How to Build Tracks So That Instruments Relate to Each Other
Tutorial Details
- Difficulty: Beginner - Intermediate
- Completion Time: 30 minutes
Are your instruments fighting each other to get the main role of the track? This tutorial is about techniques for having instruments relate to each other in ways that will allow them to share time in the spotlight and work together. This tutorial also covers using note placement as a way to compensate for having multiple instruments in similar frequency ranges. Keeping with this theme, we’ll also explore using melodic content that is already in the track to inspire new instrument parts, so that like characters in a play, the instruments will agree and disagree on points, but in the complete composition they’ll work together to present a distinct theme.
1. Setting the Framework – Drums and Bass
First, here is the drum pattern so far, I layered three sounds to make the snare and two for the kick. One of the kick layers is a clean deep sound and the other is a higher grimy sound, note the slight pitch change I made to the “top” layer of the kick, it is raised by a semitone at one point in the pattern.
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(For a tutorial on layering drums check out:
this tutorial.)
Next, here is the bass pattern. It has a distinct “A A A B”-style arrangement, meaning that it has three bars that are the same and then on the fourth bar it changes. This will become a theme that will be used on a larger scale later on in the tutorial.
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(To learn how to make a synth bass like this check out:
How to Design Reeses and Hoovers.)
2. Call and Response – A Synth Conversation
I’m going to add a synth that is inspired by the almost-melodic content of the top-layer kick, so that it relates to the kick drums.
I’m going to add it in a way that it also works together with the bass synth and doesn’t play at the same time as the bass synth. Since the synth won’t be playing at the same time as the bass, we can get away with using a gentle sound, and the contrast will make the bass sound even harder. Note the “call and response” relationship, it sounds like the bass synth and higher synth are having a conversation, and since they’re taking turns speaking, the gentler synth doesn’t have to work as hard to be heard in the mix.
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3. A Mediator Intervenes – Combining Melodies
For another part of the song I’m going to bring in a lead synth that will play a melody based on a combination of the previous melodies. In other words, this new synth will be summarizing the earlier conversation and giving his own input as well. On the first three bars, it’s similar to the earlier gentle synth pattern, except that it bounces through the notes quicker, then on the fourth bar it is identical to the bass pattern.
Since this is a later part in the song, the listener has heard the bass synth pattern enough that having a new sound step in front of the bass will be no problem, but there should still be places where the bass is heard alone. In other words, even though the new synth melody agrees with the bass on almost every point, the new synth is polite enough to let the bass be heard on its own in some places.
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One way to make it more exciting is have the melody play higher. So on the fourth and eighth bar of this new lead pattern, I’m going to stack it with notes an octave higher.
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4. Becoming Intense – Raising Your Voice
As demonstrated earlier, raising a section of notes by an octave can be an easy way to increase intensity and interest. In order to prolong this melody 8 more bars, I’m going to make a copy of the pattern, except in the second pattern, the last four bars are going to be an octave higher.
This is inspired by the “A A A B” theme we’ve had in the song so far. That is, three blocks of time that are relatively similar and then a fourth block of time that is different. This is on a much bigger scale though, because here we’re working with sets of four bars.
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5. Bridging the Sections – Arrangement
Lastly we need a way to bridge the two parts, so some things were added. Among the additions are a filtered breakbeat, a tweaked cymbal, and a warm synth chord that occurs at the beginning and end of the chorus.
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6. A Common Example – Kick versus Bass
For my next example, I’ll be working with a different track, showing how to make a Synth and Pad work together, but first I’ll illustrate the principle in a more common application of the technique using a Kick and Bass. First here’s the drum loop:
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Let’s add a bass. On the previous song, the bass and kick play at the same time which means there will be a mixing challenge that will probably result in the kick not being as strong. I want to avoid that situation in this song, so by placing the bass synth notes in places the kick does not play, we can avoid having the similar deep sounds conflict. If they were playing at the same time, we’d need to divide the frequencies between them and have one be more prominent, but if they take turns this compromise can be avoided and they both can be as loud as we want.
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7. Supporting Cast – Pad Enters
Now that the stage is set, we’ll add a synth pad pattern playing a chord progression. The non-music-theory way to explain chord progressions would take a whole other tutorial, but to explain briefly, it’s to start with a chord, and to change one or two notes in the next chord, and then continue to make small changes, moving back and forth through note combinations in a way that sounds good. For some excellent tutorials that can help with chord progressions that use Music Theory check out:
Intro to Cadences,
Add Interest to Your Chord Progressions, and Basic Functions of Harmony.
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(For a tutorial about designing custom pads check out
How to Use Reverb to Create Your Own Pads.)
Also note that I added a delay effect to the bass synth to push it further back in the mix spacially.
8. Enter Protagonist – Synth Agrees with Pad
Now I’m going to add a Synth that will interact with the Pad in the same way that the Bass Synth interacted with the Kick. The Pad covers a lot of musical ground so in order to avoid having conflicting notes I’m going to use the notes from the Pad pattern as a guide for the synth pattern.
To make this easier, I’ll copy the notes from the Pad pattern into an empty sampler channel in a new pattern. I’m doing this because FL Studio has a feature that allows you see notes that are in other Piano Rolls, if the note data is in the same “pattern”.
When you open the piano roll of the new Synth in this pattern, you should be able to see grey notes that are in the Sampler channel. If not, turn “ghost channels” on.
From, here we can easily see which notes the Pad is playing while we paint in notes for the new synth, so we can experiment with making a melody that fits in those chords. In music theory these are called “broken chords”. For note placement, let’s apply the same principle we did with the Kick and Bass earlier. The Pad is playing on the beats so I’ll have the Synth play in the space between the beats. This way, the attack of the Pad can be heard in most places.
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9. Adding Variety – Not Just an Echo
At this point, the main Synth clearly agrees with the Pad, but I want him to assert that he’s also an individual. To make it more interesting, let’s add some variety in the timing. The changes are noted in the image below:
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Sounds good, but let’s give it some more rhythm in the second bar.
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10. Expanding the Script – Completing the Scene
From here, it’s a matter of copying and pasting throughout the pattern and adapting the notes to match up with the pad’s notes. Although the notes will have the same rhythm for 8 bars, it won’t seem repetitive because the notes will change. On the beginning of bar five I added a note to catch the attention of the listener to say, “It’s changing.” The screenshot below shows bars 5-8. In the screenshot, it looks like notes are everywhere, but if you notice that the notes match up with the pad’s chords you’ll see that making this pattern wasn’t all that complicated.
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11. More Scenes and Roles – Act II and III
The next steps would be to make a couple more parts and to add sounds that signal buildups and breakdowns, but here’s a rough mix showing the parts we’ve made so far. For the last 16 bars I had a trance saw synth play the melody.
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12. Curtain Closes – Final tips and Summary
- Especially in cases where there are instruments playing in the same frequency range, allow each instrument to have a unique part of the timeline so that they will be heard clearer. It will be easier to mix.
- Consider having the melodies of various instruments work together and support each other through “conversations”, and through direct copying or imitating. This will establish a distinct theme that can be carried into other sections of the song, and if you wish to introduce a change of themes in other sections it will be more apparent and surprising to the listener.
- Sounds in the same frequency range will need to compromise on some combination of volume (balance), frequencies (EQ), or time (arrangement & composition), and this tutorial focused on time.
- One way to look at a song is that it’s like a play, in which characters (instruments) must take turns presenting a story for it to make sense, and each character has its own territory (frequency range) and lines to say that contribute to the overarching message of the play.
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By Sean Duncan
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A very solid article. But I would like to see tutorials like this utilize Logic or Protools(Or any other Professional level DAW). FL Studio hardly seems like a real world example of what people in the industry are really using. Plus the sounds are cheap and are a distraction from the tutorial (for me at least).
I am in the industry as you put it, FL studio is just as good as any other daw out there. If you can’t get it to sound good then obviously you don’t know what you’re doing.
Right. We are all in the “industry” when we try to make our points.
I actually work in the industry. Ever seen any Nike ads? Or starbucks ads? The sound design was probably done by me. FL Studio isn’t just a poor user interface, the algorithm’s that are backing the program is pathetic. If you know anything about programming, go right ahead and pop the hood on FL and take a look at the source code. Its a fucking joke.
I don’t even know why I bother to make any points. You just defending FL because you probably use it solely and you need reassurance of the programs quality. Defending FL is always fanboyism.
Deems you my friend do not know what you’re talking about, at all.
Its about the concepts, not the DAW. Trust me this articles content is very important and we dont talk enough about this type of theory. Great article once again. The audio examples are a good help also. This AudioTuts is now my favorite website, it tells the “Why’s” not just the “How’s”. And I dont even work for them ;)
one of the best tutorials i’ve seen in months. and it links to mine too :D about deems comment, i also think that logic, cubase, sonar and pro tools are superior if compared to FL studio, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t achieve great results on FL studio (of course, with the aid of external samples and plug-ins, and maybe with the mixdown and mastering in another software), and i think that, for the purpose of this tutorial, any kind of software is good, everything is easily appliable in any daw.
@Deems, Why its not about what your using its the techniques involved, because your using Logic or Protools do you really think its going to make it sound ‘better’.
Anyway awesome tutorial Sean.
Ah……kidding right? Different DAW’s have completely different qualities depending on what VST’s and AU’s are packaged with it. And the main algorithms of a DAW and how it processes audio can have a huge effect.
FL has really weak synthesis, hence the sounds sound like cheap digital synths.
This tutorial was not about the sound of the synthesis or the VST used or the program it was programmed with. It’s about the technique.
You are clearly on a losing battle I’d just admit you’re wrong and get it over with. It’s the internet after all and so you don’t have to be embarrased.
I have to laugh at some people elitism, seriously! Do you seriously think that you cant make good sounding quality music in FL? You must be soo naive to think that FL is still the primative drum machine of its first incarnation. FL is now a fully fledged DAW that is competing with the so called “Big DAWs” like Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools etc etc… Do you think the like of Deadmau5, Basshunter and Mike Oldfield think FL is like toy? Ok rant over.
This tutorial might not have used the best sounds or the more advanced techniques that FL has because he is trying to make this tutorial universal so that everyone from any DAW can implement these tecniques. I think there should be allot more FL tuts and although other DAWs are appreciated i just think that FL deserves to be utillised for tutorials as all the other DAWs are.
Really not trying to come off elitist. But I have worked with FL Studio in the past for a couple of projects and I was really unimpressed with its quality. I find it similar to how most synth players feel about digital synths. It just sounds dated a couple years after a release.
But I do want to emphasize how good the article was. Very in depth and lengthy (which is always great).
I do agree with you when you say sound quality is garbage. When i put on my headphones (Beats by Dre) i get a constant hissing noise even when i run it out on ASIO and my Fast Track Ultra. Can guarantee not a fualt on my end as Reason 4.0 produces no hissing or static. i also notice my audio clipping a lot in FL but never in Pro tools even when i have the exact same patches loaded.
at the end of the day. FL was a disapointment and i believe Image-line can do a lot better. For now i stick with pro tools LE. i did upgrade to FL 9 but no significant improvement.
The only good thing i can say about FL is it’s very user friendly and not as complicated as other DAW’s however it does make you develop bad habbits if you migrate later.
it’s not fruity’s fault but all the sound clips in this were pretty awful, not very good sounds
Great article, i wanna see more of these in depth articles!
As to the discussion on FL Studio, i dont think that you can say that you cant produce “good” sounds in FL, that all depends on the one that is producing the song. However, if FL renders the audio in a destructive manner or not, i have no idea about. But i wouldnt imagine that a pretty high priced DAW, renders the audio badly.
I used FL Studio in its first years, (When it was still called Fruity Loops) and back then you could talk about a bad sounding DAW/Drummachine! But today i just think that it depends on the one mixing, and the external plugins/samples!
Great tutorial.
I dont use FL personally but the DAW was irrelevant to the subject matter anyway.
I was able to understand your concepts and examples perfectly. Then, I mentally ported the information taught to my favorite DAW. Thanks for the ideas and inspiration to try something new, that is all I ever need.
Great tut!
@L1, My original point was that the sound quality is annoying. An ANNOYANCE, nothing more. And I clearly said that the content of the article itself was great.
This just prove people take everything out of context on the internet and makes a fight out of it.
Its like john mayer saying niggers. jeeze.
“FL Studio hardly seems like a real world example of what people in the industry are really using. ”
That was obviously the main point in your first post.
Please take a class in debate or something. You have no point that you are working towards. Your just inciting more pointless banter.
I don’t like FL. The decent number of people I have worked with hate FL. The studios I have worked at have never used FL. I think it sounds cheap and again its MY opinion. Please just back up your side of the argument instead of picking apart my statements. Its text. We don’t always write things expecting to have everything you say vetted later. I will watch my wording more so in the future.
Sorry to Audiotuts staff. We got way off topic.
“Sorry to Audiotuts staff. We got way off topic.” (Deems)
Deems, that’s something I can agree with.
I was busy having a weekend, and hadn’t realized things had hotted up so much in here. This is a fantastic tutorial – thanks Sean – and it’s a shame the comments have degenerated to an argument that has nothing to do with the tut. I don’t want to see the argument continue, and I’ll start generously deleting comments if it does.
I’m glad to publish a tutorial on FL Studio from time to time. A lot of our readers use the program, and there are many requests for FL Studio tutorials. If you’re not interested in FL Studio – go read another tut! Or take the techniques from this one and apply them to your DAW of choice.
If you do have a comment or question on the tut itself, feel very free to continue commenting.
Thanks for the comments guys! I was concerned about how my “theater metaphor” would be recieved, and I thought it was a little risky, so I’m glad you enjoyed it!
About the FL Studio audio quality thing, I am extremely tempted to jump in, but I would rather encourage people to find out for themselves by doing a double-blind test. This means putting the same audio file into two DAWs, rendering the audio file and rerending it (in other words, bounce the file and bring it back in). If there is a difference in the algorithms, rerendering the audio files 20 times over should make it obvious. But here’s the most important part:
Next, you would normalize the audio files, then have a friend randomly play the audio files and have you guess which is which. You should be able to pick which one is from which DAW at least 7 out of 10 times if there really is a difference. I think most people would agree with me, the only way to be sure we’re not being influenced by other factors, such as what we already believe about the DAWs, is to do a double-blind test. This is true whether you favor FL Studio or Pro Tools, Cubase or Sonar.
This article was a great read. The way the techniques were explained on building tracks to relate to each other was right on!
When I opened this article I was shocked to see that it was a tut using FL (since there is such a negative stigma with using it….as shown from previous comments). I’ve been creating rap/hip-hop music on computer software for years (Magix, Pro Audio 9, Sonar, Reason 2-4, Fruity Loops, FL Studio 8-9, Pro Tools, and Reaper).
I think its all in your personal preference. Most industry vets will never swear by software because they are against change. If you’re into Pop, Hip-Hop, and Rap you already know that there are industry producers that use software as their secret weapons or use it together with hardware. The end result of sound is up to A/D converters, engineering technique, and flat-out ability to know if sounds good.
Sean, thanks for summing up what I was thinking while reading the comments. You were on point with this:
“the only way to be sure we’re not being influenced by other factors, such as what we already believe about the DAWs, is to do a double-blind test. This is true whether you favor FL Studio or Pro Tools, Cubase or Sonar.”
- ShomiOnline
Hey guys! ok maybe this post will be deleted, but Ill still give it a shot.
I work with FL…
listen to these 2 tracks (altough they are all made with fl)
http://www.myspace.com/lucabrasi
track1-Transcendant
track2-Prudentiores
I wanted these to have a really jazzy/organic feel to them… could you say that those are made with FL if you wouldnt know? ok I know the quality isnt top notch or anything, I have a bad soundcard+not the greatest effirt went into mixing them. But I mean the sound in general, I believe it matters what instruments you use and if you can deliver a vibe for the listener…nb! all the melodies are played in with midi keyboard (no audio samples used except drums)
peace!
Oh man. It’s funny when people try to sound smart by dissing FL Studio but instead make themselves look like fools. Just look at the stuff that guy says he obviously knows nothing. And I’d love to know where he got a copy of the FL Studio source from? What a clown.
It’s an education reading the negative comment about FL Studio here.
I for one use it as my DAW software for many reasons.
I’ve been producing music for myself and other artists for over twenty years. I started with hardware and progressed through hardware / software configurations like Notator, Creator and U110′s, 550′s, Sound Canvas etc.
FL Studio sounds as good as anything else if you have the ability to master your sound correctly. So many younger producers base their sound on what they have heard and use sound analysis tools to clone a mix. FL Studio like all the other DAW software can only operate within a frequency range that the human ear can hear. Some comments have eluded to quality. I defy anyone to attribute any one mix to a single DAW software when mastered by the same engineer!
I still own and use an RM1x because I love the sounds it produces and it can be easily MIDI controlled by FL Studio and looped back in as an audio sample. I still use VST’s and VSTi’s within FL Studio because I know that some effects or sounds are easier to create with plugins I’m familiar with. If I used Pro Tools I’d still use the same plugins.
One of the reasons I went with FL Studio many years ago is that it supported VST’s and VSTi’s otherwise I’d be using Reason. Doesn’t mean I don’t like Reason, in fact try telling Luke Vibert that his ‘Kerrier District’ album is not professional because he used only Reason to produce it.
This tutorial as a lot have people have said is about ‘Method’. I for one enjoyed it. It works if you are in Pro Tools, FL Studio an RM1x or whatever. It is sound production advice and I applaud the author.
We all have our tools and a way in which we use them. Let’s not forget that a teacher, even a teacher who reminds us of basic principles we have forgotten, is an asset to us all.
As for anyone hating on fl studio.the beat of lil wayne’s drop the world was made with fl studio
Very well put article. Going to apply some of the tips here in my own workings.
May be a dumb question, but how did you get your notes to “carry” (as seen in section 2)
Very well constructed article, Sean – it spells out some very important principles of arrangement in clear and concise language, with similarly revealing examples. I would say this should be a must-read for anyone starting out in song composition on any DAW.
As for your metaphor, I think it’s perfectly fitting – it has been used by plenty of producers in the past, and I borrowed it for an article that ties in somewhat to the subject matter of this one:
http://www.podcomplex.com/blog/music-production-mistakes/
It’s not a foolproof technique of course, but if you anthropomorphise each element of your production and visualise them on a 3D stage, it can certainly help with reducing ‘actor overlap’…!
I checked out your article and I liked the way you put it.
This my friend is very helpful for beginners, thanks!