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Lesson Info

Adding Effects and Instruments

OK. Now we're going to be looking at adding sound effects and build up effects to this track. What I recommend doing. First of all, if you haven't already done, this is go over to Logic Pro X over here, go down to sound library and download all available sounds right here. If you've downloaded them, you won't be able to click on it. And if you can click on it, make sure you download everything you want. The latest sounds from logic and then click on the loop here. Also, I have been using Logic Pro for many years and have built up a lot of different sounds. So if you don't have as many loops as me, don't worry, just make sure you download all the available sounds. And in this loop library, you can basically choose the certain instruments or effects you want here. We have different genres or we can just type in here and search whatever we want. I'm just leaving it on all genres. Now, let's just type in FX and we can just go through and literally just sample some of these. So it actually ...

changes the key to the key of your song down here and you can change original key or choose a key and it's really just about going through and finding some suitable effects. So I'm just going to fast forward this and we're gonna find some suitable effects that we can use in this song. Found these here called boom effects. I think this can be really useful and effective for bringing in new sections. So let's just drag this over. It is an audio file. So it will be in blue. I use this a few times throughout the song here as well when this new section enters and here as well when this new section enters. So let's just hear some of this and see if it suits the song. That's what it's all about. There's no point throwing in loops, there's no point throwing in the effects unless it actually fits the track. OK? I think that works. Let's try it here. That one, not so much. And here that one I think works. OK? Now, I want some reverse effects. Let's type in reverse, see what we get here. There's other ones as well that haven't actually downloaded yet. So if you click on these drop down arrows, this will actually download some of the ones that haven't been downloaded just to let you know, because we do want to maximize all these loops and maximize all the effects that logic pro actually gives us. So let's try this one. Booming reverse. That's interesting. But to be honest, I do think it's too mylod, there's too many notes going on. I just want more of a sound effect that doesn't really have a melody. So I'm just gonna fast forward this and find a sound effect that's also suitable for this track. So I found this one here called Reverse Ambience, which I think sounds really awesome. This could be great as a starting effect. So let's just drag this over right to the start. I think this could sound interesting. It could not work. But the great thing is we are recording on the digital audio workstation. So if it doesn't work, we just delete it. Let's try it here. That's good. However, I do want this loop to stop when that base part enters. So we can always go through and trim these loops that so and then I'm going to find a couple more places to put this in. I think it works well going building up to the base part. Let's put it here as well. Remember to hold down alt to copy over any loop and maybe here as well. I don't want to put it in too much cos it will get a little bit too repetitive. But of course, I want the sta but the n few places. OK. So we've got a reverse effect. We've got boom effects and now I'm just gonna find some little intricate effects just to make it sound a bit more interesting and kind of a bit weird to make the song a bit more exciting. So I'm gonna fast forward this again or I might be here a while finding a loop. It can take hours sometimes to find a decent sound or a decent loop. So, don't get disheartened if it takes you a while to find some interesting sounds for your track. So, I've actually gone through and typed in guitar. I thought a new element would be nice just to make this song a bit more exciting. So I found this Cuban cha cha guitar number three. I think this suits the song really well. What you can do as well is actually play the track and then click on the loop and it will play so you can hear what it sounds like in the mix and it has a whole other family of loops as well. So if you want to go to another one that has a slight variation, we can easily do this. The only thing with this is some of the notes don't fit when the courts change. However, because this is green, it's midi information, which means we can actually change some of these notes. I'm gonna drag this over into our project and then just click on it and have a look at the notes. So it's currently just playing AC and A G and then it has a passing note of A B flat and A B. So it's kind of uh out of tune. This b I quite like it. I think it works. Doesn't have to be perfect because the passing could always change this to ac, we could change this B to a B flat, could change this to an A flat. Let's back up to a B. So let's hear this loop now, I think it should fit with the C minor chord. OK. And if we loop it in, when the base enters, we can hear if it actually fits or not, it doesn't sound as good as it originally did. So we can go through and change it even more. The semi to movement was kind of the thing that made it work really, I can always go through and change it. So let's try something like this. So what I did there is I changed the notes around. So it's based around the route, the fifth, the fourth, these are perfect. So the fit in major and minor and then the minor third for which is E flat in C minor and then the G and the B flat which is the seventh, which is a passing note. So I think this suits the track a lot better and fits a lot better too. So we can just drag this over here because it's actually the same chord over and over again. And then when this Arpeggio enters, it actually changes to another court, I'm actually gonna get rid of this loop. Just because loops do annoy me a lot of the time, especially when arranging. So I'm just gonna drag this over like so, and then we have this new section here and then we need to look A T the cords and remember what they a re so it goes to a B flat. So the second one is a B flat. So we just need to remember halfway through here, it goes to a B flat. So this won't fit this, we can move to an F. The easiest thing to do is we could just select it all and just move it down a tone. We've got F which fits, we've got E flat. We just change to ad, then we've got F that fits and then F that fits B flat that fits. OK. So let's hear this back. I'm gonna color this different Alton C just so I know it's a slightly different part that fits. And then the third chord is this one here, which is the F minor. So let's just drag this over and F minor. So that fits the C, the G, we can move this up to in a flat which is the third F fits. Move this up to an A flat. Move this, this, this is the seventh, but I don't really like the sound of that personally. So I'm gonna move that to an F. OK, let's say this back. I'm just moving the outside the fit with the cord. So there's a couple of notes here that could change this one here. Let's try it as ac that doesn't really work. So what we can do is just find the original one and then we can just drag it up 1/ sift this wax. OK. And then we just change the notes to the fit and the key. So we have ac that fits, have the B flat that fits. Yeah, it's 1/4. I have to say that fits the A flat which fits, see, fits a flat fits, see, and then we've got say and D sharp, which is the seventh which fits so we can just drag it up. It's kind of the cheeky way of doing it. And then we have the last ones put this in time which is an E flat major cos we have the G and the A flat. So from here it goes to E flats. So what we can do as well is just drag this down a town. So we have the B flat, the fits a flat, the fits. Yeah. Yeah. And C# can change it to ad OK. And let's hit us back. Now, we have this guitar riff that actually fits with the cords. And now we're going to fast forward this and just arrange this guitar and I'm also going to change some of the notes so it fits with the B section as well. What I've basically done is just copy the guitar all the way over and then change the guitar parts to fit this B section. If you remember we had the E minor chord and ad major chord that didn't really fit. However, now I'm not really too sure about the sound of this guitar, so I'm going to change it to another instrument in house music. Marimba is a popular instrument. So I'm going to go to a mullet and marimba and let's just hear this back. Now, the other thing with this now it does get lost in the mix. It gets a little bit too muddy. So you have to be careful when the Arpe Gators playing, when the baseline's playing doesn't really fit. But we can allow this to come in in certain sections and just add a new element really. So I wouldn't have it throughout all the way through or it can get lost someone like this. It can work. We can always go into the instrument if we hit the mixer and change a few things around. So this is the exs 24. Now, it's kind of the same frequency as the Arpe Gator. So it does really get muddy. That's another thing you need to work out when you're creating the songs don't have the frequencies clash too much. We can do this with EQ another thing we can do is actually pitch up or even pitch down. So if we go into the channel strip here and just above, we go down to region with quantize and just below this, we have transpose, I'm gonna transpose this up one octave. So plus 12. Now, if we hear this back, it should be an octave high then with the Arpeggio to plays, it shouldn't clash as much. It still does clash. There is still much going on. That's what arrangement is about finding what clashes and maybe just taking it out. So when the Arpege plays, I'm not gonna have this Marimba playing places in the song like here when there isn't an Arpeggio, I can add this number in or even I could take the Arpeggio to write one thing you need to do when producing music is not get attached to, to anything just because it took you a while to write. That part doesn't necessarily mean it's the right part for the song now adding this Marimba in. I really like it. I think it adds more interesting element to the song. However, I think it clashes with the bass part and the Arpeggio. So there's two things we could do here. One is we delete this new part and carry on with what we had or the second, which I prefer is try and improve what you have. So I will need to go in and change the Arpeggio or even delete it and change the base part. That's what songwriting is about. It's about constantly improving. You can't just throw in loads of ideas and just hope it all works. You have to analyze everything you do and work out why stuff doesn't work and then try and improve it. You need to have space for every instrument to be heard. And I hope this lecture's helped you realize that stuff isn't perfect straight away. It takes a long time to go through, which is why I've included these real time walk through. So you can see my process. There's one thing actually saying it is another thing me actually showing it you in real time. So I hope you found this useful and next lecture we're going to be actually rewriting and learning from our mistakes and learning from adding new elements. So thank you for watching this lecture and I'll see you in the next one.