If you want to learn about composing video game music, this video will break down the
process, step by step.
We'll be going over how to make the melody, chord progression, percussion, and effects.
Stick around, this is what we're going to make.
[How to make an orchestral sountrack for beginners]
Hey everyone, Jake from Transverse Audio here.
Following along as a beginner will be extremely easy,
even if you don't have any orchestral plugins at all.
The card in the top right will have a video on the best free instrument plugins that you can use.
Now, let's make some music.
To get started, you might want to pick a scale to use for this composition.
If you did want to find a list of major and minor scales, there's a free resource in the
description below for you to use.
As for me, I'll be sticking to a simple C Major scale as it only uses white notes
on the piano.
This may make it easier for you to follow along with if you're just starting out with composition.
First, I'm just going to load up an instrument that will play a filling roll to help write out a concept.
This could be piano, strings, or whatever has a good range of pitch.
And I'll just be improvising and playing around.
What I'm looking for is an inspiring combination or pattern that I can then elaborate on,
in the piano roll.
Now that I found something I like, I can draw it out on the piano roll and start building my score.
This way works best for me as I really can't play piano that well.
Now, with what we have, it's going to have to translate into a melody that isn't
overly complex, nor too long.
Usually, I'll stick to a 4-8 bar loop, then duplicate it and change some of the notes around.
Another thing you can do is make the ending lead into the beginning for better looping.
During this process, I make sure to keep it in check with the original melody's style
by playing it from the beginning sometimes.
An important part of making different patterns is sticking to the same scale across all of them.
It may sound fine by itself, but as your song progresses,
you might hear a few notes that sound a bit off.
Sweet, now that we have a good concept of the main section, it can be easier to make the intro.
To help build up excitement and lead into the main section, it's good to aim the direction of notes
towards where they will be at the beginning of the next pattern.
Sometimes, you might have to revise and cut back a few notes to keep the flow consistent
and keeping the intro to a more minimal arrangement is better in some cases.
Now we can add some thickness to our main section by dropping the lowest notes
down an octave or two.
This easily filling the frequency spectrum.
This can help make your composition more immersive.
It's also important to keep things moving at every level, so adding some deeper bass
as it progresses will prevent the track from getting boring.
By using higher pitched instruments like flutes, some horns, and piano on the melody,
the listener can focus on it easier as the human ear naturally pays more attention to higher pitches.
Some plugins will allow you to set the MIDI channel of each patch so you can play different
instruments with the same plugin instance.
Once you select a channel in the plugin, you can go to the piano roll and double-click
on a note to change the channel it triggers.
If you're composing on a different pattern, you can copy and paste the original notes
over to a channel that doesn't produce audio to have ghost notes to reference.
This will make it a lot easier to add instruments to existing patterns.
With this additional layer, including some slight variation such as transition notes
and articulation is a good way to build up the track.
To start adding depth, I'll throw on some reverb and boost up the wet signal while lowering
the dry to help it rest back into the mix and to keep it from standing out too much.
When adding reverb or delay, it's important to keep the decay time to a minimum when many
elements are being played at once.
I like to keep it between one or two seconds.
This helps preserve clarity in the mix so each sound is more defined.
Adding to the bassline is best done with some stringed instruments and brass like the tuba and trombone.
To make your composition more realistic and professional,
changing the velocity of each note will make it more dynamic.
This is to be done with intent but can also be slightly random to simulate imperfection.
Use this technique to your advantage when trying to control the mood, energy, progression, etc.
Typically, you'll want to avoid using heavy percussion in the intro, if any at all.
Setting the pace and building tension can be done really well with percussion.
Generally, I will start with a kick drum or a similar kind of impact and simply audition
various sounds until I find one that will fit into the pattern.
For this track, I'm going to use some "pay-what-you-want" Taiko drums.
Don't worry, I'm not gonna leave you hanging, link is in the description below.
There are many different patterns you can go for, but I'm just going to listen for some moments
that could be amplified with some impact.
Going back through, I can start to put some rhythm into place
and move into some supporting elements.
While writing out a pattern, it's critical to play it in context with the rest of the soundtrack.
You might find that some things just don't work.
Finally, I'll throw in some transition percussion like cymbals and drum rolls using a plugin
included in the card I mentioned at the beginning.
Which is at the top right of the video if you missed it.
Adding ambiance to support the other parts of the track can set the atmosphere and mood.
By not changing the notes that often, it can add to the track rather than take it over.
By adding in lighter elements like a choir or harp and drenching it in reverb,
it can be positioned in a way that isn't up in your face but also has a place in the mix.
Again, keeping an eye on the decay time.
We can start to cut back on the bass and melody that's already there and start to add in supporting instruments
that will be more dominant in those parts.
Pressing ALT+X or by going to tools in the options menu and down to Scale Levels,
will open a feature in FL Studio that can control the stereo width, tension, velocity multiplier,
and the offset, which is what we'll use in this case.
Moving this slider can help position selected notes (or all of the notes if nothing is selected).
Doing this is going to give us some room for our new instruments.
Some instruments may not translate that well to other notes, as they may be too high,
or too low.
To get around this, you can transpose (or move) the note that sounds funny up or down
an octave, which is just the same note but in a different pitch.
Don't forget to keep setting those velocities either.
As some final touches, I'll throw in some automation for the volume so I can keep things
interesting as the song progresses.
Depending on whether or not you fade in the track, you might want to fade the ending so
it can loop back to the beginning more seamlessly.
Now, there's another way to add automation and that's through drawing it manually
in the piano roll.
This can give you more control over what's going on.
Once you've created some automation this way, you can access it by going to Current project,
down to patterns, and select the pattern that you want to edit.
Here you can have more control over the automation itself.
A quick tip, it's good to lead the volume to the starting volume of the next pattern,
which is 78% by default in FL Studio.
If you end up setting automation past the pattern length, you can delete the extra
by pressing control and dragging along the bar numbers until you cover all of the automation
and starting at the end of the pattern.
Press the delete key and it should be back to the original pattern length.
You can also delete all of the automation by going back to the browser and selecting
the automation pattern you want to get rid of and press delete while the editor window is open.
Just because we started this track a certain way, doesn't mean you have to every time.
The same goes for the steps we followed after that to build all of the elements.
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not to mention, I'll really appreciate it.
As always, thanks for watching. [Subscribe for more!]