The 'How To Make Good Melodies' Thread

[MARKEG]

Let's share how to make good melodies in techno.

And I'm not talking trance, I'm talking, hard techno, detroit, chicago anything that's not formulaic.

For crazy leads: Throw down multiple polyphony on ur tune.. like 3 or 4. Then Add chorus. Then add unison (dunno what this could be called in terms of software...). Then add alittle reverb, a little panning delay. Make 2 copies of ur main synth, putting one on left channel, one on right. Then you'll have a huge noise.

[Ritzi Lee]

Use the black keys in combination with the pitch!

[RDR]

ah... pentatonic...

[rhythmtech]

i love using moog basses for stabs. get a pretty standard sounding moog bass patch, pitch it up an octave, bring the decay and sutain right down and play around with the filter. you can get some lovely detroit style stabs, which, with a little drive and delay can suit herder techno aswell as the melodic stuff. also dont go crazy with lots of notes, just a few nicely placed ones and let the reverb and delay do the rest. works lovely with a nice modulated filter delay.

[dirty_bass]

Learn music.
Listen to music.
Understand harmony.
Also understand dissonance.

[DotMatrix]

i love using moog basses for stabs. get a pretty standard sounding moog bass patch, pitch it up an octave, bring the decay and sutain right down and play around with the filter. you can get some lovely detroit style stabs, which, with a little drive and delay can suit herder techno aswell as the melodic stuff. also dont go crazy with lots of notes, just a few nicely placed ones and let the reverb and delay do the rest. works lovely with a nice modulated filter delay.

great post, going home to give this a try right now.....

[danielmarshall]

Random keyboard mashing...

[da hound]

Random keyboard mashing...
same as me bro.quiet like useing the chorder in sx on stabs aswell and as mark said delay ,reverb , chourus

[DotMatrix]

If you have never learnt even the most basic music theory (like me). You might find this useful.

http://www.pianobychords.com/index.html

[danielmarshall]

I've played guitar for 13 years now, but the best stuff always seems to come by accident.

[loopdon]

@daniel: maybe what you call an accident is still sth. quite different then what would be an accident to an untrained musician. if you know what i mean. i reckon u can't totally free yourself from the stuff you've learnt... ;)

[FILTERZ]

Learn music.
Listen to music.
Understand harmony.
Also understand dissonance.



yep .

best advice.

[TheRev]

When i was in school studying theory and ear training i had this one ear training teacher that would curse at us and scream "You want to be a musician? How can you be a musician if you can't do ear training" and equating it to a writer that can read and such. He also said we should sing scales in the shower every day and how he was singing microtones and whatnot.

Craziness aside, he's write about the ear training being neccesary to being a musician. Having a well tuned ear makes writing music less guesswork and more like a trained skill. Being able to go from a tune in your head to something in the sequencer, note wise at least, with minimal effort is invaluable. Not saying you can't make a wicked tune without ear training, but its more likely to be something you stumble upon rather than something more readily calculated.

[BloodStar]

Learn music.
Listen to music.
Understand harmony.
Also understand dissonance.



yep .

best advice.

second this. i dont have any musical education, but i ave learned quite a lot about melodies from one of my workmate in my last job who was a piano player for 10years or so.,,we had some long debates about theory, harmonies, chord scales and such a things,. he brang me some theory of harmony book,. even i was ****ing confused on many places while reading, it gave me a new different view on all these things like melodies,harmony,disharmony,and so..

[thetonewrecka]

There's melodies in techno?

I've used this receipe to write a few tunes.

-mix some straight booze in a tall glass with plenty of ice cubes
-turn up the drums 2 db for every ice cube in the glass
-kick the chair out of the studio and stand by the gear
-think about something in the day that really..really pissed you off and was out of your control and then turn on a synth..don't touch those presets, in fact you should be deleting the preset banks and start with a sad plain jane vanilla tone. Start to twist that sound as it was the physical manifestation of what was troubling you. The more you twist it and hurt it, the more it should howl in response. You may start grinning by now.
-your glass may be empty and you are swaying a lot. When you fall to the floor as you clumsily grasp at the keyboard is usally how you write a good fill.

works for me.

[danielmarshall]

I wholeheartedly agree with the standing by your gear bit. Dunno why, but when I get excited about a track I'm writing I can't sit and produce. Dunno about the rest though :lol:

[The Divide]

There's melodies in techno?

I've used this receipe to write a few tunes.

-mix some straight booze in a tall glass with plenty of ice cubes
-turn up the drums 2 db for every ice cube in the glass
-kick the chair out of the studio and stand by the gear
-think about something in the day that really..really pissed you off and was out of your control and then turn on a synth..don't touch those presets, in fact you should be deleting the preset banks and start with a sad plain jane vanilla tone. Start to twist that sound as it was the physical manifestation of what was troubling you. The more you twist it and hurt it, the more it should howl in response. You may start grinning by now.
-your glass may be empty and you are swaying a lot. When you fall to the floor as you clumsily grasp at the keyboard is usally how you write a good fill.

works for me.

Hahaha love it

[MARKEG]

:lol:

[danielmarshall]

Get inspiration from jazz music...

Jazz just like techno is abstract and strongly rythmically based.

Think about it.

[The Divide]

I dont know about good, but my little thingy makes some pretty weird melodies

http://www.blackoutaudio.co.uk/portal/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=565032#56 5032

Sometimes a bit, dare I say, trance like! :S:S:S

[ampassasinbirmingham]

sounds like a horror intro danny. i maybe thought it was the intro to thriller. uber shit tho.

[The Divide]

[b] :lol:

[Zektor]

just listen to music with some background noise (streetnoise, tv noise, people talking) and then you can hear a beautiful melody through it....