[0:00]Hey everyone, this is Leo Laretti from Abstrakt Music Lab. I'm a DJ producer. I'm stoked to be here on PML's channel. Today we're going to go through the five most essential sounds in Melodic House, and these are the sounds that you listen to in labels like Anjunadeep or Colorize or also with artists like Ben Böhmer, Rezident, Fehrplay, and many, many more. So now let's dive right into it so we can already start with these elements.
[0:31]One of the most fundamental sounds in a Melodic House is the kick and the bass, and we're going to get started just with the kick and the tom. Just so you can listen and have a foundation of what we're actually working with. But as I mentioned before, you need the base, so if you listen to the sub over here.
[0:59]It's a simple bass sub. And if you check the sound design, it's pretty much just a saw wave and a sign with a lot of filter because we don't want anything in the high end. We're doing this in another channel, no effects. But as you can see it over here, the coolest thing about this sound is that it has this sweep up. And it's playing pretty much tone, as you can see, tone, third, fifth, and fourth. We're putting this an octave down just to make it a bit more moody as you can listen. And what's making that sweep, it's actually this part of mental. And it creates a really nice swoop in the sound, and we're going to do the same thing with the media part of the base as well. So the second most important element in your base is the mid base, as you can listen here.
[1:54]It's just a saw wave, as you can see it, it's also tuned to mono over here in the original sound, but in the effects, we add a bit of hyper and dimension, which makes it a bit more detuned. So this is mono and this is wider. As you can see, we're filtering a bit of the low end because we already have something in the low end coming from the base up. So we don't need to do it again. That's why if you listen, they complement each other. They both have the same part mental to give the same kind of sweep to the sound. And essentially, they're playing the same MIDI as well. Why are they playing the same MIDI? Because if you're doing a base, you need to make sure that your base plays the same thing all over all your layers in the baseline. But why do we have the mid base? So we have the low base, especially to create a connection with the kick and the base and to solidify that low end in the song. And the mid base creates the connection of the low end of the base with the high end of your song with all the melodic elements that you're going to have in your melodic house song. So essentially, when you have the mid base, it just makes it a bit easier to create that connection. Now, in context, with side chain. And that's sound number one. So now let's go to sound number two.
[3:19]The other most fundamental sound in Melodic House is the lead, as you can listen over here.
[3:40]What are we doing essentially in this MIDI? We're playing the same thing in the foundation. We're playing the B, which is the first key of the bass. We're playing the D, which is the second of the bass, the third of the bass, and the fourth of the bass, as we did in the bass line as I've just showed you. But we're complementing this with these notes over here. They are the third of the note that we're playing, so the third of B, the third of D, the third of F sharp, the third of E, and they're complementing the main note creating a kind of swing and kind of a dance, which is essentially your lead melody. But instead of playing low as we had before, because that doesn't create diversity in the song. If we make it an octave up, then makes it a lot more interesting. And one thing that you always need to remind yourself is always to keep yourself in key. So now we're using B minor for this song. And if you put it in scale, you can see that everything is playing as in the scale of B minor. But using the third and the fifth is always a good thing because that creates a really nice sound for the key of your song. Now, let's go into the sound design of things because you have a few things that I want to show you. First, the saw wave as you've seen before, this is a pluck sound that it's also modulated by this other envelope that's modulating this cut off over here. It has a lot of noise because without the noise, this noise adds character to the sound, and we don't have that much elements having over here.
[5:15]We just have a low cut to get rid of that baseline that we don't need, and a lot of reverb and a lot of delay, but we're also doing some EQing, as you can see here. What are we EQing? You have two regions in your lead. This is the body, and you have the accent. So we're just boosting a bit of the accent over here. Now we have something really cool, which is this envelope follower, and this reverb and delay rack. What is this? Listen to how it would sound without this. Just too much reverb and delay coming from this rack. So what are we doing? Pretty much when the sound comes up in loudness, you can see that this is going to rise, and then it's going to fall. But look at what happens also to this output gain over here.
[6:00]As the sound gets louder, the delay and reverb gets quieter, so we're pretty much cleaning the reverb and the delay only using stock plugins.
[6:16]This way, we don't have as much reverb and delay when the dry sound is there, and when the dry sound is out of the way, that's when we come in with a lot of reverb and delay to not make it so crowded and so wet in the sound that we can barely listen to it. So listen to it again. Now let's add some side chain and listen to it in context. Imagine that this is kind of like a lead vocal, it does the same function. It leads you through the song. So without it, it feels like it's missing something. And you can often confuse your lead with an ARP and everything, but always think to yourself, is the sound really leading my song? As we move forward to the rest of your drop, you're going to have to add a lot more elements, as you can see it over here. So let's listen. Not only your percussions are going to be enhanced, but also your melodics are also going to be enhanced. Here, we have a few other elements. We have a piano doing the foundation. Again, just playing the baseline and just with a lot of chords as you can see it over here, pretty much playing tone, fifth, tone, third. Then we have this plucky sound. Just to keep the rhythm going, we have a counter melody and an accent melody. Look at how we are also doing a bit of modulation here in the main lead. Let's intensify this so you can listen. This makes your lead be more dynamic, while all the other elements make these empty spots not so empty, making your drop fuller and more interesting to listen to. So don't forget about them in your song, but now let's talk about sound number three.
[8:43]Now, Melodic House is not only about these elements, because we have to create the foundation for your lead and for your bass line, and we can do this with pads, mellow plucks, and other elements in your sound. So, for example, so if you listen to this progression, it sounds nice, but it needs the chords in the progression as well.
[9:14]And we have here, as we had before, a piano, so just doing this. Without the side chain, let's take the side chain away.
[9:28]We also have a pad. You can see that both are pretty filtered and focus in the low mids, most importantly. But you can also have them focus a little bit more higher up, like Tinlicker does a lot in his songs. And here, if you look into what is this pad, this is pretty much just a saw wave, so nothing super complex. This piano is a PML piano that you can grab in the courses from PML.
[10:03]But one really cool thing is the MIDI of these two elements. So let's select both because we want to make changes for both. And as you can see here, we have the tone, which are these four notes over here. If you listen to the bass as well, you're going to see that C sharp, A, F sharp, and G sharp, as we have it over here. So we're creating this moody feeling by starting with the root note and then we go two notes down and then we go another two notes down. But we bring this up to create a more hopeful feeling in the end. But notice how this chord in the end feels a little bit jazzy, let's call it like this. Why is this happening? Because if you listen to this note here, it technically is not in the scale of C sharp minor. Why is it happening though? It's because we're using the harmonic minor of C sharp. So if you listen to this note, this should be here actually. And this feels right, but it doesn't feel as warm as what we had before. What are we doing? Instead of making this a minor chord, as it has been over here, we're making this a major chord, so we're just transposing this one semitone up.
[11:34]And you can see how this adds a lot of interest in this sound. By making this sound more interesting, you're increasing the vibe and the intention of the emotion of the sound, which is what Melodic House is all about. It's all about creating an emotional journey with your listener, and you can do this a lot with your core progressions and your pads doing your song. But there are other ways that you can do the same thing. If you listen to these two new elements that we didn't have before, listen to them in solo without any side chain as well. We have some core plucks and this is essentially playing again just the foundation. You'll see that it starts in C sharp, goes to A, then it goes to F sharp and goes back to G sharp, and we're playing around with the notes of the scale. So if we go back to C sharp minor, we're again just playing the minor elements, and we're starting here with the fifth all the way down to the third. Which note should you play? Thirds and fifths are always really nice to go because they're a little bit safer. But you can also play around the sixth and the seventh to create a little bit more variance in your sound with the piano. See how that adds richness to the sound. So what is a takeaway here? Once your base is set, you can build your chords out of that. Once your chords are set, you can build your additional elements based out of that as well, as we've just done over here. And we can do the same thing for the ARP as you can listen here. And you can see here that we're not changing the motif. It's always the same and it just keeps on looping regardless of the note that we're playing. Why? Because keeping it this way reharmonizes the sound and it just gives a new variance to the sound. It just makes everything fit together a lot better.
[14:21]If we want to listen to everything in context with side chain. If you listen, these background elements are the elements that support your main lead. Your main lead is still going to be the most important element, but these background elements are just going to be the support. It's just going to intensify the main element of your song, it's going to intensify the emotion of your song, making your melodic house a lot more melodic and a lot better to listen to. And these don't need to be super complex sound. If you listen for example over here, the pluck is just a simple saw wave as we had before, and the ARP again, just a simple saw wave again.
[15:10]But now, let's go to element number four.
[15:18]If you don't want the classic lead, you can also use something that I love calling dreamy plucks or even a second lead, but as you can listen over here. In context without any side chain.
[15:50]One thing that it's really cool making in your sound is to make automation. So as we've seen before and as we're seeing again over here, we can start a little bit more filtered and end the progression a lot more open to create that sense of growth and that the song is always evolving. And if we look into the sound design of it, it's not something super complex, just kind of like a square wave with a saw wave, with a bit of reverb and a bit of delay, just making it a bit wider. We're also making it wider with the utility, but it's again, a pluck in this sound.
[16:27]And if we listen to the MIDI here, you don't have to always be super complex with your MIDI. You can start super simple as these two notes and then you go into this, and then you add more notes, and then you do octave jumps and we come more complex. The idea with your lead is that sometimes less is more. You don't need to always be super complex because super complex could also be hard to follow. So starting simple and building the complexity with time just makes it a bit easier on the ears. As you can also complement this with some ear candy. And this harmonizes the lead as you can listen. This is just a simple piano, nothing crazy on it, but as you can see, again, in context.
[17:45]This kind of lead is super useful if you just want to make a more dreamy kind of pluck in your lead, or if you also have a lead and you want to play something on top as you progress with your drop, that's a really useful way of doing it. But now, let's go to sound number five.
[18:04]Adding plucks that act like chord stabs sometimes can be really useful as well. Listen to this example as you can listen. That's to activate the side chain. If we check the MIDI, what are we doing again?
[18:30]If you go here and we put this all the way down, and we select the scale, which is D sharp minor, you can see that again, we're just playing tone and third, doing a little bit of variation just to make it a little bit interesting. But there's a couple of things that are really interesting in this sound. First and foremost, listen to the automation here in the mod wheel. What is this doing is just creating variation in your sound, so it's not static and boring. If you listen, for example, to if it was static, it just doesn't change and that makes the sound a bit boring. So creating these little variations in your sound is really cool. How can you do this? As you can see it over here, the automation is either by using the mod wheel, which is modulating the cut off, or using the mod number two, which is modulating a little bit of the cut off and the resonance as well. This is just pretty much a saw wave as you can listen again. This has a lot of EQing just to tame a little bit of this low mids and also a little bit of the high mids, but we're also making the sound a bit wider over here, and also low cutting it so it doesn't have and doesn't conflict so much with the bass.
[20:27]This is really groovy, and it works really well because the bass is just pretty much doing the same thing. Now, we have something that it's groovy. We have something that it's simple in sound design because this is just pretty much a saw wave as well. And you can see a little bit of automation to create a bit more flow, and you can also see some background elements complement a little bit and to make this a bit fuller. How would we progress this if this was a drop? Just adding more pads, adding more background elements, adding more vocals as well, just to make this fuller and richer, even doing variations in the main lead could be something really nice to make your sound richer and more interesting over the time. But that's it for today. I hope that you like watching and I hope that you learned something new today. Of course, there are a lot more sounds, patterns, effects that we could go and explore. So let us know over here in the comments what else do you want to see in these videos, so we can cover next and make sure that you learn the most. If you want exactly these sounds, you can check the link over here in the description, the first link. It will contain all these Ableton projects, the sample pack, and also a Serum two pack, so you can start producing and making your songs a lot more awesome as well. This is Leo Laretti from Abstrakt Music Lab, signing off.
