Instant YES! 🙌
In this tutorial, I'm going to
show you how to make techno like Boris Brejcha.
Over the past few months I've
been doing these in the style of videos
and they've been getting an insane
response from you guys, so thank you for that!
..And I've had a lot of requests for
Boris Brejcha, so that is what we are
focusing on today. I'm doing this in
Ableton Live 10 but you can follow along
in any DAW, and I'm ONLY using stock
plugins as well.
We have got loads to get through today: We will be going through the kick and the percussion...
We will be going into the Boris Brejcha-style bass line and synth riffs...
And we will do an epic breakdown as well
We will also be going a bit into mixing
and arrangement, and you can download
this project for free below this video
with all the samples all the synth
presets that I've used so don't forget
to do that.
if you dig this video give it a big FAT thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe to my channel for tutorials 👍
like this each and every week
Without further ado, let's hop into the DAW get it done...
Okay! So the first thing I'm
gonna do is select the tempo. I'm gonna
select 125 BPM because that is the
kind of tempo that Boris Brejcha – yes I
did have to look up how to pronounce his
name – but that's the kind of tempo he
writes at cool second thing let's name
this bad boy I'm gonna call it Tec na
Polly because it's my channel and I can
give things ridiculous names if I like
so I've set up this sidechain channel
which we will be using later and I will
explain it then but the first thing
we're going to do is get a nice solid
kick so I'm just going to create a MIDI
channel you could do this in audio of
course but I'm going to be using a MIDI
instrument I'm gonna use a drum rack
it's just how I like to work let's call
that kick and then it's a matter of
finding a nice a solid chunky techno
kick now the main thing about boorish
parejas style is it's kind of minimal
it's sounds great in the club I'm
reading for my notes here and yeah he
calls it high tech minimal so fewer
elements really solid really kind of
punching through not too much complexity
Bosh let's get it done okay so I'm gonna
go to the current project because I've
saved some of these samples but let's
listen to my kick like nothing special
but quite solid very tight so that's the
kick we're gonna use I'm going to create
a MIDI clip I'm going to call this kick
and then I'm gonna program it in like so
and we've got two different sections
that we're going to be creating really
we need to create the drop which will be
like on one note and then we'll create
some epic break in borås breakers techno
style as well but first and we'll get to
that in a sec let's just program the
kick in because that's basic right and
what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go to
classic I'm gonna select release to be a
little bit and
decay to be one and sustained to be full
and that is because we want the MIDI
notes to stop the kick playing as soon
as the MIDI notes over so if we've got
release four it's actually a short kick
so it doesn't make much difference but
this will basically cut off the tail of
the kick if it was a long kick leaving
more space for our open hat right excuse
me
as I said no editing this is a one take
Billy oh cool so let's now create some
epic chord progression and that's going
to give us the key of the track that we
want to work in so to do this I'm just
going to load up a grand piano sound
just a standard one just so I can jam
out some some chords so grand piano here
we go stick that on I've got my MIDI
keyboard here and let's just play
my nigga to be minor and I'll show you
how to program this if you don't know
any chord theory or music theory or you
can't play the piano give me a second me
just jam something out instant yes
okay feels
yes okay that is going to be our chord
progression that is on F so I'm going to
show you how you can do this if you
don't know any music theory whatsoever
so let's just draw in the base notes I
said it was f so and it's I said it's
minor so it's F minor so what I'm going
to do is draw in all the notes of the
scale of F minor natural and you can
check out the video they're all there
wherever it is and it's going to show
you the intervals in between each note
so you can do this for any key anyway
okay let's do it
and I'm going to use my template
technique which loads of you guys will
know minor third so they are all the
notes in the key of F minor natural I
got that right yeah what I'm gonna do is
grab them all just press left cursor to
put them outside of the clip so they're
not going to play if you're using FL
Studio you can just use their scale
things to do this you don't need to draw
it out manually and I'm just copying and
duplicating it one octave above one
octave below and then press fold and
we've got three octaves now of F minor
natural so we can't go wrong anyway
let's let's recreate those chords I just
did metronome on cool
so you can see I'm just using this
template now I've press fold so they
were the base notes and now let's draw
in the chords above them what I'm going
to do is I'm going to copy those and I'm
going to duplicate them and drop them
down an octave by holding shift and down
what's up and now this is so we can now
make the chords one octave above so I'm
going to just miss a note each time to
build these balls
so you just one note in between
but I'm actually just gonna play that
first note over and over and it's going
to work because as you can see it's just
using notes from within the key of F
minor natural so let's get this down
really quickly just duplicate duplicate
feels definite feels lush okay and we
can actually drop the second note there
as well for ultimate fields
oof okay so it looks like our break is
gonna be this chord progression it's in
the key of F minor natural so our drop
is going to be in F minor natural as
well so let's get that drop built first
thing after the kick would be the bass
so boorish bray hat uses a very simple
synth to make his sounds so that's what
we're gonna do we're going to do this
all with the synths in Ableton Live but
of course you can follow along using any
synth in any door I'm going to keep
things simple so I'm going to use to do
to do analog
and we're just gonna base that bass note
bass that bass note on a saw wave
and we'll tweak it so first thing we're
going to do is just create a MIDI clip
pull it bass and we're gonna just do a
one note bassline pattern like this
without kick
and you can record it
it didn't loop though because I forgot
to move the loop brace but this is fine
we can just move that over I'm gonna
quantize it
I'm gonna quantize it big time because I
want it to be exactly on time in time
because it's techno and I'm gonna be
using groove in a bit as well okay I did
actually have a quick break there
because my brother rang right I've
deleted that baseline because it yeah it
didn't work properly so I'm just gonna
rerecord that what did I do
yeah just in one on one note here we go
cool okay let's double click on that
grab it all quantize it
okay I'm just gonna delete the rest of
those I'm gonna make sure that the
velocity is the same and now we're going
to do a bit of sound design on this bass
so first thing I'm going to do is to let
one voice because we only want the bass
in mono
I'm choosing a sub base for the second
offers oscillator just a sine wave the
first oscillator is a saw wave and then
we're going to set the frequency down
first let's tweak the amp decay sustain
release so it's much more stabby peak a
bit of release
cool
now we'll do the same with the filter
envelope that sounds pretty good
actually
I'll leave it as it is they're cool so
that's the basic bass sound now what we
have got to do on my magic notes is to
we're gonna apply some a grew a bit of
groove to this so what I'm going to do
is I've opened up my groove library in
Ableton I'm just going to drag this MPC
1664 let's see what it's called
yeah swing 64 I've toned to the timing
down a bit so there's a bit of Swing and
this just humanizes the yeah the rhythm
you'll hear it more clearly when we've
got the shaker
okay onto the next thing we will be
going back to that bass next will be
drums and it could color them green I'll
put them above the bass another drum
rack I think which is Ableton's native
drum kind of sample thing now let's get
some samples in there so we want the
main clap first now we're gonna do a
boar Aspray her a nice wide clap
actually so I'm gonna use to clap
samples pan one right and one left and
here's some I made earlier in the
current project again you can download
all of these samples for free I've
included them so we've got these two
very short claps and they're going to be
panned left and panned right so let's
put one there let's drag and drop that
one there and we're just pan one mmm
probably 30 left and then 30 right as
well so they're not super fully pan left
and right bit almost sounds a bit dodgy
at the moment share with me what I'm
gonna do is actually zoom in and offset
them slightly to give it more of a human
feel so it's a bit looser and now let's
just duplicate that and we'll turn them
down a little bit I'll just turn the
whole drum in fact I'm going to turn
that down by 6 this down by 6 and this
down by 6 just to make sure that we've
got plenty of headroom on the master
fader and then I'm going to turn these
down as well just because they're a bit
loud and we want the other drums to be
able to be loud check in mono and this
is my mono switch here which just
switches between mono and stereo so I
can check that the mixture worked ok
next hi-hat and we're going to apply the
groove to this too let's drag in this
first hi-hat it's kind of a white noise
II I hat mmm that's strange
it's not showing in my drum rack how
bizarre right I'll try that again
so that should create that's because
fold is selected so there's a quick tip
for you make sure folds not selected and
again we are going to be changing the
length of this drum by using attack
decay sustain and release will turn snap
off go to the adsr settings we want it
really snappy
cool okay next we are actually I'll bump
up the kick a little bit right next
thing is drag that swing onto there and
then we are going to create a shuffle
which is going to be the groove so again
I'm just gonna do this in MIDI but you
could do this with an audio sample as
well let's color that green let's get
some shaker and load it into a sampler
doesn't matter what sampler you use the
simpler the better and you don't need
many you don't need special controls for
this shaker drop that in and then we're
just going to program a shaker on the
sixteenths just pop in duplicate that it
loud okay now we are going to apply the
groove to all the channels making sure
they've all got that swing so that's
full swing this is zero swing and we
want a bit of Swing cool
next is applying some sidechain
compression which I'm sure you've all
seen usually I would use the LFO tool
for this by Steve did ER but I want to
do it all using Ableton plugins so I'm
just gonna actually sidechain compress
so I will drop that on the shuffle I'm
gonna call this pump comp so we know
what it's for I'm gonna open up this and
choose sidechain input SC which is one I
made earlier and all I did there is load
a sampler up programing a little beat
with a just a little hi-hat and then
make sure that I've got sends only
selected here so you can't actually hear
it you can only you can only send it to
other effects like this sidechain
compressor
so you can hear it's ducking that
shuffle now I'm just gonna get it so
it's a nice rhythm with my track that's
cool I'll apply that to the bass as well
so now the bass is pumping a bit right
okay on to the next thing
claps hat shuffle bah bah bah crackle
let's add a bit of crackle snap crackle
and pop but I'll do this with an audio
track actually this is going to be just
a white noise crackle just - oh sorry a
vinyl crackle just to add some extra
interests and texture to the the beats
right here's one I made earlier again
you get this free whereas my here we go
I made a loop out of it this vinyl
crackle I'll just use the first part of
it obviously that sounds horrible so
what we're going to do is we're going to
use an equaliser filter out some of the
low frequencies and we're going to use a
gate and noise gate as well to make sure
that only the loudest parts are being
allowed through so it just adds that
extra click before the beat that's it
cool okay on to the next thing what's on
my magic list today
synth riff okay this is where the real
groove comes from we will be getting
back to that bass line so don't worry
but this synth riff is another classic
Horace brayer type effect and again I'm
going to do it using a very simple
synthesizer I'm going to use the
analog again in Ableton
and again a saw wave
and we're kind of basing this on his to
that I think it's called to the moon or
something like that but this idea from
from that track of his let's see synth
riff and now let's just
again we're gonna select mono because we
don't want more than one note play at
once
and then we are going to tweak these
attack decay sustain release make it
really rhythmic like this
and now let's put in a little riff again
this is gonna have to be in the same key
but you could just do it on F itself
cool we're just gonna copy and duplicate
that turn it down a bit apply the groove
very important so we're getting there
now with we're getting that groove going
right on to the next thing don't worry
we will be going into the mixing of all
of these if you've liked it so far give
me a hell yeah
below in the comments in fact give me an
arm and brother I like those ones
because they're pretty rare mm brother
and I want to know what you want me to
produce next okay leave me a comment
without further ado let's carry on and
if you liked it don't forget to
subscribe next one synth riff - this is
when I'm doing everything and then we'll
bring in the elements we won't obviously
have them all at once at the beginning
of the track that'd be cray-cray
that would be crayfish so let's just add
the elements and then we can work with
them later synth riff - and I'm just
going to duplicate this sound because
we're trying to work quickly and I'm
just gonna choose this is just gonna be
like adding some I'm just gonna leave it
running on like that actually and then
I'm going to use the sidechain
compression to give it some rhythm
groove apply I'm just gonna copy the
pump compressor paste it so you can hear
them I'm gonna apply a bit of this to
their first synth rift only a bit
because we want to hear the notes that
are hitting when the kick plays as well
okay on to the next thing
main riff this is gonna be what we are
going to use in the drop sorry in the
break so this is going to be like an out
epic sound I'm going to use a bit of a
more complex synthesizer for this I'll
use a wave table and I'm just going to
listen through some of the presets and
then tweak it as as needed so let's
press that hot-swap button go to synth
keys my new computer should be here
tomorrow so that might be a problem in
future come on there must be something
good here this is what is a case of
listening to
listening to different synths presets
and finding one that kind of almost
works that sounds cool
right okay before I write the riff in
let's add some auxiliary channels and
get some get some reverb in here
sounding a bit dry at the moment I'm
just gonna grab those and extend them so
we can see what what I'm gonna create
for return channels or auxiliary
channels call this room reverb call this
poor reverb call this I don't know we'll
name that as and when we need them so
the first would be the room reverb I'm
gonna grab a normal reverb I usually use
Valhalla room for this because it sounds
a bit better than the Ableton one but
again all all in Ableton that's what I'm
doing it boosting up the gain because it
seems to be a bit quiet the you to the
reverb from Ableton rolling off the low
end on the auxilary channel so we don't
get clutter and then tweaking the decay
time
so you can already hear that sounding
cool I'm going to actually apply some
sidechain compression to that room
reverb as well all okay is basic at the
moment this is something cool that he
does on his synths as well if you add a
bit of delay we can then in fact I'll
add that before the pump compressor we
can create this cool effect so I'm gonna
unlink those
so you can then automate those delays
which sounds pretty dope so we will be
doing some of that soon as well but that
gives you a general idea okay so now we
are going to add some white noise so I'm
gonna give you my white noise generator
which I made again that's included in
this project I'm gonna color this bright
green so it's an effect and let's find
it it would be instruments it would be
instrument rack and it would be wills
white noise here we go so you can just
white noise which is really handy for
quick stuff and this would be being
played on the drops forest breaker loves
this stuff so let's just kind of a DAB
it just kind of fills out that frequency
range but of course we need to get some
the mix it's all about the mix really
well it's all about sound selection so
make sure you get the right sounds first
then we move on to the mix but let's go
into the we'll do the mixer I'm just
going to add a bit of pomp compression
to that white noise
and now we are going to move on to the
break don't worry we will be going back
to the drop to make it sound bigger but
we've got these chords here that we need
to do something with
because it's in the key of F minor
natural you'll hear that any of the
elements we've already made will work
over the top of it so if we just
duplicate our synth riffs check this out
they still sound good right so let's
create a break bass and this is just
going to be a sustained bass and over
which we'll play our melody which we're
about to work out so hold tight for that
again give this fat thumbs up if you
liked it guys let me know in the
comments cuz I need to know I'm insecure
like that right break bass break in the
bass London now I'm going to use a very
simple synth again I'm just going to use
that operator today because I just want
a sine wave sustained and of that yellow
because it's my base color and let's
have a listen so to do this quickly I
can just grab the base notes I'd already
written in earlier like so on the piano
copy them go into my base paste them
Bosh Bob's your uncle
and I might even drop these two last
notes an octave down sounds to sound
extra bad boy
and it almost gives it a constantly
rising feel
I'm gonna drop this piano out when we
play our main riff in is a bigger reverb
okay this is gonna be our synth I'm
gonna call this bass reverb actually and
I'll show you why soon let's just color
that and this is gonna be synth River
come on this is gonna be synth reverb
and I'm gonna color that my synth reverb
color now we want a much bigger reverb
on here so I'm gonna grab this and I'm
just gonna copy it and then I'm going to
tweak the reverb
and what I'm going to do is I'm going to
tweak this synth slightly as well and
the matrix the matrix I think
I think this
is that rather than a sign that to the
LFO I'm going to make that delete that
and I'm gonna well it's a sign -
envelope - or envelope -
just to give it a bit more movement okay
this is the riff from to the moon by
Boris Bray huh but we don't want to copy
that because we're writing our own track
remember this is in the style of I just
want to give you some insight since his
production techniques or how I would do
it if I was producing jeans like him but
we're gonna stick to our altoon and work
out a riff that was going to work for
that
but it's still in the same key so you
could use a template technique again
draw out all of the notes in the key of
F minor natural and then work the melody
out that way and there's I'll link to
something there that you can help that's
going to help you write melodies easily
I'm just going to write down when this
is actually 23 minutes in so I'll link
to that cool okay but I'm gonna do it by
ear cuz I wonder feels baby
that's cool so I'm gonna gonna program
this in quickly
I use the metronome to help as well
I haven't made this up before I'm
completely doing this on the fly so be
kind
that's cool you hit that and then switch
it up the second part
bitch easy that I kind of like it
and what we're gonna do is we'll
introduce that sound earlier into the
tune so what we're going to do now is
just do a little bit of arrangement
automation and mixing as we go because
time is ticking and I want to get some
maximum value to you guys here then
we're gonna pick some random vocal
because you got to have random vocals
right so what I'm gonna do is I'm just
gonna drag this breaky bit let's have
four things and then a break and I'm
just going to duplicate this for our
main drop and let's bring their bits in
one by one so oh I know what we're going
to add to the drums as well as we go so
we'll start off like this the bass can
come in there we're gonna need some more
duplications of that and so let's
duplicate that's out a couple more times
and let's automate this too so you can
hear that very hard kind of sound
let's get this base cooking actually it
needs to be fatter fatter than I've ever
been before
so I'm gonna put a compressor before
that just to fasten itself of it and
then I'm gonna put this free tool on
called the camel crusher which you can
download if you look up for it online
and I'm just going to add some of this
and we want to create that break our
movement I've just coined that phrase
and we're going to do that by automating
the filter cut off of the base so let's
hit automation mode let's right click on
this bad boy show automation
so I've just automated a bit of that cut
off on the base
which we can do it again somewhere else
but we want to get this synth riff kind
of cooking along nicely so I'm gonna add
some EQ just get rid of the really low
end on that because we don't want the
fighting with the bass I'm just gonna
kind of record as I go the automation no
I'm not I'm just going to program this
in and again you can do this with the
send you can automate that just to add
little bits of tension and again with
the feedback
I hope you're getting the idea because
obviously you can spend a lot of time as
you would if you were producing this
fully but it's just kind of give you an
idea as to the kind of effects that you
can do and all I'm gonna do is I'm just
going to copy that
delay over to synth riff 2 and do the
same thing just so you can hear what it
would do and let's just copy that
automation to be obviously later and the
sounds are playing
there's the group now let's add some
effect then we are going to do a bit
more mixing and a touch more arrangement
and then our job is a good'n
but first let's get that random vocal in
because we want to make this epic we
want to make this epic drop a sorry epic
breakdown first let's get a new hat to
build things up so I'm going to go to my
current project we've got snare intros
and stuff yet to come so that's cool
like that yeah we're going to do a
little skip skip beat when the drums
really in like so turn it down a bit
I'm going to check the levels of the
drums in mono yeah that's cool that's
already cool and that's a fact
so it's just a little skip beat keep
that groove going
obviously wouldn't have white noise on
every drop that would be madness
I say madness so we got that beat in
we're gonna add this extra hi-hat I kind
of need to do some work on that it's a
bit dirty bit bit too much low-end in
that that's unnecessary so let's just
tweak the pitch on that hi-hat make sure
it's kind of in tune okay we'll leave it
on zero then and let's just EQ some of
those nasty frequencies out from that by
using an EQ eight
too-loud of course I'm going to tweak
the adsr to have the decay be a bit
snappier than the sustain and released a
zero because we don't want it to play
when we've liked when it stops being
drawn let's just duplicate that okay we
need to add some room reverb to this hat
because it sounds a bit dry so I'm going
to press io here press R there right
click create return train then choose my
room reverb for my main octillery
channels which is here and now we can
apply some of this to our drums as well
- let's do that - the open hat so I can
close this now like so
so you can hear the drums kind of build
and I'm gonna add what am I gonna do
next I'm gonna do the drum intro so I'm
just gonna create another one I'm gonna
call its lair and that's a MIDI track
I've created but you could do it in
audio as well I'm gonna add a sampler
there and I'm just gonna do a simple
little snare intro nothing too cheesy
because it's techno so it's got to be
you know understated I want to say
refined but I've been to warehouse
parties playing techno and they're
they're not exactly refined so I mean
they're good fun if you can remember
them next let's choose that snare sound
so current project which snares okay
we're gonna use this one it's a bit
harsh actually so I'm gonna EQ some of
those frequencies out we'll hear it when
it's when it's in situ that it's a bit
harsh
it's also very loud that's cool
you know this isn't really the kind of
drum intro that Boris pray I would use
but you know I said it's my channel I
can do what I want but I'm gonna throw
the swing on there
just to get more low-end energy
and lest of the harsh high-end stuff
okay I'm going to show you a really cool
trick now for the synth riff - I'm gonna
make this wide and I'm gonna do this
using the Haas effect in fact I'm gonna
make this a bit harsher I'm gonna add
some noise a noise oscillator and I'm
gonna tweak these settings a bit cool so
here's how you make it nice and wide you
choose a delay I mean you can use other
things like the ozone imager tool which
is free and that's really cool but I'm
gonna do this house effect with another
delay and what I'm gonna do is just take
these unsink them take feedback right
down ping pong on dry/wet fall and now
we're going to have two slightly delayed
signals on the left and right which is
going to give it a feeling of stereo
width check it in mono is it that you
can hear it there's a weird phase effect
so I rarely use this technique now I
usually use an ozone imager you can hear
this is off right this one's confusing
things so this is the house effect on
this synth riff this is off and this is
on so we're gonna leave it on it sounds
like it's coming through the left a bit
more so I might pan it over whoops from
channel I know it's the same so we'll
turn our other effect on which is cool
but we need more of these effects on the
main synth we need to automate the
frequency receive a high baby
etc etc again time is of the essence so
we're going to kind of you get the idea
so I'm just going to duplicate and paste
those in fact I'll paste them there like
whatever like duplicate that and then
just there and then for this intro to
the break we might have something like
this we'll get the base and we're going
to take the frequency right down and the
beauty of this kick having no release or
very little release is that we can make
it very small
it needs a bit more release actually
otherwise it makes a popping sound
so it makes it much shorter and we can
bring this base right down as well
and we can also play with the decay on
the base as well just to make it really
tight so again you get the idea we're
just kind of trying to bring down the
energy now for the massive break and
this main riff we are going to introduce
beforehand but fills her in
let's change that it's that doesn't
sound good enough
we'll turn down the break base because
it's
supposed to just bring in a little bit
of energy so the way we could introduce
this is like so I'm just gonna copy some
like the first part of that main riff
and I'm gonna automate it with some kind
well first I'll put an EQ and then make
sure there's no untoward low-end and
then I'm gonna choose a also filter and
I'm just gonna introduce it that way
like so
and then to introduce the bills back
into the drop then you could bring in
some of these elements again you know
the short stumpy kick the shuffle asthma
shuffle we need the sidechain trigger
there as well
and then the synth riff would be coming
in as well introducing it and that's
pretty much it guys like I'm gonna do
some more work on this and you can
download it but there's only so much I
can do in this tutorial so if you like
it let me know give me an arm and
brother and you can have this you can
have this project file cheers for
subscribing share it with your friends
all good arm and brother catch you soon
Cheers and happy producing
