Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
I am doing this tutorial on a craptop with tiny speakers. This may sound different on a PC with great sound. Don’t be afraid to adjust the key that the tutorial is in. Simply press ctrl+a then drag all your notes up or down.
Do you want to make music with free software? Of course you do! Are you musically challenged, like me, or maybe tone deaf? Let’s see if we can make something simple that won’t break the bank. Once you hear what you have done, it may boost your confidence. The idea here is to have fun, and learn as a by-product. I will try to keep it under ten instruments, to show you how easy it can be! (Why should you follow a tutorial by someone who knows nothing about music???? Well, all I will say is that the proof of the pudding is in the eating…
The eighties was a great time for electronic music artists. Simple, repetitive tunes, big hair, and you had it made. (Okay, the re-launch of our base tune was in 1981).
Let's look at a simple tune and see if we can simplify it even more. This is what we are after: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x115e. (However, we want our own remix!). The original song had more of an industrial, gritty perception (to me), but I got that the writer of the song thought that all models were robotic. How about we go industrial on it? Should we work some cowbells into it?
I chose this tune because of its simplicity. Maybe it is monotonous, but I want you to be able to make a well known tune by the end of this article. Don’t knock it. It is meant for n00bs, not muso’s. We will be using only the built-in instruments, so, no need to download anything. This is important for you to re-create what I have done.
Fire up LMMS and let’s begin!
The original song is about 124 beats per minute. I “calculated” this by using an app called ‘bpm tap’ on my phone. Since we are making an industrial remix, we do not want it that slow. Set your tempo to 140 BPM please. Remove all the instruments given and close the beats and bass-line editor. (Most tutorials on YouTube start you with the beats&bassline). Yes, close it. We will not be using it. Right-click the little gears and click “remove this track”, until the song editor is blank. As with many other songs, let us begin with the bass. Open your instruments and find ‘kick01’ and drag it into your song editor (fig.1). Double-click on the first black bar next to the “pan” button, to bring up the piano roll. You do not need to know anything about music, but it helps. I am going to assume you are all bright, and not having to explain why there are piano keys down the left, or why it is called a piano roll. If you would like a tour of the interface, write to us at misc@fullcirclemagazine.org, and I will accommodate you.
Find C5. Paint a note. It will be quite harsh, if your sound is loud. If you listened to the video above, you would hear about 3 notes. Dum dum-dum. Over and over. Paint them in as you hear them (fig.2 - previous page). Now press the play button. The timing is all wrong? Not to worry, we can fix that! We need to shorten the notes, by clicking on the end of each (you will see ↔), and dragging them shorter. What seems to sound right, is when they are two (2) of the smaller blocks long. However, the beat is off. See if you can figure out, by ear, where the beats should be (see fig.3 for mine). Now, instead of painting the notes over and over, let’s simply copypasta! Shift+s puts you into “select mode”. Highlight your notes and they should turn blue. Ctrl+c & ctrl+v, and the notes went back to cyan. What happened? Well you pasted your notes over the other ones. Ctrl+d puts you back into “draw mode”, and you can now use ctrl+shift to click and drag your selection to the next bar. *Tip: your selected notes need to be dark blue before you drag, or it will drag individual notes. Repeat this for four (4) bars and that’s it!
Troubleshooting: do any of the drumbeats *not sound like the others? Check if you don’t have multiple notes overlaid on each other. Save your progress often.
Drum… check (fig.4)
What is a drum without a snare? Grab ‘snare06’ from your instruments, drag it to your song editor, and open the piano roll as above. If you listen to the video, you can make out a steady tish-tish on the offbeat. Let’s make that! Find C5 again and paint the snare in twice per block. However if you listen long enough, there is a double tap to break the monotony. See if you can figure out where. Follow the instructions in the first part if you get lost. Also having beats all on C5 grates my ears, so I will drop the snares to the white note below. You can move it up or down the scale to suit your liking (fig.5).
Snare… Check (fig.5),
Press the play button in your song editor. What you hear is a beat that fits with Zombie nation or Das modell. (Yes I know it is very harsh, but we will deal with that later).
Let’s move on to the high-hat you hear. It is a simple rhythm of tap-tap-tap-tap. Easy enough, you say. Grab the first closed high-hat and get to the piano roll. I am not going to repeat everything; detailed instructions are in the first part. I will take the high-hat down to the next white key, and fill four beats. Did you get yours the same as mine? If not, listen again (fig.6).
High hat… Check (fig.6).
I now have three entries in my song editor (fig.7). You will notice that the turquoise blocks span only a few seconds when you hit the play button, though they repeat. Now obviously I don’t want to paint in every note. The idea of music software is to speed up the creation, and music does repeat a lot. Now, if you listen to the song, you realise that is why it is so monotonous. The beat never changes.
In the SONG EDITOR, this time, hold down the ctrl key and left-click & drag each of the turquoise blocks right four times. Don’t worry if they do not line up, you can simply left-click & drag them into position (fig.8). Repeat this action four more times and you have the base of your (their) song. When you hit play now, you will hear typical windscreen wipers, as I call it. Left and right swishing of the music, if you will. If you don’t hear it, move your head from side to side with the beat. XD
Now for that iconic sounding tune. Drag the ‘horrorbass01’ from your instruments into the song editor and open its piano roll. We are aiming for ‘gritty’, remember? Crunchy bass, low tones, and scraping sounds. This time, head down to C4 and start painting notes. I am not quite sure where the melody belongs as I am tone deaf, but C4 sounds about right on my laptop speakers. (If you are serious about making music, this is where a decent sound card and speakers come in). Okay, let’s dissect that tune. Baam bam-bam-bam-bam-bam. A long note followed by five shorter ones that see-saw. Then it drops down with a baam bam-bam-bam baam. See if you can work out the tune. If you did, congratulations!! If you did not, copy mine for now (fig.9). If you listen to the song from beginning to end, you may notice that the melody itself is also just repeated over and over. Hit play on your song editor. It’s rough, but it’s there!
Basic melody… Check (fig.9).
Now we need to start rounding out our tune. I think this is called core or chord progression, don’t quote me! Basically, it’s harmony to our tune. This is almost like it carries the melody. Don’t get hung up on terminology, do! Before we start, I will warn you that this is the hardest part if you do not have a midi keyboard. (Not that I know how to play a midi keyboard, I am fluent at playing only the fool). Open your instruments, drag ‘rave_choir01’ into the song editor, and open its piano roll. We can either use very long notes or very short ones. Lots of short notes impart energy to a tune and long notes just compliment your energetic tune. Head on over to C3 on the piano roll. This time, we need to ‘sort-of’ follow the main tune. If you look at (fig.10), you can copy what I did. I think these notes are supposed to be three at a time, but two works for me. This compliment to your melody is going to play as long as your melody is playing (at least). So don’t make it too harsh! ‘Bell_choir02’ might also work here, but you generally want a soft instrument. The reason I chose “rave choir01” is that at low pitch it sounds like something being dragged, which fits our theme. In your song editor, ctrl & drag it out to match the other permanent repeats. For now, just turn this instrument’s volume down to 25%. (It must still sound gritty, but not take over the song). We will make it pretty later. (Or not).
Harmony… Check (fig.10).
Drag ‘bassslap02’ into the mix. Keep it there, we will get to it now; first we need to finish the main melody before we add to it. What we are going to do with our basslap is, shadow the main melody. The first part of the main melody repeats twice, then it changes. So hold down control and copy the turquoise block to the right. The next part of the tune is longer than the rest, but it does not matter. Baaaam bam-bam-bam baaam bam baam. Then, there seems to be one more note before it jumps back. Let me try to recreate it in the piano roll. Copy mine if you did not get it or are too lazy (fig.11). This repeats four (4) times. Then, at about fifty (50) seconds into the tune, there is another keyboard or sample being played. Now that we have the fist half of the tune down, let’s get this shadow going. The shadow has to harmonise with the main tune and the foundation. I have shamelessly stolen it from elsewhere as I could not work it out (fig.12). This is OK. Stealing with your eyes is allowed, my mother used to say. My teachers did not appreciate it during exams though… ;)
Shadow… Check (fig.12).
Now let’s look at the alternate piece at 50s into the video. Since you basically know how the instruments work, we will go slightly next level. We do not have an instrument in our arsenal that sounds right. We will use “Matrix1000_pluck01” for this. Now, as you may be aware, a pluck is not going to cut it, as these are long notes. Try to recreate the tune, hum that part to yourself, and see if you can paint your own notes. (This is YOUR remix! Nothing is set in stone!). This screenshot is going to be in two parts, as it is too long for my WXGA screen (fig.13 & fig.14). When you play this, it sounds AWFUL! Click on the word “Matrix1000_pluck.ogg” in the song editor, and another window will pop up (fig.13). Click on the letters “FX” and “add effect”. Another window will pop up (fig.17). Type “reverb” without the quotes and select “C*plate 2×2…”. You need to adjust the “bandwidth” and “tail” to maximum, and bring the dampening down to about fifteen (15) and get blend to maximum. You can close those windows and press play in your piano roll. Sound a lot fuller now? Also more dramatic, whilst still feeling gritty. However, it needs a bit more, as these are looooong notes, so if you look at (fig.16), you will see the word ”controls”. W/D or ‘wet & dry’ needs to go to zero (0) and “Decay” to maximum. I put this track’s volume at 60% for now. We will be applying ‘reverb’ to some of the other tracks, just before we get into automation!
For fun and some artistic licence, drag the snaph01 to the song editor. Copypasta the snare pattern into the snap. Now you can middle mouse click, or right-click remove on the snare where the new pattern starts. Paste the snap in as a replacement. You should now have a gap in the snare – like a kid missing its front teeth. If you are unsure, see (fig.18). Now you are also going to take a ‘bite’ out of your main melody, of course. You want the ‘new part’ to stand out, like in the original.
For your homework, I want you to finish copy-pasting what you have to make the first part of the song, right up until the next little ‘solo’. Don’t worry, it is only like 8 bars. You currently have everything to complete this task in 5 minutes. Train your dragon, erm… I mean your ears, by listening to the original in the video, then painting the notes in LMMS. See if you can beat me to make the little ‘solo’ or ‘riff’ or whatever it is called (not a musician, remember?) that pops up at about 1:50 in the video. Just be aware that, although it seems to repeat, there are some notes at the end of the second piece that are slightly different to break the monotony of the song. (I will give you a hint: it’s something common nowadays, with three notes down, two up, then one down again). Play it through, once done, and be proud of yourself. Feel free to play around and edit instruments, or add your own. Slice and dice the tune. The only one that you need to impress is yourself. Just keep a copy of what we did so you can continue in the next issue when we do the second part of the song, and I will show you a few more easy tricks.
See you in the next issue when we finish up our ‘industrial remix!’