Cubase Music Production 8622 Song Form

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Cubase Music Production 8622 Song Form

hello everybody andrew blake from thedigitalaudiomanual.com and in today's episode of cubase music production we are going to look at song form but before we start i want to remind you that there's a link below to the free content navigation guide which is an easy to navigate webpage with links to all the content on this channel and besides that in the near future i'm going to begin adding tips and other bits of information that will only be available there you know things like simple steps that will get you started and up and running quick things that are in the videos but are written down in simple steps that serve as quick reminders when you need information down the road if you're working with programs like wavelab or cubase plug-ins or the cable guys shaperbox2 and many many other projects that are in the works then i know you're going to find just like i have that this is an invaluable study aid and the other thing i want to make sure you understand is that this is not a simple pdf this is a constantly updated page that has any information that is new or anytime videos are changed really anything updated and once you have it you will always have the latest information constantly updated so if you haven't gotten it already go to the link below click on it and save it to your favorites it's my gift to you and it's absolutely free okay so let's get started okay so we are now on the third video of this production series where we're building a song from scratch all the previous videos are in the link for the navigation guide below but where we're at today is we've kind of built a basic section got it kind of got some sounds in place and a few little elements coming and going and now we're going to discuss the song form and this is really where this all began in terms of where i was trying to put a series of videos together to share with you i had been researching some popular music libraries and analyzing some of the composer's work and i noticed and paid attention to the song forms that were being used in the successful recordings and that's what i wanted to share with you to you know this concept that there is a form to things that form is obviously different depending on what you're writing what genre you're in it's a big huge topic that can go all over the place but we're focusing on library music at this particular juncture and in specific uh the tune that i've been researching and referencing is built on this kind of a structure if you look at the top of the project i have an arranger track broken into various sections and i've labeled them a b c d and then a b c d again and this is how the track that i've been analyzing is basically uh built and composed it consists of eight sections one two three four five six seven eight and then some kind of ending at the end i have a little red part in the beginning but this is just empty space but the song actually starts a b c d and then a b c d again so the question is you know how do you fill out the time for eight sections of music i mean what are the steps to do that so we kind of got going on the first one let me quickly play it for review here's the first section that we've built so far [Music] so the question now comes up if we are to try to build a song based on this formula structure whatever you want to call it how in the world do we now take that piece and repeat it out eight different times and make it interesting unrepetitive the list goes on and on what tools can we you know use and bring into the the session to help us you know make this happen we certainly can't take our little a section that we've now created and just repeat it eight times no matter who you are whether you're a music professional or just a casual listener you're probably not gonna make it from the beginning to the end without going that's it i can't take it anymore so i'm here to try to share some tips tricks and help uh you know give some kind of path forward now remember and this is i want to emphasize this i'm what i'm doing here you know with the sounds that i'm using and the kind of style i guess if you could call it i don't even know what style this is to be honest but whatever that says we're creating here you don't have to do anything similar to this your thing could be completely different you could have two guitars a bass or you could have an organ or you could you know whatever or you could make this all with vocals what i'm trying to get across to you is how to take a basic idea move it through in this case these eight sections from beginning to end and come up with some kind of finished song these pieces and parts and tips that i'm giving you about bringing elements in out and the way we're going to try to go through this these things can be transferred to all different kinds of styles and in fact they are out there in the real world that's the way it really works in many ways but for focus sake this is what we're doing and the other thing is the idea of the song form why that's important because just like almost everything else in life the more you kind of know where you're heading the more likely it is you're going to get there and if you have some kind of song form laid out before you actually even build your track and so you have some idea what you're trying to accomplish the more likely is you're going to go from the beginning idea to the final ending product so that's what we're trying to do here so all that being said the best i can do here because there are no hard fast rules we're dealing with creativity and music and unfortunately there are no hard fast rules but i'm going to give you some tips on uh that i have you know from analyzing this other person's work and i'm going to share these tips and if they serve you great you know that's what i'm hoping to do all right so the very first part of the equation what i would recommend for what we're for the path we're on here is we've built a first section somewhat again none of these things are perfect yet or completely finished we're just rough ideas with everything but we have some kind of basic idea so the very first thing we're going to do now is repeat this and see if we can change it up we want to keep developing these ideas and moving them along and not repeating that's what that's the first goal in what we're trying to achieve here so that's where this arranger track in cubase really helps move us along i can open up the arranger track i can pick the part that i'm working on in this case the a section i can click it to go two times and that way it'll give me the first part of it and it'll give me the second one as a repetition of it and after the arranger gets done working its magic i now have a repeat of my initial a section it's going to start out playing the a section let's do it again and then it's going to play the a section again exactly the same way our question to be answered is what can we now do to this repetition of the a section to make it different so a couple of things i'll throw out again none of this stuff is i wish it was i wish there was a solid formula to say this is what you need to do every time there is no such thing when you're dealing with music but i'm still going to lay out some tips and tricks to try to give us some help in this area the first thing i would say when you have the initial softer section going into now the second section two elements i would throw in there number one the kick drum number two the base so what we have in this first section has no kick drum and no bass so when we get to the second section we want to get a kick drum and a bass going so we did that kind of stuff when we created the song way back in the previous video so i already have a bass part here so i just have to unmute it so i'm going to do that i'm going to unmute the bass part and i also have a kick drum i created that back in you know three videos ago so i'm going to turn the kick drum on now just that much let's listen to what that did to the song from the beginning [Music] and that is the concept every section you want it to be a little bit different and build it a little bit more so now we have to move on and create another section and see if we can get something going on that okay i kind of went off camera here for a minute and did my own thing to develop these parts and again everything is still just roughed in but i'm going to show you uh kind of what i did so what i what i did is i took my first section and repeated it as we were talking about but instead of just doing the same thing i actually dropped out some of the main sounds that i started with and i threw in some completely different sounds so there's another concept to be had just like we said you can pop you know in the second section go ahead and throw the kick drum and the bass in there you can actually just drop out some of your original sounds especially ones that have been focused right from the beginning and throw in some completely different sounds i mean really the possibilities go on and on what's great is that because we have this chord track there's still going to be some kind of reference to the song to where it sounds like it's the same song because everything is following this chord track in other words we're not going so completely astray that we're making you know eight different songs as we go along here that's all going to have the same kind of theme or feel to it but by dropping out some sounds and bringing in some different sounds we get a whole different thing so let me play you what i did here and i also came up with some percussion fills just to throw something different on the drums themselves so now we have but now it's going to be a completely different part [Music] i dropped out some of the main arps threw in some different scents [Music] but the idea is that in the beginning light no bass no kick the second section bring in a kick a bass start either dropping some of your actual sounds or add some different sounds go on to the next section keep the kick and the drums and still in there don't drop those out yet and maybe you know add even some more sounds or take out some other sounds in other words just try to make it different and then finally when we get to this fourth section when we repeat this we're going to drop that kick and bass out again and that's going to make a significant change in the way it sounds so let's kind of i'm going to play it from here going into this fourth section [Music] kick base out see a huge difference [Music] so there you go so that's the assignment for this time around what you want if you're going along with me on this and you're trying to build a track as well try to do that come up with your first eight bars okay just whatever the basic ideas you can use my ideas or you know come up with something completely different based on having a chord track and then build it out four different repeats of that you know a b a c and a d section and on every one of these try to make it slightly different on the b section and the c section bring your base and your kick in or whatever your drums are just get the beat you know get your full drums going at that point in your bass and then once you get to this d section drop that base uh the full base and the kick out of there and you know go back to smaller elements again and see what you can come up with from there and then i will share ideas on where to go from here to not repeat this the next time all right as usual if you haven't grabbed the navigation guide be sure to grab that before you go links to all the content on the channel and the production videos are going to eventually go into their own section but everything's listed there so you can find stuff you're interested in as we move along in this series building this track from beginning to end we're going to go through the mixing and we're going to go through the mastering of this as we progress along alright that's it try to do something try to create something and i will see you guys in the next video