People are just absolutely loving the
filth. In this tutorial I'm gonna show
you how to make tech house music like
Camelphat, Solardo, Patrick topping and
Fisher. Over the last few weeks have been
putting up tutorials on how to make
different genres of dance music, so today
is tech house. Now I am going to be using
Ableton Live but you can do this at any
DAW, really. and you can do it just using
the stock plugins that you already own.
We will be going into sound selection. We
will be going into creating bass,
groove and shuffle. We will be creating a
hook (like a little vocal hook), and I'm
going to show you how to keep the
interest alive in what CAN be a
repetitive genre AND we're going to go a
little bit into mixing - so if you dig
this video, give it a like, subscribe
to my channel, and without further ado
let's hop into the DAW. Okay... so the
first thing I'm gonna do is select the
right tempo so we're going to have about
125 bpm because that's the tech house
kind of tempo right so after that
obviously we want most important things
that kick drums so let's get a nice Tech
Housy kick drum so I'm on splice at the
moment that's that's quite good but tech
house at the moment in that kind of
Patrick topping or Fisher style is quite
like a bit of distortion in the drum
almost which gives it a bit of a kind of
low fire old-school feel but I'm just
gonna drag this in oh and I see it's
actually a loop so what you could do is
you could you could use the loop or you
could kind of splice it and then use
separate samples drag it into your
sample pack but for the sake of brevity
I'm just gonna loop it it's all in sync
already cool okay next thing to do is
get some kind of base groove going along
you could do the drums first but I'm
gonna get the base grew something cheeky
something a little bit naughty because
I'm a little bit cheeky and a little bit
naughty and this is tech house after all
okay so what I'm gonna do is I'm going
to move my teacup and then I'm gonna
select a sample I think I'm going to use
a sampler to do the bassline
so I'm just going to load the simpler
which is the stock plug-in for Ableton
there are very simple sample that I'm
going to go to my bass samples and I'm
gonna write it I'm not going to use a
loop I want to do one from scratch
myself so I'm just gonna set find a
simple bass sound I'd quite like these
vengeance ultimate bass sounds okay
we'll start with that and we'll we'll
take it from there so we drop it down a
couple of octaves and I'm just going to
riff on my keyboard as I play the kick
drum but I don't want it so sustained
actually so I'm just going to tweak the
sustain and release and decay and I only
want one voice playing I don't want pull
if it comes to the bass line so with
tech house bass lines quite often they
are quite close on the keyboard rather
than big chord changes that you get in
progressive house and trance and things
like that so so actually I think I will
change this sample to to a synth because
it loses its power when you go lower
down on the register anyway let's get
this bassline doing I'm just going to
loop it in Jam
so I've doing I'm doing a little bit of
change at the end of I think eight bars
so I'm just gonna make that loop twice
as long and I'm just gonna play it in
and then I'll quantize it afterwards so
I'm doing this on my MIDI keyboard you
could program it in of course so I'm
just going to make sure that track is
armed select record and let's go just
neaten this up a bit just bring that
there so Julie and now I'm just going to
consolidate that I'm going to quantize
it by selecting them all by holding
command and a if I'm using a Mac or ctrl
+ a if I'm using a PC and Windows and
then open up my quantize okay now we are
going to actually change that sound or
actually we duplicate it
quieten mute that mute the duplicate and
then see if we can get a better take
house kind of bass sound using using
let's use serum so I'm just going to
drag that onto my channel
and then I'm going to just go to the
stock plug-in and see if we can find
anything that worked that's quite cool
okay so that's good I like that that's
the sound we want but what we're going
to do is again we're going to adjust
adjust the attack sustain and release
the adsr and we've got to adjust the
filter envelope as well which is
currently
so we could actually open that up as the
track progresses for a bit more interest
now I'm just going to add some
saturation to this get it sounding a lot
fatter I'm going to use the Ableton one
just so you can see it done using stock
plugins although we are using serum but
I showed how you could do that with the
sampler try some different reset
just to just to dry
okay cool so that will do for now now we
want where you can just delete the
original baseline well let's do a little
test which one do we like most
I think we'll keep that one we will just
add a little bit of EQ on it take off
some of the high-end sizzle
boost the lower-end a bit okay now we
want to get a bit of shuffle in there so
I'm going to go browse groove groove
library swing and groove MPC I'm gonna
go to MPC 16 swing 64 I'm going to take
velocity down so it's only the timing
it's going to be affecting
so it just makes it a little less
robotic gives it some swing and next I
I'm going to find some suitable drums
and get the groove going you could use a
drum loop again or you could program in
your own drums so let's listen some all
these were quite old actually none of
them really suitable just program
running because we're not here to just
put loops together we're here to produce
our own music so let's do that I'm just
going to open up the drums find a clap
first
something quite short
I think short and snappy so let's go to
drum hits claps that's quite cool like a
real sounding clap so let's just program
that in I want this clap to sound bigger
so I'm going to add some saturation on
here and I want a little bit of room
reverb just to make it sound wider as
well so I've used the i/o controls here
to route the drum machine on the drum
rack auxilary channels to the global
auxilary channels that I've got set up
here you know room and home so let's
just feed some other room reverb into
the clap let's just make it louder
okay that's why because I don't have a
reverb on there so I'm gonna you I won't
use the valhalla actually although I
usually would I'm going to use the stock
plug-in because I want you to be able to
do it even if you don't have these other
plugins so now let's get the decay time
a lot closer
amano still sounds good so this is with
no reverb on the clap just a bit dry
cool okay now let's get some actual drum
groove kind of going first I'm actually
going to drag this MPC groove clip onto
the drums too so they've got the same
swing as the baseline when we get those
other drums in there now something that
tech house would have would be a kind of
ride cymbal on every other beat rather
than an open hat that's kind of a
popular sound so let's get a ride cymbal
ride that's cool
cool enough again you can change these
later if you want to I'm going to select
classic mode voice 1 because we don't
want more than one playing at once
control the length of it by just having
sustained at full and then I can program
it in like so
just shaping it slightly okay so now
let's add some kind of skipping beats
and stuff to get that real groove going
on I'm going to add a little bit of room
reverb to the open hat too you can see
we've got some issues clipping here so
what I'm going to do is I'm going to
bring down all of the instruments until
we've got plenty of headroom here whoops
just so we don't get any clipping okay
okay let's add in some groove now let's
add in some shuffle I'm going to get a
closed hat closed hi-hat okay let's
bring that in and I'm just gonna add a
bit of a cheeky little shuffle one two
three four five six now we might even
reduce the global shuffle a little bit
it's quite strong so that's been done on
and that's with the hundred under so
somewhere between a be good
cool and don't worry about the mixing
we're gonna get to that shortly let's
just copy and paste this just copy and
paste I've got that and we will be
adding interest to this don't worry er
so I actually want that baseline to die
out quicker so I'm going to go to the
adsr controls for the volume again and
just try and make it a bit more punchy
and you want a kind of roar sound when
it comes to this the house sorry this
tech house kind of sound now we're going
to add some incidental sounds and this
is what keeps the interest going because
you know tech house could be quite
repetitive genre of music so it's all
about the arrangement and it's all about
adding these little like interesting
hits and sound effects as well so we're
going to add a little vocal sample first
let's go to vocals so we've got this
sample from a tune I made years ago so
I'm just going to create a audio track
for this just so I can manipulate the
audio rather than as a sample in the
drum machine in the drum rack and I'm
going to pitch it I'm going to warp it
so I can pitch it and I'm going to
choose complex Pro pitch it down to
minus-12 formants down
cool it just has a little bit of
interest now we want to give the drums a
bit of interest too I'm just going to
put this up because I count this as a
drum hit because I'm using it as a drum
so to get these drums a bit more
interest before we start going into the
horns and the effect that is a technical
term by the way we are going to add some
panning Auto panning on these clothes
hats and the way we are going to do that
is used Ableton Auto panner here we go I
would usually use the soundToys pan man
because it's got more control over it
but again for the same reason so you can
hear it's now bouncing around in your
head so let's get some of those cool
effects on the go now
I'm going to give an example of what
would happen with arrangement because as
I said that's how you keep the interest
in tech cow so all I'm going to do is
drop a kick here and then double them up
on the drop here this is kind of a Danny
Howard yeah tech house kind of sounding
thing
but on that drop we will get rid of
chords and riff and all that because
we're not going to use them I'm just
going to call this kick just so we see
what is what and then color how track
like that so I want some big kind of
sound effect so you could do this in a
synth absolutely but you could also just
kind of listen to some crazy effects
where are some big synth weird effects
okay there's an example of what you
could use as one I'm just going to load
this into into the main drum rack and
this is to create interest so you might
have just quietly but we still want this
big distorted sound I've got it in my
head it's like that's another good one
so we are going to use this sound as
well and I'm going to load this into its
own sampler I'm going to go simple
simple I go back to my sounds drop this
with this one in and
I'm gonna load the same groove onto this
green and I will show you what I'm gonna
do so it's just to add some kind of
interest as it's going but anyway let's
let's focus on what I'm doing which is
you know you might have a big horn this
is where on fishes losing it on the drop
he'd have this big hologram so we're not
gonna use that because it's been done
I'm actually going to manipulate this
just to show it's a bit it's a bit of
fun do a bit of sound design I mean this
is a really old sample so it's not
there's no stereo width to it there's
nothing
so we want some movement in that first
I'm going to shave off this last pix
it's a dope
we want to make this really big and the
way I'm going to do that first is add an
EQ no F Auto filter gonna whack the
resonance up and I'm gonna do a filter
sweep make a band sweep actually no I'm
not because that sounds absolutely
rubbish don't know what I was thinking
okay okay first thing we're going to do
is get rid of some of the bass in that
make it really big I'd usually do this
on an aux Channel but for the sake of
brevity I'll do it here
it's just so it's a really big sound you
know and it lasts a long time we're
gonna add some room reverb here so on
the drop now we've got this big big
sound and we might have another vocal
hit there saying something else just so
it's a cool and response so he goes yeah
or it goes meow and there's something
else so it's all about the groove when
it comes to tech house you know people
have people are just absolutely loving
the filth when they're done since its
heck house I know from experience
so let's find something classic rape it
yeah why not a letter all the way you
absolute legend yeah that'll sound good
so I just
so something like this what do you think
so far guys let me know in the comments
below what genre do you won't need to
make on this channel again I read every
comment and I really appreciate your
input so thanks for leaving a comment
and let's get back to the tutorial so
another thing you could do is add a like
little bit of a reverse snare as well so
and a double clap somewhere so a reverse
clap would sound a bit like well guess
what it would sound like a clap but in
Reverse so I'm gonna go clap reverse
clap that's a nice one I made that one
of my favorites I'm just going to do it
on an audio track because time is
running out take it down in we could do
a double clap here as well so this is
what it would sound like and I'm going
to give you a quick example of the kind
of arrangement trick that you might use
in tech house just to filter it out so
but I'll explain okay I'm going to send
the bass and the kick to a bus in
Ableton Live I'm just going to group
them but in any other door you just send
them to one bus so you can process them
together I'm going to call this kick and
bass whoops we named the wrong thing
kick and bass bus then I could color it
red
so you then might employ some kind of a
filter again I'm just going to use some
built-in one and this so you'd have a
section of the track doing this
basically and then on the drop I why did
that stop that was embarrassing that's
like when you're DJing in the South you
press the wrong button the sound stops
taxi okay I'm just gonna do this I'm
gonna bypass it and then under by part
it so let's keep it on and let's get a
nice big rising sound not too cheesy
mind because it's tech house not trance
I'm just gonna get for the sake of
brevity a white noise riser FX sweep up
okay here we go still so you'd have a
build like this maybe and you'd add some
more effects here like some delay on the
drums to take out the power okay so now
let's do the mix down really quick I
think I've covered everything I wanted
to in this tutorial apart from the mix
so let's just go through and do it
quickly
first the kick in the base you want that
Rocking nice and fat there already
sounding pretty fun
you might add some saturation and
process them together if you're I I
really love the the soundToys
Decapitator for this but I'm just going
to use the plugin that the stock plug-in
for Ableton just to fatten it up a bit
now in terms of drums just make sure
that you're cutting out the low end
where it's needed on these different
instruments so let's use some EQ on that
alright hat all this low-end don't need
it much better has the thing using
Goulding's older samples quite often
there's a lot of unwanted frequencies in
there it's 909 hat you want to make sure
you don't take out too much body
and our clap let's see what's going on
there and for this build I'm just going
to reduce the length of these ride hats
so there's more impact when it comes in
okay that has it really works because
it's the layout put the decay I put some
on the release so there you have it guys
I really hope you enjoyed this tech
house tutorial let me know what you want
me to cover in my next video download my
free guide if you want like subscribe
all that good stuff and until next time
Cheers and happy produce
