main base comes in and that just hints to people what the key of the track is so let's put an EQ over both kicks and just take out the low end let's do that so we're just starting like [Music] this and this beep can filter in as well like that and then here comes the [Music] drop nice obviously all of that stuff wouldn't come in there we'd have to not play our cards too soon we need to be thinking about how people are going to be dancing on the dance floor so we have a [Music] riser like that and then let's introduce the future [Music] riff and we're going to build up to this we could extend out the Reverb tail here like this getting ready for that drop and here we go yes again it's going to take time to build into this so we'll do a little bit more arrangement we don't want everything coming in too soon we're not going to play our a car too soon so we're going to add four of these those drums aren't going to come in all at once so we'll take these bits out and then we'll introduce them there so that's our first [Music] drop yeah it needs the base [Music] there going to add one more extra layer now which is just going to help build into the main brake I think I'm going to duplicate the future Rift just for brevity and then we can tweak it let's call this Riser riff yeah Riser riff I'm just going to choose a different sound again we're going to just listen through some different patches yeah that's pretty cool like that sounds like it's got a bit too much Reverb And Delay so I'm just going to turn those off within serum that sounds better cuz then we've got more control what I'm going to do is add a little bit of a pitch envelope on this to make it a little bit more like laser laser Licious and we're going to increase the pitch range to 24 and what we're going to do is add a pitchbend riser towards the end of the bar to lead into that main brake I know I'm showing you a lot in this video guys and this is quite Advanced so feel free if you don't understand anything just rewind watch that bit of a video again make some notes okay so you can hear that now coming in so here's that sound solo so you can hear it just kind of rising over time I'll just maybe make it only go up 12 semitones though so we're also going to fade this in using a utility plugin and we're not going to automate the volume faders directly because if we try and change the mix later then it's really difficult to do that was another tip Arman corroborated that I already teach which is really nice to hear we're going to work on this beep as well layer it up a bit so let's duplicate the first wave table and just tweak this a bit so I'm just going to layer this second synth up in the beep with just a little stabby sound should just make it a little bit more aggressive so this is what I was going to show you if we get a delay on here and we can automate this and just create really interesting Movement we can take this down and add pingpong and then that's going to create this har effect so we can automate this feedback we can automate the dry wet and we can automate the timing as well if we want that's just going to add interest and movement throughout the whole song and we can do it as much as we like we can do this we can add that add a little bit there now let's move on Boom to the arrangement now we've already done a little bit of this but what I want to do is take this cord and introduce it at the beginning of the track as as we talked about to introduce the harmonic content early and I'm just going to filter this in using the filter within serum just a low pass filter and open it up slightly over time and what that's going to do is just introduce the key of the track before we start okay so let's do it guys I'm going to kind of arrange as I go okay let's do [Music] it oh no that's wrong too hard too soon don't make jokes guys this is a Family Channel come on have a word that's [Music] better and now let's bring this cut off up just open it up just builds the tension and now we've got the first beat yes okay right we can add some more percussion um do you want that let me know what's that you say yes well I would like more percussion okay h we can do that yes it that first break introducing our future Rift we're going to take up the low end though we don't want this fighting with the base when the drop comes in and about well now well that's probably too much too soon I'll take those cords out I love that ping pong that we've got on the bleep sink yes let's do it now let's bring those cords back in we're going to build these up to the brake so we're opening the filter up I've got that little orange lock turned off so it's actually copying the automation all right here we go and now we're going for armen's vocals oh taxi higher power put Mel head it's God's given if you have a melody in your head that is your higher power sending Melody very valuable you know that's the melody that's sent to you send to you send to you send to you yes come on get in that is very valuable let's just I know what we need to do we need to like repeat this just going to go in and copy and paste it just like do a manual delay at first we might need to paste it just before so we can hit the send to you on the thing I'm gonna actually stretch it slightly as well I need to warp your voice voice sorry Armen sorry won't be wared much and now we just want to make this a bit more rhythmic and tweak the warp send to you send to you send to you and then we can just repeat this and make some crazy effects on it so let's see how that sounds all together let's go in there let's sustain that cord another the transi is going to come in but we want to start it filtered right down low and introduce it here we go send to you yes here we go [Music] up oh my days [Music] oh it just came into me I apologize you heard me singing let's move past this let's put it into ninja form it just stealthed into me I wasn't even expecting it it just came into me like a ninja in the night stealthy I'm getting the feels here I'm basically going to put in what I sang as embarrassing as it may be the delay is not quite working so I'll have to tweak that but it's not surprising cuz I just kind of knocked it out so what we're going to do is actually use a delay unit we'll delete all of those um apart from the first one and then we can use an auxiliary Channel armen's being upgraded to auxiliary it's an upgrade well done congratulations now your voice is going to sound amazing so we're going to call it Arendell color it a light purple the auxiliary color of the throat and then we're going to send out this vocal at that point and just send the whole thing out to the delay which we need to set to 100% wet we'll put the echo on there remember we need to make it 100% wet otherwise we're going to be doubling up the dryer signal then we're going to choose note and I think one to two and pingpong and let's have a listen to you to you yeah sounding good but we want that first set as well and I think I actually just missed it so let's zoom in and just pull over that automation a bit and then that's where we want to hit oh absolute fails all over the place and I think I actually want to have it so there's no Gap just before the sent to you just so it flows a bit smoother so let's tweak these vocals just pull them across a bit yeah let's just tweak them around that is very valuable you know that's the melody that's sent to that's the one nice something like that yeah let's bring over that to make it a bit smoother as well bit more natural all right calm down sh calm down I know it's exciting but we just need to you know stop echoing control yourself a little bit religious like that I think there's a reason put melody in your head let's take a little bit of the low end out there in your a tiny extra Echo I think just to add some slap delayable it is valuable very valuable this is just self-indulgent now okay I'm going to introduce this a bit smoother I just want to not blast everything like play all the cards too soon earlier oops I forgot to reactivate Echo but we're going to just focus on the syn for the time being and then open it up classic trance Style [Music] this might be too cheesy but hey I'm just going with I'm listening to the higher self I'm listening to the higher power he's telling me put the ninja riff put the ninja synth into that and I'm saying yeah I will do that actually so what we're going to do is use a bit of Pento and just pretty much use a sourn so let's go from a up to a too loud I really hope that anyone invested this long into the video doesn't mind my singing so let's make it sound amazing with some Echo actually now we've got this kind of cool and effect type sound call and response I mean this kind of reminds me of I can't remember if it was Commodore 64 Omega but Bionic Commando I love that okay but to get that real computer gamey sound I'm going to add another oscillator and we're going to go for a square wave cuz that's going to give it that nice kind of8 bit computer game Vibes let's do it Square wave please thank you octave up yeah there we go see might be a bit too cheesy but as I said the ninja hath spoken so you know it's happening so I'm just going to uh fast forward this bit I think but it helps to sing even if you can't really sing because you can then just use it to trace it in and no one has to hear you sing you don't have to I don't know make it into a YouTube video that millions of people watch that would be embarrassing you know whatever works for you so now let's put a distortion on there I really want this to scream as a synth I want it to kind of sound like Testo a Daio for Strings even though I kind of preferred the fery Corston original of that yeah I want that really kind of screaming synth so I'm going to use ableton's amp I think this is a great tool it just makes things really [Music] whale let's just add a little bit oh [Music] Sizzle I'm just going to quickly finish off this riff let's fast forward this bit and then we'll finish off back down to that accidental and that is pretty much that riff okay so here we go let's work on this Arrangement as we go I'm just going to hit play and we're going to work on the buildup and then how we move into the drop so let's do it so we start from here a little bit religious like that but I think there's a reason your higher power put some melody in your head it's God's given if you have a melody in your head that is your higher power sending that Melody that is very you know that's the melody that's send to you to you to send to you let's copy the future riff we're going to have it hit there that's going to how we be how we lead into the break I mean the drop turn the ninja down a little bit [Music] pause that's how we're going to do it and then we need to now build up to these next [Music] drums I'm actually going to do a little bit more work on this because there's lots of sounds lots of layers I want to get it sounding good before I give it to you to download so this is the final [Music] result I'm a little bit religious like that but I think there's a reason your higher power puts the melody in your head so it's it's God's given that is your higher power sending you that Melody that is very valuable the melody that's sending to you s to you you you that is very valuable the Mel same to you to [Music] you [Music] and now for the [Music] [Music] bills [Music] so there you have it guys I really hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed I'm in sharing his secrets with me last week and did you guess what they were well now let's go through them so first is that sometimes Melodies just come to you and this is a gift from your higher self so even if you're in bed at night or you just wake up with a melody in your head record it into your phone because that's the gold that could lead to a hit track the second is to keep things organized Arman showed me his file system and every single project is named in a specific way so he can revert to an earlier mix if it sounded better than the one he's working on and this organization filters into the projects themselves so naming tracks coloring grouping all of this makes working quicker and more enjoyable third is layering this is a huge part of this style of music now the track that Arman broke apart last week in Amsterdam had about 90 odd tracks in it but sometimes they might have as many as 120 now if all of these tracks were to be playing different Melodies and different chords it would just be a cluttered mess but by using careful layering to play the same Melody with three four or five layers you can create a really rich huge TR sound and that brings me on nicely to armen's tip number four which is focus on the drop if you're having to use effects and different drums on your drop to make it sound good and you can't get it hitting hard with just the kick bass and Melody then it's probably worth focusing on those three things before moving forwards fifth is that Armen doesn't limit himself to starting a new track in the same way every time he also said whatever works for you is what works for you so sometimes he might start with the kick and the drums other times a Melody might just come to him or a cord progression is going to be what starts the track there's no one size fits all so go with your inspiration and whatever moves you first and that takes me on to tip number six if it sounds good it is good if you find the sound that you're looking for through scrolling through sample Banks or presets or whether you make it your own from scratch it doesn't matter the only thing that really matters is the end result and how it makes you and ultimately other people feel now there are a couple of bonus tips that Arman mentioned that I'd like to share with you cuz I thought they were so important so let's go into them right now the first is sometimes we suffer from writers block Armen shared that he had suffered from writers block for almost a year but the key is to just keep pushing on and producing anyway you will come out of the other side and that really is the difference between people who are dabblers and people who are actually professional producers everyone gets writers block everyone has self-doubt the only difference is that professionals continue to do it regardless of how they feel and if you don't give up Ever every track you finish is a step towards a Grammy you might think that track has taken you 2 hours that's an absolute hit but it's actually the 100 or 200 tracks you've written beforehand that have all accumulated in finishing this one really good product that just hits the right nerve Arman also shared that about 80% of the tracks he's made have never achieved anything it's just he's had a few hits that have come from producing all this music over 30 years now of course that's easier said than done some sometimes so if you want accountability and coaching to get your music to a professional level as quickly as possible and help you push through these barriers check out the accelerator program below this video many of our students are now released on some of the world's biggest labels including armen's Armada over and above that look after your mental health look after your physical health back up your music regularly because if you lose it as I have done before and as Armen has done before it's an intensely painful experience and how much would you pay to have that music back probably a lot more than the cost of a hard drive that you can use time machine on as mentioned Armen vuran has been producing for over 30 years so how can a producer like Peggy goo gets so popular within such a short space of time well I've uncovered five of her secrets and I've put them in this video here so if you feel like you don't have 30 years to spend to get to the level that you want check this out because there are some real juicy insights for you thank you so much for watching and I'll catch you over at that next video

Channel: EDM Tips

Views: 44,101

Keywords: how to sound like armin van buuren, how to armin van buuren, how to armin van buuren effect, how to make music like armin van buuren, armin van buuren ableton live, armin van buuren, trance music, trance music tutorial, armin van buuren tutorial, armin van buuren build tutorial, armin van buuren bass tutorial, armin van buuren drop tutorial, arminb van buuren remix, Armin van Buuren vocal tutorial, how to make trance like armin van buuren, edm tips

Id: l6qS0R0tR7A

Length: 58min 51sec (3531 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 28 2023