-- Basslines, Rhythmic structures and Slide Notes --
Let's drop in some bass into our song structure to fill it up.
The Bass to me is the connection between the drums and the melodic instruments. It's a melodic one that plays on the drums, most of the time.
[SIZE=1]Note: It's advised that you read my other tutorials first. This one builds on them
FL Studio - The basics
Making a beat
Creating a melody
Effects and Equalizing
___________
How are we gonna do it?
First, we need a Bass. You could pick a VSTi, but I like the 3xOSC Presets from the HipHop folder, so I'll drop one of those.
Turn the volume of it down to around 60%. Now what notes do we actually play? For a bassline, it's usually best to pick the root notes of the chords that are playing. So head to the Strings Pattern, get into the PR, press [Ctrl]+[A] and then [Ctrl]+[C]. Now get back into an empty pattern, into the Bass' PR and press [Ctrl]+[V]. Delete the two higher notes of every chord so what's left is this:
So, in which rhythm do we play this? Okay it get's tricky now. You'll need a small understanding of rhythm and shit, so let's look at a very simple drum pattern as an example:
This is as simple as things can get. Now, let's go to counting this. In a usual 4/4 beat, there are four quarter notes. Every four steps, there is one, starting from the first step. So every step that has a new color, speaking in SQR dimensions is a quarter, like this:
And after the 4, you just start with one again. Quarters are what the FL Metronome plays. Tick-tock-tock-tock; One-two-three-four
There are subdivisions though. You see what the HiHat plays? Those are eighth notes. There are twice as many eighths in a beat than quarters, obviousely. You see that there's always a HiHat stroke on a quarter and then one inbetween. This is counted like this:
So every stroke where it's only the HiHat, inbetween the quarters, is an "and". This reads
1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-
That's how you count eighths. Now, there are still steps that are uncovered, those between the number and the "and", right? Those are sixteenth notes. There are tiwce as many as there are eighth notes. You also count them, but not all the time. It's like this:
Lolwut? The sixteenth note before the "and" is spoken as simply "e". The one after the "and" is spoken as a short "a".
So this makes it:
1eANDa2eANDa3eANDa4eANDa
Oneeeandatwoeeandathreeeeandafoureeanda
[SIZE=2]Whatever, though, you're not here to read it out, but to read it. Long story short, our bassdrum, which is what I want the Bass to play on goes like this:
It's on the O[SIZE=1]NE, [SIZE=2]the A[SIZE=1]ND [SIZE=2]of two and the A[SIZE=1]ND [SIZE=2]of three.
How does this transition into the PR though? Well, look at this:
Every thick vertical line marks a whole beat. Every thinner vertical line marks a quarter note. Every really thin vertical line marks a sixteenth. Now that you know that, the transition to our bass is simple:
Don't worry if you don't see it. I'm working with FL Studio since three years and have been doing music for much longer. It takes only a few months until you see instantly how a beat transists into the PR. I have in mind every Bassdrum structure that mankind could come up with and how it looks in the PR. Don't worry, you'll get there.
Okay, fill in the bassline as shown above and do the same in the other beats just move the notes down to the correct note.
Once you're done, put the Pattern into the song in time with the melody.
But now that we play it.... it lacks something, I guess. So I'll add some leadup notes and put their volume down a little.
Yeah, the rhythm sounds great now but... don't you think it's out of tune?
Basslines can show greatly if something's not in tune, remember that! They're often the only instrument that's only playing the root note of something without much fu[SIZE=2]cking around. I think the third chord is off...
So adjust it. I tweaked around a little and made it this:
The third note went from D# Minor up to E-Major. Sounds better now, does it? Adjust the bassline and if neccessary, the melody accordingly. Just to let you know, I played with the melody a little because I didn't like it's original sound.
But everytime I play it... it soudns out of tune. Just wrong. How can that be? All the notes are within the scale, there's nothing wrong?
Is there?
Look at the FL Keys window again:
Don't see it?
Look closer:
Where's the fiiiiiiiiiiiish?
Come on it's getting obvious.
Oh no, is that.....
...a fucking "Detune" knob! I have no idea why some programs have this. I believe it's to make the sound more realistic, but instead, it destroyed my melody here! They trapped us! Turn the knob down to 0.0 and listen. Yes, finally!
___________________________
What I wanted to show you, too, are slides. There are several ways to make notes slide, the simples one will be the PR's Slide note. To use this, I'll make a bassline fillin in the manner of a dropdown. Go to an empty pattern and open the Bass' PR.. Lay down a note:
It's not that important what note it is, AS LONG AS IT IS ON THE SCALE![SIZE=2] And it also should be above C5 for a cool sounding dropdown.
This note is going to be the "slidden" note in my terminology. I don't know the correct term for this, I call it the slidden note because it's tone will be slidden to something else. How do you do that? Click the little button there:
It seems as though nothing changed. No! If you lay a note now, it's a slide note, indicated by the little ramp marker that's on it. To get this to work, place it parallel to an already playing note. The tone of the note that's playing will slide up to that where the Slide note is. Place one like this:
Now, the G-Sharp that's up there will slide down onto a G-Sharp one octave below.
The length of the note, even after sliding, is determined by the slidden note:
Try this. It will not work, the sound will stop as the slidden note ends. So even after sliding, the sound plays as long as the slidden note, just on a different tone.
What the length of the Slider does though, is determining the duration of the slide. If it's very short, the slide is over in a heartbeat, it slides down there in about one 32th note! If you make a really long slide though, the slide will take long and be stretched. Sometimes, either one is useful.
Place this pattern in the Playlist parallel to the drumfill.
Nice fill!
_________________________________
And for some little trick with sliders:
When doing guitar patterns, there's a way to use sliders to make the sound more realistic. Let's say you have a guitar like this:
Take sliders and place them one halftone above and one below the note. Every slider should be two sixteenths long and they should overlap after a sixteenth step, like this:
Make sure that the last slider is back on the initial note! Otherwise it'll be out of tune.
This creates the sound of a guitarist wiggling with his finder on the string he's playing. It can sometimes create a great sound, especially in guitar melodies. Of course, you can also use smaller notes, but make sure they overlap in time.
And that's it!
____________________________________________
Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment, this took me a lot of time to do!
[/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE]
Let's drop in some bass into our song structure to fill it up.
The Bass to me is the connection between the drums and the melodic instruments. It's a melodic one that plays on the drums, most of the time.
[SIZE=1]Note: It's advised that you read my other tutorials first. This one builds on them
FL Studio - The basics
Making a beat
Creating a melody
Effects and Equalizing
___________
How are we gonna do it?
First, we need a Bass. You could pick a VSTi, but I like the 3xOSC Presets from the HipHop folder, so I'll drop one of those.
Turn the volume of it down to around 60%. Now what notes do we actually play? For a bassline, it's usually best to pick the root notes of the chords that are playing. So head to the Strings Pattern, get into the PR, press [Ctrl]+[A] and then [Ctrl]+[C]. Now get back into an empty pattern, into the Bass' PR and press [Ctrl]+[V]. Delete the two higher notes of every chord so what's left is this:
So, in which rhythm do we play this? Okay it get's tricky now. You'll need a small understanding of rhythm and shit, so let's look at a very simple drum pattern as an example:
This is as simple as things can get. Now, let's go to counting this. In a usual 4/4 beat, there are four quarter notes. Every four steps, there is one, starting from the first step. So every step that has a new color, speaking in SQR dimensions is a quarter, like this:
And after the 4, you just start with one again. Quarters are what the FL Metronome plays. Tick-tock-tock-tock; One-two-three-four
There are subdivisions though. You see what the HiHat plays? Those are eighth notes. There are twice as many eighths in a beat than quarters, obviousely. You see that there's always a HiHat stroke on a quarter and then one inbetween. This is counted like this:
So every stroke where it's only the HiHat, inbetween the quarters, is an "and". This reads
1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-
That's how you count eighths. Now, there are still steps that are uncovered, those between the number and the "and", right? Those are sixteenth notes. There are tiwce as many as there are eighth notes. You also count them, but not all the time. It's like this:
Lolwut? The sixteenth note before the "and" is spoken as simply "e". The one after the "and" is spoken as a short "a".
So this makes it:
1eANDa2eANDa3eANDa4eANDa
Oneeeandatwoeeandathreeeeandafoureeanda
[SIZE=2]Whatever, though, you're not here to read it out, but to read it. Long story short, our bassdrum, which is what I want the Bass to play on goes like this:
It's on the O[SIZE=1]NE, [SIZE=2]the A[SIZE=1]ND [SIZE=2]of two and the A[SIZE=1]ND [SIZE=2]of three.
How does this transition into the PR though? Well, look at this:
Every thick vertical line marks a whole beat. Every thinner vertical line marks a quarter note. Every really thin vertical line marks a sixteenth. Now that you know that, the transition to our bass is simple:
Don't worry if you don't see it. I'm working with FL Studio since three years and have been doing music for much longer. It takes only a few months until you see instantly how a beat transists into the PR. I have in mind every Bassdrum structure that mankind could come up with and how it looks in the PR. Don't worry, you'll get there.
Okay, fill in the bassline as shown above and do the same in the other beats just move the notes down to the correct note.
Once you're done, put the Pattern into the song in time with the melody.
But now that we play it.... it lacks something, I guess. So I'll add some leadup notes and put their volume down a little.
Yeah, the rhythm sounds great now but... don't you think it's out of tune?
Basslines can show greatly if something's not in tune, remember that! They're often the only instrument that's only playing the root note of something without much fu[SIZE=2]cking around. I think the third chord is off...
So adjust it. I tweaked around a little and made it this:
The third note went from D# Minor up to E-Major. Sounds better now, does it? Adjust the bassline and if neccessary, the melody accordingly. Just to let you know, I played with the melody a little because I didn't like it's original sound.
But everytime I play it... it soudns out of tune. Just wrong. How can that be? All the notes are within the scale, there's nothing wrong?
Is there?
Look at the FL Keys window again:
Don't see it?
Look closer:
Where's the fiiiiiiiiiiiish?
Come on it's getting obvious.
Oh no, is that.....
...a fucking "Detune" knob! I have no idea why some programs have this. I believe it's to make the sound more realistic, but instead, it destroyed my melody here! They trapped us! Turn the knob down to 0.0 and listen. Yes, finally!
___________________________
What I wanted to show you, too, are slides. There are several ways to make notes slide, the simples one will be the PR's Slide note. To use this, I'll make a bassline fillin in the manner of a dropdown. Go to an empty pattern and open the Bass' PR.. Lay down a note:
It's not that important what note it is, AS LONG AS IT IS ON THE SCALE![SIZE=2] And it also should be above C5 for a cool sounding dropdown.
This note is going to be the "slidden" note in my terminology. I don't know the correct term for this, I call it the slidden note because it's tone will be slidden to something else. How do you do that? Click the little button there:
It seems as though nothing changed. No! If you lay a note now, it's a slide note, indicated by the little ramp marker that's on it. To get this to work, place it parallel to an already playing note. The tone of the note that's playing will slide up to that where the Slide note is. Place one like this:
Now, the G-Sharp that's up there will slide down onto a G-Sharp one octave below.
The length of the note, even after sliding, is determined by the slidden note:
Try this. It will not work, the sound will stop as the slidden note ends. So even after sliding, the sound plays as long as the slidden note, just on a different tone.
What the length of the Slider does though, is determining the duration of the slide. If it's very short, the slide is over in a heartbeat, it slides down there in about one 32th note! If you make a really long slide though, the slide will take long and be stretched. Sometimes, either one is useful.
Place this pattern in the Playlist parallel to the drumfill.
Nice fill!
_________________________________
And for some little trick with sliders:
When doing guitar patterns, there's a way to use sliders to make the sound more realistic. Let's say you have a guitar like this:
Take sliders and place them one halftone above and one below the note. Every slider should be two sixteenths long and they should overlap after a sixteenth step, like this:
Make sure that the last slider is back on the initial note! Otherwise it'll be out of tune.
This creates the sound of a guitarist wiggling with his finder on the string he's playing. It can sometimes create a great sound, especially in guitar melodies. Of course, you can also use smaller notes, but make sure they overlap in time.
And that's it!
____________________________________________
Thank you for reading! Please leave a comment, this took me a lot of time to do!
[/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE][/SIZE]