In this video, I am going to be showing you how to arrange better chords, and that includes
ways on how to make them sound more interesting and catchy, and also show you ways on how
you can do that easily without going too much into music theory.
This is the second video in the series on How To Produce EDM and in this one, we’re
going to be focusing on How To Produce Better Chords so, stick around.
Now, the point of this series will be how to produce a complete track, starting from
the main melody, and now the chords, then arranging the bassline, drums, intro, and
final arrangement details.
So now, the next step is going to be arranging chords for the melody that we’ve previously produced.
But first, I do want to show you some tricks and tips overall on ways to arrange chords
that are more interesting, in an easier way.
The first thing is, as obvious as it sounds, add some interesting variables to your chords
that will make them stand out from the normal basic chord progression.
Whether that’s changing up some of the notes from the quote on quote ‘basic version’ of the chords,
playing around and mixing things up with the tempo, or even adding some plugin
effects that will add flavor to your chords, and make them sound ‘rich’ and not that basic.
And this will intrigue whoever is listening to the track and now you’ve got chords that
are more engaging and not dull.
So first, let’s just select any preset that we like, and we think is going to fit the
vision and style that we want to produce this track in.
And then we can put down and arrange plain basic chords for our track.
And we want these chords to coincide with the main melody that we’ve played in the
last video, and be in tune and in sync with that melody.
So if you didn’t go to music theory school yet, here is an easy way to lay down the basic
chords for the main melody we have at hand.
‘As I mentioned previously, we can go to ‘stamp’ in the top left panel, and just
select ‘major’, ‘minor’ or any chord variation that we want, and just click on
the note that we played our main melody in previously.’
So now that I have my basic chords laid out, I can start playing around and adding variables
to our arrangement and try and make it sound a bit more captivating and fun.
Because as you can hear, the basic variation of the chords sound a bit boring and dry.
Let’s start with playing around with the tempo and see what we can come up with by
switching up the rhythm in which the chords are being played.
These lines that FL Studio has in the piano roll helps you see when each bar hits for
the tempo that you’ve chosen.
So following these lines while arranging will help you not get out of tempo.
Okay so I think this is an interesting rhythm pattern, and it does have more playfulness
than our basic version.
Now if we want to, we can also change up the notes a little bit, and go with trusting our ear.
And this can also make your chords sound better because having the same chords play over and
over throughout the whole track can get repetitive.
So we can change up some of the notes in the end of the sections like this, and test out
what sounds good.
I like how this sounds.
Now, another thing I’ve found is that, playing around with different plugins that change
the way the chords sound, can really improve the overall quality of the chords and really
bring life into them.
There are interesting things you can do to spice up your chords with plugins, besides
the basic plugins like EQ’, and Compression.
So let’s try out some of them.
The first thing I would normally do is add a reverb to my chords.
Reverb plugins are going to be your friend most of the time when you’re mixing your chords.
And I’ll just add a Preset from the FL Studio Reverb since I like this one.
A delay can also do quite a lot for your chords.
Let’s add this preset from the FL Delay and see how our chords sound now with Reverb and Delay:
*plays chords with effects*
Other plugins I’ve found are helpful and can work quite nicely with chords are Sidechains,
and I do like using this Kickstart sidechain since It’s an easier alternative to using
a ‘limiter’ as a sidechain, but if you don’t have it, you can also achieve the
same effect with the FL limiter.
So when you add this sidechain, you really get a lot of creativity to your chords without
really doing much at all.
We can just add some of these presets, turn up or lower the effect of the plugin, and
test out how it sounds.
These other presets also work as a sidechain in the same way, but just work at a different interval.
We can add some of these other presets to add more variety.
So for example this preset will lower the volume a bit later, rather instead of when
the chord actually hits at the beginning.
Let’s hear where we’re at, and how these changes have added up:
And I do recommend tweaking the plugins while you’re listening to the melody because it
will give you a more representative feedback of what you’re doing.
I also like adding saturation occasionally, and a saturation will add distortion and flashiness
to your chords, but don’t over-do it, because too much of it can leave your chords sounding
muddy and dissonant.
An interesting thing I also like doing is trying out different compressor presets.
And you won’t believe how different some of these plugins can make your chords sound.
Let’s just play around with some of these ‘special’ presets from this plugin and
see if there's something interesting.
So this one is labeled as a ‘compressor’ preset but adds all kinds of different effects
to your sound that you wouldn’t normally expect as a compressor preset.
So as I’ve said; trying out different effects and scrolling through the presets of these
plugins, can be your friend and help you stumble upon something that might sound great and
fill a missing piece to make your chords sound awesome.
If you’ve liked this video don’t forget to hit that like button, and share it with your neighbors.
And also subscribe and click the notification bell so you don’t miss the rest of these series.
And in the next one, I’m going to be showing you how to arrange and produce a great sounding Bass Line
And as always, thanks for watching!