Hey @jamieha
Those 2 video by Cubase YT channel should help :
( You need to continue the discussion on the Forums to see the links )
and I suggest you to have a look at those full Cubase tutorials from Protoculture if you haven’t watch them yet :
Hey , this was a while ago… would have to watch the video again. I’m not sure there’s much to explain, a lot of the time I just go by ear as to what sounds right and what doesn’t… drop me a line though with the video number from this series and maybe a time that I can just go check it out again and come back to you.
@Protoculture Can you explain the chord progression in more details. I don’t understand, please
EDIT : It’s Tutorial 05 - Chord Structure Layering - Is it the key of E minor, Really get stuck here
Hey @jamieha
You might feel like being stuck if you’re sticking too much with music theory here and I think that @Protoculture comment leads to one key point here : how does it sound in the end. Focusing on standard music theory will let you think the chords progression is wrong because you’re gonna find notes outside of the scale or jumps between scales or chords that won’t make any sense in conventional music theory.
Especially in electronic music, you also have to think about frequencies and tonality, especially with synths and it’s a common practice to add extra notes to fatten a synth sound for example. The same goes if you feel like the sound needs more mid/high tonalities. You have to forget the rules and this can help to craft a chord progression that really match the sound and feel of the instrument & track.
If you google something like “how to make chords progression like Deadmau5” you will find some interesting videos showing you how he does it, not following any music theory rules ( or just very minimal ones ) & not recording his chords live into the Daw, because he’s not a pianist at all, he’s crafting very complex chords progression just with the click & mouse.
So really, if you try to focus on this part in the track and are able to replicate the same sound, just correct the progression and make one following the rules and listen back through Protoculture’s progression vs the “standard” one, you should “hear” what I’m trying to explain.
There’s a lot ike this going on in electronic music production like custom chords/scales, adding/removing notes, using ghost notes, layering synths playing -12/+12 semi-tones same chords and then using delays…etc.
Forget the rules & focus on the sound, that’s really the key point here IMHO.
Hey @jamieha
That chord progression is not standard, it could be considered a mixture of phrygian and locrian scales with inverted chords.
It is important to know basic music theory, but it is not strictly necessary. The important thing is to: feel, experience and express. What sounds good, is good.
Regards.
Pretty much what @Tekalight said… more about what it sounds like than what would be typically done according to theory. That said, if you want the theory behind why those chords are like that, look up chord voicing as well as suspended, add and diminished chords. If you’ve got something like the chord track in Cubase you can play around with chord modifications really easily. There’s a lot more too it than just major and minor chords.
Great tips… Nice job by showing hints around kick & bass, vengeance and FB plugs, bus processing and Mastering. Thank you!
Extreme help. Thank you.
This is one of the best courses I’ve seen.
Amazing tutorial!
I liked this one!
Best Tutorial ever!!!
:0
Try dragging out the audio after its processed… otherwise a work around is to add a block of silence after the audio, then paste them together and then process it offline.
Amazing tutorial and loved the fact that he made it from scratch and got to see him go through the trial and errors which you don’t often see with some tutorials!
I have Ableton Live 10 and I followed the tutorial without problem, I have haved that adapted Ableton Live’s plugins to the project.
Is there any chance of getting the DUNE 2 presets? I’m using a different DAW and DUNE 3, so saving them from the project files seems infeasible.
Checked the course resources and while there’s a Dune Arps.midi file, no preset in there, it must be only available from the Cubase Project, and of course if it uses Dune 2 and you ave Dune 3 version installed, Cubase won’t load the plugin, thus you won’t be able to save the DUne 2 preset from Cubase to reopen it with Dune 3 in a new Porject.
Unless @Protoculture still have that Dune Arps Preset or another subscriber that owns Cubase & both Dune 2 & 3 , I advise you to try to recreate the preset by ear from the course video. The Midi file is in the resources and you might some DUne 2 GUI display in the tutorial videos to help. Also check your own presets, many time you’ll be able to find a similar preset in your own plugins libraries, it’s more easy than starting from scratch & a blank preset.
I’m on video 7 , this tutorial is great, thanks very much for doing it from scratch so we get to see everything develop. It’s a great track too!!
