Music Production for Beginners: How to Make Professional Electronic Dance Music, The Ultimate 3 in 1 Bundle for Producers (Synthesizer Explained, The Ultimate Melody Guide & Mixing EDM Music)

By Screech House

THE PRACTICAL, PROFESSIONAL AND POWERFUL WAY TO BECOME A SUPERIOR EDM MUSIC PRODUCER

Make sound design easy, make music theory fun, and make mixing a thrill

Let me guess… you also thought it’d be a terrific idea to make your own music?

If you’re new to the production game, chances are you will feel overwhelmed by all the bells and whistles your software has to offer. Have you ever asked yourself:

  - Where the heck do I start?

  - Why is it so difficult to use all these knobs and effects?

  - How on earth can I actually make a song remotely worth listening to?

Today is the last day you have to ask yourself those questions. The struggles and frustration every new producer have to go through are over.

Music Production for Beginners

Music Production for Beginners is undeniably the ultimate shortcut for producers who want to save time and achieve results. By obtaining it, you will have everything you need to make high-quality songs extremely fast.

 

The most important steps of music creation

From start to finish, you will get all the essential steps a beginner needs to make impressive songs as quickly as possible. This includes:

  - Using your favorite synthesizer to create all the sounds you need.

  - Simple music theory to make incredible melodies in no time.

  - The best mixing strategies to create radio-ready tracks and stand out from the crowd.

 

Producing music has never been easier

By obtaining this massive bundle, you don’t just get one book. You’ll actually own a unique collection of three(!) bestselling books from Screech House: Synthesizer Explained, The Ultimate Melody Guide, and Mixing EDM Music.

As a bonus, you will also find a link to an exclusive EDM sample pack inside the bundle. Packed entirely with original samples, you can kickstart your projects and make songs even faster.

If you’re a beginner, this bundle is a must-have. Make absolutely sure you don’t miss out on this one-time release and start straight away.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: May 31, 2022

Book preview

CHAPTER 1:

How to use oscillators

At the end of this chapter, you will know exactly how to use oscillators on a synthesizer. But first, let’s explore what oscillators are.

What are oscillators?

An oscillator is a function of a synthesizer where you can generate an audio signal. The audio signal, aka soundwave or waveform, can be shaped and tweaked to produce a unique sound. That’s why you always need to have a signal first, else there’s nothing to work with. So, an oscillator is the absolute starting point of your sound-design process. Thus, it’s very important to understand all the settings that come with it. Therefore, let’s start with the first one.

How to use waveform shapes

Now, the first choice you have to make when you create a sound is determining which waveform you wish to use. You see, an oscillator can generate different waveform shapes, all producing different sound characteristics and harmonics, like a sine, triangle, pulse (square), saw, tri-saw and noise. These are the most common ones and they all have a specific frequency distribution. For example, a sine only has the fundamental frequency, whereas a pulse and saw contain a whole array of frequencies but in a different arrangement.

You don’t necessarily have to know the frequency distributions of all waveshapes right now. Just start by playing each waveshape in your D.A.W. (Digital Audio Workstation), so you have an idea what each sounds like. Thereby, don’t forget to draw some notes to produce an actual sound. For example, draw a quick rhythm or melody and play it. This should give some audio feedback. Then, just go to an oscillator on your synthesizer and select each waveform one by one while playing the sound. This is essential and will immediately give you a good understanding about their characteristics.

However, I still want to give you an idea about the frequency distributions of the most common waveform shapes. They all have a different harmonic arrangement, which are called overtones. This means a set of musical frequencies on top of the fundamental one. This way, if you multiply the fundamental frequency with an even number (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.), you will get the even harmonics. If you multiply it with an odd number (3, 5, 7, 9, etc.), you will get the odd harmonics.

Sine: only contains the fundamental frequency.

Triangle: contains the odd harmonics, but they roll off quickly in the higher frequencies.

Pulse (square): contains all the odd harmonics.

Saw: contains all odd and even harmonics.

Tri-saw: contains some variation of odd and even harmonics depending on the exact shape.

Noise: contains random frequencies of the entire frequency spectrum, but no harmonics.

How to use pitch

After you have decided which waveshape you want to generate, you can furtherly manipulate it with the other settings, starting with the pitch. So, an oscillator can be set to a precise pitch by defining the octave, semitone and even some smaller musical intervals. Generally, this basically means specifying the fundamental frequency of the oscillator.

To understand this fully, it’s essential to know a thing or two about the music-theory basics. Therefore, if you want to learn more about octaves and notes, but also scales and chords, just get The Ultimate Melody Guide. I will be back to share my best melody-making strategies with you.

Now in short, a semitone is basically a note as you can find on a piano. So, there are 12 different notes, or semitones, per octave. An octave is a note that doubles or halves in frequency. So, each new octave is twice as high or twice as low in pitch. And finally, so-called cents are very small musical intervals to finetune the pitch on a micro level. Therefore, most synthesizers provide a fine option to change the pitch very subtly, alongside the octave and note settings.

Now, learn what happens when you change the pitch settings on your synthesizer and how it affects the sound. Experiment with different values for each of the pitch options. Thereby, a positive value will move the pitch up and a negative value will move the pitch down.

By the way, on some synthesizers you also have the option to change the pitch for the entire sound, and not only for each individual oscillator per se. So, it just depends if you want to change the pitch on a micro level or macro level. The same goes for the pitch-bend function. The pitch-bend function can bend the pitch of the entire sound up or down based on a range. Whereby the range means the maximum allowed number of semitones to move the pitch. However, using the pitch-bend option usually involves some routing, programming or automating, so let’s keep going.

How to use volume and panning

Next in line will be the volume and panning settings. The volume and panning settings are kind of self-explanatory. They control the loudness and stereo balance of the sound. So, by adjusting the volume, you change the amplitude of the signal. As your neighbors would say: more volume means more noise disturbance. By adjusting the panning, you change how much of that signal should go to the left and right speaker. This way, pan to the left to get a stronger sound in the left speaker. Pan to the right to get a stronger sound in the right speaker.

Again, tweak these parameters on your synthesizer to get an idea. But in order to catch the stereo balance of your sound, you may want to use a headphone or earbuds.

How to use voices

When you’re satisfied with the volume and panning of your sound, it’s time to determine the number of voices it should have. Sometimes called unison, the number of voices dictates how many signals the synthesizer needs to generate. Therefore, by using multiple voices, you can create a bigger or fatter sound with the same generated signal. Simply put; more voices equal a thicker sound. Just like a choir of people versus a solo singer.

The ability to have multiple voices goes hand in hand with some of the other oscillator settings, which we will cover next. More specifically, the detune option, stereo spread function and phase randomness setting all influence each other in combination with the number of voices you wish to use. Again, you will find everything in full detail in the Sound Design for Beginners guide.

For now, go to the voices area and give your synth a few different numbers of voices. Thereby, you could already go ahead and modify some of the other settings too, such as the detune, phase randomness (retrigger) and stereo spread function. This way, you can hear the full potential of having these different voices. But don’t worry, you will know exactly how they work very soon.

How to use phase offset

Now that you know how voices work, we can go to the phase offset function. With the phase offset, often just called phase, you can change at which position of the waveform the generated sound starts. You see, each musical sound is merely a constant vibration. Therefore, by changing the phase offset, we can actually determine at which point in that vibration the signal needs to begin.

This way, you could set the starting position of the soundwave anywhere between 0 and 360 degrees, whereby 360 degrees means one full oscillation. Thus, 180 degrees for example means shifting the starting position forward by half an oscillation.

Mind you though, offsetting the phase only really shows when you’re using multiple oscillators or voices that have different phase settings. So, different phases then go together to produce richer or wider sounds. Simply try it out by adding a second oscillator with the same settings as the first yet give it a different phase position. Then listen what happens as you move the phase.

How to use detune

As you could hear, having different phases result in slightly different sounds, especially when combined. But we can do much more, like using detune. Detune is the option where you can give all the available voices slightly different pitches. So, it spreads their pitches apart, whereby more detune means more spreading. This produces a bigger frequency coverage, and usually a fatter type of sound.

Now, don’t confuse the detune function with the pitch setting. Although they’re both pitch related, the pitch setting simply sets the fundamental frequency of the entire oscillator, and the detune function spreads apart the frequencies of the individual voices.

Also, if you are going to use detune, make sure to have at least two active voices. You need to have at least two voices to be able to create a tune difference as it’s impossible to detune a one-voice signal. So, keep that in mind.

Anyhow, just find out for yourself what it sounds like when you play around with different detune levels and different voice numbers. It becomes really intuitive when you combine this theory with the practice.

By the way, if you have a question or suggestion you want me to cover, feel free go to my YouTube channel and leave a comment below a video. If I can provide a good answer, you will most likely see a response coming up soon. Of course, don’t miss it and be sure to subscribe and enable notifications as well. When you’ve done that, let’s talk about stereo separation.

How to use stereo separation

Alongside the detune and voices settings, a synthesizer usually has the stereo separation or stereo spread function. This function creates a phase difference of all the available voices between the left and right speaker to produce a wide stereo effect. So basically, the sound will split up between left and right where both start at a different phase position. This difference is what tricks our ears. Both ears receive a different signal in terms of timing.

Now if you forgot, the phase means the initial point (starting position) of the vibration. And just as the detune option, you also need to have at least two active voices for the stereo separation to work.

So, with the stereo separation function you can shift between a mono signal and a stereo signal. Mono means one single channel. So, the sound stays centered. Stereo however means multiple channels. So, the sound can differ between left and right. This way, the more stereo separation, the more your sound spreads to two channels instead of one. This effect is best hearable via a headphone or earbuds. And when you apply it, you will immediately hear the difference. So, go ahead.

How to use phase invert

One of the remaining oscillator options is the phase invert function. By using phase invert, you can flip the generated waveform upside down. Literally, you can invert the signal the oscillator is producing. For example, if you start with a normal sine wave, it first goes up and then moves down repeatedly. Though, if you invert it, the wave first goes down and then moves up repeatedly. So, the movement pattern flips.

Just like the phase offset setting, you don’t really notice the effect when you only have one active oscillator. However, when you add another one into the mix, these phase differences will clearly show.

Speaking about showing, give yourself a nice showdown right away. Simply use two oscillators and invert the signal one at a time. Thereby, tryout some different waveform shapes as well.

How to use phase randomness

The last major setting of an oscillator is the phase randomness function, often also called retrigger. By changing the retrigger, you change the random phase distribution of all the available voices. So, either each voice starts at a random position of its waveform or they all start at the same fixed point. Of course, depending on the amount of phase randomness you give it (if your synthesizer provides this option).

Just as the other phase settings, you will need to have at least two voices for it to work. Also, giving your voices random phases results in a stereo sound, whereas having the retrigger option enabled, produces a mono sound. That is, if you don’t use any of the other oscillator settings that can create a stereo effect.

I know it can be a little bit challenging to understand, so just see it in action by changing the phase randomness or retrigger function on your synthesizer. Thereby, let me give you a suggestion. Try out a saw wave with multiple voices (at least 3 or 4) and play around with the detune. Then, switch off the retrigger option (allow random voices). If you