How to MEDUZA - FREE Ableton Project

in this video we are going to be creating some deep melodic techno in the style of Medusa and Eli and fur I'm going to do this completely from scratch so it's not perfect but it is cool and you can download this project for all the samples and presets completely free below this video huge shout out to my accelerator students who have achieved some insane things this year such as supporting Martin Garrick touring the world as a DJ and releasing on some of the world's biggest dance music labels but without further Ado let's hop into the door and get it done okay let's do it no cuts no edits a one tape videoo first we're going to set to 125 BPM a nice melodic driving Tempo then we're going to choose a kick a nice big fat Kick Drum boom and then program it in on every beat four beats boom boom boom one you in my room lovely jly house music here we go next thing we want to do is set up a room Reverb I know a bit unusual but what we've got is an auxiliary channel here and I've just put a normal Reverb on it put a short Decay time under half a second and 100% wet because we don't want that being doubled up with the dry signal when we feed stuff to it little bit of a volume boost and I've taken out the low end and we're going to feed some of that kick to to it I know I hear what you're saying will Reverb on the kick yes Reverb on the kick just to give it that kind of roomy presence that we want for this genre okay next thing we want to do is work out our first initial Baseline and we're going to be layering several bases in this track so first we are going to do a Plucky base and as I said this track is based on Pegasus but I'm not going to get it exactly right because I'm not referencing it but we're going to do our best and really it's just so that you can apply similar techniques to your music so Plucky base and we need to name this bad boy don't we okay Pegasus what are we going to call it okay I don't know enough about Greek mythology so what Pegasus you're a horse and yet you've got Wings my mind is blown so what I'm going to call this is pig pig tail no Pig flippers that would be a mythical beast and a half wouldn't it Pig flippers it's done it can't be undone let's get that base on there so I'm going to use serum for this I'll use serum for all the syns in this actually and first thing we want to do is make it short and Plucky so I'll take the sustain down take the Decay down hit mono cuz it's going to be a short sharp Basse note we don't want it kind of bleeding into the other note and first let's draw in the note with take it down and volume a bit so it's not too loud boom let's do it and you'll notice I'm working in 16 that's where all the magic Lies when it comes to groove you don't need to go any higher resolution than that and then we'll double that up so this is our riff nice already groovy so let's make that sound actually not rubbish now what we need to do is just tweak it a little a little bit add some release maybe I'll take it down an octave bit Bas here and then I'm going to throw one of these hyper Dimensions just to widen it out like so let's take off that Unison you could just use the room Reverb for this as well but I wanted to show you a different way to it today okay cool next thing we want to do is put a delay on there to get it sounding nice and spacious spacious like all bases should be Bish let have a listen we're going to put it to knots and Knots notes and 16th it's been a long day guys and let's just feed in a little bit let's put it on ping pong I think that's cool next thing we want to do is get that classic melodic techno rolling bass so I'm just going to add another serum and we're going to call this one rolling base and it's going to end up being made in much of the same way as that initial serum so in fact we can just copy that to start with let's copy that instance over there and we're going to change a couple of things first thing is we're going to take off this hyper Dimension we don't want that yet and we're going to tighten it up by taking that release down now let's just program in every on every note like this and we want this to have a d d kind of effect I've got another cool tip to show you with this actually that's going to freaking blow your mind so let's turn it down a bit turn off that Plucky base for now let's make it shorter like so that's a bit more like it now we're going to put on a filter because we just want this to be basy we could add that envelope to the filter cut off now what we want to do is apply this velocity control to our filter cut off as well and what this is going to allow us to do is add a couple of variations in our rolling base in terms of velocity so we're going to select them all and just bring down the velocity and then we can just put a couple of them up and the filter is going to open up when they hit just to create some extra Groove in our track check this out now nice okay now let's really fatten this up by adding some Unison and some dtune it's going to really thicken this base up now the trouble is we could add into some phasing issues in the low end here so this is a very important Next Step what we're going to do I'll just delete this channel that we already made I'm going to duplicate this and I'm going to call this subbase and what we're going to do is just keep the upper frequencies of this base because we can add some saturation to it and really make it sound a bit fatter so let's try that yeah it sounds like the music from Commando oh now that's a film so let's take out the low end like so and then all of that low end is going to be taken up by this subbase and it's going to give us extra control and balance over our low end so let's take all the Unison down so it's just mono I might just change it to a normal sine wave actually that should be enough keep it nice and [Music] clean okay now let's take out the high end because we've got that horrible clicking sound so we just put an EQ after that and take out the high end so it's just that low-end power I might add another oscillator actually just so it's hitting a few more harmonics [Music] so this to this and now when we mix that with our mid base we've still got that lovely thick low end but we've also got that Clarity by having the mono subbase okay so now what we're going to do is add a side chain compress compressure we've grouped these bases together into a group added a normal compressor and if you hit this little button here you've got this side chain mode and I'm taking the audio from from this side chain trigger which is just a short sharp sample that we never actually hear because I've got it set to sends only and all that's doing is going to duck this base so check it out and we'll dial it back a bit with the ratio and it just allows that kick to pop through that's already sounding pretty cool let's put that Plucky base in needs take out some of the high end here let's add an envelope so we've layed three bases and we got a really awesome sound already okay on to the next thing on my magic list that is a PLU base so we are layering up one more bass what we want to do is really accentuate this Rhythm and this melody that the bass is playing so I'm going to duplicate this Plucky base and we're just going to find another layer to put on it so I'm going to alter it slightly like [Music] so and then we'll duplicate that but I'm going to miss this first note just to keep that Groove a bit more interesting we'll need to duplicate that and what I'm going to do is just search for in fact no I'll create this sound we want it to be a bit thicker and a bit more Housey if you will so let's create something from scratch we've already got this uh we can leave hyper on actually CU that sounds pretty cool so what I'm going to look for now is a wave that's got a bit more interest to it so we can start moving through the wave [Music] table so if we add this envelope to the wave table position on this waveform we're going to start getting an interesting effect I'll turn this one off first that oscillator so we can just hear this one let's bring it all down on octave actually let's turn this down a [Music] bit so now we got a pretty cool house based sound we'll add a a bit of a noise on top which we could also feed to the filter although then we don't really hear it so we'll just keep that [Music] there just for a little bit of extra character now we don't need this to have much subbase in it because our subbase is doing that job so we can keep our low ends nice and clear right so it's not exactly the same but it's pretty cool and the last thing I want to show you with bass is a really cool trick that they don't use in this track but I wanted to show you anyway cuz I'm a gosh darned Maverick it's going to be a reverse base and I'm just going to use a sample for this sometimes it's nice to shake up you know between using synths or samples because it gives more texture and tombra to the track more variation so I'm going to go to some base hits um ideally you want them kind of tuned to something sensible probably middle C that's nice nice and Rich so what we're going to do is just use that and this track is in C so this is already going to be in tune and we're just going to create a reverse base here so I'm going to hit R it's going to reverse that now we need to shape it to our needs like so so it's just a little extra thing to add some rhythmic interest and if you are being a really good boy or good girl you could take out the low end of that reverse sound because it's going to fight with the subbase so order it won't make any difference but the mix is going to be able to be louder and cleaner Okay cool so I think we've messed around with the base long enough what's next thing on my magic list well it says here let me know if you're enjoying this in the comments below give me a hell yeah or an Amen brother if you're feeling holy and then we are going to get onto the drums so fairly simple it's all about the sound selection so first thing we are going to do is choose a nice 16th hat to keep the groove going oh oh I like that don't know what that is but we'll use that later I'll just have that uh so we need a just a simple closed hat sound oh that's all a bit too fancy I really want oh yeah there we go like an 808 hat sound so we'll put that in our 16th hat sample sampler and I've just added an EQ taking out the low end by default and another side chain compressor so we can add some bounce to this hat I'll show you what I mean in a sec so first let's program it in on every 16th again all the fun happens on the 16ths so let's have a listen to that it's going to be a bit loud cool but let's add some of this side chain compression and make it balce Taxi so now we can hear that side chaining on the closed hat which is really cool next sound we want to get is a little Shaker I think what about this one we found earlier I mean I know it's not like the track but I like it so we're having it so we're just going to put this in the position of every closed hat so this is in between every kick boom boom boom Tick boom Tick boom tick tick and then we'll turn it down a bit cuz it's got that little tone to it which I like do I do I like it I don't know I'm changing my mind let's turn this bit up that'll do I just moved the sample forward a bit so we got that kind of Shaker sound let's make it a bit more centralized I want something with a bit more yeah that'll do and let's make it a bit shorter yes yes so it's really important to the shape of the drums it makes a big difference you can really tighten things up now let's get a clap got to have a clap something really short and sharp that one will do we just put this into our drum rack and turn it down a little bit and then program on every other kick like so I don't really like that clap sound so what you can do in Ableton at least is you can preview different sounds as you are playing the track by hitting that hot swap mode so we're just going to Play I Like The frequencies of that snare so I might just make that a little bit shorter and I'm going to layer that with something I think we need one more clap in there as well so it's important to choose sounds that complement each other not to just do the same thing maybe this one let's put this on there and we're just going to layer it up quietly like so I think we'll have to tweak it because there's a lot of stuff going on here but let's listen cool and now next thing we want to do is add some room Reverb to each of these drums and we can see here we've got this send control here which is rooted to our Global room Reverb and the way you do that in Ableton is you hit this IO button here the rooting button hit the R button there for return right click create return chain and then make sure to select whichever auxiliary Channel you want from this drop- down menu otherwise that Reverb will be within the drum rack itself and then we can close that back down just make sure the S is turned on and that allows us to see it so now let's feed out some of these drums and it's just going to gel everything together let's turn this Tempo down not Tempo pitch I want to be a bit shorter and Sh and deeper yeah that's better isn't it it's really hitting those frequencies I wanted to Let's tighten up that room Reverb a bit bit shorter okay last thing we want to do for the drums actually not the last thing the penultimate thing if you will is find a rim shot so I'm going to go and find oh nice I mean that's fine basic Rim shot so we're going to use that we just load that into our drums whoops like so and this is going to add extra Groove and just dance around the core elements that are already there and again all of that fun happens on those 16s so it's a bit loud at the moment but that's fine so we can actually hear what we're [Music] doing and we can just repeat that pattern see everything's dancing on these 16s before or after the beat of the drum so that's on the beat and it's just coming after it nice in fact We'll add some variation with taking down the velocity of a few of them like so just to add more movement and interest and we'll add some room reverbs tied in with the other [Music] drums nice and that's just copy that and we want one more drum to do little drum intros one more clap I think I want a Lin drum clap it's a good idea to know classic drum machines actually cuz then you can know in your head what you want to go for that's the one and this is just going to be a nice way to introduce a new part of the track so let's just duplicate this boom and at the end of it we can make a little variation on those [Music] drums that's it just a little nice and then we're going to have hear that double clap at the end oh Magic list what have you got next what a treat cool okay yes what do we have next now we're going to get onto more of those melodic elements so we've got a horn to do on this drop as well but before that I want to do the classic Medusa pipe sound so let's create our break this is going to really come into play a bit later when we get to the arrangement which will be lots of fun so what I'm going to do is just call this Medusa pipe top this is kind of made of two different sounds I'm going to use for this like a a mid sound and then a base sound so I'll just call this Medusa low okay cool let's just color those cyan the natural color of synths and then we are going to use a couple of serum instances again of course serum you're getting a good looking today okay I'm just going to go to the Medusa pipe that I made before and let's have a look at it oh that's loud isn't it well first I'll draw in the notes and then we'll examine what's going on in the [Music] patch I think that's the progression or close [Music] enough and then back for the loop around and then in the lows we are going to have a different patch and we want this to contrary motion the top so they kind of complement each other harmonically now the easiest way to do this would just to use the scale mode en Ableton so I'll show you how to do that in a second and I've had a look at Ableton 12 and it looks even better uh but I'm not allowed to show any videos on that yet so that will come shortly subscribe to my channel if you want to see the first stuff on Ableton 12 when it's officially released okay now we need to get another one of those where is it muusa low here we go let's just make it a bit quieter [Music] so if we go hit scale C minor that's the key this track is in and then we can hit scale and it's only going to show the notes from within that scale so it makes it really [Music] easy so this one's going up whereas the other one was going down so now we have this [Music] [Music] effect yes okay so let's have a look at this Medusa pipe and see what's going on it's really shaping it like so with an envelope that's got a bit of Decay but lots of sustain so it's like a long note almost like a piano note being hit and then it's choosing the right wave table that's going to give it the harmonics of a kind of pipe instrument almost and then we've added a little bit of noise on the top to give it some more bite and if if we go into the effects we can see we've got quite a lot going on first we've got a multiband compressor so let's turn these effects off and then turn them on one by one cuz they all make a big difference so this is the sound with with no effect like that's quite harsh so we're going to compress it that's really loud mate turn on a flanger which will soften it down are you sure cuz that sounds even louder A Chorus will soften it down there we go so that's taking out a lot of the high end straightway cuz we got this low pass filter which we've also got applied to this envelope so it starts open and then closes down and if this is a bit advanced for you feel free to rewind and watch this as many times as you need but we go into sound design every week on the live calls you can ask me anything you want in the accelerator every single week twice a week so now let's put on the delay just going to make that bounce then some Reverb to soften it down and some EQ just to Tone It Up tighten it up a little bit so that's quite a complex patch really and then the low one is kind of similar but I won't go through all of that because it's it's just like a brassy sound so you've got this envelope opening up going W really quickly wow that's what's going to create that brass sound but I'll do another bit of that in a few minutes because we want those brass horns for this drop anyway so now what have we got on my magic list today we may as well do the horns you know I mean we already missed them so let's just do it I'm going to try and create a horn from scratch it's probably better to just use a sample like Kashmir will have a nice big horn sample in his sample pack let's just try and create something that at least does the job so that's the root which is the C just a normal saw wave so first thing we're going to do is get that shape that we just talked about and then we're going to apply a filter to that as well or we will apply that to a filter a low pass filter so now you've instantly got that kind of brassy wow sound let's just open up the [Music] attacker let's make this nice and rich now so we're going to take it down an octave and we're already almost there but we're going to add some Unison to really thicken this up and dune [Music] it so that's kind of how you get synth brassy sound but what I'm going to do is really add the lower harmonic grow to this first I'm going to feed this noise oscillator out to the out to the filter as well so it's also being filtered so it's just going to add a little bit more grit to that sound and then next thing I'm going to do is add a second oscillator and take that down another octave and what this is going to do is just introduce the top harmonics as we feed it in so it's going to grunge this up but we need that to go to the filter [Music] too so that's without it you don't need to put this one in but it just adds a little bit more depth to your sound and now we need to take out the low end because we don't want this to fight with our subbase and that should be enough and then we're going to put a nice big ho Reverb on there take up the high end a bit so this is just another Reverb on an auxiliary Channel like so I think I might add a tiny little bit of delay there as well so let's put the echo there uh just a little bit pingpong and we'll make it just to make it bounce a a little bit so now we can put that brass sound on the drop like so on the keep it running and then have It Fade Out it doesn't open up quick enough I think let's tighten it up with the attack um less Reverb I think yeah that sounds pretty cool next thing we're going to do is look at creating the top Rift we might do the vocals in a bit so stick around for that so after this we've got the Dum Dum D which is a really cool syncopated Rhythm which we'll look at in a sec maybe this needs to go an oxy below actually yeah yeah that's better sweet anyway we'll get back to that in a sec we are going to work on this top syn rff at the minute before we get on to the arrangement and the vocals which is going to be a lot of fun so let's take that side chain trigger over there and we need to go oh we are going to do top riff what a treat let's get that cyan on and we are going to choose surprise surprise another serum Lots so much is based on a S Wave so that's it we're done congratulations we finished so what we want to do is now make this sound a bit more interesting how are we going to do that first we'll shape it I think I'll add another one add some Unison but make it quieter cuz I I don't want to lose too much of that quite clean tininess I might see if there's another is there another um kind of shape wave that's going to sound good I don't know I mean this one's good already isn't it I mean let's just see if there's a couple no that's pretty cool let's make that one unisin yeah I like that that sounds pretty cool so now let's add some Reverb to that and some delay again we're just going to put a delay on the channel for Speed we're going to choose notes and 16ths again ping pong delay let's add some more bite to this sound a noise [Music] oscillator but we're going to choose a different sound I think um what could we go for let's just listen to some of these track it to [Music] the white was kind of cool wasn't it that's kind of what you do in future wave as well and that just gives it a nice little bit of bite then a touch of high end if we want that's cool okay let's program it in let's play it in in [Music] fact so what's happening with this riff in terms of timing is that it is syncopated and it's partly a poly Rhythm now let me just quantize it oops nice quantizing okay so I have to tighten it [Music] up why is that not on in time H [Music] [Applause] okay I love the way that first note just kind of comes in just before the beat just drives things forwards and on this riff later on in the track this is going to be layered with a string sound which is again just going to add more richness to the track and that's something that that Medusa is fantastic at just making a track that's so full of nuance but that has relatively few main melodic ideas but they're just layered and processed very carefully to make it sound really really full without over complicating the track so let's call this top strings I mean that could be said of any really good producer for sure so what we're going to do with this this one is going to put a string on there now I don't know where to find a string so I'm just going to go to um let's go to Strings I'm just going to use Ena some pack Stato perfect that's what we need just what the doctor ordered thanks Doc top docm menhip now let's listen to [Music] it okay these need to be a little bit longer because I think some of these notes are getting lost and we'll make them all the same velocity yes yes anyone that posts the comment top dogmanship in the comments below that tells me that you've watched this far and that you're still listening to me Witter on and if you do that I will love you forever and you also win the internet today so just let that that be known okay let's add a little bit of side chain compression to those too much we just want a gentle bounce on [Music] these yes loving that uh let's bring the oh there's one more thing I wanted to add to the drums as well I wanted to add ah what's it called I wanted to add some a Shaker Loop that's the one yeah we can use that CU it's got lots of nice high-end Sizzle in it we don't need anything apart from that first sound I don't like that click so we'll take that off now we can Loop this and this is just going to add some real Sizzle to our drums I should probably put this where all the other drums are actually so this is you know quite in-depth layering that we're going through on this and then I'm going to add another side chain compressor because we need it to bounce in time much like the 16th hats we're doing so now it sounds like this let's make it bounce more we'll make this quieter and just play it with our drums and bring it in slightly hear that difference the extra high-end energy that brings let's tweak this serum a bit I want that to be a bit more [Music] prominent that's cool okay now we're going to get to the break and then we'll build into the [Music] drop who needs the girls build up [Music] no no no no no no no get out taxi taxi take him away let's make that build up properly so imagine this if you [Music] will so it's building up with a snare [Music] okay but now we need the base to come in on that drop obviously because it's an anticlimax right so let's just that comes in a today and then we're going to ah we can do the base progression in a sec [Music] okay and then here it's going to go down and do the progression again all in the same key so whoops needs to be twice as long as [Music] that much like the just mirroring the Baseline that we had with these Medusa low in the break so it's not doing something new it's just the same notes but now we're bringing it to the drop section so if we repeat that with the subbase as well cuz they have to be the same these notes here these motifs should work on top of these no they don't [Music] so so I'm just tweaking those notes in the base riffs as well so it follows our rolling line there we go whoops but then it goes down at the bottom doesn't it back to the a sharp and same on this one bear with me guys bear with [Music] me we might leave that reverse base as it is now this riff is going to work with that changing Baseline and that's the beauty of this okay so we're going to go so it's kind of like [Music] this except we'll have the base follow that as well oh okay I I will be finishing soon guys honestly but I'll find some vocals cuz I promised I would but I'm just going to put this brass sound there as well and that's going to follow that's going to follow follow it too and that's going to get epic so let's bring these drums in here this is what happens to here I get excited by the end of it we'll bring some drums in beforehand but not the claps just the hats and that's going to build the tension there we [Music] go here we [Music] go whoops this is what happens when you try and do it all too quickly but it's all about getting a Groove going quickly okay let's get some vocals on this now I might have to log into splice it wasn't working it's really annoying when stuff logs out so let's fast forward this bit this is the only edit I'm doing okay okay so we have splice I'm going to do female vocals and I'm going to go female Key C minor like so so let's Loop this track and just listen to some vocals whilst it's playing sounds like a train mate no I mean it's nice but I want something yes yes yes just yes I know it's not quite Eli and fur but you know what it's G to do the job for the for this exercise so we've downloaded it let's drag it in there and make sure it's synced so we can see here it says 123 BPM at the top so we go in there we can see it's warped incorrectly naughty vocals so now we're going to warp it complex Pro and write3 boom and now it's going to be in sync with our track he hopes so let's go to the break and introduce these vocals color them purple natural color of this human throat and let's do it this is turning out to be quite long actually this one but I love it it's good fun right hope you're having fun please be having [Music] fun smile I all nice show your face that's all you're getting in terms of snares let's add some [Music] more mixing it a little bit take out the cake add the extra effects [Music] okay Lo that round add the vehicals back in take that top RI [Music] up yes but we need more drums and other layers in this [Music] too woo as I said guys there's a lot more to do to this track but I think we did a pretty good start in it so as usual you can download it below this video and if you want to jump on calls each week asking questions about sound design mixing getting your music sounding professional as quickly as possible you know what I'm trying to say there's a link below look at it if you want if you don't fair enough thanks for watching and I'll catch you next time check out this video here I don't know what I'm going to post there but it's going to be related to this one and if you enjoyed this this one's going to build on what we touched upon today catch you over there and remember you're a legend

Channel: EDM Tips

Views: 39,853

Keywords: meduza tutorial, how to make deep house like meduza, how to make meduza type beat, how to make dance music like meduza, eli & fur pegasus, meduza pegasus, meduza, eli & fur, pegasus, meduza x eli x fur, pegasus meduza x eli & fur, eli fur meduza, meduza & eli & fur pegasus, ableton live tutorial, how to make melodic house, music production tips, how to deep house, meduza bass tutorial, how to make music like meduza, how to make ambient song like meduza, meduza style, EDM Tips

Id: 7-zOWJb_r3c

Length: 46min 29sec (2789 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 22 2023