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Anyone have any tips or articles on how to write better melodies, not just something that sounds like you're playing through a single scale in different synths?

This video has me inspired lol really like the tune : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIBnNiM ... ature=plcp

A piano midi keyboard that's plugged into the computer helps.

But if you're using FL Studio you can use the Piano Roll with your mouse and figure out a melody with your ears by putting notes in different lengths that are still in timing....it's how I've done it for awhile but I use Ableton Live now so it's a bit different.

I play self-taught myself guitar/piano/drums. So it helps a shit ton playing a musical instrument and trying to make a song up and never really learning other peoples songs/doing covers.

I checked out some of your songs, I like some of the patches you used for the wobbles/basses.

Btw Parkway Drive is sickkkk. I've seen them 3 times total some years back.

Haha thanks. Im looking at getting a midi keyboard. And yeah parkways the best :p

Learn a fuckload of scales, arpeggios, chords, progressions, stuff like that. And when i say learn scales, i mean obscure foreign sounding scales that you are not comfortable with. I promise you'll make something interesting if you get out of your comfort zone.

Parkway Drive is sick

First show I ever attended - crazy way to pop my cherry...

just comes with practice man, keep making melodies and youll keep improving, iv been producing 4 years now and my melodies still suck arse

Fl studio has a riff generator in the tools section. It's useful when your having a block or can't figure out notes and stuff. You can switch the vst to whatever you want too. That's the cheaters way though. Coming up with your own melody is tough. I can tell you that I always have one in my head before I even hit a key. Then I just try to find the notes I have in my head. I'm self taught, but that doesn't mean I haven't read books on music theory. Trying to compose music without atleast fundamental knowledge of music theory is almost like trying to rewire electric for a house without being an electrician.

If your thinking of getting a midi controller I recomend the akai mpk mini. It is tiny,cheap,efficient and has a bit of everything. 25 keys, 8 pads and 8 assignable knobs. From there you can decide if you want to go for a launchpad type controller or a better midi keyboard. It's cheap enough to figure out your style and perfect to integrate with your upgrades.

Anyways...my best advice is to start humming melodies to yourself, once you have a great one in your head...then try and figure out the notes and such.

Good luck!

check out this vid its got some great pointers on melodies and harmony

I notice from a lot of the stuff in the dubs forum and WIP thread that people tend to stick to a limited range of notes, usually within an octave (and sometimes not even that!). My advice then is to be to a little braver with playing up and down the keyboard. As useful as the structures of musical theory are for guiding composition they can also be quite restrictive, especially for beginners. Write music first and worry about the theory later imo.

Wtf, that song in the op is, like, the fifth direct rip-off of Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites I've seen on here. I understand following a conventional structure, but jesus, it's like the same fucking song...
Anyways, you really just have to start writing melodies. Get your pads or bass down, then find a nice lead sound and play around in the scale. Pay attention to how each note interacts with the previous note and chords underneath it, what moods or feelings they convey, then arrange them into a melody that takes you on a journey. When you're first starting out try to keep the notes fairly close together, like, no sudden octave jumps or anything like that. Imagine your melody as a character on a journey with a start point and and an end point, then try connect the two. What happens to your character between point a and point b, then point a again? Just be creative and have a mood in your mind.

Try writing a song with like one, two maybe three instruments and a beat. Try to depend on melody and harmony to get the song to sound good instead of the production. Then you can rip off some of these idea's and use them in a full on track

Also, try writing a melody in a major key, then transpose it to its relative key (which should fit dubstep more). You'll end up with much more interesting melodies you wouldn't have otherwise thought of this way

Earjax wrote:Also, try writing a melody in a major key, then transpose it to its relative key (which should fit dubstep more). You'll end up with much more interesting melodies you wouldn't have otherwise thought of this way

Could you ellaborate on this? I'm sure this is easily done within ableton with the scale midi effect?

Dankstep wrote:

Earjax wrote:Also, try writing a melody in a major key, then transpose it to its relative key (which should fit dubstep more). You'll end up with much more interesting melodies you wouldn't have otherwise thought of this way

Could you ellaborate on this? I'm sure this is easily done within ableton with the scale midi effect?

Probably, I don't use ableton but basically what you would do is write a nice melody in say A major, then transpose it (change the notes) to the key of its relative key, which is F# minor. Something that seems boring but will really help is just brushing up a little on your theory, there's a thread somewhere in here that has everything you need to know.

Musictheory.net Is a really great resource. They go from reading notes to neopoliten progressions, haha.

Killamike49 wrote:Learn a fuckload of scales, arpeggios, chords, progressions, stuff like that. And when i say learn scales, i mean obscure foreign sounding scales that you are not comfortable with. I promise you'll make something interesting if you get out of your comfort zone.

This! I made the thing below the other day with the F Hungarian Minor gipsy scale. It's a slight variation on F Lydian with a sharp 2nd.

Soundcloud

Best thing to do is just pick a scale at random (I'm not talking basic Major/Minor crap, go for really odd stuff like B flat Locrian or something), fuck with chord progressions, basic triads and find a decent prog. Then mess with melody over the top till you find something that works. Then go about switching up a few notes in the chords till you find something else that flows, that's not actually the scale you've picked. Then try and see if it's actually scale, or close to an obscure scale e.t.c.

Right there you've just taught yourself some very avante garde material/knowledge to use.

i have a tip that you could think is extremely retarded but it works for me, lets say im writing a melody but certain parts of it dont sound as good..
so then i temporarily low pass and reverb my master a lot so it sounds like the song is being heard from outside a club.
it somehow inspires me to write a better melody after hearing it this way (especially with bass drops etc)
also i find pressing randomise on dblue glitch just to hear random parts of the melody being retriggered, reversed etc can help inspire ideas as well.
also as someone else said stick to just a few notes if its starting to feel a bit too difficult.

Fat Person Torturer wrote:Haha thanks. Im looking at getting a midi keyboard. And yeah parkways the best :p

This is your starting point - then spend an hour reading up on a few scales, and play. And play... and play. I used a lot of melodies and stuff in my own tunes - if I didn't I'd be totally lost - my melodies and stuff are what get me lost in what I'm making (and I love it).