Transcription
Happy New Year. Oh, you Heat. Heat. What's good, guys?
So, in this video, I'm going to be breaking down a really beautiful and emotional sample that I made recently, and I'm going to show you how you can make one like this yourself and to know that it's actually not as difficult as you might think. I'm going to break down all the layers, textures, VSTs, and plugins that I've used, and also cover some of the arrangement and mixing techniques I've used to create a sample like this.
And if you don't know me, my name's Blue. I'm a producer and sample maker and I've been doing this for years. I've been creating thousands of sounds, sound kits, sample packs. And speaking of, if you want to download hundreds of sounds that I've carefully crafted over a long period of time, completely for free, you can click the link below in the description and download them from my website.
Now, I want to break this sample down into six sections. We've got an intro, verse, pre chorus, chorus, bridge, and an outro. This is what the intro sounds like. So instantly the sample just grabs you and puts you in a certain mood. It's it's such a heartfelt opening. And the thing I really want to get across with making samples like this, the ones that feel emotional and heartfelt and really just put the listener in a certain place, is this mainly comes down to chord progression.
Making samples like this can actually be really easy. And it really comes down to a few main things. So, funnily enough, recently I started a habit of trying to spend at least 10 minutes a day just learning piano and just being able to have new ideas at my arsenal and skills on the keyboard. so that I can create better and better melodies. And when I was doing one of these piano lessons from YouTube, I was playing along on my MIDI keyboard and I happened to hear this one chord in D minor that I was just like there and then I had to just transition over to my door, get into Logic and make a full progression out of it. And that progression sounded like this.
So that is very much the foundation already built. There's no need to have a complicated progression and melody. Just having the right chords and the right sound selection does the heavy lifting and does most of it for you. So I used this open and rich preset in the no felt bank within contact. And I just added a bit of compression, some RC20 for that kind of vinyl tape effect. A little bit of halftime you can see with less of a mix just so it's giving it a bit more body and low end. And then I just added a little bit of delay with this galaxy tape echo. But my main point here for starting out a beautiful and ambient heartfelt melody is to find a great and beautiful chord progression.
Now, you can use your ears and play around with the notes and move notes around, find where those chords sound right to you, or you can also use things like YouTube lessons or even chat GPT or Google to find these chords and then take them and put them onto a piano. There's loads of great piano VSTs you can find and use, not to mention different oneshots that other sample makers and producers have created. So if you have a great chord progression and you have a great piano sound, you can probably create a great sample.
So So that was that progression. Now I'm going to skip ahead slightly by showing you that I basically took this exact same core progression and duplicated it onto another track, but the only thing I adjusted was this color and the dynamic, so it sounded a little bit more subdued and just a bit lighter. I've also pitched this up a full octave, so it sounds like this. The last note I've moved down. So, it's just a slight bit of variation. But the main thing that I'm trying to change, because before I even created the verse section, I knew that having the piano just change slightly from that more powerful opening was going to be necessary to progress the samples.
And a couple key points when it comes to creating chord progressions and say using a piano is making it sound realistic, as if a human is playing it. You could actually record this in yourself on a MIDI keyboard. But even if you're penciling the notes in yourself and just making sure that for example here, like the notes aren't exactly on the grid. A real pianist or someone playing an instrument would never be completely quantized to the grid. So you want things to sound imperfect and realistic. and and having these spaces here. You notice the impact that having space like that has. It's quite literally giving the listener a chance to breathe. And there's also this anticipation that happens. If you know how to use space and just leave notes empty, your next chord or the next sound will have more impact. So consider that in your melodies is using dead space or you don't have notes just playing continuously nonstop. Give the listener a chance to breathe. And again, you're going to have more impact when that next chord hits.
So, so that was the main melody and I just bounced that out and I pitched it up a couple semmit tones. Although I think on the master I've pitched this whole project down to again so it's basically the same. And yeah, we had this. So, that really is the foundation of this sample. And all I did was just added a little bit of reverb and some EQ to just cut out some of the lows so that it was a bit cleaner and not interfering with some of the other sounds.
Now, now I'm just going to cover these as one group. And you can see I've color coded it to just stay organized. But these are all the ambiences. Now I cover this in most of my projects and my sample breakdowns. But the impact that just adding a bit of white noise or city sounds or people walking, talking, vinyl crackle, anything like that is going to add depth and realism to your sample. So these are the sounds I added. Just some vinyl crackle, two different vinyl crackles and this city New York sound which I've taken from Spice and just slightly adjusted the pitch of and EQed.
So, here's a piano on its own. Of course, it's a nice progression, but as soon as you add these layers, it just makes the sample feel alive. It puts you in a certain place. You imagine a certain situation or scenario. It makes it sound nostalgic. And that's literally just from adding some ambience. So, don't underestimate the power of just adding that kind of noise in the background. It will add a lot of depth to your samples.
So, now to one of the main sections where I've got a bunch of different textures playing. Um, I'm just going to go layer by layer and show you some of the processing. So, this is actually one of my phrases which you can download again in the link below. But this is just such a beautiful ethereal sound and with a bunch of reverb, delay, a bit of compression, it just sits nicely on top and gives you this like angelic feeling. So, it's a really pretty sound.
And then the next layer, I've got this, which a few of these other phrases came from my boy Joe Maid. He's an amazing sample maker. So, check him out. Without any processing, this sounded like this. So, a cool kind of like glitchy flute sound. And then I just added a bunch of reverb, delay, and I pitched it to match the project. And then we got this just a really pretty sound.
And then all I did was took that exact same flute sound, copy and pasted it here, and I've just pitched it down five semmit tones. So we get this. So copy and pasting it and then pitching it down five semmit tones just followed the chord progression. And this is a great music theory hack that you can actually apply in your own samples. If you have a chord progression, especially in minor, then you can just take the first chord, copy and paste it, and then move it down five semmit tones. It works pretty much all the time and gives you this nice progression. I had a little bit more processing on this one just to give it some more variation. Um, just a bit of a different delay using that galaxy tape echo again and just using the default portal preset just to give it a bit of like a granular shake. So very subtle.
But then moving on to the next layer. So this is a really nice dreamy sort of nostalgic sound and without processing. So, it's almost like a bit of a weird electric guitar kind of sound, but then with a bunch of reverb, delay, and again pitching it to match the project. So, you see how even though I faded it out and cut out this dead space, that delay still carries it over. so fades off into the distance, which is obviously going to be a really nice touch with an ambient emotional sample like this.
And one thing I found when it comes to making samples is that a lot of the nostalgic pretty sounds tend to be sounds that sit more in the high-end and I tend to cut a lot of the lows out of. They sit nicely in that high-end and give this kind of dreamy effect. whereas a lot of the more ambient moody sounds that I tend to pick sit more in the mids, the low mids and maybe even the lows. So that's something to consider. A really nice pairing is having a moody ambient chord progression for example, and having those prettier, shiny sounds, nostalgic, dreamy sounds sitting in that high-end. So that tends to complement really nicely together.
And one thing to not overlook is just adding these fades for example because typically you find in loops and samples sounds will come in on the one or the two or the four and it's always exactly at the start. Whereas having sounds like this fade in and fade out just creates this more wavy legato feeling and again adds to that ambience, the dreaminess. It's not like super choppy sort of thing.
So then the next layer we've got this calima which has been run through a pedals and without any processing it just sounded like this. So, a bit of a weird glitchy sound, and it kind of didn't sound like it would work in this sample, but as soon as you just pitch it, add halftime, which most of the time you can't go wrong with adding some reverb and just eqing out a lot of the highs, a lot of the lows, we get this. So, it's a really nice subtle kind of bubbly texture that sits nicely in the background.
And then lastly, we've got this. This layer actually clashes with the piano. It's in a very similar frequency range, those low mids. And that's also because I've added this half time. You can see here by the EQ. So you'll notice if I play with the piano as well, which if we were to look at the EQ of. So you can see how these two sounds can kind of muddy up when they're sat in that same kind of like low-end frequency range. One thing I did to create more clarity, which you can do yourself, if you have two sounds that are in a similar frequency range, you can utilize this stereo field. So you can make sounds sound wider and further out or you can make them sound closer, more mono and intimate sounding. So I use this pancake plugin which essentially just creates a panning effect from left to right. So now even though these sounds are competing for a very similar spot in the frequency range, this texture is kind of moving around behind left and right, left and right. So it just created a bit more clarity. And honestly, I didn't mind a little bit of muddiness in this low end because just using my ears, it still sounded good in the mix. So, it's a very subtle texture. And you'll notice when played with a piano, you kind of don't hear this texture much, but you do notice it when it drops out. It's very subtle, but pay attention. So a lot of those subtleties is something that works really well in these ambient soft emotional samples.
So So now moving into the verse and the pre chorus. I love this section. the contrast from the beginning where all the layers are sort of playing together. It's a lot more full. Literally, the whole frequency range is pretty much taken up, right? Listen. Like a super full section. The whole frequency range is being taken up. But then that transition into this verse just there's just this opportunity for the listener to breathe. And this is what you really want in your samples honestly regardless of genre is just having variation where things build and then release and then build and then release. It's like a roller coaster. And it also gives other producers and listeners that variation to do more with. They can flip the sample in many different ways because you have a chorus, a full section, but then you also have the more subdued and relaxed sections where, again, I keep saying it, but there's a chance to sort of breathe. And it's really important because it means that your choruses will have more impact when they do build up and come in.
So, and one of the keys to creating the space that I have in this section is that the piano, like I mentioned previously, is pitched up an octave and it's more thin and sat in the high end. Now, I have these drums where there's a very thick sort of almost subie kick drum which sits a lot more on the low end. So, there's more space now between these two main layers. The piano sat up here. The drums are all the way down here. there's all this sort of space in between. So that's why you literally have space in the section.
So this was the piano again. So really pretty sounding. It's nice. It's thin. It's in that high-end and then contrasted with this main drum element. And let me know if you want me to re-release or put out a new percussive kit with drum textures and drum loops like this. Less so 808s and stuff, but just things that layer nicely in samples. So this was that layer. All I did was just pitched it. So I added a flanger here just for a bit of a wavy effect. And I've cut out most of the highs, a little bit of the lows, and it just sounds like this.
And then I've just layered that with this percussive layer which without any processing sounded like this. So, it's a really cool kind of like bouncy groove, but I wanted to make it a lot more subtle. So, Halftime and Flanger are sort of my go-to like plugins for a lot of percussive elements. It just makes percussion, I think, sit nicely in samples. Some compression, some saturation as well, just to give it a bit more grit. Added a little bit of reverb. And look at the EQ here. This is what makes it just sit nicely and just tucked into the background of the high-end. And now it sounds like this.
And like I said, I also transpose and play with the pitch of my percussion. It's important to not only pitch your melodies up and down, but also your textures, your drum elements, your percussion. It can make a big difference when you listen closely and actually train your ears to understand where sounds sit nicely in a mix. So, in combination, super super nice together.
And we've just got the same ambiences as before except one ambience which I've included in this sample and I just I I've used in the past but it's these birds. So, and I don't know to me like hearing those nature sounds and the sounds of birds just gives me such a peaceful feeling. It's you can imagine if you were in a forest or in nature, there's a very relaxing sound and feeling that that gives us as humans. And I think I think especially in a section like this where you have more space and then the sound of birds, it like you can't not feel relaxed. There's just this instant feeling of and and I think that has a lot of impact. So, it's funny how you don't need crazy bold prominent sounds, but just having those subtle ambences in the background is what really has a big effect on the listener. So, I just think that layered so nicely with the birds.
And then we have these two layers here which just sounded like this. And and this this layer I was just so happy to come across. You know, one thing you'll find if you create a lot of samples and loops is you're searching for sounds. To me, they're like Lego pieces or puzzle pieces and finding the pieces that fit. When that happens, when you have those moments, it's just one of the best feelings. And this sound, I distinctly remember just being so like in that flow state and feeling so good about it because it just layered so nicely with the piano.
And then I got this next texture which just complemented it so nicely because before I added it, it was like this. I just wanted something to ring off. I wanted some kind of impact to happen here, but I didn't want something overbearing and too jarring for the listener. So this was the sound I added which without any processing it was just an AR or arpeggiated sound that was like this and ringy sort of ars like this I just always know are going to work really well with ambient samples. So, I just sound shifted it, made sure the pitch was the same as the project. And then, like I often say, using Halime, but I used the triplet parameter, and then a bunch of reverb, delay, making it super washed out, tidying it up with an EQ, cutting out up to 250 htz, and then using another EQ and cutting up out to 325 htz, and then adding that pancake so that it was moving in the background. And then in combination, we get this.
And because what you want is as the sample progresses, new elements are added and understanding how you can subtly build sections in a way that just sound cohesive. And this is really going to come down to the reps you put in, the amount of projects that you create. You're going to get a better ear for sound selection and what sounds fit and sound better together. So, and now here it goes into one of my favorite sections of this whole sample, the chorus and the bridge. Check this out. Oh, it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. But again, just because it's such a great progression in the first place, it becomes easier to just find sounds that sit nicely with it.
So, so coming back to that main piano from the intro for the chorus. It's more low-end. It's more body and it just brings the listener back home. That's often what you want in a chorus. So, this was sort of a flute preset that I found within Analog Lab. And this was the chance preset within the digital tones bank from Club Experiment. And this was the progression that I played. And before I get to the second section of it, know when it comes to making melodies that are going to sit with the listener and be catchy and be memorable is you want them to repeat. So create a little melody just something small like this. I literally just have that repeat but just with slight variation. So make a melody, keep it simple, make sure you can hum it or play it with one finger on a keyboard. That is often how you can create great melody.
So So this melody sits in the high end and then progressing towards the end. you know, we've we've built up in this chorus and then we're going to have it go down. So, so it's just like trailing off, you know? I I just I really really like that sound. And again, pay attention to the amount of space. You know, there's not constantly notes playing like filling the listener's ear. There's those little pockets to breathe. Uh the same ambiances. We've just arranged the drums to come in at different times. So you have moments of building up, but then moments of like going down and then the same layers and textures from before and then leading into the outro where we truly let things just deflate and end on a nice note. So just stripping back all the layers, all the textures and just leaving that piano and the ambience.
So, like I said, making samples like this can actually be very simple if you have a great chord progression, good sound selection, and often times that can just be a great piano, and then just layering it with ambience. And with soundsscapes, you already get a lot of depth and beauty in a sample or melody. And then just finding those nice subtle textures that can play off of each other and fade in and fade out and and maybe sit more in the high end with a lot of reverb and delay. So they're washed out and nostalgic and dreamy sounding and and finding these little arpeggios and moments of impact but that are subtle and complement nicely. You know, it's kind of like making a meal or food where you want certain spices to complement each other, not clash. And then all the sample really needed for a chorus was to have some kind of top line or melody. And that melody is simple, it's catchy, and it complements the chord progression by just sitting nicely on top.
So, so like I said, if you want a lot of phrases and textures that suit samples like this, you can check out my website below where I've made all my premium sample packs for free just for you to use in your projects and to hopefully be able to create things like this yourself. And if you would like to even work with me oneon-one where we can literally focus on where you're at with your sample making, with your melody making, and to level you up as a producer really quickly and improve your melodies, you can book a call with me down below. We'll have half an hour. It's completely free. We can discuss where you're at, your goals, and how we can improve your sample making and melodies and projects really, really quickly. So, if you're interested in that, click that link below.
Now, if you would like to see a more dark, eerie, and atmospheric sample broken down, and this one has a lot of different layers going on, you can watch this video here. And until then, I'll see you in the next one. Peace.