As you’ll be aware it has been a while since I made my last post. The thing is, I’m taking too much on in life at the moment and I’m not able to focus completely on any of my tasks since I’m trying to juggle all projects together.

I’ve decided to postpone the journey on this site for up to a couple of months while I concentrate on some other things. I will continue to work on http://www.mixingguide.com and will be able to concentrate on it more if I’m not thinking about this site as well.

The one thing I realized when I started to make my track last week was that I need to put a lot of time and effort into it. I was struggling with creating decent sounds with synthesizers and it only makes sense to work on this when I can focus fully on it.

This isn’t a dead end and making a quality tune is something I want to and will master. I will get back on it when the time is right. Feel free to either sign up to the mailing list or use the RSS feed so you know when I start this back up again.

Speak soon my friends and most importantly, continue to respect the trance.

Features

Listing all features would warrant a document of its own. Here are some just to show you what it’s about:

• 6 oscillators with PWM capability
• 64 voice polyphony
• 2 filters and 10 filter modes (LPF, HPF, BPF, BRD, Formant on 36dB)
• LFO with 60 waveforms + 10 user waveforms
• Built-in effects
• 16 row modulation matrix (24 mod sources)
• Wave shaper to create own waveforms with 60 of its preset shapes
• Midi learn capability on all controls

Looks

As soon as I started z3ta up, I noticed the professional look and the easy accessibility of all functions. The interface seemed overwhelming at 1st but after reading the user guide thoroughly I had enough knowledge to start playing around with it. It took a while to work out the workflow process as the signal routing isn’t as apparent as it would be on other soft synths (where you can clearly see the steps of the workflow, from oscillator to mixer to filter to envelope generator and so on).

Sound

This synth is capable of generating superb sounding leads or basslines and by mastering the product, you’ll be able to make it sound analog or digital. There are many presets which use the arpeggiation built into the synth. When you listen to some of these, you’ll feel the power of the sound and melody on an emotional level. The power of the arpeggiator comes from it having many patterns and with the ability for you to import a custom pattern via MIDI.

Value for money

Can’t complain, even for a few of the presets alone I can justify spending the money for this.

Stability

I haven’t had any problems using this within FL Studio but then again I haven’t done much with it yet. I have heard of people witnessing crashes by using too many instances. I have a quad core PC with 4GB RAM. For lower spec PCs, I’d say keep a lookout for high CPU usage. Other than that, it’s all good.

Overall verdict

I wanted a synth that was well-known for creating great trance sounds. This and the V-Station were the ones that stood out and I’m glad I’ve got them both. Expect to hear about V-Station at some point in the future.

My name is Etch and I’ve been a huge fan of trance music for a very long time. I’ve wanted to make professional music myself for many years now yet haven’t gotten around to doing it. Recently I purchased some software and I now plan to learn the ins and outs of music production as I make my own trance tunes.

Why have I created a site for this?

I’d like to keep a log of my progress and the things I’ve learnt so others can benefit from the experience. There is plenty of information on the internet about producing music, however, it is difficult to find detailed information specific to making trance. For example, it would be nice if somebody gave an in-depth tutorial on how certain synthesizer settings change the output sound, with audio examples.

As I progress from beginner to expert, you guys can progress with me and witness the stumbling blocks and solutions I’ll face along the way. The idea is for you guys to help me out and teach me as much as I’ll teach you.

The posts will have some information on the discussed topic including any images that will help explain things further. The topic of discussion can vary if you guys want me to go down a particular path, so just let me know in the forum threads that will be created for each new post. This way, you can find out information for the issues you are having.

I will also be adding videos to show you guys what I’m doing. I will also add mp3 samples of the sounds and music that is created.

What else is there?

I will also be adding reviews every now and again to products you may be interested in. You can check out all the reviews in the menu above.

Enough chat, let’s get going

You can view my latest post on the right or you can browse through all of my posts via the navigation, starting with the introduction where I introduce myself and talk about some concepts.

If you would like to be notified whenever I upload a new tutorial or video, sign up to the mailing list and I will keep you informed.

Let the journey begin as we all make trance.

It’s now time to get started in making our track. I want to spend a bit of time deciding what kind of tune I want to make. It’s very likely that the end result will be completely different to what I expect since when you get going things just happen. Having said that, I’d still like to come up with some ideas. On a side note, I found out something really useful and cool about FL Studio. Check out the final part of my video and I’ll show you.

I’m a big fan of trance and the whole purpose of this project was to make a trance tune. The thing is, there are many different kinds of trance out there and what I like and dislike will be totally different to another trance addict. The ingredients of a quality track for me are:

• It has a great start. This can either be starting slow with pads or it can be starting with a beat. For the latter, the beat must be catchy rather than your general ‘dum dum dum dum’ which does nothing for me.
• The tune has to get to me emotionally and this happens when it has a sad aura around it as opposed to happy. Some minor chord progressions are ideal.
• Female vocals always do it for me when it comes to trance. I’d want my tune to have room for vocals which can be added later.
• A breakdown in the middle. You know the moment in the clubs where we have ‘hands in the air’ and people feel the tune and want to cry. Then it’s back to the dark melody.

It’s hard to come up with an exact set of ingredients as every tune us different. The best way is probably to start listening to some of the tracks of the past and the present to get inspired. Here are a few classics I’m listening to which will help me decide where I want to try to get to.

Vocal Trance

I didn’t realize until I created this list how much Lange was on it. The guy was an absolute legend during those days.

Youtube Link – Lost Witness – Happiness Happening (Lange Mix)
Youtube Link – Lange – I Believe (Lange Mix)
Youtube Link – Lost Witness – Red Sun Rising (Lange Mix)
Youtube Link – The Morrighan – Remember (Lange Mix)
Youtube Link – Conjure One – Extraordinary Way (Antillas Club Mix)
Youtube Link – 56k & Bejay – Save a Prayer (Club Mix)
Youtube Link – Kansai – Remember This Night
Youtube Link – Andain – Beautiful Things (Photon Project Remix)
Youtube Link – Oceanlab – Clear Blue Water (Ferry Corsten Remix)

Non-vocal classics

Youtube Link – Prototype – Soundpiercing
Youtube Link – Energy 52 – Cafe Del Mar
Youtube Link – Binary Finary – 1998 (Matt Darey Mix)
Youtube Link – Rank 1 – Airwave
Youtube Link – Push – Universal Nation
Youtube Link – Sasha – Xpander
Youtube Link – DJ Sakin – Protect Your Mind (Lange Remix)

More recent

Youtube Link – Richard Durand – Into Something
Youtube Link – Robert Nickson & Daniel Kandi – Rewire (Avenger Remix)
Youtube Link – Lolo – Trampoline
Youtube Link – Dan Stone – Spinal Chord (Nitrous Oxide Remix)
Youtube Link – Dakota – Chinook (Uplifting Mix)
Youtube Link – Cold Blue – Mount Everest (Dennis Sheperd Remix)
Youtube Link – Purple Haze – Eden
Youtube Link – Gareth Emery – Exposure
Youtube Link – Richard Durand – Papillion

Until next time….

Wow, that was a great listen, I’m so chilled and happy right now. As you can see, there are some classics from the past and the present. After listening to that, I think my aim will be to create something that people will listen to and say “that must have been created in 1999″. Let’s face it, that was a superb year for trance and although great trance still exists, for me the essence that existed back then has been lost. The old-time classics will always be the first to crop up in my head when somebody mentions the word ‘trance’. Another one just did which I forgot about, “Brainbug – Nightmare”.

Well, I really hope you enjoy those tunes, I’m sure a lot of you will have them in your collection. Now that I have an idea what I want to do, I need to work out how to do it. That’s a discussion for another day.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have any ideas on which way you’d like us to go? Click the icon below to enter the forums and share your thoughts. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Over the past few weeks I’ve researched into the basics of FL Studio and am ready to start making my track. Before I do, there is still another thing to talk about. Trance (and many other genres of music) wouldn’t be possible without the synthesizer. We will want to use a synth to create sounds so it’s best to learn the basics now.

I want to get to the level where I can hear a trance tune and know how to reproduce that sound in a synth. That will take time and practise. What I’ll do this week is go through the fundamentals that I’ve been learning about so we’re all on the same wavelength. I’ve read a few things on the Internet and have also purchased a magazine called ‘Computer Music Special 38 – Make Synth Music’. Do a Google search and you will find this (or get in touch with me and I can point you in the right direction). This mag goes through all the basics, gives you a CD with tutorials and gets you creating sound patches, pretty cool.

There are so many synth plugins out there, including free ones. Although they all have their own unique touch to them, they tend to have a similar set of features. There are also different types of synthesizers and synthesis methods (such as additive, subtractive, fm synthesis). What I want to do here is choose a freeware subtractive synthesizer and see how it works. Most of the information will be outlined below. However, to hear examples of how the settings affect the sound, play the video on the right where I go through the controls and play notes.

Subtractive synthesis
A synthesizer is an instrument that can generate sounds. Subtractive synthesis means that you start with some waveforms that make sound, then you keep taking chunks out of it to finish with the sound you want to be left with, i.e. you’re subtracting bits out of it. Think of it like sculpting an object out of a block of ice, you chisel it down to create the object you want.

I will use a synth called ‘TAL-Elek7ro’ which you can download from kvraudio.com for free. Here it is.

Synths initially look scary but when you learn to identify the common characteristics that exist in most synths, they aren’t as scary. Let’s take a look at the important parts of the synth in the order they are used to create the final sounds.

Oscillators
It all starts here. The oscillators are what generate the initial waveforms that produce sound. Different waveforms have a different sound and the common types are: sawtooth, square, sine, triangle, noise. Each has its own characteristics and if you do more Google research, you’ll learn about these characteristics and harmonics.

Most synths allow you to change the shape of the square waveform with something called ‘pulse width’. It’s just changing the shape so the high points and low points aren’t the same width. This changes the sound.

There is also a way to change pitch of an oscillator by detuning them. Usually you’d be using 2, 3 or more oscillators to generate a sound and detune them slightly to make the sound interesting (something we’ll do in the video).

Mixer
Once we have a few oscillators generating sounds, we can use the mixer to decide the volume level of each oscillator in the mix and the overall volume level. More advanced synths will also have ways to manipulate an oscillator’s pitch with the output of another oscillator. This is called FM Synthesis (frequency modulation).

Filter
Now that we have our waveforms creating sounds, we want to filter out the frequencies we don’t want (recall the sculpting analogy). The main parts of the filter will be the cutoff frequency and resonance. For those of you that follow my vids on www.mixingguide.com, you’ll recognize these settings on a DJ mixer.

There are different types of filters. LPF (lowpass filter) is where all frequencies below the cutoff get through and anything above is removed. It’s like keeping the bass sounds and removing the high-pitched sounds. HPF (hipass filter) is the opposite, so all frequencies above the cutoff get through and the bass is removed. BPF (bandpass filter) remove everything above and below the cutoff, just leaving the frequencies around the cutoff to remain.

Resonance is a way to boost the frequencies around the cutoff and feed it back into the signal, creating interesting sounds.

Sometimes you’ll also see a filter slope setting, commonly 12db or 24db. This just determines how precise the filter is, 24db being more precise than 12db.

Envelopes
Synths aren’t that exciting unless we can manipulate the sound to change over time (even a very short space of time). This is what is referred to as modulation, i.e. modifying the sound. There are a few ways to do this. Let’s start off with envelope generators, commonly referred to as EG. Following is a diagram showing an ADSR envelope which is the most used.

As you can see there are 4 stages to the envelope. This determines how the sound changes over time. Note that envelopes can be applied to the filter or to the sound amplitude. The former will change the cutoff frequency over time and the latter will change the volume.

A (attack) – the length of time from hitting the note to reach up to full volume/frequency
D (decay) – the length of time after attack to go down to the ‘sustain’ level of volume/frequency
S (sustain) – the volume/frequency level heard whilst the note is being played
R (release) – the time taken to reduce the volume/frequency to nothing once the note has been released

You’ll see in the video how these settings affect the sound.

LFO
Another modulation source is the low frequency oscillator (LFO). This is an oscillator that is played at such a low frequency that you can’t hear it. It is used to change another parameter of the synth over time. The parameters it can modulate depends on the options the synth gives you. Common parameters are: cutoff frequency, oscillator pitch, volume, pulse width, resonance, panning.

The idea is that you tell the LFO how much to modulate the parameter by, i.e. the intensity. You also tell it how fast to modulate, i.e. the rate/frequency.

The oscillator itself can have a waveform chosen by you so you determine the shape of the modulation. For example, if you wanted to modulate the volume with a triangle wave, the volume would go up to a peak then come back down gradually, then go up, then come back down, etc. A square wave would go up and down abruptly.

Another setting you may find in the LFO is for syncing. This is useful because if you have the VST plugin in your sequencer application, you can sync the oscillations to the tempo of your track. This would then override any custom rate setting and just use the host’s tempo, eliminating the need for you to guess what rate setting to use to make it sound good.

You may also have a setting that tells the LFO to start the oscillation from the beginning of the waveform each time a new note is pressed. Without this, one note may start at the beginning of the waveform (e.g. in our volume example, at low volume) and another note may start in the middle (high volume), therefore sounding inconsistent.

Effects
Although your host application can be used to add effects to the sound, some synths also have the ability to add effects before the sound gets to your host application (in my case FL Studio). This can reduce the overall CPU usage so may be worth considering. The effects offered will be different per synth and may include chorus, reverb, delay, echo and more.

Until next time….

Well, a short introduction it may be but it’s a good start to synths. That will do for now. It is a huge topic and there are a lot more resources out there on the topic. If I’ve mentioned something here that you don’t agree with or need more clarification on something, feel free to mention it in the forums.

Now we are in a position to start making our track and that is the focus of the next post. Let’s do this.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have any tips on using synthesizers and creating good sounds to use for trance leads, bass, drums, pads or anything that will be useful? Click the icon below to enter the forums and share your thoughts. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

If you’re not reading this on the site, make sure you do so you can watch the video at the same time. In the video I will be using the mixer and adding effects. I will also show you how to automate plugin parameters (like a rotatory knob or a slider) so they change by themselves. This can be done either on the pattern level as events or on the playlist level as an automation clip. Note that if you can’t see things in detail in the video, click on it when it’s playing to view a larger version in youtube.

The mixer and effects
Every instrument channel in a pattern can be sent to a particular mixer insert channel so it can be processed differently to other channels. Let’s say we want to add a chorus effect to the kick drum. The 1st thing to do is click on the channel name to bring up a load of other options. I’ve no idea what most of these do. At the moment I’m only interested in the top-right area saying ‘FX’. This is the mixer channel number. Change it with the scroll wheel or with click & drag of the mouse. You actually have 64 insert channels to choose from, more than enough.

Let’s take a closer look at the mixer.

For each insert channel you can set volume, panning, effects, how much of the audio signal goes to shared effects, how much audio signal goes to the master output, and some more. You can also mute a channel by left-clicking the green led and making it play solo by right-clicking the led.

You can add up to 8 effects on individual insert channels. Here you can see I’ve added the ‘Fruity Chorus’ plugin. If you need more than 8 effects to be applied, you can send the signal to 1 of the 4 shared channels called ‘send channels’. I’ll explain how to do this in the video on the right.

Automation clips
In the next tutorial we’ll start looking into synthesizers as they are very important for trance tunes. A good tune will have some synthesizer parameters changing over time, such as the cutoff frequency. We don’t want to do this manually each time we play the tune. Luckily, there are a couple of ways of automating any plugin parameter whether it be a knob, slider or something else.

One way of achieving this is to play the tune back in record mode and move the control around manually. These movements will be saved as ‘events’ for the selected pattern. However, let’s say we want to make changes throughout many different patterns. In this case we create an automation clip.

The 1st step is to load up the plugin and make a change to the control we want to automate. This is so FL Studio knows which control we’re on about.

Here I’ve loaded up the Nexus plugin which I hear is pretty decent for making trance leads. I’d like to automate the cutoff frequency in the bottom left so I 1st move this around a bit to gain focus to it. Then I create an automation clip from the navigation options.

This will insert the automation clip in the playlist editor. Initially you see a central line as we haven’t tweaked the values for this parameter yet.

To create values throughout time, use the mouse and drag it around. Here the cutoff frequency will increase and then decrease again.

Until next time….

Finally, we’re finished with the introduction of the FL Studio interface. If I’ve been going too fast on any subject matter or haven’t explained things properly, please let me know in the forums and I’ll revisit those areas.

Before we start making trance, we need to understand synthesizers so that is what I want to concentrate on next. Once we nail that, we’ll be ready to create the best trance track ever (maybe).

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have any tips on using the mixer or creating automation clips? If so we’d all be interested to hear them. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Let’s continue on the interface today and talk about the playlist editor. In the video I will be demonstrating the features explained below so hit play on the right. If you can’t see things in detail in the video, click on it when it’s playing to view a larger version in youtube.

When you 1st load up FL Studio, the playlist editor will be empty.

There are 2 areas to the window. The top area (clip editor) is to insert audio clips, automation clips and pattern clips. The bottom area (block editor) is where we insert pattern blocks. At the very top are editing tools we can use. I’ll go through a couple of these in the video.

On the top-right are buttons for zooming the editor window. The large square is horizontal zoom and the small square is vertical zoom. If you have a scroll wheel, hover over the square and scroll. If you don’t, click on the square and drag the mouse up for zoom in and down for zoom out.

Block editor
To insert patterns into the playlist, left-click the mouse in the grid for the required pattern. If you insert the pattern in the wrong place, just drag it to where it should be.

Sometimes you may want to make a copy of a pattern so you can make a slight change to it. This can be accomplished by right-clicking on the pattern number to bring up the context menu and choosing ‘Clone selected’.

A really cool feature in that context menu is ‘Flatten selected’. You can see for pattern 1 we have inserted the pattern 4 times. Let’s say we know that we’ll always need to insert this as a multiple of 4. We can combine the 4 inserts into a single pattern by flattening it. Note that this will repeat the entire pattern 4 times and save it in the original pattern. To do this all step sequencing blocks will need to be converted to piano rolls which FL Studio will do for you. Here is what our pattern 1 will look like after flattening it:

If we want to go the other way and split a pattern into 2, we can do this using the ‘Slice’ tool in the toolbar at the top. It’s the one that looks like a stanley knife. Let’s slice pattern 1 into 2 chunks.

You can see that the 2nd half of pattern 1 has gone down to pattern 2 and what used to be pattern 2 has now become pattern 3.

Another cool feature of the playlist editor is its ability to colour code the patterns. You could for example keep all drum patterns the same colour, all pads another colour, and so on. To change the colour, right-click a pattern and choose ‘Color selected’.

Clip editor

You can also insert patterns into the top half of the playlist editor. I’m not currently sure what all the benefits or disadvantages are of using this area. I have tried it and found one good use for it.

Let’s say you have a pattern but the very 1st time you play it you want it to start at the very end, not from the beginning. I haven’t found how to do this in the block editor but I can in the clip editor.

There is a tool at the top next to the slicer called ‘slip edit’ and it looks like 2 arrows. By selecting this and shortening the start of the pattern, we can force it to play from any beat we want, very cool.

Until next time….

We’re almost there with the introduction to FL Studio. We will take a look at the mixer next time as well as how to create automation clips.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have any tips on using the playlist editor? If so we’d all be interested to hear them. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

Last time we took a look at the different parts of the FL studio interface that are used to make a track. Today I want to focus on the step sequencer, the place where patterns are created. As always, I will be going through things in more detail in the video so press play. If you can’t see things in detail in the video, click on it when it’s playing to view a larger version in youtube.

When you 1st load up FL Studio, the sequencer is empty and has some pre-inserted channels (4 drum instruments).

On the left against each channel there is an LED where you can mute the instrument or make it play in solo. You then have a rotating control for panning and for volume.

In its simplest form the step sequencer is used by switching each box on or off, left-click being on and right-click being off. You can then play the pattern either by clicking the play button or by hitting the spacebar. Once you have selected some notes, you’ll see something like this:

A little music theory
If you already know about beats and bars, ignore this bit. For those who don’t, here goes. Let’s say a song is a large apple pie. If we split the pie into 8 even slices, we have split our song up into 8 bars. Each musical bar is of a certain length and it is very unlikely to have bars of different lengths (it can happen, but unlikely for dance music).

Bars are themselves split up into beats. In FL Studio you get 4 beats per bar. If you look closely at the pics above, you’ll see that each beat is in a different colour and represented by 4 square blocks per beat. In the video I will play an example and count the beats and bars.

You’ll see now that FL Studio by default makes our pattern length 1 bar of 4 beats. What if we wanted more or less beats? This can be accomplished by using the little setting in the top left that says ‘–’. If you have a scroll wheel, hover over it and scroll. If not, hover just above or below it and click. Let’s extend the pattern to 8 beats.

We can now fill in the rest of the beats for this pattern. It might be worth noting now that you can actually extend this indefinitely and create as many beats for the pattern as you like. It’s therefore possible to build a song up with just a single pattern and use FL Studio like other track-sequencing applications where you just copy/paste the repetitive audio all the way until the end.

Context menu

By right-clicking on a channel’s name, you have more options. The only 3 I can see myself using are:

‘Send to piano roll’ – have more control over the melody creation.

‘Load sample’ – put an audio file into the channel.

‘Delete’ – get rid of the channel. Be careful here as when you add a channel to a pattern, it is inserted into every pattern. Therefore when you delete a channel, it is removed from all patterns and any music you created with it is gone.

Piano roll
This will be the most used feature of FL Studio during song creation since this is where we create the melodies and clean them up after not getting it quite right recording with a keyboard. The step sequencer itself is fine for creating drum beats. However, since you can’t change the note being played, i.e. the pitch, it isn’t very useful for the actual melody of the song, e.g. basslines, leads, pads, strings.

At the top of the piano roll are editing options such as drawing, slicing and zooming. On the left is a virtual keyboard where you can hit a note to hear how it will sound for the selected instrument. In the center are the notes of the melody. You can drag notes around, use the left-click to insert new ones and use right-click to remove them. To change the length of a note, hover over the end and then drag it to the desired length. In the video it all becomes clear.

Until next time….

Now I’m actually starting to make progress with learning about FL Studio. Next time I will take a close look at the playlist as that is where the patterns are merged to create the end result.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have any tips on using the step sequencer or piano roll? If so we’d all be interested to hear them. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

I’d like to go through the different parts of the FL Studio interface that are important to make music. I don’t know enough about all the options in the interface yet. I’ll just go through some of the things I’ve worked out earlier this week. Make sure you read this post on the site so you can watch the video that explains in more detail what is outlined here.

What I will do here is show you images of the different parts of the interface. To see where these can be found, either watch the video on the right or view the previous post ‘My Software Setup’ which has an image of the full interface that you can enlarge.

Top left – menu options

This is your typical area to open/save files, view help, edit preferences and so on. As we make progress with making our tune, we’ll learn about these as and when is required.

Top center – play area

Here you can play/stop your tune, record audio or midi onto it and change the tempo of the tune to play it slower or faster.

Top center – record options

Most of these options relate to recording audio or midi. At the top is shown the volume level of what is being played and how much RAM and cpu power is being used. This is quite useful as if you have too many instruments and effect being played, you will run out of processing power and won’t be able to add any more. Here you can monitor how much power your tune is taking up.

Top right – window toggle

These buttons we’ll be using a lot. They show/hide the most important windows we’ll need: step sequencer, piano roll, playlist, mixer.

Left – browser

This is a shortcut to get to instruments, plugins and projects. I don’t think I’ll need to use this, not sure yet.

Center – step sequencer

FL Studio is mainly used as a pattern sequencer. This means that we create patterns of instruments and play these back, repeating patterns where necessary. For example, if you had a very simple song consisting of intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, outro, then we’d have 4 patterns: intro, outro, verse, chorus.

The sequencer is split up into channels, each one being an individual instrument. Below I’ll show you how to add an instrument.

There are 3 ways to record into a channel: clicking on the squares of the step sequencer, converting it into a piano roll to make more complex melodies, or using an external midi keyboard.

Center – playlist

This is where we place our patterns to make the track. For the previous example, we’d put our 4 patterns on here and repeat the verse and chorus twice. Note that the playlist is split into 2 areas. The top area is where you would record audio clips and also insert midi patterns if you want to use some editing options. Mostly you’ll put the patterns in the bottom area.

Center – mixer

Every instrument channel has its sound played through the mixer. You can actually send the audio to a particular mixer channel so you can manipulate it separately from the rest of the audio. Manipulations may be changing the volume level, panning or adding effects such as reverb.

VST plugins

To add an instrument to your song, you need to install a plugin that will play the instrument’s sound. FL Studio can handle a few different types of plugins. VST tends to be the most popular and you can download demo or free versions of plugins from www.kvraudio.com. To select an instrument from already installed plugins, choose ‘Add one’ from the ‘Channels’ menu dropdown. You’ll see a list of all plugins installed on the computer.

To add a new plugin, you will first need to install it into a plugins folder that FL Studio knows about (which I will do in the video). You can then select ‘Add one’ then ‘More’.

A list of all installed plugins appears where you can switch them on and off. By selecting ‘Refresh’ then ‘Fast scan’, any newly installed plugins will be found.

Until next time….

Next time we will start to make a tune. This won’t be our proper tune, just a demo one so we can go through the different features in more detail. I will start with the step sequencer.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Do you have any tips on using the FL Studio interface? If so we’d all be interested to hear them. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

This week I’m going to show you what it is I will be using to make music. Some of you will be using the same software, some not. Although it won’t be as straight-forward to follow me on my journey if you’re using something different, the general principles will be the same so hopefully you can mimic what I’m trying to do in your own environment. The idea is that if you have discovered how to do things in your particular software, you can share tips in the forums so others can benefit.

Keyboard

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It isn’t always essential to have a keyboard to play music on the PC. A lot of sequencer software has built-in support to allow the computer keyboard to be used instead. I prefer to use a musical keyboard myself since it feels more natural playing notes and chords. It is also easier to accidentally find a riff or synth line that sounds great just by playing random notes.

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I bought my keyboard 5 years ago from ebay. It was because a few of us decided to start a band and after a few practise sessions playing Oasis, we decided to give up. The keyboard is still in good working condition and has MIDI capabilities. At the back here you can see from left to right: 2 cables for the MIDI in/out that are connected to the PC via USB, a cable for the sustain pedal and a power cable. The MIDI cable I purchased from ebay, I think from Japan or China because the user was sending it over for only a few US dollars. There are a couple of LEDs on the cable which light up when a signal goes in or out of the keyboard.

When attaching a MIDI device such as a keyboard to the PC, it’s important to note that the cable saying MIDI Out should be connected to the keyboard slot saying MIDI In. This is because the Out on the cable refers to the signal coming out of the PC. Similarly, the MIDI In cable should be attached to the MIDI Out of the keyboard.

FL Studio
It was a close call between quite a few software DAWs (digital audio workstations) for me before I decided to go with FL Studio. I had heard about this many many years ago when it was Fruity Loops, however I didn’t know anything about it. After doing extensive research on what people prefer to use and viewing youtube and demo videos of FL Studio, Ableton Live, Reason, Cubase, Pro Tools and Logic Pro, I made a decision to go with FL Studio. This was mainly down to the following reasons:

- Cost
- Ease of use
- VST plugin capability
- Feature set

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After having a look around FL Studio and going through some of the help manual, it seems like it has sufficient features to produce a decent track. The fact that it has VSTi plugin support means that we can pretty much create any sound we want if we buy the plugin. If you watch the video on the right, you’ll see me browsing around and checking out the features available.

Synth Plugins

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FL Studio comes with a number of plugins including some synths. I don’t believe these will be adequate enough to create the kind of sounds I want. To tell you the truth, I have no idea yet how I will be producing good quality drums, basslines, strings or pads. As far as trance synths go, I’ve got myself some demo plugins and full versions of 2 plugins which people swear by. Z3ta+ is one of these (on the left) and some of its presets are pretty amazing. I go through some of these in the video.

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Another plugin that can create decent trance sounds is V-Station. Again, there are some decent presets here. When we start learning about synths, we can start with presets to get an idea of how certains settings affect certain sounds. The end goal, however, is to be able to create great sounds from scratch without using any presets.

Check out this video on youtube that shows Z3ta+ and V-station being used in FL Studio to create trance. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck72Nz0YyPg. Man that has got me excited, I can’t wait to start.

Until next time….

That should be enough of an introduction to get us started. Next time I want to make a plan of action going forwards, in other words what path we need to take to accomplish our goal of producing a quality trance tune. Whether we talk about some theory 1st, explain about synths or just start messing around with FL Studio to see how things operate, not sure. Let’s decide next time when we make an action plan. If you guys want me to talk about something specific, just mention it in the forums.

If you want to be updated when I put up another post, you can sign up to the mailing list in the top-right.

Forum topic of the week

Have you already played around with FL Studio? If so I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on it. More importantly, is it worth upgrading to the latest version 9 considering I have no knowledge currently of it? Another thing that would be a good discussion topic is what you think the strengths/weaknesses are of FL Studio compared to for example Ableton, Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, Reason, etc. You can chat about it in the forums by clicking on the icon below. If there are any technical issues with signing into the forums, please contact me, the link is in the header at the top of the page.

My history of music production

I’m not a complete beginner at making music. My 1st introduction to it was back in high school where I was composing in Cubase Score for my music GCSE. I started to get into it more during my college years and used to spend a lot of my spare time in the music room to create some tunes.

This was my 1st introduction to MIDI and very quickly I realized that the music I created would sound different on different equipment and PCs. This wasn’t consistent for me so I then moved onto audio, i.e. creating wav files out of some software and laying them out in a sequencer application to form a tune.

That is pretty much my experience so far with making music. It has been many years now since I’ve produced something and I now want to learn how to make a professional trance track. The tracks I used to make were mainly chillout. My attempts at trance didn’t work out well. I may even put some links on here so you can listen to my early work, just let me know in the forums or contact me if you want to listen to the tunes (the contact link is in the header).

So why trance?

Well, I just love it. I can’t describe how certain tunes make me feel, it’s like all worries float away and everything is great. That is the power of trance for me. There are many different sub-genres of trance too. There are also artists out there who make “trance” tracks that I can’t even listen to for 5 seconds, mainly those which are just beats with no melody, or a remake of an old pop tune with just a cheesy synth line put in, it’s not right man.

The sort of music I like and want to produce is melodic, preferably with female vocals and sometimes dark. I like music to go deep and touch the soul of the listener. Check out some youtube videos to hear examples of what I like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvaSjsYLGNs (Lost Witness – Red Sun Rising – Lange Remix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnBeTPpr98g (Push – Universal Nation)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nye1gn4S1BI (Angelic – It’s My Turn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oEp7gvyJNg (Claudia Cazacu – Quatrain 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1DSVxqw4vA (Space Brothers – One More Chance)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSXbKGkgnsg (The Morrighan – Remember – Lange Remix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWipk4XUre0 (Lange – I Believe)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKxX0thiIkk (DJ Sakin & Friends – Nomansland – Lange Remix) one of the best intros ever
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq0qjcU8wKY (Thomas Bronzwaer – Titan)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESUorqeOxhg (Existone – Obscure Rays)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eq2njDwUWQ (Saltwater – The Legacy – Alphazone Mix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCHWV3MwJ0s (Chakra – Home)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI_bQAHeI6k (Binary Finary – 1998 – Matt Darey Mix)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aiy3wiH0Qd4 (The Thrillseekers – Synaesthesia)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKuTyousXjM (AVB & Justine Suissa – Simple Things)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxvpctgU_s8 (AVB & Sharen den Adel – In And Out Of Love)

Man I could keep going, I’ll stop now.

My favourite artists

Over the years I’ve heard amazing things from many artists, including one-hit wonders and some great remixes. One’s that stand out immediately for me are: Lost Witness, Space Brothers, Push, Lange who has made some incredibly amazing remixes over the years, Armin Van Buuren the legend, Tiesto and many many more. I could write a lot about this.

Until next time….

This will do for an introduction. Next time I will go through my equipment setup (hardware & software). After that I’ll start picking out areas of music production while I actually make a trance track from scratch. You guys can tell me in the forums if there’s something in particular you want me to talk about. You can also share tips and correct me if I’m wrong about anything, the aim is to learn together.

Sign up to the mailing list in the top right to be notified when my next post is up on the site.

Forum topic of the week

This will be the 1st discussion for this site. Why don’t you guys introduce yourselves and share some of your own experiences with music production. Click on the following icon to go straight to the thread. I’d also be interested to hear about your favourite artists and tracks. If there are any technical problems with using the forum, please contact me so I can sort them out.

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