They've taken another heart and they put it in MY heart 💞
THAT'S how much heart there is ♥️
What's up, guys? It's Will from EDM Tips.
Today I'm going to show you how to make
progressive house in the style of Ben
Böhmer and Anjunadeep.
So in the last couple of months I'm really pleased to say that these videos that I've been
doing on particular genres and styles of
artists have been blowing up BIG TIME...
So thank you so much for the support! Anyway, I've had loads of requests for doing in
the style of Ben Böhmer, so that is what I
decided to do today. I'm going to be
using Ableton 10 but you can use any
DAW to follow these techniques, and you
can download all the samples and the
project file for free below this video
as well. So today we will be covering the
kick and bass...
the percussion and atmosphere... the chord progressions...
melodic arpeggio and some mixing and
arrangement. If you want music production
tutorials like this each and every week
hit that subscribe button and the
notification bell to make sure you never
miss one. 👍 SMASH the like button if you
dig this video, and without further ado,
let's hop into the DAW and get it done...
Okay so the first thing to do once
you've checked you have your dinosaurs
ready is choose the perfect kick and
we've chosen 124 bpm because it's that
and unity been boma type speed or tempo
and this kick I've included it for free
in this sample pad below which you can
download but it's got lovely low deep
Sabinas and it's also got this high end
tick which is going to help it pop
through the mix so what I'm going to do
and you can do this in MIDI as well I'm
just doing it in audio because I want to
show you as much as I can in this time
we have available so simple right
everyone knows how to do that I'm going
to just gonna put it to minus six so
when other elements are added I've got
some space on the head room on the
master channel which is what we need
what we want now I've called this
project progressive now's see what I did
there so next it's all about the emotion
when it comes to Ben Bowman and these
and una deep tracks in general
progressive house you know it was my
first love in terms of dance music that
and the rave rave like The Prodigy so
I'm just going to call this chords and
we're gonna just get a grand piano and
we'll probably end up keeping that piano
sound so to put piano and I'm gonna use
Ableton piano so I'm just going to go to
sounds and I'm gonna go to piano and I'm
just gonna choose a normal grand piano
that comes with Ableton so where is it
oh I've actually downloaded like the
piano pack I think which was free I
believe so come on come on there you go
right now this kick I know is in G it's
a kick on G so I'm actually going to
create this track in the key of G
whether it's minor or major it depends
how I'm feeling but let's just vibe with
some
some note I'm gonna work out some bass
notes first and then work out the chords
over the top
okay so I'm gonna do it in G minor
like that's not complex okay so let's
just draw those notes in whack them
there
and this is in the style of that in
memoriam track that I mentioned before
and by having them kind of come in just
before the beat it gives it a bit of
vibe already
so the third and the fourth sorry the
second and the fourth note that kind of
plane before the beads
and I'll do it with this nodes as well
so we've really got some kind of
movement and energy I'm gonna reduce the
velocity so it's a bit more gentle and
ethereal
and I just bump up the volume a bit
that's quite nice so now let's work out
the the chord notes that we're going to
have on this so I'll just close that
down we don't need the velocity showing
much anymore and you can use my template
technique which I've linked to in one of
these others and one of these other
videos if you're using FL Studio you can
use a scale thing or you can draw in all
the notes in the scale move them to the
side in Ableton and press fold so let's
do that really
so these are all the notes in the key of
G minor natural so I'll just kind of
drag these in and then we'll move them
to the side and then we'll press that
we'll we'll just duplicate it down and
I'm not shit to the side by pressing the
left cursor key but if I press fold now
these are just the notes showing in the
key of G minor natural so if we use any
of these notes is gonna sound good
so let's build up our chords by building
them up just skipping a note each time
you
but we'll have to move it up an octave
bukas and they sound a bit
so I'm just going to draw in the basic
notes first and I will
it's another in my template
so I'm just skipping a note each time to
make these chords and then if I unfold I
can decide whether they should be major
or minor by just moving this the middle
one either up or down each time
so I want the last one to be major
because I thought the minor one sounded
a bit dodgy
okay okay on to the next thing is let's
add some kind of reverb to that but
first with Ben bonus stuff there quite
naturally played so he uses lots of
orchestral instruments so what I'm going
to do - you can either play this in if
you're good with piano or if you're not
then you can manually hold the command
key and just drag the notes so they're
not quite on exactly on the grid and
that will give it a bit of more of a
human feel so they're not all playing it
precisely the same
so if you heard their you know it's kind
of OneNote
it's before the others and we just add
some and you could even you know choose
different velocities for the notes as
well which give it give it even more of
a human feel but you know for brevity's
sake I'm not going to do that in this
example so here we go
and I'm actually gonna extend that last
cord much like in memoriam which I'll
refer back to several times we're not
trying to copy it remember but we are
using it as an inspiration for the vibe
of our track so I'm going to consolidate
that and make sure that loops turned off
just so I can drag that clip longer and
I'm just going to extend these last
notes
and although I usually do mixing a bit
later I'm going to add a reverb here
because I want to give it that ethereal
feeling as quickly as possible and the
way I'm going to do that is I'm going to
use it in the channel as opposed to on
the auxiliary Channel and I'm going to
use this freeze function on the reverb
which is a pretty cool effect so let's
just get the reverb sounding nice first
it's nice and big very Spacey and I'm
gonna put a utility to bump up the
volume of the whole track rather than
using this fader because I don't want no
I don't want to use all of the fader up
like this otherwise I've got nowhere to
go if I need to go louder so I'll just
put five decibels on there
and what we're gonna do is automate this
freeze function on and off so let me
just kind of minimize that don't need
those anymore so if we chose choose to
automate and what this does is it
freezes the reverb to go on infinitely
but obviously you want to kind of switch
it off before the next notes plays so
this will give that cool effect that
he's got in that track in Moorea you'll
really hear it at the end as well so you
can hear it's staying on forever
whoops I got spit it up there so it
gives it a really nice big field
and if it's too much reverb you can
always just notch back the dry/wet
control it that will do for now okay on
to the next thing we have got base and
sub-base so the base is really important
in all dance music so let's get straight
onto the base we're gonna take the base
notes from the chords that we've written
so let's put base in color it yellow and
again I'm just using the stock plugins I
will be using some of the sound toys
bundle as well because they are an
awesome third party bundle and you can
get that from below this video as well
and if you buy it through that link I
get a nice little bit of Commission
which kind of helps me run the channel
which is cool okay but you don't need it
you know you can do it with the stock
plugins but I'm gonna show you one cool
effect actually with one of the
soundToys plugins that you can't do with
a tables and stuff plugin okay cool this
base and we're just copying the base
notes from the piano chords and we're
just gonna paste them into our clip here
so we're just going to use the same
chords and we are going to use to do
what should we use actually that because
thankfully I'm gonna turn off this
reverb for the time being just because
it's distracting every time I press stop
and the freeze is on then you know it's
an issue because I can still hear it so
let's use wave table I'm just going to
use a stock sound from wave table base
let's try this first one how does that
sound
okay that's cool but it's a bit high up
so I'm just gonna grab it all command a
to select all then hold shift and press
down to notch it down an octave that's
too low actually what I'll do is I'll
split this base into two and have the
sub base one octave
but there's too many high frequencies so
I'm going to notch down the frequency
okay there's something going on here so
I'll have to go into the matrix and have
a look at what's going on velocity
we don't want it affecting the frequency
at all so let's turn that back to zero
and there's some kind of envelope
playing on the frequency as well so
that's better
that's more how we want it nice and low
so we turn off this and let's work on
this bass a bit
now we want a portamento sweep between
those notes I'm just gonna make them
overlap a bit like this you can see this
note is overlapping this one this note
is overlapping this one then we make
sure it's set to mono or it already is
and we've got glide on so let's have a
listen
so it kind of sweeps in between the
notes
and at the end it gets a bit boring so
I'm just gonna open up the envelope
choose MIDI control pitch Bend and then
I'm gonna do a pitch Bend at the end of
the bass just give it some character
so it's just to give it some extra
character and emotion okay let's split
this base out I'm gonna duplicate this
and I'm going to call it sub base like
so and I'm gonna use an operator for
this which is a super simple synth that
comes with Ableton as well operator
we just want a sine wave for this
and you can hear we need to make sure
this is monophonic as well at the moment
has got six voices we just want one
and it's not sliding between so we need
to add some glide turn that on and you
could choose the same glide amount you
know 112 BP 112 milliseconds just to
make sure they slide at the same time
but it's too high up for sub-base so I'm
gonna go in and I'm gonna grab them and
move them down an octave maybe not all
of them we'll see until they're almost
sub-audible see if I move this one
octave below you'll barely hear it so
I'll keep that up I might leave that one
low because you can you can just hear
that okay if you've got good headphones
or monitors you'll hear that low bass
note what I'm going to do is I'm going
to filter out the sub bass of our main
bass sound otherwise it's going to clash
with the sub bass so let's listen to
that on its own
so the sub-base can now be controlled
separately
see or hear rather
I need to make sure they're really pitch
bending the same amount as well - the
pitch Bend on this I don't know where is
it well anyway I think it's - I can't
remember where it is at the moment
probably a MIDI buffer pitch Bend
yeah pitch - so if we go into the sub
base we can make sure our pitch Bend
amount is - there as well there you can
see it defaults to 5 so we just make
that 2 and that means they both go down
at the same rate there so it kind of
sounds like one place now we are going
to group them together and call that
base and we're going to get that pumping
with the kick using sidechain
compression so I'll show you how to do
that really quickly and we're going to
add more processing - but this is what
we're gonna do at the moment so
sidechain compression then we're going
to go into percussion and the arpeggios
that make Ben bonus tracks so ethereal
and lovely so let's do this first
because we're going to use this
sidechain compressor on many of the
track channels so we're going to call
that pump come pump Compton open up the
sidechain options here and we're gonna
create a little sidechain track now what
I would usually use is Steve do this LFO
tool but because I'm trying to do this
in as much just using the Ableton 10
plugins as possible I'm gonna do it like
this so rather than using a kick for the
trigger I'm going to use a short sharp
hi-hat because the kick lasts too long
and it's going to duck everything too
much so I'll go to samples then I will
go to I shall goats drum hits and closed
and then I'm gonna put that into a
simpler where is my simpler I don't have
it there okay I'll just use a sampler
and then I will convert it to simpler
now I'll go back to my samples or my
drum it's your my mob drum hits boy here
we go
so I'm just gonna program them in on the
kick as you'd expect there we go
just on every beat ba-ba-ba-ba
and then I'm going to go to the routing
cuz you can hear it now but we don't
want to hear the tick so I'm going to
change it to send only
and minimizing and that means we can
just refer to it when we need it from
these other devices so sidechain audio
input from SC as you see I've called SC
for sidechain
and then I can just use attack and
release to get it pumping in the rhythm
that I want
cool okay that's working nicely so now
we can just copy and paste this whenever
we need the sidechain compressor all
right on to the next thing
percussion so been bohmers percussion is
very delicate as again some lovely
atmosphere in there so we're going to
add some tech note well some progressive
house atmosphere as well but first let's
get the drums going so we're just going
to go drums I'm going to use a drum rack
for this so I'll stick that there just
call it drums and we will be working on
this bass to make it even bigger and
leave here so don't worry about that
yeah
so we'll put drums in first thing to get
is the clap that would be the main thing
so I'm going to go to my drum hits got
those of drum hits all organized nicely
and I'm going to use a let's see lots of
different claps I'm going to use this
which is from a classic Lin drum machine
and yeah just put it on on every other
beat I like sound selection is so
important guys it's worth it's worth
spending the time on getting the right
sounds if you need to you can put
Ableton into hot-swap mode like this
when they're programmed in just press
this little button here and now I can
just press up or down and load in
different ones to preview them and you
want the one that sounds you know right
for what you're trying to achieve that's
the sound I want okay now I'm gonna add
a little bit of reverb to that and I'm
gonna do it on an aux Channel so I'm
just going to create an auxiliary
channel on Apple it's command alt and T
and then I'm gonna call that room for
room reverb and I'm gonna whack on a
Ableton delay Ableton reverb and I'm
gonna you program the drum to have that
reverb on it so you can press this
little button here in Ableton turn on
the routine turn on the returns right
click create return chain select room as
your output and now we have the room
reverb and we can control it by just
turn those off by turning on this s this
send thing here that so I'm gonna pump
it up nice and loud too loud so I can
get the K the right time and I want it
quite subtle so I'm gonna take off some
of the high end of the reverb
how's about right so it's it's quite
subdued and I'm gonna put a an EQ after
the reverb just to make sure there's
nothing happening in the low end that's
gonna muddy up the mix when we get to
that cool okay on to the next thing that
would be the hat sounds that sounds I'm
gonna go to the current project because
I've already saved some of them just for
the speed of it so I'm going to use this
one because it's got lots of lovely
tonal qualities to it and I'm just gonna
program it in super simply let's call
that hat and we're just going to loop
this level pattern and we can add a
little bit of well I wanted a bit softer
it's more of an atmosphere than anything
so we're gonna use classic I'm gonna
choose one voice so they don't overlap
and then just tweak the attack slightly
to soften it so it's more like a shaker
almost and then you can add some of this
reverb to
which you can't really hear because the
reverb has got a lot of the high end
rolled off so if we listen to the reverb
on its own you can kind of hear it just
so just to add all these little bits add
to the thickness and the richness of
this style of music okay on to the next
thing we are going to add a bit of a
kind of ride rhythm as well we are going
to have come in at a particular point in
the track when we get to the arrangement
which we will do so gonna go to my drums
again drag in this tambourine sound just
called a Tam and then add in a little
rhythm really simple just to give it
some more some more groove and then
repeat that excuse me I'll put one there
as well and then we're just gonna
duplicate that I'm gonna add some
interest to this so I'm gonna add a tiny
bit of delay and so it can bounce around
a bit ping pong turn reverb right down
so now the tambourines kind of bouncing
left and right a bit I just make sure
there's no untoward low-end in there
which there is so it's just cleaning up
the sounds as we go okay on to the next
thing
first let me know if you're liking this
guys give me a hell yeah in the comments
below because that lets me know I'm on
the right track I'm doing something that
you like so I'm just going to write what
time that was 52 1152 cool on to the
next thing these awesome awesome
arpeggios which is going to start giving
it some real character so if we just
write arpeggio we're gonna do this
manually and I'm going to do a sample
I'm going to use a sample for this and
all I'm gonna do is I'm gonna choose a
simpler you can use a synth for this but
as I said I'm just going to use a
sampler just to show that it is possible
and I've got this crappy piano sound
from decades ago so I'm gonna use this
but make sure it's tuned to the key of
the track so if I use my chords as an
example because it's a grand piano
middle C now my sampler yeah they're
they're in tune I might be chewing this
up a tiny bit and now let's draw in this
arpeggio so we're going to do it in the
key of G minor natural of course because
that's what the track is and this is
going to be a really subtle effect but
it's very important and this had some
harmonic content so
it's gonna sound really crap at first
but we'll make it sound good I promise
and you can use the template technique
here as well so if you kind of go to the
right and can I see my template maybe I
already deleted them
okay so I won't do it but you can draw
in all the you know all the notes in G
minor natural and use the template
technique if you want what those playing
really quickly that's kind of cool
so it's playing a 7th chord but really
quickly in succession and now what I'm
gonna do is I'm gonna just repeat that
and then we're gonna make it sound cool
and this is going to be playing
underneath the piano chords
maybe I will have that minor now I'll
leave it major
and now we can add some of that room
reverb to this can't really hear it so
I'm going to add it so in reverb I'll
create another aux Channel and I'm gonna
call it all and this is going to be
another reverb Ableton reverb so I can
just copy and paste that but with a much
longer decay to add a second reverb that
everything can use if we want it so we
need to turn off this high diffusion
because we want to hear the high end in
this now
and I'm going to add a utility because
the Ableton reverbs are usually quite
quiet
so it's more atmospheric and again you
might go in and kind of take off some of
the decay or the attack and you can hear
it already start sounding frankly
awesome and then you can start bouncing
it around a bit with a bit of auto pan
so let's get one of those on-the-go auto
pan on the arpeggio
- so it bounces around a bit and we are
going to get one of these pump pumps the
sidechain compressor remember that from
earlier and put that after here
we might not use all of those notes and
the cords so next we want to add some
atmosphere now this is important as well
so I've actually got a recording that I
took when I was DJing around the world a
few years I was in Thailand I think and
I recorded it and I've got loads like
this of just different field recordings
from atmospheres that I've I've recorded
around the world so the one I've got was
from a jungle whereas this one here we
go and I just made a really short loop
out of it and you know it's got
crackling noise in there you can hear me
kind of accidentally rubbing the
microphone so I'm just going to repeat
that and again you can get this in the
sample pack below for free I'm gonna
color it green because it's an effect
they're bright green and I'm going to
just listen to it with the chords and
these chords I'm going to add some extra
reverb and our I put the reverb that we
did earlier
now you can hear that jungle sound has
got the cicadas doing the really high
school kind of screech so I'm actually
just tuning the cicadas to the to the
key of the track so it's in tune and you
might want to take out some low end
and then use the pump compressor again
and get that sitting nicely with
everything else
you might even take that arpeggio down
now I want to beef that bass up so this
is where I'm going to use the soundToys
Decapitator students of my master class
actually get 50% off all the master
class sorry all the soundToys stuff
anyway so you can check out about my
master class below this video
so you can add you can hear it adding
some richness and what I'm gonna do now
is I'm going to group the kick and the
bass together like so and I'm gonna you
can just bust them if you're not using
Ableton but Ableton's got this cool
group thing so now the kick and the bass
so there's the bass bus which has these
two separate bases in it and then that
in turn is in the kick and bass bus so
it's kind of nested and this is so we
can gel the kick and the bass together
and getting get them really sounding fat
so I'm going to put another Decapitator
on the kick and the bass bus
and then tweak it
just a tiny bit though at this stage and
then I'm going to use this free plugin
bark of dog just to add some lower
harmonics
I'm going to boost it right up then
tweak this till I hear where the sweet
spot is
where it's resonating
about sixty Hertz Oh then I'll dial it
right back and then just add some in
so this is with none of our kicking base
processing
just a bit weaker bit less less gutsy
and actually this base the upper base so
not the sub base we can actually spread
that out using this other free plugin
called the but Berber Berber what is it
called it is the ozone imager and
there's I'll put a link to it below here
as well but you can spread out the base
now it's already pretty wide actually
there's not much need for that
I'll just turn that off so forget that
all right cool on to the next thing
is the strings as I said earlier been
boomers tracked are known for their
beautiful orchestration so we're going
to use some real strings I'm just going
to use the ones that come with Ableton
as well and we're just going to add some
extra notes based in that same key that
we've been using which is G minor
natural so let's just put strings here
and then let's choose one of the string
packs that come with Ableton this is
Ableton where are they this is the top
one I can't remember the suite Ableton
suite okay
strings let's get something lovely
that'll do and I strings ensemble that's
French for Ensemble right let's get some
beautiful heart-melting chords in I'm
just going to play along with the piano
chords I'll roll off some of the low-end
with the piano as well so it's not
clashing with the bass
and now let's play some strings
yet that's what I will do for the second
part of the the sequence
let's just stop that playing so this is
kind of good going to be building into
the repeat of the progression
again just using notes from is in the
key of G minor natural I'm just making
this up as ongoing guy as I'm going so
it might not be the best production in
the world but it's just to give you an
idea let's add some more reverb on the
auxilary
and next we are going to do a another
little riff just kind of rolling things
along in the background I feel it needs
more rhythm so I'm just gonna do another
piano actually so it gels in nicely and
we're going to play with those piano
chords as well so then we're going to do
a vocal and a couple of effects and then
some arrangement I know we're running
out of time so let's get this going okay
piano I'm going to delete the reverb I
don't want that just going to confuse
things I'll delete me utility and I'm
just going to repeat two notes over and
over for this
so that's what I'm gonna repeat over and
over and I'm gonna play it so we've got
some nice you know I'm actually really
playing it so we'll have some
discrepancies and velocity
okay I screwed up a bit at the end there
so I'm gonna do is split it into
consolidate that then I'm gonna actually
quantize it so it's nicely in time but
we want this sat right back in the rift
now in the mix
and then repeat it
make sure that we don't have any
unwanted low frequencies in the strings
okay so we are almost there now we're
going to add some extra kind of
excitement so what I'm going to do for
this is that actually I'm gonna sing
something so sorry in advance but I just
want to give it some texture and then
I'm going to convert it into a kind of
female voice by using formants and
picking it up a bit so here we go blah
blah blah can you hear me yeah simple as
that
gosh and now let's put complex Pro on
and play with the foreman see if we can
get it sounding a bit more like a girl a
woman
I mean you know it's a bit dodgy but it
does the job for the sake of this
example I'm just gonna add a bit of EQ
make sure the low ends taken out
Weaver
let's try the arpeggio up one octave
cool that's sounding pretty good now I
will just add a couple of bits of effect
so like something to start the phrase
with and then we will get on to making
this piano better and then a bit of
arrangement then we're done
cool so effect what effect should I use
I will go into my current project I
would just use this crash and just to
add some interest and what I can do is
actually use a a delay Miley's echo
because that's quite nice on a new
auxiliary Channel let's stop that piano
reverb so a new auxiliary Channel gonna
call this delay let's put this echo on
there and I'm going to make that that
kind of cymbal crash a cup a bit so
let's choose notes not dotted one two
four where is it
crash here we go
okay there's a high filter there we go
and now it just runs on a bit longer but
if I wanted to just have that play the
tail rather than the initial impact I
could automate that like this show
automating in new lane and then just run
up that automation after the initial
transient and then we've got this effect
so it's just a kind of ringing that's
delayed as opposed to the initial
transient see so this is a bit softer
and nicer okay with these piano chords
let's see what we can do what I'm gonna
do is just do a bit of an ad-lib cuz it
sounds nice ready hi
nice it's like someone's got my heart
they've opened up that heart and taken
another
so I hope that gives you an idea about
how to start developing this progressive
house sound as I said I've done this all
from scratch so it's not perfect but
I've shown you some really useful tips
if you've enjoyed it let me know smash
the hell out of that life but like
button give me a hell yet in the
comments below and download this project
and all the files I'm actually gonna
I'll do some more work on this so it
sounds better but in terms in fact in
terms of the baseline the Benbow my
baseline what you can do is let's
average us listen to the kick in the
bait
you can actually add a the second
oscillator you could bump that up seven
semitones and then you get this cool
effect
and then you could automate the
frequency as well as he does in that in
memoriam track
so that's pretty dope as well I know one
more thing we are now going to do a bit
of arrangement very quickly because it's
all about arrangement as well so I'm
just going to copy and paste some of
this and we're just going to develop it
slightly so you might just have the
arpeggio and the effect in the
background you know like the jungle
effects so let's try that and that might
be improved even with a bit of baseline
but you could turn off the sidechain
compression for that so it's less pumpy
and you probably want to you know take
the bass level down for this brain
and then it would go into you know the
very minimal beats
I probably take some of those notes out
from the cords just to make it a bit
less
and with the strings you wouldn't have
those repeating so you could add some ad
lib there as well
and you wouldn't you wouldn't overuse
that vocal as well but you can see how
you you'd start off with that lovely
beautiful ethereal atmosphere at first
and then you go into the beats and the
main idea
and then just develop those drums over
time as well and then you go into
another break but if you do want to if
you would want to arrange this into a
full track that's when you could use a
reference track to get a better
arrangement from it and I'll link to a
video there as well so there you have it
guys I really hope you enjoyed this
Benbow my progressive house tutorial
don't forget you can grab all the files
below this project completely free if
you want to find out more about my
master class then there's also a link to
that below as well where you can get 50%
off sound toys and loads of other
plugins too thanks for watching until
next time stay safe cheers and happy
producing
