Shadowing Practice: FL Studio Complete Beginner Basics Tutorial (2025) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Okay so if you clicked on this video you must be interested in making beats

and whether it's just a hobby or you're thinking about taking it full time, getting started can feel overwhelming.

There's so much information out there, the software looks confusing and you might not even know where to begin with making music.

Well in this video I've got you covered

because I'm going to break down everything you need to know to get started in FL Studio including which version to choose, how to navigate the software, add your own sounds, install plugins,

build your first beat, start mixing, recording, arrange your track and even how to export it so you can distribute your music.

I'll be keeping it really simple and digestible

so by the end of this video you should be well on your way to making your first beat.

If you're wondering who I am my name is Jay Cactus.

I've been a full -time producer for over five years now and I've worked with artists such as Giggs, Noisy, Skinny Flex, French the Kid and way more.

And if you want to dive a bit deeper I've created a whole beginners course completely free which goes step by step.

It gives you access to a community of like -minded producers

and a whole bundle of high quality sounds for you to use.

You can grab it by clicking the link in the description or by scanning the QR code here.

And for my regular viewers, this doesn't mean that my tutorials won't be advanced anymore.

I just wanted to give something free to people who were looking to start a new hobby this year.

But with all that being said, let's get straight into it.

Alright, so let's start off with which version of FL Studio you'll actually need.

A lot of people ask me what version to get

and most of the time I say get the producer version it is the most popular one and that's

because the entry level one the fruity edition it doesn't have

many features you can't record audio with it you have an audio clip limit of eight

so if you're going to be using things like samples

or you'll be dragging sounds in from various kits like the

ones you can download from me then you're going to quickly go over that limit

so I'd usually say just get a producer version you get

more than enough plugins with it you can record audio use unlimited audio clips

and you get access to all of the playlist features which I'll talk about soon.

The main difference with the producer edition signature

and all plugins edition is just the amount of plugins

that you get and that can be anything from effect plugins to various instruments

but you can always upgrade if you need to so

if you start with the producer edition you can just pay to upgrade to the signature or all plugins edition anyway.

If you're really on a budget

and you just want to see what FL is like then just download the demo for free

and see if you can get familiar with the interface

and then when the times right you can upgrade to the edition that you want.

So when you've chosen your edition and you've installed it, when you open up FL Studio you'll see something like this.

On the left you'll see some recent projects but if this is your first time then you won't have any obviously.

And on the right you'll have some options to start new projects with plugins and sounds already loaded.

For the most part if we're just making beats you won't really need any of these.

I've got this default basic soft clipper preset set up but we can just go ahead and start an empty project.

Now the first time you start a project it can look really confusing

but you just need to get familiar with some of the main parts and those main parts are up here.

So the first one is the playlist.

The playlist is going to be where you arrange your whole track.

So you'll build out certain patterns within the channel rack

which is this one and then at the end of

that you'll piece everything together within the playlist and you'll build out your song here.

So think about the playlist as building out your song

and think about the channel rack as building out the patterns

within your song the piano roll is going to be where you build out most of your melodies

and you can use the piano roll within any sound

so whether you drag a drum sample in or a piano guitar

or anything else you can build out a melody within

that using the piano roll it's essentially just a piano on its side

so the higher up you go the higher it will sound

the lower you go the lower the tone will be the

mixer is where you're going to add all of your effects

so you have this master channel which is where everything's rooted

so anything that you add to the master channel is going to affect every sound

that you're using and then you also have these individual inserts

which you can link sounds to so when you bring sounds into the playlist

or if you bring them to the channel rack you can route them from here to individual inserts

so for example if you had a piano you could route

that to insert one and then start adding some effects like reverb delay

or anything else you might want to add they work in order too

so anything that you add to slot one will be the first effect in the chain

and then in slot two it will go through slot one first

and then hit slot two so for example

if you added reverb to slot one

and then delay to slot two the delay will also affect the reverb but we'll get more into that soon.

The next main section is the browser or the plugin picker

and this is where you'll access all of your sounds so

if you've downloaded my free bundle then you'll find it within the browser once you've located the folder

but I'll show you that in a second.

So I've set up a folder called FL Studio Packs

and then J Cactus Packs and here's where I keep all of my sounds.

So for example if I go to my sacred trap suite could go to my drums

and I have all of my 808s here.

By the way if you want to check out any of my premium sounds

and bundles they're all available on jcactus .com so you can go there

or I'll leave a link in the description and use the code course20 to get 20 % off everything.

Within the kits you can star some of your favorite sounds

so for example if you're always using this one and

that one you can quickly access it here and

that way you don't have to waste time browsing through all of the kits again

and then to go back to the sounds just click here

and if you're getting a bit lost just hit this button

and it'll collapse everything also if you accidentally move things

and it starts looking confusing just go to view arrange windows

and realign within the browser you can also go to the current project

and you can start undoing things

if you've made mistakes you can also find your plugins from here

so effects and generators you can find various sounds you've downloaded for plugins

and you can also see FL cloud this is a little bit separate to FL studio

because it is a subscription service

but here's where you can access thousands of sounds anything from drum samples to melodic loops

and starters i even have my own collection in here so

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if you go to pax you can see me right there

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and these are sounds

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that i've made i've just created a collection of my favorite sounds within FL cloud

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so you can preview them and then

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if you like it you can hit the download button

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and you can drag that straight into the playlist ready to use

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and you can see from the options here you can actually sync it with your project bpm

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and if you're wondering what bpm is it stands for beats per minute

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and it's essentially the tempo of your beat and you can change that by dragging this up and down here.

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So right now I've got the project set to 140 beats per minute

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which is quite standard for things like drill and trap.

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You also need to pay attention to this area here because

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if you've got pattern mode selected

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when you hit play it's going to play anything in the current pattern

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so anything that you're building in the current channel rack

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but then if you go to song mode it will play anything in the playlist.

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When we get to arranging beats you'll see

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that you can add patterns within the playlist

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and build out the full song there but

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if you're building something in the playlist

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and you realize it's not actually playing then it's probably because you've got pattern mode activated.

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If you have this button checked it's the metronome so this is going to give you a click on every beat.

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That's just going help you stay in time

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if you're recording something you can see

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if i bring the bpm down to something like 90

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which is good for boom back you're gonna hear it's playing slower

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so there's less beats per minute before we start building the melody to actually install the sounds

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that you've downloaded just hit f10 and then go to file

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or you can click options and then file settings and any folder

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that you add within this section will show up in the browser for example

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if you're saving all of your sounds on the desktop just click this folder go to desktop and then select folder.

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Once you come out of that you're just going to need to hit refresh.

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You can also right click on one of these and then select open and this will show you the directory.

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So these packs actually come with FL Studio so

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if you wanted to keep all of your downloaded sounds within

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that you might just want to create a new folder here and again just hit refresh and they should show up.

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Alright so to build a melody I like to start with a piano just

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because it's really easy to hear the notes with a piano and then you can swap it out if you want.

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To open a plugin you want to make sure

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that you're in the channel rack first then you can click this button here and you'll see the plugins that you get.

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If you've downloaded third -party plugins and installed them just click more plugins, manage plugins, hit find installed plugins and then it's going to search for anything that's been installed.

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For example I like addictive keys for piano so I've downloaded

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that and then I like to hit the star button so it shows up in my favorites.

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If you miss that there you can also access it by going to more plugins, search for it and then you can add the star there.

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That just means it's going to show up straight away here without having to go to more plugins.

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FL Keys is the free piano that comes with FL Studio

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but we'll use addictive keys just because I prefer the sound of it.

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If you want to delete a plugin just click there hit alt

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and delete and then okay or you can right click and select delete.

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Now to start building a melody first we're going to click there

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and then we can hit f7 to go to the piano roll

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or we can right click on the plugin and select piano roll there.

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Now you'll see when I click in a note we're going to actually hear the piano.

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If you don't know about music theory I'd recommend clicking here going to view scale highlighting and then selecting a scale.

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If you want to make something dark go for minor natural and then we can start with something like C or D.

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If you can't see the highlighted grid just make sure that's checked.

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If you right click it will check it without closing this structure.

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So a scale is essentially a group of notes

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that we as humans have decided sound good together and you can see we picked D minor.

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Now anything that's highlighted will be in the D minor scale

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and now that we can see the scale we can start building out a chord progression

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because chords are the foundation of the majority of melodies

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if you don't know what a chord is essentially it's a group of notes played together

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and there's a few basic ones you can learn for example

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we could start on d we'll skip a note in the scale

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and then skip another one

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so you can see we've missed these two make sure we're on pattern mode here bring

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that bpm up to 140 again hit space to play that's a d minor chord

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so that's the pattern for any standard minor chord you go up three one two three

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and then up four one two three four.

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To make it a major chord you just bring this middle note up one

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but D major doesn't fit the D minor scale so we'll stick with D minor.

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To build on this chord you can skip another note in the scale to create a seventh, skip another one to make a ninth.

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You'll get more of a jazzy vibe.

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Now a good technique to get started is just by picking any note in the scale.

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I've started with D but you don't have to and then you can pick another one.

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For example, we'll go to A -sharp or B -flat, same thing.

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Skip a note in the scale, skip another one.

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Let's say you like that, you can pick another note.

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So we'll choose A, skip a note in the scale, skip another one.

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Hold CTRL and left click to highlight this.

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And then if we drag it out, it will play this chord for longer.

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See how this sounds. So I like that.

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We just built our first chord progression.

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Now what you can also do is play with inversions and the voicing of the chord progression.

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And all that means is the positioning of the notes.

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For example, the D minor chord has D, F, and A.

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If I hold CTRL, left click, and highlight A.

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If I press CTRL and down, we're still using the note A, but it's further down in the scale.

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So we're going to get a bit of a different sound. So I'm feeling that.

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If we undo that, you could try this one, maybe that as well.

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And it's all about experimenting.

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same chord progression but you get a different vibe

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and then to thicken up the sound you could take the root notes

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which are the first notes in the chord

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so remember we chose D minor then we went to A sharp

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and then A we just changed the positioning of these two we're gonna press shift

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and left click and that will copy the notes then we'll press ctrl

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and down and maybe we'll bring these two back down as well

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and now we've got some bass right

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so most melodies will have three layers you'll have some bass

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covering the low end you'll have the chords covering the midsection

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and then you'll build out some sort of counter melody on top

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and with counter melodies there's really no rules you're just going to have to experiment

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and see what sounds right to you that's why i recommended highlighting a scale

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because if you stick within the scale there's a good chance it's going to sound right.

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For example let's just click some random notes in, drag that out maybe to the end and then just two more here.

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Now we've got a top line too that sounds right.

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Some useful techniques for top lines is to use notes that are already within the chord.

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So you can see the F sounds right there because we're using F in the chord.

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Same with A sharp there.

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G is not in that chord but still sounded right

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but e and a are

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but again there's no rules with counting melodies you don't have to start at the beginning you can start wherever

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and it's all about trial

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and error another thing you could do is highlight the chords first shift

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and click to copy them ctrl and up to bring them up an octave

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and then press alt and a and this is going to bring up the arpeggiator

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which will break up the chord

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so for example we could bring this range up we could change it from normal to flip to alternate

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and then you can increase the amount of notes so for example Just an easy way to get a quick -out melody.

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I want to make something a bit darker, so I'm going to start with the D minor chord.

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To make a dark melody, you just don't want to change the progression too much.

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For example, we could press CTRL and A, then CTRL and B to copy it.

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Bring this one down, maybe we'll bring these two down.

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Bring everything up, and we'll just start building the melody.

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Also, if you press C, it's going to activate the slice tool, which you can access from up here then if you left click

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and drag down you can make cuts so this will separate the two

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so then it plays twice

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and then press p to go back to the draw tool it's also useful

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if your notes are too long you can hit c shift right click and that's going to trim the smallest end.

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Bring that back.

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If you're pressing ctrl and b to copy

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and it's doing something like this it means you haven't got the right area highlighted.

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So you could just right click and then highlight the section from up here.

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We've got two bars highlighted.

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We can see that because it's going from one to three press ctrl

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and b it's going to copy it

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and we can change something in this section I could bring this up and then just make one more cut there

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there we go I'm going to add some bass notes in

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so we could do it here or an octave down just see what sounds right I think something like this

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There we go.

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If I really wanted to thicken that up I could copy these up an octave.

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So I'm feeling this now.

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Now you might notice it sounding a little bit robotic

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and that's because everything's being played at the same velocity

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and everything's perfectly in time which obviously that wouldn't happen if it was someone actually playing the piano.

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So there's some shortcuts we can use.

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We can press alt and r and this will bring up the randomizer.

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If it's looking like that just turn pattern off

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and just bring the velocity down and you can see at the bottom here

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that we're getting more of a natural or random velocity which is the volume

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or essentially how hard the piano is being played

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If we press Alt and S it's going to strum the piano

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so instead of the notes playing at exactly the same time it's going to increase it gradually.

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So instead of it's going to be more like and you can bring up the intensity here.

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And I like to use preserve ends so they don't overlap.

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You can also do that by manually moving some of them off grid

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and to do that I usually hold Alt left click and then drag.

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You can do that with the velocity as well.

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So you could hold ctrl left click to highlight a note

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and then use alt and the mouse wheel to turn down the velocity or from this section here.

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But don't worry too much about that now just get used to making some melodies.

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So for the most part you'll want to start with a four bar pattern

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and you can see that from the numbers up here going from one to five

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and then for some variation we could press ctrl

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and b to make it an eight bar pattern and then just change something in this section.

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For example we could just add some more notes here.

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See how this sounds.

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There we go.

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Don't worry about making your first melody amazing.

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Just play with some different scales and chord progressions and then once you have the sound that you like, we can either change the instrument, layer it or start processing them.

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So if I go back to the channel rack, I might want to add another top line like a violin.

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So let's open Flex because Flex is stock plugin go to essential strings

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and we'll just use the violin sustain sustain is just going

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to mean you're playing longer notes instead of short staccato ones again we can hit f7

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or right click and select piano roll

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if you can't see the notes of the piano just click up here go to view

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and just make sure ghost channels is selected

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so now we can either think of another counter melody

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or we could just emphasize some of the notes in the previous one for example we could do something like this.

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Copy that.

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Maybe bring this up. So that works.

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You'll also notice that you can see these grids in between and that's going to help you snap the notes to it.

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If that's not working, just click this

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and then make sure you've either got line checked or one of the others like half step.

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For zooming, you're going to see how that changes things.

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So with line you've got four and And then for a quarter, you've got more half step, a little bit less.

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The quick way to clean things up is let's say you've got a note that's a little bit off

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and you want it to start from the beginning.

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Just highlight the note and press CTRL and Q.

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And that's going to quantize it, which means it will snap it to the grid.

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I'm going to change this a little bit because you can add some breaks.

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You don't have to have notes all the way through.

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Just keep it simple.

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Something like this.

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It's a really simple counter melody.

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There we go.

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To turn up the volume, we can do that with this button here, or we can do it in the mixer, which we'll get into soon.

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Now with each new sound we add, we don't always have to create a new melody.

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Sometimes we can just layer things to get interesting sounds and textures.

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For example, we might want to layer those main chords with something like a choir to get a more dramatic feel.

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So I'm going to pull up Labs, which is a free plugin by Spitfire, which I highly recommend.

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And we'll just use this free choir that it's got.

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I'm going to click this button to activate the keys.

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We'll press Ctrl and C to copy, go to Labs and press Ctrl and V.

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Now if we go into the piano roll, I don't want this top line.

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I just want to use the chords.

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So you can either right click over notes to delete them, or you can press Ctrl, left click, highlight them, and then hit the delete button

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so I'm going to bring that back

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because I just want to use the main chord notes

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so we'll just follow that process get rid of this the ctrl

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and q to quantize them I don't need to strum the choir

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and then either ctrl and b to copy or shift left click

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and drag over I'll be able to get rid of the bass as well

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so you can hear it's kind of subtle it's just making it sound a bit more dramatic

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and we could even pitch this up or down an octave so kind of like it there yeah that's the song

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to mute sounds you can just click this button

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or to solo them you can right click and hit solo

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and then to un -solo just right click on it again and hit solo For layering,

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there's no set rules, so just experiment and see what combinations sound right to you.

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And for the amount of sounds you'll need for a beat, again, there's no rules, man.

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Some beats are really simple and some are very complex, so it depends on the style you like.

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If you have like three or four instruments for the melody, it's more than enough to get started with.

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And I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible so you can follow along.

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So I'll try not to overdo it.

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Within this channel rack, we can start renaming the sounds as well.

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And that's going to be important for when you actually export the beat.

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Now we want to think about processing these.

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So remember we said we can do that in the mixer.

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And there's a number of ways you can send these to the mixer.

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You can either open the plugin, click this button and hit track there.

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Or you can drag this up and down to assign it to a mixer channel.

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Or we can do it all together.

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So we can click there and drag down to highlight.

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Hit Ctrl and L from the channel rack

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or you can go to the mixer first select an empty insert like insert one press ctrl shift

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and L and that's gonna link them in order

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and we renamed it in the channel rack so that

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when it's sent to the mixer the names correspond here

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and now if we hit play you can see how loud each sound set in

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so we can use the faders to bring up the volume

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and then we can use these slots to add effects

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so let's add something simple to the piano we'll pull up fruity reverb 2

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and we'll just use a preset called cathedral and we'll bring down the wet level.

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The wet level is the amount of process signal

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so the actual reverb and the dry level is the dry signal going into it so the original piano.

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If you increase the wet level then you've got more of the reverb so you want to find a good balance.

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I go into everything way more in depth in the actual free course

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that I've made but essentially reverb will put sounds in an environment

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and it's to do with reflection so think about

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if you're singing in a bathroom what sound that would give you that would be the reverb of the bathroom.

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We can also use this tool here to pan it left

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and right so maybe we want the violin to the right

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and if you had something for another counter melody you could pan that to the left to balance things out.

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To change the order up here just use the mouse wheel

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and it will bring the plugin down and then in slot one we could add something like a delay.

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Let's change the time to four or we'll just bring the input volume down

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and the feedback which is how long the delays will carry on for

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and if we select ping pong mode

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and change the panning you're going to hear the delay go from the left to right here or vice versa.

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So this is without any plugins and then with

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and if you want to quickly deactivate the plugins just hit that so you can hear it's dry

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now we've got delaying reverb what we could also do is

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add an EQ to the choir don't worry too much about the EQ for now

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because I do go through it in depth in the course

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but if you bring down one of these points you're essentially bringing down the volume of

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that frequency range every sound has a frequency range so

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if I solo this choir by right clicking there you can see we've got sub and bass information over here, mid -range information over here and high mids and treble up here.

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So you can imagine things like bass instruments will take up more of this area, vocals will take up more of this region and then anything high like hi -hat, cymbals, triangles would be up here.

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So we've got this choir cover in this region and

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if you bring a point and bring it down we're just turning down the volume of the high information.

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So we can create these filters and you can also change the steepness of the curve

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so when we're mixing we like to give each instrument its own space so

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if you had too many instruments covering up the bass frequencies

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you'll start to hear things fighting for space it will sound quite muddy

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or the frequencies will be clashing I know I'm going to want to add a bass to this soon

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so in the piano we can pull up EQ we'll bring

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that before the delay we'll bring this down we'll change the order to steep 8

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and I'm just going to bring this down

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which is going to turn down the volume of the bass frequencies

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and I'm only doing that

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because I know I'm going to want to add an 808 soon

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so that'll be with and that's with them turned down so

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that can be useful if you're going to add things like a sub bass

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or an 808 which is going to take up the majority of

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that space but we'll leave it off for now

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because I want to show you something else

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if we go to the playlist remember this is where we can build out the song

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and you can see your patterns in this section here

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so I'm going to drag this pattern in bring

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that to the start we'll click on it

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so we can see it up here click this arrow

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and then split by channel and this is going to split everything in

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that channel into a separate pattern so now we've got the piano violins

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and choir I'm going to take that press ctrl

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and b to copy it we'll take out the violins in this section by right clicking

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and then we could copy this over

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and just take the choir out there now what we're going

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to do is go to the mixer go to the master hit this button press alt

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and r make sure song selection is on

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and then just hit start now this is going to convert

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that whole pattern in the playlist into one web file it's essentially rendered it

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and if we right click there to solo we can hear it's all together i like to do this

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because audio files are easier to manipulate compared to midi for example

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if i double click in this i'm going to set this to auto

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if i bring this up every 100 cent is one note on the piano

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so if i bring it up 200 cents it's going to go up two notes on the piano

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so we're going from D to E if I bring it up 200 cents and now we've changed the key.

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You can do that within midi but this way it's just going to make it sound a little bit different.

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We can also hit reverse and see what sound we get with the whole melody reversed.

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Pitch that down one. That sounds crazy.

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Now if we press C to activate a cut tool we could start making some cuts

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so we can make a cut on every bar

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and then we can start rearranging these

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and this is like resampling your melody essentially follow

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that process here i'm also going to go back in

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and change this to generic bleeding and that should eliminate any clicks

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or pops that you can hear crazy so i much prefer that to the standard melody we had

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and we'll just carry on that process now everything else I don't need for now

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so we can right click to delete we'll bring this up and now we've got this whole new melody

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this part with the piano and choir and then the strings here

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now because we've rendered this it's not going to have an insert

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because this is a new audio file

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so we could just click here we'll rename this to chopped melody double click in there hit track

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and it's going to send it to another empty insert now we're going to add a pattern for the drums

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so we're going to click this just name this drums

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and then just click underneath bring that back

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and you'll want to start with either a four bar

429

or an eight bar pattern for drums and then we can repeat this

430

so whatever we add in this drum pattern will be repeated here

431

and to actually go to that pattern you can either double click

432

or just make sure it's selected from this section

433

and then click the channel rack now anything

434

that you add in this channel rack will be within this

435

pattern in the playlist let's go to my drum kits

436

and we'll go to the vault this is a really good bundle i have for a variety of genres

437

so r &b drill boom bap and trap

438

so we'll go to the trap lords trap kit we'll go

439

to snares we'll start with my favorite one the beef snare

440

so all we're going to do is left click and drag

441

that underneath if you drag it on top of something it's going to replace it

442

so you don't want to do that unless it's intentional usually

443

when you open a sound i like to right click here

444

and select reset that's because sometimes fl studio will try to stretch it to match your bpm

445

but we don't need that for individual sounds

446

and then i turn off loop points sometimes you'll add a sound

447

and you'll hear it replaying over and over and it's

448

because loop points has been activated so just keep

449

that off now we can start adding some simple patterns

450

so in the channel rack it's really easy to see every

451

time the color changes it's a new beat within the bar

452

so if i play this with the metronome on we're gonna hear four beats per every bar

453

and And that's just the modern time signature for most hip -hop beats.

454

So, one, two, three, four, two, two, three, four, three, two, three, four, four, two, three, four.

455

And then it goes back round.

456

For track, the snare usually lands on the third beat.

457

So you'll see.

458

We could turn the metronome off.

459

Could add another one too.

460

press ctrl and b to copy that

461

then let's go to hi -hats just bring the essential one

462

in now for hi -hats you could start by right clicking

463

and selecting fill each two -step now you've got a really

464

simple pattern you could fill in some others just to get some quick rolls you can also click up here

465

and go to repeat now we can add these rolls here.

466

So if you look, I've got a note here.

467

The higher I add one, the more intense the roll will be.

468

Right click to delete.

469

You'll hear it slower.

470

So that can be a quick way to add rolls.

471

You can also hit F7 to go to the piano roll.

472

Just click on any of the notes to start because then when you add it somewhere else, it'll be the same length.

473

You can also change the pitch.

474

So the higher up you go, the higher it will sound.

475

Same with bringing it lower.

476

And then you can drag some of the notes out hold ctrl left click to highlight

477

and then hit alt and u to bring up the chopper

478

if you bring that up there'll be less notes bring it down it'll be more intense

479

so let's say you like that we could hit accept

480

if you click the magnet button we could choose something like quarter step

481

or half step and now you can see there's more lines in the grid

482

so you we can start to manually add rolls.

483

And we can start getting creative by bringing some notes down.

484

So again, no rules with this, just experiment and see what sounds right to you.

485

I also have some MIDI files you could use.

486

So for example, if you go to the Sacred Trap Suite, the drums, and then the midis, go to Hi -Hat midis, and you could drag any of these in just to see how they sound.

487

so that can be a quick way to get some inspiration let's try this one this one sounds hard

488

copy this and maybe add a little break So for example here.

489

And we could bring these down.

490

Crazy.

491

Let's add another snare.

492

I really like this gunner one for the in between snares just to create more bounce.

493

Something like this.

494

Maybe we'll get rid of that and use it there instead.

495

You could also add rolls with the snares as well.

496

So same process as the hi -hats.

497

I don't think it needs it in this one.

498

All right, let's grab an 808.

499

One of the most common ones is the spins.

500

So we'll go to the bonus essentials and use the spins.

501

Now when you're using 808s, as soon as you drag them in, you want to reset that with alt and left click or right click and reset.

502

Keep loop points off and also right click on the sound

503

and select cut itself and this will stop the notes overlapping

504

so when one hits and the second one plays they won't play at the same time just

505

so you can see what i'm doing i'm going to go to the piano

506

that we created we'll press ctrl

507

and c then go to the drums in the sampler

508

because you won't hear anything in there i'm going to press ctrl

509

and v and if you remember we brought the melody down a hundred cents

510

which is one semitone so all

511

that is is this whole melody going down one note we'll press shift

512

and down and now

513

when i open the 808 in the piano roll we can see the notes

514

that we used we You can also change the scale highlighting and set that to C sharp, which is one note down.

515

Now when you add in a bass or eight weight, you'll usually want to follow the root notes of the chords and it'll be somewhere around C5.

516

When you start getting down to like G4, then they just sound a bit too low.

517

So you might want to use the notes further up.

518

So let's add this.

519

We'll turn it right up.

520

so we'll just come up with a simple pattern

521

and you can hear these ones are just sounding a bit too low so we'll bring those up an octave

522

it's a really simple pattern let's copy that

523

and we'll bring this one up an octave for variation and another note maybe we'll cut that so it's two

524

then just so it matches the melody more we could even bring this up to beat

525

so that's a really simple and common eight weight pattern you can follow

526

and again i go through patterns like this way more in depth in the course

527

if you're wondering why the notes playing longer than the actual note in the piano roll it's

528

because we need to adjust the envelope for these sounds.

529

So if we click into the sound, go to this tool here, activate the envelope and then bring everything down except for the hold

530

and that's just going to make the note play for as long as we hold it.

531

You could do it like that and then

532

if you want the notes to join up just press ctrl and l

533

and you have a little

534

bit more control now we could also add a kick

535

so let's go to kicks i really like this overkill one we'll select this press ctrl

536

and c select here then press ctrl

537

and v this will copy the kick pattern in

538

but with the kick we don't really need to change the pitch as much.

539

You can adjust it a little bit if you don't think it's sounding right

540

but it definitely doesn't need to change like this.

541

So we're going to press alt and k and you might see something like this at first.

542

So just left click and drag this down so that everything's highlighting on d.

543

Also right click d if it's not showing up right set

544

that to c and you can see it's going to wrap everything to the c note.

545

C5 is usually the default note in FL Studio so

546

if you're previewing sounds in here when you drag it into the channel rack the first note will be c5.

547

So we're going to turn that down a bit.

548

So the kick usually follows the eight -way pattern

549

but not all the time and we might just want to take some of the notes out.

550

Simple and you might think that it's sounding really distorted

551

and that's because if we look in the mixer you can see it's going way into the red.

552

So on the master in any of the slots we're going to open fruity soft clipper.

553

I'm not going to get too technical with mixing right now.

554

I'll go through it in a bit more in depth in the course

555

but in really simple terms it's going to stop things going over 0 dB.

556

dB stands for decibels.

557

It's just a unit of measurement we use to see how loud something is

558

and because it's on the master it's going to be affecting everything.

559

So any sound that's going over 0 dB in the mixers will be routed to the master

560

and then the soft clipper so now if you look we're getting that nice punch

561

but we're not going over zero db you just want to find the sweet spot again if it's too loud

562

it's going to clip the sound too much.

563

So you want that punch, but you don't want a flat sound.

564

Like that's a good sweet spot.

565

Let's quickly name these as well.

566

We can start adding in some other sounds like an open hat.

567

Really simple.

568

Copy that.

569

but also layer sounds so for example we could bring in perk

570

and maybe layer

571

that with one of the snares try it with the last one

572

so again play around with some percussion some different bounces and just see what sounds good to you.

573

Could bring this rim in, just do something like this.

574

We'll rename these as well, highlight them all, send them all to inserts with ctrl shift and l and we'll just give it a quick mix.

575

So usually the kick is the loudest, followed by the 808

576

and then the snare hi -hat usually sits somewhere underneath that

577

and then we'll have the percussion and the second snare we've got

578

that snare band to the left so we'll bring this ring to the right

579

and maybe the same with the laser and the open hat just to balance things out

580

and my melody is usually sitting somewhere around minus six db

581

but just because something has a higher db reading doesn't mean it's actually louder

582

because there's a thing called perceived loudness

583

and i don't want to go in depth with that right now

584

but just keep that in mind for when you're mixing

585

and balancing things but to save room for

586

that 808 i'm just going to add an eq to

587

that chopped melody we'll right click on the first point go to order steep eight

588

and then we'll just bring down the low end i'm just going to let

589

that 808 cut through because

590

if you look an eq here you can see it's taking up a lot of those low frequencies

591

i might actually just change that kick for the rat kick

592

all right

593

so we've got a nice idea down we've got a rough

594

mix now i'm going to go into the playlist select the drums

595

and then select split by channel and again this will separate all of the drums onto an individual pattern.

596

We can hold right click to delete them from here.

597

We don't need the sampler but

598

if we left click hold shift left click again it will highlight everything and now we can drag these in.

599

I like to stretch these out just it's a bit easier to see.

600

If we hold control and left click then shift and left click we can copy that over.

601

So now we've got 16 bars and in this playlist we're going to build out the arrangement of the whole track.

602

A simple way to do it is to press ctrl

603

and a and ctrl and b a few times just so we've got a few different parts to work with.

604

Now in the intro we're going to keep this simple by deleting the drums

605

and because this part has got the strings in we're going to save that for the hook.

606

So we can start without the drums here.

607

Now it's up to you whether you want to choose an 8 bar

608

or a 16 bar intro but 1 to 9 there that's 8 bars and we've got these two different parts.

609

So this part's got the strings this part doesn't

610

so we could have an eight bar intro

611

and then this whole part here could be the hook

612

and we'll keep the hook at 16 bars

613

but we'll keep this whole part with the strings for the hook just

614

so it separates it so as soon as those strings come in you're going to know

615

that that's the hook in the first half of the hook

616

we're going to get rid of the kick we'll get rid of the open heart

617

and the rim just for some variation so now you can hear

618

when it comes in so now we've got this hook section when it comes into this part we've got the kick

619

and now in this part this will be the verse

620

so for trap the verse will usually be the same length as the hook

621

but then you'll have another section for the bridge

622

and then you'll go back to the hook

623

so after the hook we're going to take some things out

624

so let's press c to activate the cut tool we'll hold shift

625

and right click to drag down that's just going to take

626

a few of the drums out we'll save the rim the open hat kick

627

so let's hear it

628

so now you can hear things die down a little bit

629

more saving more space for an artist again we'll bring the kicks and percussion in here

630

and then we've got this bridge section to work with

631

so let's take most things out i think we take the 808 out and maybe replace that with a sub bass.

632

Let's try that.

633

So let's add another pattern.

634

We'll call this sub bass.

635

We'll add that here and then we'll just pull up a stock plugin, maybe something like GMS.

636

Click here and in basses we'll just find one that we like.

637

I like this re -space.

638

Call this sub bass.

639

Press ctrl and l and that will send it to an insert.

640

Hit f7 for the piano roll.

641

We'll just follow that same progression.

642

And because of the way it's chopped, it sort of goes to this note first.

643

There we go.

644

I think we can find a better sound though.

645

Let's go to my deep sweet.

646

Maybe try something like this,

647

there we go, just something to switch up a vibe,

648

right before the drop, take a few more things out,

649

let's pitch this up too.

650

so now we've got a hook section a verse and a bridge

651

and when I structure tracks I'm just thinking about tension

652

and release I'm thinking about keeping the excitement in the hook most of the time

653

so that's why we've got the melody with the strings there

654

and then when it comes to the verse we just lose a bit of the energy

655

and we remove some things to give it some room to breathe

656

and then it slowly builds back up

657

and then in the bridge it kind of slows down a little bit again

658

because then when the hook comes in it will just be a lot more impactful

659

so that's a nice simple structure to use

660

so we're just going to press ctrl left click

661

and drag then we'll press shift left click to copy it

662

and now we've just repeated that whole thing this section is the hook

663

so we could have the hook one more time and then after

664

that we could just bring the melody in one more time

665

and that would be our full beat then

666

if you want to fade it out we could add something

667

at the end called fruity balance right click on the volume

668

and select create automation clip automation allows you to change things over time

669

and again i'll go through that in a car so don't worry

670

if it's getting a bit complicated i'm just going to skim through it now

671

and draw in these points and bring it down

672

so all this is doing is bringing down the volume of the master

673

which is all the sounds together at this point here and it's going to do it in this curve

674

so yeah if you've been following along hopefully you've made your first beat

675

and don't worry

676

if things got a little bit complicated that's the whole reason i made the beginners course

677

and it's completely free so

678

if you want to go through things in a bit more

679

in depth then just click the link in the description

680

or use the qr code here the last two things i quickly want to show you are recording

681

and exporting so

682

if you wanted to record something on top of this beat whether it be in some vocals

683

or a guitar or a synth or something like

684

that first thing you need to do is obviously connect your device

685

so whether you're using an audio interface or something else like a USB mic.

686

Then if you hit F10 go to audio and just make sure you're using the right interface.

687

Usually I have mine set to FL Studio ASIO and then when I'm recording I'll select the actual interface I'm using.

688

For example I'd click this and then we can change the buffer length.

689

The lower the buffer size is the less latency you have

690

and latency is essentially the time it takes for the audio to get from the device to your computer. So

691

if it's up quite high your computer is going to process it a bit easier it'll be less CPU intensive

692

but you might hear a massive delay from

693

when you actually play the instrument or talk to when you hear it in this.

694

So keep it as low as you can when you're recording.

695

Then go to the mixer, select any empty insert, click up here and then just select the insert.

696

So for example my mic is rooted to input one and for vocals you want to use a mono input.

697

So we select that here, we can hit yes and now you might not be able to hear it

698

but my audio is coming through because I can see it here.

699

Make sure that this record button down here is checked then go to the playlist right click on record

700

and make sure you've got audio chats we could turn off notes

701

and automation for now then all you need to do is hit record

702

and play so i'm just recording this as a test you might not be able to hear it

703

but you can see the waveform coming through let's turn off record

704

and now we've got this recording here

705

so i'm just recording this as a test you might not be able to hear it

706

but you can see the waveform coming through from here you can add all of your effects

707

and process into that insert i'm going to get rid of

708

that for now now to export this full beat we can see

709

that everything has an insert sampler doesn't need one everything's named right make sure

710

that song mode is selected then go to file export

711

and wave file now you can just select the folder you

712

want to save it in i usually start by adding my name allow the bpm

713

which was 140 bpm and then the key

714

which was c sharp minor click save mode make sure song selection is checked we want to cut the remainder

715

because it's the final version of the song leave remainder is just going to include any reverb tails

716

but we don't need that because we faded everything out anyway.

717

I usually say the MP3 version and a WAV version, but a WAV 24 -bit should be fine.

718

32 -bit if you want maximum quality, but most distributing platforms only require 16 -bit, so 24 -bit is a good medium.

719

You want to make sure stereo mode is selected.

720

For the MP3, I just use 160 and I explain why in the course.

721

Resampling, I keep that as high as possible.

722

We want high quality for all plugins.

723

And then if you want to export the stems, and by that I mean the individual trackouts, so if you want the whole file as one, but then you want the individual files as well,

724

so the kick 808 any other sound

725

that you've used then just click split mixer tracks that's handy

726

if you're working with an artist

727

and their engineer is going to mix the whole thing but

728

if you're not worried about that just uncheck it

729

and then you'll just have the mp3

730

and wav file you want to make sure enable insert effects is on enable master effects

731

and then you can copy the rest of my settings

732

if you need to then when you're ready just hit start

733

and it will export everything for you and

734

if you export the stems you'll see I've got all of

735

the individual files as well as the master wav file

736

which is the main one you'll need

737

and the mp3 file the current file you don't need that

738

so you can delete it let's have a listen to the full thing

739

so i kept the intro really simple but there's loads of different effects you could try

740

This beat actually sounds hard, you know, to say it's a simple one.

741

Usually in the second half, I'll adjust the 8 weight to make it a little bit different.

742

And in between sections, you might want to add things like transitions.

743

So in these parts we don't have the strings,

744

so this is where a rapper would fit most of bars

745

and then we got this bridge so

746

if you like this video make sure you like it leave a comment

747

and subscribe for more tutorials and if you want to check out the full course for yourself the links in the description.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “FL Studio Complete Beginner Basics Tutorial”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: click, sound, note, add. This video has 747 sentences and 9388 words to shadow. The speech runs for 47:04. The speaker talks fast, about 199 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
melody noun	/ˈmɛl.ə.di/	A sequence of notes that makes up a musical phrase.
piano noun	/piˈænɪː/	A percussive keyboard musical instrument, usually ranging over seven octaves, with white and black colored keys, played by pressing these keys, causing hammers…
chord noun	/kɔɹd/	A harmonic set of three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously.
select verb	/sɪˈlɛkt/	To choose one or more elements of a set, especially a set of options.
dragon noun	/ˈdɹæɡən/	In European mythologies, a gigantic beast, typically reptilian with leathery bat-like wings, lion-like claws, scaly skin and a lizard-like body, often a…
highlight verb	/ˈhaɪˌlaɪt/	To make prominent; emphasize.
playlist noun	/ˈpleɪˌlɪst/	A list of recorded songs scheduled to be played on a radio station.
hook noun	/hʊk/	A rod bent into a curved shape, typically with one end free and the other end secured to a rope or other attachment.
drum noun	/ˈdɹʌm/	A percussive musical instrument spanned with a thin covering on at least one end for striking, forming an acoustic chamber; a membranophone.
bass noun	/beɪs/	A low spectrum of sound tones.
insert verb	/ɪnˈsɝt/	To put in between or into.
rack noun	/ɹæk/	A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other.
audio adjective	/ˈɔ.di.oʊ/	Focused on audible sound, as opposed to sight.
essentially adverb	/ɪˈsɛnʃəli/	In essence: by nature.
delete verb	/dɪˈliːt/	To remove, get rid of or erase, especially written or printed material, or data on a computer or other device.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
build out verb		To develop or expand (a system, structure, project, etc.).
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
bring down verb		To make (a ruler or government) lose their position of power.
bring up verb		To mention.
go back to verb		To stem from; to originate in.
pull up verb	/ˌpʊl ˈʌp/	To lift upwards or vertically.
going over noun		An inspection, examination, review, or investigation.
take up verb		To pick up.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

You'll get more of a jazzy vibe.
We've got two bars highlighted.
Don't worry about making your first melody amazing.
I don't think it needs it in this one.
We'll turn it right up.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if we're just making beats you won't really · If you right click it will check · if we drag it out, it will play
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've been · I've created · you've chosen
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	being said · been installed · being played
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	people who were · channel which is · velocity which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 317 contractions and reduced forms, such as we'll, you're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, breathe /bɹiːð/, seventh /ˈsɛvənθ/, thicken /ˈθɪkən/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, progression /pɹəˈɡɹɛʃən/, sharp /ʃɑɹp/, variation /ˌvɛəɹiˈeɪʃn̩/, automation /ˌɔ.təˈmeɪ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, velocity /vəˈlɑsəti/, experiment /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/, automation /ˌɔ.təˈmeɪ.ʃən/, complicated /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like melody, piano, chord.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: FL Studio Complete Beginner Basics Tutorial (2025) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?