Transcription
My melodies used to sound like this and now they sound like this. [music] Everything changed once I figured out this simple four-step melody formula, which made my melodies 10 times better with a lot less effort. This system also took my mentorship student Anony's melodies from this [music] to this. >> [music] >> in only a few weeks.
So, in this video, I'm going to show you exactly how to come up with catchy melodies fast and how to create melodies so good that you actually land placements and get collabs with other producers. To start, let me show you what's holding your melodies back from sounding great.
Now, I want you to think of making melodies like making a cupcake. Huh? And each layer of this cupcake represents every ingredient needed to make a good melody. And if any of these ingredients are missing, what the >>
All right, so step one, we've got the rapper. This is the layer that holds everything in together, your lower frequencies, like your baseline. But why would you start with your bass first? Now, this goes against everything you've seen about making melodies. But if you don't know where to start, this is going to allow you to dictate the bounce of the sample right off the bat, which will get your head moving and start to spark up some ideas. So, I started by grabbing a bass one-shot from Splice. [music] If you're ever stuck and can't think of good baseline patterns, just pick a song you like and replicate it. That's a, that's a fancy word for steal.
Anyway, the next step is even more important. Step two, we've got the bread. This is the foundation of your melody. Pink chords, pads, that kind of thing. Now, I'mma fire up Splice instrument. We're going to be using the intimate grand piano preset. This VST and this bank are both completely free, by the way. All right, so we're currently in E minor. And we'll just start off with a simple triad. And here's the mistake I used to make with every melody. I would leave my chords like this, with just three notes. This works with synths or digital sounds, but if we want to use something organic like a piano, we need to add more notes just to create some more emotion. So, let's add a note down here for some bass. We'll raise this up [music] because when we have our notes closer together, it just sounds sadder. Then we'll add another note here, [music] a semitone up. Just keep in mind the vibe that you're going for with this melody. I want to do like dark vintage noir type. So, let's add one more note. So, this is what we had before. [music] This is what we have now. Just way more body to it. Body. Sorry.
Next, we'll just duplicate this over. Now, the majority of the chord I'm going to keep the same, but I want the melody to feel like it's going somewhere. So, I'm going to drop this down a couple semitones, and then I'm going to raise this one up a couple semitones. So, next, to give the piano that swing and personality, we're just going to select all these notes and hit Alt S to strum them. >> [music] >> Way better. Also, just select all your notes and hit Alt R. That will randomize the velocity. Then you can just play with it a bit just to make it sound a bit more human. Now, we can do something super simple just to add to the swing of the piano. So, here we could go. And we can just copy this over [music] maybe stretch this over so it bleeds in a bit. Nice.
Now, finally, just to indicate that the melody is transitioning to the next section, you can add a few notes here. Think of it like a drum fill, but instead of drums, you're using notes. So, I'm going to just grab these notes that I used before. Hold Alt and duplicate them. But I'm gonna make them drop down like this. [music] All right. So, here's where we're at so far. [music] [music] Sounds okay. But so far, we've just got bread and a rapper. Shit's tasteless. But here's where it gets delicious. H, that sounded weird saying that. I apologize.
Step three, we got the icing. The thing that gives the sample that personality. Think leads, top lines, vocals. [music] Now, do not fall into the trap of thinking you need to make every single piece of a melody yourself. All of the top producers utilize melody layers and phrases. And this will speed up your workflow a ton. The only thing that matters is, does the end result sound good or not? So, I've just grabbed these soul vocals from Splice, [music] but I chopped the vocals up, rearranged them a little bit, and with the vocals and the piano, we got this. [music] [music] Now, this is sounding solid, but without the next step, the melody will be nowhere near as good as it could be.
Which brings us to step four, the cherry on top. I couldn't find one at the shop with a cherry, so you're just going to have to use your imagination. Think accents, textures, perk loops, effects. So, we're going to start by grabbing some strings. I've got the Spitfire Symphony Orchestra and I've got the violins preset loaded. We want to add these notes where it makes sense because, like I said, it's an accent. We're just using this to help the flow and the bounce of the sample. So, we can put it on the two, but we're only going to make it one bar long. [music] Now, that's cool, but it's a bit weak. So, let's layer it up a bit. [music] And we can literally just copy that over. We can also go to our control channel volume. And we can kind of draw our volume to go like this. Swell upwards, then down, just to make it sound a bit more realistic, realistic, realistic.
Now I just layer another sound on top of those strings just to beef it up a little bit, give it more texture. I went inside of the swing bank in Kontakt and I just loaded up this sax and just copied the same notes that I had in my violin. So instead of just this, we got this. Now, the reason I've placed these notes here is because I want them to hit just before the next set of chords on the piano. This is called call and response. The piano calls here, then these strings answer, then they call again. [music] It just makes you pop your head like that. Also went in and grabbed another swing and got another trumpet, but this one's a bit more high-pitched. [music] And I just used these notes to flow us into the next part of the sample. And altogether we got [music] to round it off. I grabbed this accent from Splice. But I only like this section, so I just chopped it and then put it at the end of every four bars here. Then I grabbed this little cymbal. I drowned it in reverb. Then for some rhythm, I got a drum loop. [music] Finally, in terms of the master effects, I used an effects rack and used the basic vintage punch preset. Let me turn it on and off so you can hear it. [music] I use the compressor on the master too, just to glue the mix together a bit. This works by bringing each of these [music] instruments closer together in volume so that the overall mix sounds a bit more consistent. Then I use good old Fresh Air on top just to add some saturation. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] >>
And now we have our finished cupcake. I'm lactose intolerant, so the Lord knows what this is going to do to me.
Now, if you're struggling to improve the quality of your production and feel like you've hit a wall, I do offer a three-month mentorship program where you'll work with me directly one-on-one. I could say a load of stuff to you and hype it up, but I'll just let my student Anthony do the talking. >> What makes a sample good in your opinion? >> When you just feel a vibe. Like, hold on. [laughter] >> That's how you know. That's how you know a sample's good. >> Oh, yeah. I also want to give you props, though. I ain't going to lie, cuz like, bro, I'm really like, I, I was thinking, bro, like this, it's really sped up my, my process, OD. Like, you know what I'm saying? I feel like this, this, this thing really been worth it. I ain't going to lie, bro. >> That makes me happy to hear, man. I knew, I knew where this was going, but you didn't know yet cuz I could tell you were a bit hesitant and you were like, "Oh, I don't really know if >> Yeah. Like, I, I had my doubts. Like I told you last week, I had my doubts, but this week I'm even like, I'm even feeling more reassured, like, you know what I mean? I'm feeling like more like, yeah. Like this is definitely worth it. Yo, like I feel like eventually I could have got to this point, but like, what, like in a year maybe, like maybe like some time I would have get to that point. >> Exactly. That's, that's the whole point of it. Cuz when you have someone that you can just ask questions and then something that you'd struggle for for months just improve like that, it saves you so much time. You could have spent a year or a year and a half getting your sound to a certain point, but because you've just focused on that, your content and your brand hasn't grown at all. Now, if you can speed up the production, you can spend that time actually growing your brand as a producer. Just got to trust the process, man. Trust the process.
Now, the main point that I want you to take away from this is that simplicity is what can really make your melody shine. You don't need a hundred layers, just the right ones in the right places. But here's the catch. Even the best melodies will fall flat if you don't know the basics of mixing. So I would strongly recommend you watch this video next. [music] feelings. I got a go. She don't even know I'm pimping.