How To Write A Song FROM SCRATCH | Melodic EDM Tutorial

welcome back soul tribe i know a lot of my followers are electronic producers and also songwriters that are looking to get into the electronic space so i thought that it would be pretty cool to show you my process and how i write songs and get them ready to pitch to djs what you're going to be witnessing us do today is basically what i would consider a simple top line when we are writing songs and pitching to djs you don't want to over produce the track because the dj has their own style and you want to leave it open to be able to fit into any dj's style so why don't we go ahead and get started reed [Music] oh my god production time i'm reed stefan realest puppet in the game here to get started on our instrumental move so when i'm starting a song i like to start out with a midi progression and we have some midi packs that hold loops called pop and progressions where your chords are categorized into major and minor and since we're doing an edm song let's see what the minor chord progressions sound like you can preview them as audio in a piano or as a synth or you have the midi clips right up here so i usually like to go down to the synths pick which one i want to take as midi so let's go to synth number one these are all like a 100 beats per minute tempo but we're gonna speed them up maybe we'll do pianos instead i think these are all gonna be plucky i like this yeah let's try this one ooh this one is a vibe yeah i like that so when me and reed are songwriting together it's important that you know everyone in the room is happy with the direction and the chords are a huge part of that i'll typically know when i hear the right chord progression for what i'm writing that day it kind of just hits me it's more of an intuition thing and you're going to hear me say that a lot throughout this process i'm really big on intuition and i think music in general should be intuitive based instead of a mechanical thing and calculated thing so yeah sorry while you're doing that i was going ahead and opening up a piano with pop-in progressions you get the audio file if you want to just loop this is actually the chord progression playing through my juno 106 in the actual sample pack or if you want the midi you could just grab the midi file so i'll just use the audio to get us going quicker i believe the tempo on this was originally 105. or maybe it was 100 that was 100 and i'm definitely going to speed this up too because this feels extremely slow to me but these audio files actually help you get started a lot quicker so let's warp this switch it into complex pro because that's probably the best mode for speeding up your sample and let's since we're trying to make more of like a melodic bass song let's try and do a faster tempo like 160. nice i like that or maybe 155 that felt a little too fast now when he's figuring all of this stuff out like tempo and finalizing a sound i'm going in and making a note or sharing a google doc with my co-writers and just jotting down maybe some words that i think of when i hear the chord progression and obviously similarities um okay so you're kind of just seeing my juices start blowing if i'm hearing melody and try and record that yeah let's record it let's see three [Music] [Applause] okay so i really like that but i'm thinking maybe i can switch up the melody slightly the second time i sing it but let me hear that back first there's a little pickup instead of starting at the beginning i'm going to leave a little intro so perfect yeah that'll make it easier to start too [Music] [Music] yeah typically to get me in the songwriting mood and kind of in that headspace i like to throw a vocal chain on there so why don't you go ahead and do that put auto-tune whatever you think perfect what key is this in this is gonna be in a minor okay cool type in my favorite auto-tune uad real time actually let's take the mono one since we're just putting this on her voice yeah mixing the vocal as you go and having that ready for whatever singer you're working with is something that i can't live without because it helps with the process [Applause] can you just mute my vocal that i just recorded and i just want to try something else songwriting is all about trial and error trying different things maybe editing something but i like to move pretty quickly in my sessions so this is what i do i record melodies i edit them down and then i write my lyrics and since ableton 11 is out now we can right click and show take lanes and here's all the first two recordings that we didn't even keep i thought those were gone but boom there they are but i'm just going to get rid of them and put this one down there because we do want to keep this like she said but now we just don't have to hear it let's go and record again i'll start you halfway through the cool all right one more time one more time let's perfect it now [Music] try clicking your mic game down when it sounds like we're getting near the top where it's almost clipping all right cool can i just hear that back [Music] [Music] though [Music] i have a different idea for that transition into my pre for my verse i don't know if you guys are catching these little tweaks that i'm making but in my original idea it was a little bit too busy so i basically just simplified my melody to make it digestible for the listener since it's the verse it's the first thing that people are hearing delete that part and let me just try something else going into there instead of deleting it we're going to keep it in the playlist yes always keep everything because you never know you never know what you're going to need basically i just want to move that rhythm around a little bit i like the notes but the rhythm's not exactly what i want it to be [Music] [Music] is i want to set myself up for the hook which i want to be a bigger hook a little bit higher notes so i just need to find the right movement and the right notes to get there i'm just going to experiment with a couple more things let me do that whole pre one more time now for those who don't understand the terms that i'm using right where reed's mouse is that is the verse usually the verse is the first thing you hear in a typical structure and then the second part of that verse where the melody slightly changes i consider that the pre-chorus which is our set up for the chorus and that's not like a permanent structure that you need to follow that's just like the most general go-to structure that would actually really help you get an idea flowing quickly [Music] can you also give me a click it'll be a lot easier for me to that let me turn the click on okay so now that we have the verse and the pre read can you do some sort of like transitional thing in the beat before the chorus to make it kind of define that structure maybe introduce the piano during this next part then if we want it to feel bigger let's go grab some impacts and stuff let's try some of the newer ones let me just load up a few sweeping things pile up a couple and then organize this later when we make top lines for djs we typically don't put in a drum pattern but there are moments where we will put impacts impacts or a kick or a clap just to give some sort of direction on where they can take it yeah when you're writing songs to collaborate with a dj you don't really want to commit it to a certain style of beat you want that to kind of be open to your collaborators so that's a really great point and kind of a reason why we're not going to go too heavy on the drums with this whole production is we want to kind of leave that open for the imagination and make them feel like it's like a remix stem to them right and for the producers that are watching this it is also very important for you to understand the songwriting process because if you are working with other writers then you can communicate with them better with what you want and what you're looking for and these are the types of things that you're going to be receiving from songwriters so that you can kind of get your wheel spinning on how you would fit this into your productions [Music] [Music] is [Music] oh i'm getting some course i do i'm getting some baseline ideas let me just pick a uh instrument for this base pad i'm just gonna pick some of the stock ableton 11 instruments i'm hoping that there's maybe something new in here i haven't seen it before it's looking for like a standard like a wide base pad like that one yeah it's perfect got to go down a couple octaves so let's put the midi effect on here pitch minus 12. nice yeah i got some bass it makes it sound different yep it's got some low end octave in [Music] there [Music] [Music] and i know you'll feel so [Music] loving this so far all right let's go back to get excited when i'm hearing it come together i didn't sorry i was all excited my bad i literally hit the letter next to the record shortcut and i was so excited too i was like head banging and hit the wrong one [Music] [Music] [Music] okay so i i kind of what if you said pick me up with a heavy heart ooh it's crazy how i write lyrics a lot of people ask me what's the trick to writing lyrics how do i get better at writing lyrics i think it's more so about getting better at melody writing because when you are singing in gibberish like this words will come out yup it's almost also a skill of hearing the words in the gibberish it's like a right what's those puzzles called where there's like a bazillion letters in a grid and you have to find the words in it crosswords crossword problems it's like almost like a crossword puzzle for your ears like you listen through the gibberish to find real work right exactly so my biggest piece of advice in writing lyrics is just finding your words that you're singing already and kind of building the song and the concept around that [Music] [Music] i also when i'm writing these songs for producers or djs i'm always going to add more than what i think they'll need they might not want the post hook because they'll want to do their own drop or build up but it's always important to include these things in case they want to have that or have the option of changing the structure of it or maybe they'll be like wow this would be the dopest intro ever yeah and they they weren't going to use it and all of a sudden it's like the opening of the song and that's how everyone recognizes it so you never know one person's post chorus is another person's intro man comping in ableton 11 is easy you just hit the the return key that's awesome and boom yes we've been wanting this ableton finally i know i feel like i'm in a dream right now like one of my old dreams [Music] it's not really necessary to redo it if it sounds good already so just fly it yeah and a lot of times it's like the automation on the plug-in that's going to make it sound like it's transformed and grown so and reed will definitely show you some mixing tricks to make this sound incredible the most important aspect of this whole thing is the vocal production because it makes the producer's life easier the dj's life easier it makes them like your idea better too yes it sells the idea if the mix is good it's so important i cannot stress that [Music] enough [Music] [Music] is [Music] i know so far [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] maybe delete that one [Music] [Applause] [Music] so why don't we just take a break from the production side and let's focus on lyrics because reed actually helps me with my lyrics as well he's a great lyricist they used to call me verse two versailles but you see you are reversed to your versace every time i would always get stuck on the second verse that's when reid would swoop in with the ideas like the amazing ideas can you go to the pre i kind of want to work on the pre first i hear it see yeah you don't always have to start from the top so i heard the word cup maybe doing a metaphor fill my empty cup what do you feel like is this like a sad song read like i'm like moving on with a heavy heart it kind of reminds me of that bittersweet moment where you're like okay it is what it is i'm just gonna move forward and accept that it sucks but it also could be a positive thing like a melancholy type of feeling where you're moving on with a heavy heart because you you're holding on to those memories that you love about that person keep feeling that's kind of interesting and then you just say command x down command v and copy it down i like having a record channel to put all the playlists and then a lead channel actually keep the ones you like oh i love that i [Music] yes i keep falling for things i can't [Music] [Music] i like that take can you just tune that eye thank you zach [Music] i usually just like to keep my best takes and fix any slight tuning that's off but most of the time we're pretty good it will literally only be a note here and there so you can just use that transpose function what do you guys mean you don't fix notes manually we do we just don't use melodyne to do it we just yeah between this and auto-tune what else we don't feel like we need much else i guess i keep falling for things i can't control but it feels like your ghost that's the sauce all right cool let's hear that but it feels like you're going to stand out you're feeling my empty call after yeah [Music] the good times feel so far away so i like far away there so maybe it's um like never thought you would get so far away i hear myself saying hard so maybe it's like something like why does this gotta be so hard or like why does love gotta be so hard what is love gonna be so hard so hard all right let's try that and a oney and don't try i just need a click [Music] would get though far away why does love gotta be so [Music] high [Music] that could be a double that's a good double while we're songwriting we actually do our final vocal as well so that means the hook we always do a double left and right and some harmonies as well yep so let me actually rename this arm lifts then we'll duplicate it and make this one harm right and we're going to pan them the same way we titled them cool and then let me do the same thing with doubles labeling and keeping things organized is so important to your workflow and also i know i'm going to want them quieter so i'm just going to turn them all down and i also know i'm going to want some autotune on them perfect yeah let's put the vocal chain on a fresh copy of lead vocal sauce this one has automation on it so let's take well would you be putting lead vocal sauce on the backgrounds yeah actually we could do that and then we're going to put a group plug-in to uh kind of filter them all better but just get this started quickly because this already has like reverbs and delays and stuff actually i could probably just put one on the whole group for the background vocals convert this into a makeshift background sauce and put like an auto filter or something after it to make it not quite exactly the same but a little bit less bright cool and now let's copy our auto tune down onto all these channels we already got one there cool all right so drag that down to our double let's try this again [Music] so i want to punch in two things in the lead the end bit because if it's slightly out of tune that one delete that one okay so let's just put this one down here [Applause] oh no they're both bad let's punch both of those [Music] that could be my double the whole thing [Music] i guess i keep falling for things [Music] so i think repeating that line moving on with a heavy heart and obviously the song is called heavy heart moving on with a heavy heart oh thank god i want to go hit the save button don't ever wait this long to hit the save button this is way too late oh my god we're terrible mentors and it started doing the rainbow mouse when i saw the mouse turned into a rainbow of death always save your project first thing and always save while you go as you go someone tell me please tell me how long will this take cause i'm close to falling cause i'm gonna fall apart heavy please tell me how long will this take cause i'm gonna fall apart with a heavy heart [Music] with the heavy heart part [Music] please tell [Music] [Applause] [Music] i [Music] please tell me [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is i hear unfolding like i see the end unfolding that's a really strong first line let's do that i see the end unfolding i know this story goes promises promises are breaking like our promises that we made to each other are breaking i see the end unfolding i know this story goes [Music] downbeat instead of harmonies can you add a low pitch to the lead maybe that's what it may be like artificial layer instead let's try that at 50 and let's drag this down and give it some distortion [Music] i think the snaps only come in on the [Music] precalculus you really really reverb those haze out yep i was gonna just put some of that on the snaps and on these haze too i like doing on vocals this plate reverb inside of the new convolution reverb has some really good presets plate a is really good for vocals yeah i can take the auto tune off right we don't need auto tune for gang vocals [Music] so that's where we're going to end on the songwriting portion i do want to add ad-libs because i want to show you how i typically do them how i record them [Music] [Music] i'm [Music] i [Applause] cool all right i'm going to take over just real quick and clean this up that means i'm just going to delete some of these breaths in the beginning my breaths are really really obnoxious so i like to turn down the volume of them now that i've turned down all the consonants and breaths in my verse and pre-chorus i'm going to delete all of these breaths in the background vocals because we only need the lead breath so since i'm editing all these background vocals at the same time a quick way to do a fade is command option f i just went ahead and cleaned up my entire vocal so that it's edited comp tuned and all the volumes of everything sound good and even now it's time for read to do like a final mix and we are finished so cara did an excellent job writing singing and recording and even editing and cleaning up this vocal and as she was doing all that i was actually tweaking and automating a lot of the parameters you probably saw me doing it while she was talking here on the sauce plugins on the ad libs for example i set up a chain that i liked by just filtering it way extra with the low cut and way extra with the auto filter even a shortcut to add some auto pan so that the ad libs don't always happen on the same side let's actually start at the very top with the lead and see what we think we can do to help maybe automate this a little further we already have some i'm just going to hit the letter a and let's show you guys what automation we have so far it goes [Music] yes i keep falling for [Music] i think i want to make a dry moment right before those two big drum impacts i'm just going to pull down the reverb on the lead and i might even have it stay down right here too so that the reverb comes back when the vocals come back and i'm gonna do the same thing with the slap i just want completely dry but compressed and eq vocals on this last word just because everything is so saturated why not true for this course i'm going to take the glue and turn it up and this is basically going to hit the vocal with more parallel compression [Music] and we created this low octave with little altar boy i'm just going to turn the mix down on it i feel like i hear it too [Music] get much far away why does love gotta be so high [Music] [Applause] [Music] i [Music] [Applause] [Music] and for this last word i'm going to take the half note echo and pull it all the way down actually the quarter note echo too let's just have reverb on the very last word make it feel as clean as possible [Music] hey i love that and the sauce already has a really soft reverb in it as you could hear it's like doing a little tremolo thing to make it feel a little bit more rhythmic than just a plain reverb tail let's take a listen to the very beginning i like this little filter action going in here [Music] [Music] never thought you would get so far away why does love gotta be so high [Music] [Applause] please [Music] [Music] little more highs on there that's all sounding great finally i want to take all these vocals and group them up into a all vocals group so we have our lead up here and all of our vocals down here and i just want to put a little bit more multi-band compression up here on this entire group i just love the way it glues the effects together with the drive vocal especially on edm vocals when you're just trying to give everything that extra little bit of push so i'm gonna go into dynamics let's put the ott preset on here and this is super extreme so we're gonna actually just dial it way back like eight percent and then we're gonna push up the mids a lot and push up the highs a lot so we're going to be doing a lot of expansion but at a a really low amount [Music] and we can't even pull this back a lot because as we turn this up they can get pretty loud so let's try putting this at like five ten percent [Music] breaking without it and it feels [Music] i might even bring below [Music] please [Music] finally while we were recording we were actually running the volume down at -5 and i'm just going to turn that back up that's just to help it not feel so loud compared to your raw microphone while you're tracking vocals but obviously now that you're mixing and about to just throw a final master plug-in on here i think that's a perfect time to just turn the volume all the way back up make sure you have full volume and for mastering i think i'm just going to throw a fab filter pro l2 on here because if we're sending this to another dj i just want to guarantee that they're going to be able to open all the plugins in this session that's why i use pretty much all stock plugins and earth popular things that people would have like lead vocal sauce a little ultra boy and let's just put the fabfilter pro l2 on the master i target about zero to three decibels of attenuation [Music] maybe back down a little bit [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so there you have it how to mix your vocal kind of mixing is you're recording with just some very minor adjustments at the very end to wrap it all up together as a group and put a quick master chain on it so that you're ready to print your demo and send it to your collaborator so speaking of collaborator i'm going to toss it back to kara to wrap things up now that reid has done our final mix let's go ahead and take a listen all the way through and i will share my final thoughts after we listen [Music] [Music] i know this [Music] [Music] [Music] please [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] that sounds pretty good not bad for a quick mix yeah no not bad at all i think this was a really cool experiment and because we've never really done a video like this before i definitely want to do more because i think writing on camera and just showing the process will definitely help you guys and inspire you to get out there and collaborate with people write send your songs to other producers other writers other artists that's what the music industry is about what do you say we make this a series yeah let's make it a series so if you want to see us write another song in another genre today was edm yes leave it in a comment below tell us what genre you want us to write next don't forget to check out iamcara.com i have a lot of full-length courses and vocal templates for sale that you might find useful in your creative journey also check out my mix lab and also whole loops dot com we used a lot of reads products comment below what genre you guys want to see us right next hey peace out peace out

Channel: KARRA

Views: 100,711

Rating: 4.9332623 out of 5

Keywords: KARRA, Female songwriter, Music Tutorial, how to write a song, how to, write a song, melodic bass, how to write EDM, melodic bass tutorial, songwriting, songwriting for beginners, reid stefan, karra and reid stefan, karra edm vocals, writing a song, how to write lyrics, writing lyrics, writing melodies, melody tutorial, tutorial, songwriting tutorial, singing tutorial, ableton 11, how to sing, recording vocals, vocal production, how to write a song from scratch, ableton

Id: nM3D6goCCWk

Length: 41min 46sec (2506 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 14 2021