In this tutorial I'm going to show you
how to make deep house in the style of Black Coffee
Over the past few months I've been
making these in the style of genres and
they are continuing to be going insane
in terms of popularity so don't forget
to check those other ones out and today
I've had loads of requests for deep
house / afro house in the style of Black Coffee
so that's what we're going to be
covering today.
I'm going to be using Ableton Live 10 but you can follow along in any DAW using just your stock plugins.
AND you can download the project
file and all the samples for free below
this video as well so don't forget to do
that.
If you like this video give it a big fat thumbs up, don't forget to subscribe to this bad boy channel if you
haven't already, and so without further ado
let's hop into the DAW, and get it done...👊
OK...deep house in the style of Black
Coffee: I'm gonna do this in one take so
you're gonna see mistakes my creative
process and everything so the first
thing I'm going to do is choose a
suitable tempo black coffees tunes are
kind of really really groovy so not too
fast going I'm gonna choose 1 1 8 and
I'm gonna call it flat white do you see
what I did there
black coffee flat white and I'm gonna
drink a sip of my flat white for my EDM
tips mug hmm if anything it tastes
better from that okay let's do it
right so I'm just gonna give this a name
and then we I've got my magic list as
well so I'm going to just go through
that as well so as I said black coffees
vibe is really deep he's uses his South
African influences so there's like
tribal drum type things like djembe I
think they're called or bongos and also
live instruments so lots of real bass
guitar vocals saxophones things like
this so it's a lovely combination of
real instruments samples and
synthesizers so we are gonna go into all
of those this is just my default Ableton
template so I've got a few aux channels
I've got my sidechain trigger here which
we probably aren't going to use actually
because this type of music isn't really
compressed hard you know it's got lots
of space to breathe so I'm going to turn
off kicks because that's MIDI and I
actually want to do is an audio today
just to shake things up a bit so I'm
going to pull that kick
color its green and then I'm gonna
choose a kick from my favorite kicks I'm
gonna choose something that's nice and
deep but not too compressed so there we
go let's just copy that paste it
ba-ba-ba-ba-bom that looks like it's
gonna be an absolute tune oh yeah
definitely right I'm gonna turn that
down to minus ten maybe minus eight just
to avoid any clipping on the master
channel and the first thing after the
kick is I'm going to work out the chords
because they are going to be really
important with this kind of music and
after I've jammed them in on the piano
I'll show you how you can make premise
you can't play the piano this is going
to be a bit tricky because my
microphones in the way
whatevs so instruments and then I will
go to no sounds pianos I'm just going to
use Ableton Live ones again I don't
really like the Ableton pianos that much
contacts have got some better ones by
Native Instruments so that's what I
would usually use but this one will do
for now so we want something really
really deep and vibey so I'm going to
sham it out and then show you how to do
it I'm gonna move this mic get out the
way Mike and I'm gonna play it in rather
than program it in I mean and then I'm
gonna play it in a rather than program
it in so it's got that human feel to it
and what I'm gonna do I'm gonna actually
start this a bit further on because what
I'm gonna start this a bit further on
that makes sense I'm gonna start this a
bit further on so I can start playing
before we hit the beat
try this again
so okay there we go you can come back
now Mike
good little boy so we have now got a
simple chord sequence it's an a minor
natural actually so it's really easy to
do and I'll show you how to do that in a
sec as well let's just have a listen and
I'm gonna tweak some of these the timing
of these things but not using quantize
because I want it to sound human but I
didn't play it well don't worry if
you're not a pianist neither am I so you
can tweak it and you can program it in
but if you do program it in try and add
a bit of human discrepancy in the timing
that will do for now I'm gonna add some
reverb to that quickly so I've got room
reverb Hall reverb on the auxilary
channel I'm just gonna feed some of that
hall reverb into the piano take out some
of the low end from the reverb
increase the decay time
turn it down
that's a nice base to start from so I'll
tweak that in a bit anyway and when we
do the mixing we'll tweak that so on to
the next thing
chords piano percussion yeah so this is
where we're going to really get that
black coffee South African type rhythm
going on so we're going to be using some
groove for this as well I'm going to use
a drum machine you can see here by
clicking this routing button and then
right clicking go and create return
chain you can actually and this send
sorry the yeah they these buses here
press them stuff happens then you can
choose your global auxilary channels
from there and then you can feed some of
the drum into those some of each
separate drum into those auxilary
channels so let's go to some drum hits
I'm going to go I'm going to add some
high hats first real ones as well well
real sounding ones
oh my Fiat the window right let's drag
three of those in and I'm just gonna
knock up a nice rhythm and I'm using
three so there can be a difference in
each hit and it's going to make it sound
more real
like that and I'm just gonna copy and
paste that and feel the groove but a
discrepancy at the end there switch
things up a bit
let's now I think they're a little bit
low so I'm just going to transpose each
of these up three like so there you can
do that in a quicker way but there's
only three so it can't be bothered and
now you can see I can feed some of these
drums into with these send controls into
the room reverb on the auxiliary Channel
I just tweet that
turn them down a little bit Edie bitty
bit I'll do it here just grab them all
together
and now to add this groove so I'm going
to go into my groove clips here right
click browse' groove library now instead
of using an MPC I'm going to go into one
of these lesser used ones so I'll go
into Latin percussion I know South
Africa is not Latin but there's no South
African rhythm right in the groove pool
so probably go Oh F Afro jazz so what
I'm going to do is drag that onto the
drums like so and just listen to see if
it's got the the groove I want
that's quite cool so all it does is it's
slightly changing the timing so the
visual equivalent would be like this
some of the notes are being like shifted
slightly one way and the other but it
can be applied non-destructively to any
MIDI clip now so I'm gonna save that and
then I'm going to add some more
percussion I'm gonna add some like those
drums I know what they call not Bongo I
think I think it's pronounced jet djembe
let's have a look I found them earlier
where would they be
I know I know I probably got them in my
bongo singing even though they're not
it's important in Bali yeah that's quite
cool it's a bit like you know what's it
called steel drumming here we go gem
djembe I'm gonna stop saying that now
that word there so again as with the
other drums I'm going to load in three
different ones so we can add some
variation in texture to each one like so
and I'm almost completely following the
same track as the or the same rhythm as
the hi-hat but I'm switching it up
slightly just to get some more rhythm
and groove in there and the the groove
template is applied to the whole of this
drum clip so it's being applied to these
drums as well
I've there's some dodgy timing there and
the piano which we can sort soon but as
for now it's on to the next thing which
would be funk guitar that's right I
forgot to mention there's a black coffee
off and has like wicked little funky
riffs in his tracks as well so I'm gonna
add one there how am I going to do this
I might use splice actually just to try
and find it before I do that all of this
these notes are in the key of a minor
natural so it's really easy it's just
using the white notes so you don't have
to worry about hitting the wrong notes
it's pretty easy as long as you start
from a and if you press fold you can see
all of those notes are just the white
notes because they're all in the key of
a minor natural that's the easiest key
to write dance music in that and C major
for the same reason it's just only using
the white notes so that makes things
easy as well because if we open up
splice like so and I'm hoping that you
can hear this I'll test it and in fact
I'll have to pause the recording to test
this so what I'm going to do is look you
can just search in splice you can go
like funk guitar type it in then you can
whack in a minor and then you've can you
can play it along it doesn't matter
about the tempo yet because we can
change the tempo when we bring it into
Ableton but what matters is the texture
and yeah how it matches with all our
other sounds
so I can just preview them
so I probably actually choose funk and
these genres
exactly like that download that yes
please you can hear it's like the wrong
tempo so we're just gonna wait one sec
whilst that downloads and I'm gonna
check my recording now actually
okay I'd screwed up in the last little
bit because you couldn't hear what was
coming from splice but it's fine because
I've sorted it out so you can hear I was
just previewing different guitar licks
from within splice and I found the one
that I like which is this one so if we
play now listen to it that's the one so
I'm just gonna drag and drop that and we
can see stop playing splice still
playing stop getting carried away splice
right okay it's a bit kind of slow so
what you could do is you could bring it
back or you could grab it all by
pressing commands an a and then quantize
it
now that messes it up so I'm just gonna
hold command and drag it back slightly
so it's a little bit more in time and
you can go in and tweak things manually
as well you can either do the warp
marker in there like this hold command
drag that double-click then drag it yes
I'm just gonna keep that loop because
it's funky as hell I'm just gonna splice
that open there and then loop it this is
just gonna be lowering the mix to keep
that groove going add some remover
that's horrible that piano the tiny I
mean there we go
cool okay on to the next thing when a
bit weird the end in it right okay we
have got the pad lush lush love pads so
what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna ask you
to comment below this video give me a
hell yeah or whatever you want actually
you could just write my favorite thing
in the world is avocados but just let me
know whether you like it or not whether
you're enjoying it that is the main
thing drop that comment okay pad Bosh
let's color it this color and first
thing I'm going to do is draw in the
notes and because we don't need this to
sound human
we just need to this this to be exactly
in time and this swell and the slow
attack and release as the pads are gonna
going to make it sit exactly how we want
so what I'm gonna do is just use the
Ableton plugins again so I will go to
preview pads
I actually I don't think the Ableton
pads are very good it's nicer to use
something like yeah a third-party synth
there are few all right ones in it what
we want something really deep and lush
that sounds alright and then I'm just
going to program it in and preview of
you that's pretty nice that's pretty
nice
right so I'm gonna show you how you can
do those chords if you if you can't use
any piano so you can draw in a little
bit of a template you start on a gives
you a little hint there just draw in
every white note up to the next day like
so and then if you grab them all and
press left on your cursor it puts it
before the clip wack fold boom now if
you just use these notes you're not
going to go wrong and it's going to
sound good but I'm going to create two
octaves of that so I'm just going to
grab it drag it down I might create
three octaves just so there's a bit more
flexibility so now if we press fold
we've got three octaves of the key of
a-minor natural and that's how you do it
and to write chords you just simply miss
a note skip a note skip a note and then
you've got a lovely 7th chord that
sounds rush as hell blushes heaven I
should say actually hell would be like
believe I said that I'm gonna have to
beat that out otherwise I'll get
demonetised on this
and these are exactly the same chords as
played on the piano see how easy it is
but what I am gonna do is I'm gonna make
these even lusher by doing some chord
inversions I might add 9th and then 11th
and see how that sounds that's going a
bit crazy now if I unfold I can actually
put these down in fact you don't need to
unfold I don't know what you talk I'm
talking about but you can hold shift and
press down and it's gonna bring
everything closer in line and then it
gets really lush and jazzy but that's
too many so if we see this note here is
lower than all these others if I hold
shift and press up it goes up an octave
so it's the same note but it brings
everything closer together on the
keyboard
it's had some more Eva
I'm just controlling the low-end
so it doesn't clash with our base when
we add the base and now we've got some
lovely lush chords with our pad
okay the last note actually goes up to G
so I'll change that to G
what note is that what chord let's just
copy it yeah copied it paste it
there we go and I just quantize those
okay on to the next thing hopefully you
can hear it taking shape now next thing
is a yeah guitar solo or a sax solo so
again I'm going to use splice for this
and I am people have asked me to give an
example of using loop cloud so I will be
doing that next week as well but I'm
using splice for this so what I'm going
to do is search for guitar again say now
I'll search for a sax saxophone might
sound a bit cheesy speaking of which I
was watching Mad Max beyond the
Thunderdome yesterday which has got some
saxophone music courtesy I believe of
Tina Turner
so that's properly eighties sounding
anyway I digress
saxophone here we go and again pressing
a and then minor means that everything
is going to be in a minor so what we can
do is just play the tune and to preview
the vibe of it with with splice
oh that's just that's nice I'm having
that but something's gone wrong here on
this Court
now I see what I've done there are two
chords in that same space there we go my
apologies for that
as I say this is all live and direct I
mean it's not live it's recorded but I'm
doing it in one take so deal with it
here we go so now that those chords
follow the
so let's get this saxophone in there
because I know that Tina Turner would
like that
88 BPM because it tells me on the clip
it says here a minor 88 BPM but I'm
gonna make it twice as long because
that's a bit cray-cray
and you would use you know ideally you'd
actually have a live instrumental is
playing some of these instruments that's
what black coffee does in a lot of his
tracks you know so you have a live
singer singing along or alive guitarist
or live saxophonist and that just means
that you're not struggling to try and
find lots of different licks that will
work together but keep interest as well
so I might just save that for a break
for instant instance
just in case I want to get the Pascal
nice nice
and I'm gonna stick a vocal in as well
same thing I'm going to search on splice
members of my master class actually get
a month free on splice master class is
opening on Monday well actually is open
now but we're kicking off on Monday and
it's basically eight weeks of coaching
tutoring getting your music to the
quality where it can be released so
there's weekly homework and stuff if you
want to find out more about that click
the link below this video well excited
about that three days to go then we're
hitting it right where was I vocals I
want a female vocal I mean let's look at
the different genres that we can choose
from
a minor yeah anything with Latin
American I really want something
see what other tax it got we'll go Latin
American but no actually we go fuck it's
that's gonna be the the main defining
factor and again it's previewing
and you can just feel
fact and
so I found something earlier let's see
it was some nice vocal I can't remember
I found it
maybe I didn't okay so what I'm gonna do
is I'm gonna type in female vocal and
then I'm gonna search for genre here
what did I say would be good we could
check out the African let's see what
we've got there
oh that's nice
a minor
it's nice but it's alright can't down up
yeah so the first one is nice but it's
not really long enough so I'll turn off
that and I'll go back to looking for
funk which we had female vocals Sol la
Sol that would be n a minor nice over
listen I'm gonna just extend this to
make it a bit bigger
is it crazy
oh that's nice
Oh Aaron 20 every turn
time
you know I give you one vocals
yeah we'll just be ad libs
music
yeah
every 20
not finding as many as I would have
hoped
a minor again so
is it crazy time
I'm gonna choose that one because
stopping looping this long enough and
you're probably getting sick of it man
so let's go to my recently added and
then we got that so let's just drag that
in and I'm just gonna listen to it on
the loop sorry on the drop sorry on the
break
doesn't say what tempo it is no that's
what I want and it says a 150 oh nice
complex Pro
okay right now let's get some mixing
done and then we're pretty much there so
let's start I know we need bass let's
have some bass black coffee lots of nice
real bass sound so what I'm gonna do is
I'm gonna find a real bass guitar a real
sampled bass guitar with the guitar and
bass sounds bass there we go and I'm not
going to use too many I don't want to
complicate it it's just to add that
low-end but still give it that real
instrument feel something like that
as simple as that
so I'm just gonna program that in no in
fact I'm gonna play that in
doesn't she keep it
okay messed up a tiny bit so I just
double click go in there
and again this just in a minor natural
having these little runs just make it
interesting leads from one and that's
just a jump of an octave from there to
there
and it's important to not have more than
one bass note playing at a time because
you're gonna be gonna be playing one
bass notes on a bass guitar and you want
it to sound more realistic so there we
have it we've got the kick the drums the
bass the piano the funk guitar pad and I
think I've got one more thing to add
something to add a bit more rhythm and
this is going to be really important I'm
gonna add a tom drum or @ no sorry a
conga drum and I'm gonna put it nice and
low on the register tunes to the track
to keep the low-end energy up and going
so just an 808 conga first I will tune
it to the track I'm gonna get rid of
splice now it's in the way let's make
Abelson big again now in fact I program
it in fur
so if we hear the drums we can hear what
I'm doing I'm just adding that low-end
rhythm to it so this is without the
conga and this is with the conga whoops
I pasted this in the wrong place and
this is with the conga again it gives a
back kind of African slant to it which
is the black coffee vibe and the groove
is automatically applied to that as well
so it's you know it's got that swing to
it and I'm just going to tune that conga
to the track by selecting it in the drum
machine and then using transpose I'll
just do it by ear but you could do it
using a spectrum analyzer it's so easy
to hear high up actually
and once you've got it sounding good
high up you just minus 12 because that's
an octave so b 31 because you can see
here it says plus 31 semitones so I just
take 12 off that takes us for 19 take 12
off that takes us to 7 take 12 that
takes us to minus 5 as you can see maths
wasn't my strong suit at school minus 5
so now it's going to be in tune
everything together
oh I got rid of the slimming
saxophone come back to me tax
that's quite a nice way to lead into the
break actually
in terms of mixing what I'm gonna do is
just make sure that I haven't got
unwanted low-end and stuff like the real
drums you know the real instruments like
the these hats that's exactly the kind
of thing whether it be unwanted low-end
so I'm just gonna have a quick throw an
EQ 8 on there and show you what I mean
but you can see they're all that low-end
just not needed so I can just roll that
off I might just apply that to all the
drums trouble is then your conga is
gonna have not enough low-end as well
let's just give it a go
yeah that's not gonna work because we
want this Congress have the nice sub
free passes
so really quickly let's just mix this a
bit I'm pretty much gonna just be taking
out some of the low-end the piano has
got a lot going on let's hear it with
the kick and the bass I might put that
down an octave on the bass that's too
late I'm gonna add a compressor to the
bass because it's gonna vary in volume
slightly and I want it to be nice and
even to the bass line you can see it's
just got a little bit of gain reduction
just boosting there's some frequencies a
bit on the base because it
I haven't layered it was a sine wave
which I usually would
funk guitar just check there's no
low-end in there that we don't need
they've already done the pads
now let's do the saxophone
see the the saxophone kind of clashes
with the vocals so what I probably do is
this have one then the other
I wonder vocal sound a bit breathier so
I boost them in the high end
and then it's all about the groove I'll
do a bit more work on this and when I
have you can download that for free
below this video I hope you've enjoyed
it don't forget to check out my master
class which is starting on Monday we've
already got loads of people signed up so
we're really excited about that me and
my co coach and until next time take it
easy cheers and happy producing
