Victor Valen
New member
When starting a progressive house track how would you guys start it out? Chord Progression, Bassline, Melody?
Starting A Progressive/Melodic House Track?
- Thread starter Victor Valen
- Start date
dannydawiz
New member
Set your tempo to 127-130bpm
I start off with a chord progression because if the chord progression isn't good then I won't like the track. I then try to find an instrumentation for that chord progression because if I don't like the instrumentation then I won't like the track. I'll decide whether or not I want the chord progression to be contained within pads, supersaws, plucks, or etc... Once I find the instrumentation it's usually taking up a lot of the mids. From there I add a bassline mimicking the root note of the chord progression and low pass it to get rid of any unnecessary high frequency information. A bassline should be just that... not a midline.
From that point forward I'll find my kick possibly layering it into three subsections. (low kick, mid kick, high kick.) I'll adjust the decay and compress them all together that way they sound like they're all one sample instead of being three different samples. I then do the same thing to my snare. Keep in mind you should only layer when you can't find a good sample already. You don't need to make things harder on yourself by layering 6 different samples.
From that point forward I try to find a hi hat pattern. I try to find a pleasant combination of open and closed to throw in some variation. Once this is done you should pretty much have the entire "atmosphere" of the rhythm section done with. Now it's time to decide whether you want to add some nice melodies or counter melodies. It's much easier for me personally to be able to tell whether a melody is unique if I already have the chord progression layed down.
Once you've created your melody ask yourself whether you want this to be played on a synth or you want it to be sung over vocals. If it going to be sung on vocals then you have to make sure that the melody is singable. It has to be in the right range for your vocalist otherwise the vocalist is going to have a very hard time recording it the way you want it recorded.
Once this is done congratulations!. You just created 8 bars of a progressive house track! From there you can usually repeat this for two sections of 8 so that the entire sections is 16 as a whole. Now you need to repeat this process over and make another 16 bar section. This time however you don't need to worry about creating another set of drums.
Now that you have two 16 bar sections simply add some FX/pitch risers/snare rolls in between the two sections so that they blend well together. Now you're going to make the intro. Start off with just the percussion section. Generally in progressive house tracks you have that 16-32bar intro going on. If that's what you're going after then start off with maybe just your kick, snare, & fx and then gradually every single 8 bars add in the other elements of your first 16 bar section. If you're going to add your chord progression makes sure that you only add the first chord of the progression. Generally during these intros/buildups the chord progression rests only on the first chord and doesn't move. You can add the entire chord progression once the intro is over and you get to the first verse.
So far the track should look something like this...
32 bar intro - 16 bar verse - 16 bar chorus.
If you want to add a prechorus then do so. All you have to do is find a way to add another 8 bars in between the verse and the chorus so that it looks like this.
32 bar intro - 16 bar verse - 8 bar prechorus - 16 bar chorus.
The chorus is generally the highest energy part of the track. This is the "banger" part of the track. After the chorus the energy is usually gonna fall back into the verse so that it looks like this...
32 bar intro - 16 bar verse - 8 bar prechorus - 16 bar chorus - 16 bar verse
You want to have a little bit of variation in between your verses that way the listener doesn't get bored and the track doesn't get to repetitive. Keep in mind none of these arrangement options are set in stone. These are just "stereotypical" progressive house arrangements. I'm not gonna try to claim that your chorus or verse always has to be in a certain order or length.I've seen 8 bar verses and 32 bar choruses if that's what you want to do. It's simply a matter of taste. Eventually you're gonna have a full arrangement that may or may not look something like this...
32 bar intro - 16 bar verse - 8 bar prechorus - 16 bar chorus - 16 bar verse - 8 bar prechorus- 16 bar chorus - 32 bar outro.
The 32 bar outro is going to be just like the intro except instead of adding elements every 8 bars you're going to remove them every 8 bars or so. There ya go! I'll see you on the beatport top100!
I start off with a chord progression because if the chord progression isn't good then I won't like the track. I then try to find an instrumentation for that chord progression because if I don't like the instrumentation then I won't like the track. I'll decide whether or not I want the chord progression to be contained within pads, supersaws, plucks, or etc... Once I find the instrumentation it's usually taking up a lot of the mids. From there I add a bassline mimicking the root note of the chord progression and low pass it to get rid of any unnecessary high frequency information. A bassline should be just that... not a midline.
From that point forward I'll find my kick possibly layering it into three subsections. (low kick, mid kick, high kick.) I'll adjust the decay and compress them all together that way they sound like they're all one sample instead of being three different samples. I then do the same thing to my snare. Keep in mind you should only layer when you can't find a good sample already. You don't need to make things harder on yourself by layering 6 different samples.
From that point forward I try to find a hi hat pattern. I try to find a pleasant combination of open and closed to throw in some variation. Once this is done you should pretty much have the entire "atmosphere" of the rhythm section done with. Now it's time to decide whether you want to add some nice melodies or counter melodies. It's much easier for me personally to be able to tell whether a melody is unique if I already have the chord progression layed down.
Once you've created your melody ask yourself whether you want this to be played on a synth or you want it to be sung over vocals. If it going to be sung on vocals then you have to make sure that the melody is singable. It has to be in the right range for your vocalist otherwise the vocalist is going to have a very hard time recording it the way you want it recorded.
Once this is done congratulations!. You just created 8 bars of a progressive house track! From there you can usually repeat this for two sections of 8 so that the entire sections is 16 as a whole. Now you need to repeat this process over and make another 16 bar section. This time however you don't need to worry about creating another set of drums.
Now that you have two 16 bar sections simply add some FX/pitch risers/snare rolls in between the two sections so that they blend well together. Now you're going to make the intro. Start off with just the percussion section. Generally in progressive house tracks you have that 16-32bar intro going on. If that's what you're going after then start off with maybe just your kick, snare, & fx and then gradually every single 8 bars add in the other elements of your first 16 bar section. If you're going to add your chord progression makes sure that you only add the first chord of the progression. Generally during these intros/buildups the chord progression rests only on the first chord and doesn't move. You can add the entire chord progression once the intro is over and you get to the first verse.
So far the track should look something like this...
32 bar intro - 16 bar verse - 16 bar chorus.
If you want to add a prechorus then do so. All you have to do is find a way to add another 8 bars in between the verse and the chorus so that it looks like this.
32 bar intro - 16 bar verse - 8 bar prechorus - 16 bar chorus.
The chorus is generally the highest energy part of the track. This is the "banger" part of the track. After the chorus the energy is usually gonna fall back into the verse so that it looks like this...
32 bar intro - 16 bar verse - 8 bar prechorus - 16 bar chorus - 16 bar verse
You want to have a little bit of variation in between your verses that way the listener doesn't get bored and the track doesn't get to repetitive. Keep in mind none of these arrangement options are set in stone. These are just "stereotypical" progressive house arrangements. I'm not gonna try to claim that your chorus or verse always has to be in a certain order or length.I've seen 8 bar verses and 32 bar choruses if that's what you want to do. It's simply a matter of taste. Eventually you're gonna have a full arrangement that may or may not look something like this...
32 bar intro - 16 bar verse - 8 bar prechorus - 16 bar chorus - 16 bar verse - 8 bar prechorus- 16 bar chorus - 32 bar outro.
The 32 bar outro is going to be just like the intro except instead of adding elements every 8 bars you're going to remove them every 8 bars or so. There ya go! I'll see you on the beatport top100!