Top 5 Reasons to use a MIDI Controller

For those of you brought up on a strict diet of mice and keyboards, the allure of a MIDI controller may not have entered your thoughts just yet. But watch out - this blog is here to entice you into the joys of hardware manipulation, without losing the convenience of software.

Cue the over-dramatic music to accompany the upcoming over-dramatic sentence: Here are 5 reasons why MIDI controllers could be exactly what you've been searching for your entire lifetime...

1. Speed up musical note input

Still typing in your notes like a sucker? Still clicking in every kick and clap? A MIDI keyboard or Pad-based input device could be exactly what you've been looking for.

Even if you aren't amazing on the keys or a pro on the pads, taking the time to watch a few free tutorials to get yourself up to a reasonable standard could pay itself back in kind over the rest of your lifetime in the amount of time saved putting in melodies and beats. You don't have to be a maestro - that's what "quantizing" is for! It puts all your midi inputted data in perfect time with the music.

2. More natural sounding instruments

Do you find your pianos end up too plinky-plonky, like an over-enthusiastic pre-schooler keyed them in? Rediscover the beauty of manual velocity control - if you play your notes in, you'll get a more human, natural sound since the velocities of each note will vary minutely.

This, combined with tiny variations in note triggering times, can sometimes be a positive thing when you're trying to make music that doesn't sound like it was made on an electronic device!

3. Improve your skills for live performance

If you push yourself to play in the more difficult phrases in your music, you can transpose those skills to the stage! More and more DJs are finding themselves dissatisfied with simply triggering their tracks - MIDI devices are the way to go to bring some talent back into the live music arena where electronic music is concerned!

Just think - would you rather watch your favourite artist stand in front of some spinning decks or see them play aspects of their tunes live?

4. Manipulate other parameters

Not only can you get control of the notes, but things like filter sweeps, envelope manipulation and wobble control become so much easier when you have some knobs to tweak!

Your sounds are infinitely more malleable when you have a hands on approach, and after some simple routing you can make your warm synth pads evolve over time, your lead synths modulate in or your basses wobble at different rates, all at the touch of a button, turn of a knob or twist of a dial.

5. Speed up your workflow

It's not just the note input it speeds up. Mixing with a MIDI controller could save you hours of time as you dont have to keep switching focus between the virtual mixer and the sequencer to adjust your levels. You can be applying an effect and EQing an audio track at the same time.

So if you're serious about music production, it's vital to make sure you are getting your ideas down as fast as possible so you can maintain that glorious creative flow. It's so hard to keep that up when you're too busy worrying about your virtual interface to think about that perfect rhythm or change those synth parameters just right. So streamline yourself - investing in MIDI controllers might be the best decision you made since deciding to make computer-based music in the first place.

The Science of Beatmaking - Part 3

In part three of our short series on building a quality drum break, we'll be considering what to do once you get to the latter stages of the writing process - mixing down, editing and adding the final touches to your drum track.

First, to make things easy in the mixdown process, you should consider bussing your drum sounds. If you're using a lot of different elements - like with layered hits, or different types of percussion, this will help you control the overall level a lot more easily. It is often useful also, to have several 'pre' drum busses; perhaps one each for your kicks, the snares, the high end, and 'other' (bongos maybe) - which then feed into one 'main' drum buss. This will mean it's easier to change the level of the entire drum track when mixing, or quickly apply effects to the whole group.

So, once you've bussed your drums together, what to do? Oftentimes people talk about compressing everything together to help things 'gel'. The reason for this is because a busy drum beat will have to interact with the compressor - a hihat on it's own will sound loud; a hihat playing at the same time as a kick will be reduced in volume, as the compressor turns down the gain. So the various sounds in your beat will shift about in the mix, giving a movement that wasn't previously there.

Compression should be applied sparingly though; it is the quickest way to make a punchy drum track sound flat and lifeless. A fast attack and low threshold will smear all the transients from your beat, and lose all that funky feel. An envelope shaper or transient designer, placed on the buss, can help add in a little 'snap' back to your beat, but it shouldn't be used to make up for a badly used compressor. Keep that gain reduction down!

Reverb is another tool to help things sound 'together'. The point of reverb is to make something sound like it's 'in a space' and so by putting everything in the same space, it can sounds more coherent. Try applying a touch of reverb across your whole drum buss; something small, a reverb time of around 0.3s, mixed very quietly. It shouldn't really be very noticeable as reverb except when you mute and unmute it, but it will help give a cohesive sound.

Reverb can also be a creative tool - consider the huge dubstep snare sounds (long reverb, large pre-delay, just on the snare channel), or you could try experimenting with the pre-delay setting on your reverb plug to give a rhythmic effect (set it to equal one quaver, to give a pumping, off-beat sound, for instance). Remember to EQ your reverb returns though; nobody needs to hear 100Hz in a reverb tail, it doesn't add anything to the effect, but it can add muddiness. So cut things down to only that which is necessary for your track!

We did a whole article on parallel processing recently, so look out for that, but it can be most useful with drums - you can solve the issue of losing your transients through compression by sending your buss to another buss with a compressor (or limiter, tape saturator or distortion) and mixing that in quietly with your original signal. This way you can compress as hard as you like to get that smack from the drums, without losing the dynamics of your main drum track. It's an excellent tactic, when used carefully, to get more power and volume from your beats. Remember also, when parallel processing, that if you're going to EQ the new channel, you should use a linear phase EQ. The science is too complex for a short article like this, but basically, EQ's change the phase of a signal, and if you're having two drum channels playing at the same time, you could end up with phasing problems. A linear phase EQ, while not being a perfect solution, leaves the phase intact - so use these in preference on parallel processing.

Once you've got your beat sounding pretty crisp, you may even want to do a spot of resampling. This is more of a creative process, but can add interest to your overall track; bounce the drums down, and reintroduce them to your arrangement. Then you can chop things up for short fills, or go crazy with the FX, reverse a whole bar, and so on. IDM fans may want to get busy with a glitch plugin - dBlue's cunningly titled 'Glitch' is one of the industry standards - just set it up on your newly imported file, bounce the whole drum track with the plugin on it so you get 5 minutes of solid glitching, then chop that up and pick out the best bits. Easy!

Finally, then, how to mix? Well, this can't be answered from here - it depends on the kind of track you're writing. If it's a jungle track, then you want the drums to be centre stage, right up front. If you've got a vocal, poppy track on the go, then you need the drums to sit behind the vocal, while still having enough clout at the low end. So, it's hard to advise, but the main issue is that you need to consider the desired effect of the track, and mix accordingly.

As mentioned in part one, we could write for weeks on this subject and still not cover every angle. But hopefully this three-part overview has given you some inspiration to start firing up the sampler and getting busy with the beats. May the funk be with you...

Back to School: 5 Music Theory Tips... For Success!

Many producers have no formal musical education, doing their own thing by ear and not using any rules to define their melodies.

This may be working out for you, but even if it is, a basic grasp of some fundamental parts of music theory can help you know where to aim on the keyboard when looking for that perfect chord or riff!

Here are 5 quick insights if you're an absolute beginner that can help you to better understand how to write the kind of music you want...

1. Major and Minor

Changing a song's scale can drastically change a song's mood. A major scale results in a jolly, happy mood, whereas a minor scale results in a darker, more emotional sound. A quick way to test the different sounds is to play the scales on a keyboard.

Try it out:

Going from C, playing every consecutive white note until you hit the next C on the keyboard is the C Major scale, which as you can see comes across as dutifully cheery, whereas a minor scale would start to involve some of the black keys, which if you test out bringing them in things start to get much more serious!

2. Octaves

If you feel that the note you're playing is right, but it doesn't have the right tonality to it, try playing it an octave above or below. An octave is slightly confusing to define in words, but if we look at the example above with the white keys playing the C Major scale, the 8th note you play will be an octave above the 1st note.

Try it out:

Most MIDI keyboards come with "Octave up/down" buttons so you can hear the difference. It's the same note, just lower or higher in pitch. Playing two or more notes of the same key at different octaves at the same time is a great technique for making more powerful sounds.

3. Want something painful? Listen to dissonance!

If you play a chord or sequence that sounds pleasant, like it belongs, it is called "consonance". When you want to hear something less pleasant (Dubstep and other darker, heavier genres listen up!) you should be aware of "dissonance" - when some notes don't fit together.

Try it out:

For instance if you play a C at the same time as the first black key to the right of it on a keyboard at the same time, you'll hear that painful dissonant sound. It can be used to great effect in anything from Hip Hop (Dr Dre did it with pianos all the time!) to Hardstyle, Dubstep, Heavy Metal... the list goes on. Sometimes it's good to not stick to what sounds conventionally pleasant!

4. Harmony

If you feel your vocals melodies are thinner and not quite as powerful as those in pop music, maybe you should consider adding some harmonies. Harmony is usually a case of using simultaneous pitches on the same melody line, listen to the chorus of whatever is topping the charts and I bet if you listen to the vocal line, there will be another one sitting quietly above or below the main melody line, following it but hitting different notes.

Try it out:

With the C major scale, try going up playing two notes at a time - one finger on the C and one finger two white keys up. It's the same melody line, but harmonised.

5. Instant prettiness - thirds

...Which brings me nicely onto thirds. There are lots of chords out there but a quick way to make pretty sounds is what you just did when you harmonised the C major scale. Since your second finger was hitting the third note in the scale at the same time as the first, this is known as a third. A major third in fact.

Try it out:

Major thirds aren't the only ones out there though - If you moved your second finger

down to the black note closest to it when playing the C major third, it'd become a C minor third. Hear how the tone of the music becomes more tense and emotional? That's the power of minor keys for you!

There's obviously a whole world of musicality out there to understand, but hopefully these ideas will give you some ideas to try if you get stuck when making your masterpieces!

The Science of Beatmaking - Part 2

Following on from last week's deconstruction of the basic drum sounds, this time we go into some depth on how to actually use these building blocks to put together an interesting and pumping drum track.

So if you're looking for some tips, join us...

We briefly covered the concept of layering up your drum samples, and this is something a lot of people do; it can be useful for several reasons. First, you can take the characteristics of two sounds and blend them together; a snare drum with grit and space to it, underpinned by a chunky drum-machine snare, or layered with a rimshot to help shape the envelope. But on top of that, once you've achieved the sound you want, you can experiment with the layers for variation. More on which later; but in the meantime let's look at how to stack up your sounds.

For this example, let's imagine that you've got an old funk break that you want to use or build around. You've chopped it up, but because it's old (maybe off vinyl) there's not a lot of top end on there, the kick doesn't have much beef to it, perhaps the snare lacks a bit of crack. If you're going to use it in a modern sounding house, dubstep or
breaks track, it will need a correspondingly tough sound. So, the break gives you
character, now to add to that with some punchy sounds.

Remember also to pick other sounds that complement your style; so if you want some intricate Drum and Bass sounds, you won't want a huge house kick that dominates the lower end; if you're doing some heavy breaks you'll want a big meaty snare to add impact. As with any part of a mix, you need to avoid clashing sounds, so when you're stacking your drum hits, think about the EQ settings. For instance with a kick drum; if you want to use a nice subby kick with a gritty, toppy one, then it would make sense to low-pass the subby kick, and high pass the toppy one. This will make your kick easier to manage, but be careful not to be too extreme with the EQ'ing and end up scooping out the middle of your sounds.

Once you've got your sounds sitting well together (it will usually take a few attempts to find drums that complement each other) then you can start arranging the break to suit. The main hits will need to be anchoring the beat; on top of that you can sit the break you're using for character. At this point, you can start experimenting with your layered hits for fills and ghost notes, to give your beat more fluidity. If you remove the heavy sample from your snare, you can have a snare sound that keeps most of the sound, but gives a subtle dynamic shift so that you can program those 16th-note flurries without them sounding too robotic.

Be careful not to go overboard with the ghost-notes though - it's all too easy to fill a bar full of shuffling hits, which are wonderful, clever and complex, but will end up distracting the listener from the impact of the beat. Keeping your beat simple will mean people can nod their heads and enjoy the groove a bit more. One handy trick is to put as many ghost notes in there as you like - too many, it's ok, just get the right vibe - and then see how many you can remove while still keeping the feel. You'll often find that it's actually only one or two hits that are really doing the work, and the rest are essentially clutter. Strip these out and you've got more room to funk, and more space for the other elements in your track.

You can do the same with a bongo or tambourine loop; whilst a full loop might give an extra energy to your drum track, chopping it right down to the bare essentials will help leave more space for other ideas.

While on the subject of 'feel' don't forget to try pulling things off-grid. The likes of Flying Lotus or The Neptunes use this to exceptional effect; often their hits are so far away from being quantised that they're almost out of time. Cunning use of this technique can give a really funky groove, or certainly an ear-catching effect. Try it with your layered sounds, or try it with individual layers of your snare to give it a 'spread' feel. This technique is often particularly effective with clap sounds - try taking four or five claps and starting them all at different times - some slightly early and some late, to give a loose, baggy funk vibe.

You can also play around with reverb or effect sends; try sending just one of your snare layers to a reverb unit, instead of the whole sound - or just your sampled break.

It is, of course, impossible to tell you how to write your tunes, but hopefully this has sparked off a few ideas that will help you make your drum tracks more interesting, punchy and coherent. Come back next week and we'll have a look at some mixdown and later production ideas; busses, dub, saturation and more.

The Science of Beatmaking - Part 1

We're going back to basics here, and going in depth on one of the very foundations of any track; the drums. If you're going to get anywhere with electronic music, you need to start with a solid drum track. But how to get a great sound? Let's tackle this perennial issue...

This is a pretty deep one, and we could, quite frankly, be here all year chewing the fat over what makes a good beat. Indeed, just this morning your author was marvelling over a drum break on a new pop track, listening to the youtube on repeat and trying to pull apart the individual sounds. So since there's so much detail to take in, we're going to break it down over two weeks; ingredients this week, method next.

We can start by considering the basics of the sound; the aspects which everyone needs to consider, regardless of genre. There are two main areas to look at: the 'meat' of the sound, by which we mean the body of the hit, engineered and perhaps compressed for maximum impact, and the 'character' of the sound, which gives it the sonic interest. Which could be a scratchy old funk loop on a hip-hop track, or it could be some glitchy 8-bit blips on a minimal track. Either way, you need both sides to really make a good loop; weighty drums with no character will sound bland, while characterful drums with no weight behind them will lack energy. So let's go from the ground up, then, and start with the kick drum. I'll be breaking each sound into its constituent parts, and we can usually consider a kick as having three of them. You've no doubt heard about 'layering' up your drum sounds, and this is a sensible way to go, if you're having trouble finding the perfect sample!

In a kick there's the sub-bass, of course, which occupies those frequencies below 100Hz, but then there's an important element just above that, around 120-160Hz which I'll term the 'knock' of the sound. It's this part of the kick drum that gives it impact, and punch. If you want to hear these sounds in action, it's lucky that Roland have made our job a lot easier; fire up a simple 808 kick to hear that lovely sub, whilst the classic 909 kick sound is full of 140Hz punch. It's the default techno style kick that cuts through a mix with ease.

Of course, you don't always need both of these sounds in your kick - both 808 and 909 kicks sound great on their own - but you need to be aware of how they affect the overall sound. If you're writing a track with loads of space then you can have a big subby kick and not too much 'knock'; for instance a dirty-south style hip hopper, or a sparse minimal techno arrangement. If, on the other hand, you're writing a busy, hyped dubstep track with a big sub-bass line, loads of mid-range and a lot of detail, then you'll want to crank up the 140Hz area to help the sound jump out of the mix, whilst perhaps toning down the lower end, so that it

doesn't clash with your sub-line.

At the top end of the kick - fortunately there isn't too much going on in the mid-range arena - is where we find 'presence' and 'character'. This is the area to bring out if you want to make your sound more audible in the mix, and it's what (in recording terms) would be the 'tak' noise of the kick drum pedal hitting the nylon skin of the drum head. These days, it could easily be some glitch sounds you've layered on top, an embedded hihat sound, or part of the scratchy funk loop you're using.

With snare drums, we can again break them down into three broad areas. Working upwards, there's the low-mids component, which hits at around 200Hz. You don't want much below this, to avoid clashing with the kick, but this is what gives the sound its weight. Want to go for that 'stadium' sound so beloved of the likes of Pendulum or Sub Focus? Here's the key. A big weighty 200Hz smack. Want a more dexterous, agile drum pattern? Then keep this area under control. A big heavy snare may have power, but it limits the options for fluid, intricate drum programming.

Character in a snare drum tends to come in the mid-range area; roughly from 800Hz to 2K, and this is likely where the main element of that funk loop or disco clap sample will fall. Above this we have 'presence' once more, and it's where the ear is caught by those higher frequencies and transients. Again, this is traditionally stick-on-drum territory, although now it could just as easily also be a clap, rimshot, or one of those buzzy, 1980's drum machine snares. Roll some of this frequency area off for a gritty, lo-fi sound, if you so desire.

Last, we have the hi-hats, shakers, and tambourines. Once again, we can consider a 'function' and 'character' part to these. Layering a hi-hat over the top of a kick or snare can bring it forward in the mix, and hats can add sparkle to a drum pattern. Typically a hihat will have a lot of presence in the 3-5K region, and this is roughly what you'd be using to program that shuffle and swing that will sit atop your beat, giving it some funk. But beyond that, it's not unknown to hi-pass another layer of hats up at 10K, just to give a touch of almost inaudible sparkle right at

the top end (although an exciter might do the same job). Then for character you can have a much lower hat, with lots more energy around 1K - but as with weightier snares, this doesn't lend itself so well to intricate programming. Better to let it sit on the off-beat where it has space to breathe.

So - these are the basics, the constituent parts, the aspects you need to keep in mind as you juggle the various parts to your drum beat. Join us next week as we start to assemble them into a world-beating rhythm track!