How do those of you who create original songs create the instrumentals?

[Nanika]

I'd like to make a song of my own, and I'd like to have original background music.
So, those of you who make original songs, would you be interested in explaining how you do it to me?
Or, what program you use? (I'm talking about completely synthesized music.) I know a lot of those who make original songs use FL Studio, and I have FL Studio, but I have absolutely no idea how to make music in it. I'd like to be able to, though. THanks for any and all help!!

 

[IrisFlower]

I can't really explain how I do it exactly...I use Studio One that came with Meiko(and technically Luka V4X but I bought Meiko first so). It came with it's own instruments and everything and I used it to make this and...ugh...okay this is a very early mix and I swear at this point it sounds loads better than what you're being shown but I made this as well(-weeps- it sounds so empty there...).

I mean...do you need a step by step process of how it's done and how to produce the sounds or do you just want some tips and tricks?

 

[GothAmaterasu]

I use Fl myself, and though I'm no pro, you can pm me if you're interested in me explaining the steps I take. :3

 

[Nanika]

I can't really explain how I do it exactly...I use Studio One that came with Meiko(and technically Luka V4X but I bought Meiko first so). It came with it's own instruments and everything and I used it to make this and...ugh...okay this is a very early mix and I swear at this point it sounds loads better than what you're being shown but I made this as well(-weeps- it sounds so empty there...).

I mean...do you need a step by step process of how it's done and how to produce the sounds or do you just want some tips and tricks?

I really like yours! So Studio One came with Luka's V4X? (I was actually planning on get her, so...) But...Step by step might be better for me.

 

[kamonohashi]

This is off topic sorry, but do you have Studio One in English @IrisFlower ? I have it from MEIKO, too but it's all in Japanese so I don't how to use it. x3

 

[IrisFlower]

This is off topic sorry, but do you have Studio One in English @IrisFlower ? I have it from MEIKO, too but it's all in Japanese so I don't how to use it. x3

S'all right. when I installed mine it was in Japanese too. Whether this has something to do with my Japanese locale or because MEIKO is from Japan so they automatically...**** it. Don't know don't care. You can change the display language. When you first open up Studio One, upper left corner, third menu, fifth option/the only option with an arrow:

Spoiler

And yes Nicole, it comes with Luka V4X and all of Crypton's V3s~ As for my process you'll have to give me a moment to type it all out haha ;; I just wanted to answer the language question first real quick.

 

[Nanika]

S'all right. when I installed mine it was in Japanese too. Whether this has something to do with my Japanese locale or because MEIKO is from Japan so they automatically...**** it. Don't know don't care. You can change the display language. When you first open up Studio One, upper left corner, third menu, fifth option/the only option with an arrow:

Spoiler

And yes Nicole, it comes with Luka V4X and all of Crypton's V3s~ As for my process you'll have to give me a moment to type it all out haha ;; I just wanted to answer the language question first real quick.

Ah, I'd hoped so, thanks for telling me!
That's alright I understand~

 

[Kiyoteru]

Hey, if you want help with using FL studio, I'm offering it at this thread.

http://utaforum.net/threads/1-on-1-music-production-help.10494/

 

[kamonohashi]

S'all right. when I installed mine it was in Japanese too. Whether this has something to do with my Japanese locale or because MEIKO is from Japan so they automatically...**** it. Don't know don't care. You can change the display language. When you first open up Studio One, upper left corner, third menu, fifth option/the only option with an arrow:

Spoiler

And yes Nicole, it comes with Luka V4X and all of Crypton's V3s~ As for my process you'll have to give me a moment to type it all out haha ;; I just wanted to answer the language question first real quick.

Ah, okay, thanks!~

 

[IrisFlower]

I hope you like reading~

Spoiler: Pre-Step

Before I do anything? I brainstorm what I want my song to sound like. This is like a given. What kind of sound are you going for? Dark? Sad? Cheerful? Fate and personal taste dictates both of my songs are dark/about bad things happeneing to someone. What instruments would best help convey those emotions or feelings? What keys/notes? Do I have any melodies in mind at all??

Break the Mirror - I started off with the vocal melodies and had the idea of a dark lullaby sound. So I knew I wanted a music box in there and simple melodies.

Sweet Mint Chocolate - I started off with a piece of the instrumental and knew I wanted big and powerful. Something that said "well everything is ruined nothing is fine" and almost spelled "Doom" So the choir girls and the piano help with that. Not to mention those bells that especially seem to be doing the count down during Meiko's "We've had enough of them so when the clock winds down it's over with."

Spoiler: Step 1

So since I use Studio One...I start with an "Empty Song". There are these little samples and stuff that you can look at to get a feel for the program. Otherwise I start with a new empty/blank song file:

And then I get to work on whatever melody I have in my head. I pick my instrument from the list, usually it's either "Stage Piano" or "Grand Piano" just because they're easy to get me started, and drag it over into the track editor area so that it creates a new track with my instrument. Using the pencil I draw out a small section of the track and start inputting my notes in the midi editor area. Usually my first section is about 2 maybe 4 measures long. It varies depending on how much of the melody I have thought out.

But if I were drawing a picture this would be my sketching process honestly. I get whatever melodies I had planned out in my work area as quickly as possible before I lose them.

The track editor and midi editor both have their own tools btw. So I can have the pencil tool selected on my midi editor but move my mouse to the track editor and have the selection tool selected instead.

Also during this time I'm adjusting the tempo of the song to what fits best.

Break the Mirror's tempo is 98 while Sweet Mint Chocolate's is 126.

Spoiler: Step 2

I start building around my original melody really. Adding more tracks and instruments as I see fit and making sure my chosen instruments sound nice together. This step was admittedly easier for Break the Mirror than it was for Sweet Mint Chocolate because I knew my lyrics would go with my off vocal but Sweet Mint Chocolate obviously still came out nicely and I prefer it to Break the Mirror.

Here I'll also do some basic mixing by adjusting the volume levels of my tracks. If everything is the same volume level...well....I'm sure you know what would eventually start to happen? My ears would explode and it'd sound not very nice. I also may pan certain tracks to the left or right.

Spoiler: Step 3

Once I have a decent off vocal going I get to work on my vocals. I put them down as a midi first just to test the waters a bit. If everything still sounds nice I'll either bust open Piapro Studio since it's right there in Studio One or if I'm tired of working with the music I'll use the Vocaloid Editor. Either way this is my vocal and lyric writing step where I start writing and making basic tuning.

Spoiler: Step 4

I put the vocals to whatever music I have and adjust accordingly. My voices are just as much instruments as everything else is and if I have to tweak the instruments to them I will. Pretty much as I work and add stuff I honestly end up with a file that looks like this:

And that is just a piece there are more tracks than that but I'd have to both zoom out and click out of my effects editor and there really isn't anything special below Luka other than Iris and Meiko's vocal tracks lol

You can also see that I'm able to label areas of my song with flags for organizational purposes so that as I work I can know "Okay this part of the song is my chorus; this is the bridge" etc.

Spoiler: Step 5

Mixing!!...-weak confetti cannon- -really really weak confetti cannon-

I'm still learning to mix myself...but this is where I would do it and try and get things to sound nice and finalized. Luckily, Studio One once again has your back with some nice presets under the "Effects" section for compression, equalization, a de-esser, and busted speaker vocals even. But you should still adjust things to your liking.

This is going to take numerous amounts of tutorials but practice and you'll get it.

Spoiler: Final step

Have fun!! Seriously have fun with it. This is your song, nobody elses. Unless you're on a time crunched commission ready to pull your hair out...you should be having fun with it. This is just another way to express yourself like drawing or writing a story. No need to kill yourself over it and if you can't get it right the first time just come back to it later~

And honestly don't follow me to the letter...myself and others can only show you how programs work and how to make the end result sound nice. We can't write the song or put the melodies down for you. Well...technically we could if you wanted to collaborate but you get it.

We can't do it for you...the song comes from you just like our songs come from us. We could show you our processes all day long...but it's going to mean diddly squat if you don't open the program and do stuff yourself.

Music is like drawing only it's auditory not visual. Looking at tutorials will only get you so far if you don't put them into practice and develop your own style~

Obviously except for that last step, this is just the very vague stuff. I'm barely scratching the surface of it because without streaming or a video it's just difficult for me to show you how everything works. These are also just the basics of Studio One it has more to offer that I haven't figured out myself just yet. So my tip to you would be to just goof off in FL Studio once you get it's basic mechanics down. You'll be surprised what you can learn just by doing your own thing at first. And seriously...the final step is like the most important.

 

[Kanjo~]

To be honest, I think the best way to make an instrumental is to start from absolute scratch. Work from the bottom up. then I make the melody and everything. Don't get me wrong writing with a melody first isn't bad, it's just not my way of doing things

I tried to put together a tutorial with some pictures, I'm just giving the basics on how to use it, I didn't really go into mixing the instrumental because I don't have any good headphones right now so I can't really do that. it's really not that hard once you know how to use everything~

Spoiler: Tutorial

Spoiler: Step 1

Ok, so I'm going to explain my basic technique. now before I get into this, I will tell you when I write instrumentals, I use Vsts that do not come with fl studio. However, I used only the default vsts for this tutorial.
First: Open up Fl Studio

Spoiler: Step One Complete

Spoiler: Step 2

Second: Obviously you can't have a song without the actual music so let's go ahead and play around. I always like to start with either a good bass/pad/or beat. for this tutorial purposes I will start with a beat.
Below I put a basic beat using the Kick, Clap, and Hat that are already preset into fl studio. This set up is your basic club set up, feel free to try using it! it's what I always used when I started using FL Studio.

Spoiler: Step 2

Note: if it's just a short beat it's fine to just click on the little things (I honestly don't know what they're called) but if it's a longer beat you're going to have to go into piano roll (which I will talk about soon)

after you put together your beat you can start using the menu on the side to go through your presets and try out different drum sounds, since you don't always just wanna do the default

Spoiler: Side menu

(I'm not entirely sure if I had to set fl studio to have this, if so tell me and I'll go figure out how I did it for you)

and look here we got all new drum samples to make it sound different!

Spoiler: Changed drums

Spoiler: Step 3

Third: We need some meat for this beat
We need to add a channel to add to the beat we already made. for this example I'm going to use Harmless (Harmless should be a default vst with FL Studio, it may not be in the same place as mine, but the vsts are generally put in order alphabetically).

Spoiler: Harmless

Once harmless pops up, you should see the big ole' harmless program, if you do not, try clicking on harmless (or whatever instrument your using) in the menu with the drum samples.

now that I have harmless up, let's go ahead and use a preset. There are two ways to do this.
1. you can go to the top right corner of the harmless menu click it and a big list of options should come up. from there you just pick one as so:

Spoiler: Picking

2. You can use the menu on the left, find harmless, open the folder by clicking the arrow on the left, and go through it's presets. once you find one you like, drag it into the menu with the preset drums and get er' goin (this means you could have like totally skipped the last paragraph)

For this tutorial I went ahead and chose Electric Blue AG

Spoiler: Step 4

Step 4: Setting up for multiple pattern tracks

Now that we got our instrument ready, let's go ahead and work on it. But before we start, we don't want to be stuck with a small little loop with the drum pattern, so we're gonna put them on seperate layers.

Spoiler: Playlist menu

Using the picture above you're going to want to put this pattern in the menu to the left of our channels that says playlist. to do this make sure the top of the playlist menu has the pattern our drums is on (pattern 1) and is set to the paint brush. after that just click and slide down till your satisfied with your drums like so

Spoiler: Ye

now you're going to want to press the plus button on the top of the channels menu to start a new pattern. once you're on that pattern, make sure you put it on the playlist menu below the drums. (don't repeat it like the drums though)

Spoiler: dis

Spoiler: Step 5

Step 5: The Fun Part

if you've played around with fl studio you may or may not have noticed the piano roll option, BUT AS SOON AS YOU DO THE FLOOD GATES ARE OPENED!
Right click on the channel we're working on and select piano roll. now it looks like just another grid. BUT NOW YOU CAN DRAW THE NOTES ON! THIS IS WHERE YOU REALLY GET TO BE CREATIVE! I went ahead and drew a few for your example picture

Spoiler: kickin bass

I made some weird funky base, but I promised I wouldn't delete anything I made for this tutorial so I can't undo it~

Spoiler: Step 6

Step 6: Lather Rinse Repeat

Start playing with other instruments! Open new channels~ Play to your hearts content, if you don't like the sound, try something different. I'm more partial to techno with piano, you may like jazz and rock, show that through what you create. below I have the completion of my playing around

Spoiler: Done

and once you're done put them all together.

Spoiler: Extras

Extra info:
If an instrument is too soft or loud for you, try messing with these little lines down here

Spoiler: Before

Spoiler: After

also while you're playing around, you can add a sliding sound affect to some Instruments by pressing this button down, just remember to unpress it after you're done

Spoiler: No Slidey ono

Spoiler: button

Spoiler: Slidey =u=

afterwards I put in an utau and played with it's voice and such

Spoiler: Using the tutorial methods I put together this song

I was self taught, and it made things really difficult to grasp, so if you ever have questions, feel free to ask

 

[Nanika]

So I looked at some of the stuff, and played around with the helpful tutorial. Is this...okay? I dunno it's my first time and I was just playing around.

Spoiler: test

 

[Kanjo~]

It sounds like you're getting somewhere~ just keep playing around with it. keep it up until you have something you like

 

[Kiyoteru]

If you want more resources and stuff for making songs you can check out the resource section in Month of Song, I might make it into a separate thread to make it easier to find. Generally it's pretty easy to find free samples and VSTs especially for electronic music. Synth-y sounds are cheaper to create than stuff like a guitar, unless you already have an actual guitar and a setup to record it (which does cost a lot)

I feel like the process of writing songs and creating your actual sounds is very individual and you really just need to know how to use the tools that you're working with. You can start out by using presets but it's very valuable to learn how to create synth patches yourself. FL studio 12 has a visual update to 3xosc which I feel makes it feel less "too weak to use" and friendlier to approach. Experiment with the different waveforms and filters, its a type of synthesizer thats easy to learn. When it comes to the song itself the most important things to regard are the elements and the structure.

Generally I'd say that the vital elements of a song would be bass, chords, rhythm, and vocals. Often the rhythm is something entirely separate (ie. a drum beat) but interesting rhythms could instead be incorporated into the bass or chords. Likewise, the bass and chords can be combined if you cover a pretty wide range, or the bass just left out. So you could possibly make an interesting piano song with nice rhythms and chords and a wide range. The vocals are the one thing you can't get rid of, but that's only because I'm assuming you want to make UTAU sing something. You can use UTAU as another instrument if you want to.

The generic pop song structure tends to go intro - verse - chorus - instrumental - verse - chorus - instrumental - bridge - chorus - outro
Writing lyrics to fit can making all the tuning work pretty easy when you just do the same chorus over and over. Having a strong and repetitive chorus makes the song memorable too. Alternatively you could make every single part of your song different, but when it's 8 minutes long and there's 7 vocal tracks and the lyrics NEVER repeat, you'll probably put that project on the back burner without the motivation to work so much.

Also sorry for the shameless plogue LMAO but if you want to just do a test of how your vocals are sounding so far without having to switch to UTAU, you can use the Alter/Ego VST as a placeholder.

 

[kamonohashi]

@IrisFlower Sorry to bother you, but how do you open Piapro in Studio One? I can't open it in FL Studio anymore because of an expired demo, and I can't figure out how to open it. ^^;

 

[PrinceofHades]

OK, so. First things first, a little bit of music theory never hurt anyone. You will be glad of learning a bit of music theory in the long run.
And by, bit of music theory, I just mean make sure you know what key you're writing in and have a reference that tells you what notes are in the key. (TRUST ME, this makes the whole song sound much better. Discordant notes are... creepy, and you don't want that in a sad or happy song.) I also had Piano lessons, and I also know that this method of composing probably does not work for everyone. ^^;

Now I'm gonna give you a very brief, probably unhelpful explanation of how I do things. However, this IS super long and I didn't intend it to be. OTL

The way I usually do things is I start in Anvil Studio (it's a free Midi Composer, very nice). I create the melody for my vocals with my lyrics first, in the very first track.
Then I add tracks with different melodies, but you want to listen to everything, to make sure it isn't clashing. Save often, as well. (Although who doesn't? XD //shot) I also like to add a rhythm track, basically drums. I export a midi-format 0 after I like how all the tracks are sounding. the midi-0 I exported is going to be imported into UTAU so I can make my UST.

After we're done exporting, it's time to head over to FL studios. Open it up, and import your regular midi (this would be what you saved you song in Anvil Studio as). Now, you can select different instruments for your tracks. (If you don't like any of FL Studios VSTs, DSK Instruments has a lot of great free ones.) Then, once you like what you hear, you can export as an MP3 (512-point-sinc is the highest quality, I recommend it even though it will take a bit longer). Best to title it as MySongName Off-Vocal.

Then I do my UST thing. Import the midi-0 file into UTAU (the regular midi save file that Anvil Studio uses doesn't appear to work with UTAU, hence we exported the Midi-0 which does work. IDK why.) Input the lyrics, do your tuning with the UTAU you want to sing the song, and render project wav. (I can't remember what the thing is actually called off the top of my head.)

And then we go back to FL Studio, mix the damn thing, and export that MP3 (there are tutorials on mixing in FL studio, so I'm not gonna go into that. OTL) This time, you should title it MySongName ft MyUTAU.
Aaand excluding art and pv stuff, you're done!

...You know what, I should probably make a tutorial on dA or YouTube. This probably didn't help you at all. OTL

Helpful Links:
All Natural Major Keys with Notes: http://musictheorysite.com/major-scales/list-of-all-major-scales
All Natural Minor Keys with Notes: http://musictheorysite.com/minor-scales/list-of-all-minor-scales
This handy thing tells you the characteristics of the keys, like happy, sad, dismal, etc: http://www.wmich.edu/mus-theo/courses/keys.html
DSK Instruments (you'll thank me later, this site is a life-saver and my go-to when I want new instruments): http://www.dskmusic.com/
Anvil Studio: http://www.anvilstudio.com/

 

[bearhack]

A really nice free sequencing program that I use when making instrumentals is called Psycle Modular Music Studio. It's free and I think it works pretty well once you get used to it. I'm sure its not as good as Fruityloops, Cubase or GarageBand but I do pretty well with it. You can find free .vst instruments online as vst4free, I happen to like the Sonatina Orchestra series and mdaPiano.

I also think you should look up some basic music theory, regarding tonality, chord progressions, voice leading, counterpoint and harmony. The concepts of the basic structure of how these things work together to make a beautiful piece of music are invaluable.

Me personally, I noodle on my keyboard until I find a good 4 or 5 note motif, then elaborate on it horizontally (with melody and chord progressions) and vertically (using the chord progressions and voice leading framework). It works out for a good start, then once you're familiar, you can start breaking the rules and make something cool ;-D

 

[Sattire]

OK, so. First things first, a little bit of music theory never hurt anyone. You will be glad of learning a bit of music theory in the long run.
And by, bit of music theory, I just mean make sure you know what key you're writing in and have a reference that tells you what notes are in the key. (TRUST ME, this makes the whole song sound much better. Discordant notes are... creepy, and you don't want that in a sad or happy song.) I also had Piano lessons, and I also know that this method of composing probably does not work for everyone. ^^;

Now I'm gonna give you a very brief, probably unhelpful explanation of how I do things. However, this IS super long and I didn't intend it to be. OTL

The way I usually do things is I start in Anvil Studio (it's a free Midi Composer, very nice). I create the melody for my vocals with my lyrics first, in the very first track.
Then I add tracks with different melodies, but you want to listen to everything, to make sure it isn't clashing. Save often, as well. (Although who doesn't? XD //shot) I also like to add a rhythm track, basically drums. I export a midi-format 0 after I like how all the tracks are sounding. the midi-0 I exported is going to be imported into UTAU so I can make my UST.

After we're done exporting, it's time to head over to FL studios. Open it up, and import your regular midi (this would be what you saved you song in Anvil Studio as). Now, you can select different instruments for your tracks. (If you don't like any of FL Studios VSTs, DSK Instruments has a lot of great free ones.) Then, once you like what you hear, you can export as an MP3 (512-point-sinc is the highest quality, I recommend it even though it will take a bit longer). Best to title it as MySongName Off-Vocal.

Then I do my UST thing. Import the midi-0 file into UTAU (the regular midi save file that Anvil Studio uses doesn't appear to work with UTAU, hence we exported the Midi-0 which does work. IDK why.) Input the lyrics, do your tuning with the UTAU you want to sing the song, and render project wav. (I can't remember what the thing is actually called off the top of my head.)

And then we go back to FL Studio, mix the damn thing, and export that MP3 (there are tutorials on mixing in FL studio, so I'm not gonna go into that. OTL) This time, you should title it MySongName ft MyUTAU.
Aaand excluding art and pv stuff, you're done!

...You know what, I should probably make a tutorial on dA or YouTube. This probably didn't help you at all. OTL

Helpful Links:
All Natural Major Keys with Notes: http://musictheorysite.com/major-scales/list-of-all-major-scales
All Natural Minor Keys with Notes: http://musictheorysite.com/minor-scales/list-of-all-minor-scales
This handy thing tells you the characteristics of the keys, like happy, sad, dismal, etc: http://www.wmich.edu/mus-theo/courses/keys.html
DSK Instruments (you'll thank me later, this site is a life-saver and my go-to when I want new instruments): http://www.dskmusic.com/
Anvil Studio: http://www.anvilstudio.com/

I love your workflow! I also like the DSK instruments as well! The "keyz" plugins are one of my go to vsti.

 

[Lazarus512]

It actually depends on you, I usually start with the melody then move over to the chords or the other way around depending on my mood, then afterwards I proceed on to do the counterpoints and etc.. the sequence of the songs depends on you as well.. it doesn't have to be verse-verse-chorus or something like that.. be creative and explore the possibilities like chorus-verse-refrain-chorus

Personally, I use FL Studio as my base but I also use several plugins and instruments/VSTs not from FL studio.

and I compose the music on its piano roll on pattern mode, then afterwards compile it on the playlist.

Ooh! BTW if you're exporting the song, I suggest go for a .wav file first for raw quality then mp3 later when you mixed it with the singer's voice.

 

[Nanika]

ahh thanks for constantly giving feedback everyone...!

Actually, I've found I need to compose my music with sheet music first for it to actually sound good lol. but everyone works differently so yeah I guess?