Developing texture and timbre in EDM

Hello, and welcome to lesson three in the unit EDM remixing. This lesson is called Developing Texture and Timbre in EDM. My name is Mr. Chapman. Without further ado, let's jump right into this lesson. By the end of this lesson, you will be able to create a cordal part and develop the texture and timbre in your EDM remix. This lesson has five keywords. They are chord sequence, texture, thick texture, fin texture, and synth pad. A chord sequence is a pattern of chords that usually lasts for four, eight, or 16 bars. The texture of a piece of music is how many layers of the sound are heard at the same time, and how they fit together. A piece of music has a thick texture if there are many different musical layers playing at the same time. A piece of music has a thin texture if they are very few musical layers playing at the same time. A synth pad is a synthesiser that creates a sustained sound suitable for thickening texture. This lesson is in three parts. The first part is looking at texture in the EDM. So texture in music is the layers of sound and how they fit together. A few musical layers would be described as a thin texture. An example of this would be a singer performing with a guitarist, playing some simple chords. Could be that the singer's singing round and around and around and around, and just have some chords supporting it. This is a thin texture 'cause there's only two voices being played at the same time, and the music is relatively sparse. But if you add a drummer playing a drum groove and a bass guitarist playing a bass line to the singer and the guitarist, this would make the texture thicker. Because we've added more layers, we've added more instruments. So now we have the vocals, the chords, a bass line and a drum group. So you can see that what once was quite sparse is now a lot more complex and there's more layers. So we would call that a thicker texture than the previous example. So this is a thin texture example in an EDM song. So there are a few musical layers playing at the same time, and I wonder if you can determine how many layers you can hear. Now to listen to this musical example, you're going to have to go to the slides and press the listen button. This will open up a new tab where you can enjoy the example, and you can play as many times as you want before coming back to this video and pressing play to move on with the lesson. So in that example, you may have identified that there was a singer, a bass line, a drum groove, and a single note in the synth strings. So overall, the music did sound quite sparse. Let's compare it to a different example. This example is a thick texture, and there are many different musical layers. Again, when we listen to this piece, let's try and think about how many different layers of music we can hear. For this piece, again, we're gonna have to go over to the slides and press the listen button. I'll let you do that, and when you come back, when you're ready, come back to the video and press play. So we had a thicker texture example that was created because there were two different vocal parts. There was a bass line and a drum groove and chords. So we had a lot more layers than we did in the first example. Importantly, adding more singers to the same vocal line does not change the texture, texture refers to the number of different layers in the music rather than the number of people or instruments. So in EDM music, artists can create different variety within the repetitive ideas by varying the texture throughout the piece. We'll listen to some more examples. In this song the texture changes throughout, as most songs do. Although there is no fixed rule, a typical approach is to have a thin texture in the verse and a thick texture in the chorus. Let's take a listen to the verse and the chorus. Again I'm gonna ask you to go to the slides to do this. And whilst you're listening, I want you to think about what effect does this have on the music. Once you've listened to both examples and think about the answer to that question, come back to the video and press play. So changing the texture maintains interest and builds the energy. It can also develop within a section of the piece. As songwriters or producers or people who are in charge of when the verse and chorus occur and when the texture is thick and thin, we can control that engagement of the listener. We can build up to things by adding texture, and we can create a bit of movement within the structure of piece by changing the texture. So textural changes are very, very important. And one section that can be used to have a very different texture to what we've heard before is a middle eight, which as the name implies, is often an eight bar section of a piece in the middle of the piece. Or actually sometimes it's towards the end of the piece where the material in that section is contrasting to what we've heard before. So let's have a listen to that section. Again, you'll head to the slides to listen to this example before coming back to this video and pressing play. Great. So you might have noticed that although it's subtle, the music gets slightly busier throughout this section, creating a buildup to the final chorus. So over time, throughout this section, more and more layers have been added, building up that texture. So true or false. This example has a thick texture. I'm gonna give you some time now to pause the video and listen to that example, and then we'll come back and go through the answers. Okay, so before we say whether it was true or false, we're gonna think about a justification for our answer. So, A, there are many musical layers playing at the same time, or B, there are only a few musical layers playing at the same time. Well done if you said it was false because there are only a few musical layers being played at the same time. So well done if you got that right, and don't forget to correct your answers if you didn't. Another question, what effects does changing the texture have on the music? Again, I'm gonna give you a little bit of time to think and maybe write down your answer as well, and then I'll throw out some ideas for you. Great, so you might have said something similar to it maintains interest and builds energy. And that brings us on to our first task of this lesson. We're going to listen to four examples and think about whether the music has a thick or a thin texture. So we're listening out for the amount of different remember, layers. If there are 25 singers singing the same thing at different pictures that wouldn't change the texture. Remember, it has to be different layers. There are four examples here. My recommendation is that you pause the video after I've given the instruction, and go ahead to the slides and open up these four different tabs. Listen to them once or twice and write your answers on the worksheet. Once you've finished task A, come back to this video, press play, and we'll have a look at those answers together. So here are the answers for task A. Example one had a thin texture. Example two was thick, as was example three, and finally, example four had a thin texture. So well done again, if you've got all of those correct. Our second section is called recording a chord sequence, and then we're going to apply our knowledge and make our own chord sequence for our remix. So the main layers in EDM music are the melody, the chords, the bass line, and the drum groove. We've had a look at the bass line, we've had a look at the drum grooves, so now it's time to have a look at the chords. Chords in EDM are often played on a synth pad. The "New World Symphony" remix has an eight bar chord sequence, and our simple bass line followed this and used the root note of each of those chords. So this should look a little bit familiar from recording the bass line. So we're going to notice the pattern in the chord sequence to help us learn it more quickly. So have a study of this table. What are the similarities and differences between the bars? Are there any patterns, is there a way that we could learn this more quickly? Well, bars one and four are almost identical to bars five to eight. The only difference is in bars three and seven. Can you spot what the differences are? Yep, in bar three, we have a G major chord, whereas in bar seven we have an E major chord. Each chord is a triad, which means it's got three notes inside of it and it builds up from the root notes using three notes. So A minor we have there highlighted, we've got A, C and E. D minor on the right is D, F, and A, G major is G, B, and D and E major is E, G sharp, and B. So the E chord you might notice has a slightly different shape, and that's because it uses a black note as the middle note. To help us to learn how to put this theory into practise, we're going to watch a couple of videos, which will show us how to add this simple chord sequence to our remix. The two videos will show us how to add the tracks with the chords, and then also recording this sequence itself. I'm going to play these videos back to back, and I'm gonna play them for you right now. Now I'm gonna have a go at record again, my code track. I'm gonna start by creating a new track, selecting software instrument. Then I'm ready to go. An EDM as we know, most of the sounds we hear are synthesised, they're created electronically. We've used a synthesiser bass for our bass track and synthesise drum sounds for our drum kit tracks. For our chords there are lots of different kinds of synthesiser we could use. You'll see on the left there are lots of different categories, and many of these would be suitable for playing a chord track. For the purposes of today, we're gonna choose a synth pad. A synth pad is a type of synthesiser that creates a very thick texture and usually has a sustained sound as well. So it holds the chords. As always I'm gonna experiment, try out a few of these until I find one that I like. My first chord that I'm gonna be playing in my chord track is A minor, so I'm gonna test these out on an A minor chord to see how they sound. (sombre music) Quite like that one actually, it's quite an atmospheric sound, and I think it'll fit really well with other synthesisers that I've already used. Now, before I record anything, I'm gonna have a practise through of my cord sequence. The cord sequence is on your worksheet and on the slides. And you'll already be a little bit familiar with it because our bass line was based on this. So we're gonna be starting on an A minor triad chord, which is the notes A, C and E, and we're playing that for one bar. One, two, three, four. (sombre music) Then we go to a D minor chord and do the same. One, two, three, four. (sombre music) Then we've got two beats on A minor, two beats on G. One, two, one, two. (sombre music) And then it's back to A minor for a whole bar. One, two, three, four. (sombre music) The second half from bar five to eight is almost the same, apart from we have an E major chord in bar seven, which does have a black note in it has G sharp in it, so it's a little bit more complicated. I'll show you bar five to eight. So we've got A minor. One, two, three, four. (sombre music) And D minor. One, two, three, four (sombre music) A minor for two. One, two. (sombre music) Then E. One, two. (sombre music) And then A minor. One, two, three, four. (sombre music) The whole chord sequence then will sound like this. One, two, three, four. (sombre music) One, two, three, four. (sombre music) One, two, one, two. (sombre music) One, two, three, four. (sombre music) One, two, three, four. (sombre music) One, two, three, four. (sombre music) One, two, one, two. (sombre music) One, two, three, four. (sombre music) Once I'm happy with playing those chords, I'm then gonna get ready to record, gonna make sure my metronome is on. My playhead is back at the start of bar one, and that I've selected my synth pad track to record into. Now when I'm recording this, just so there's less distraction going on while I'm recording, I'm gonna mute the melody and I'm also gonna mute my more complex bass line. So I've only got my simple bass and my drum tracks playing and I'm ready to record. Here we go. (upbeat music) Now I'm gonna add my melody back in. Let's see how this sounds. (upbeat music) If it needs quantizing, you can open it up and you can quantize to a half note. That would be the most suitable denomination to quantize to. So before I finish, I'm just gonna check. I've recorded my chords in in a separate track using a suitable synth pad sound, made sure that I'm changing notes, changing chords at the same time as my simple bass line. So mostly at the start of the bar, in bar three and bar seven, I change halfway through the bar as well, and that my recording finishes at bar nine. So it's an eight bar loop, and that should line up with my bass line and also with where the melody starts repeating again at bar nine. So after watching those videos, let's do a quick check for understanding and we'll do another true or false question. So true or false, the bass line and chords should change notes at different times to each other? Whilst we think about whether it's true or false, let's also remember we need a justification for this answer. So is it's A, the notes of the bass line come from the chords, so they should not move with the chords. Or B, the notes of the bass line are not related to the chords, so they should move at different times. Well done if you said that it was false because the notes of the bass line come from the chords, so they should move with the chords. And another question, which chord in the chord sequence has a slightly different shape? Is it A, A minor B, D, minor, C, G, major, or D, E major? Yep, well done, if you said E, can you think about why? Yeah while remembered, we have that G sharp in the middle. It's the only chord that we play that has a black note in the middle of the chord. So it's a slightly different shape, although they're all triads and we play all of these in our chord sequence. So onto task B, this is the actual recording of our chord sequence into our remix. It's quite a lot of information on this page. It is here to help you. So I'll breakdown each part of this slide, and will also make sure to go through the success criteria in a little bit of detail. So the first thing we have on that top left hand side is the table that shows us which chords to play in which bar. We've already discussed that bars one through four are very similar to bars five through eights, apart from bar three and seven, which have slightly different chords. Over on the right hand side, we have the chord diagrams, the keyboard diagrams to show us what notes are in each chord and how to play them. So again, as a recap, A minor has the notes, A, C and E. D minor has the notes, D, F and A, G Major has the notes, G, B, D, and E Major has the notes, E, G sharp, and B. That is the only one that has that black note, and it's a slightly different shape. Looking at our success criteria, we need to ensure that we're using suitable synth pad timbre. So whatever our DAW is or our digital audio workstation, making sure that we're selecting an appropriate instrument, probably one that is under the synth or synthesisers section of the instrument library. We're going to then find the three notes of the triad chord using the table and the diagrams on the screen. We're gonna practise changing the chords before we record. So start slowly and then you can start to build up as you get more fluent. The chords change at the same time as the bass line, so that's the start of each bar. But remember that in bars three and seven, because we're playing two chords, we're going to play two chords in that bar. If you need to go back and watch those videos again on how to do this, feel free. Otherwise, pause the video here so you've got all the information on your screen and have fun and good luck recording your chord sequence for task B. When you've finished, come back to this video and we'll move on to the second part of task B. Enjoy. So well done for that. I hope that you managed to get that chord sequence in with not much trouble. For the second part of task B, we're going to listen to an example chord sequence. Which aspects, sorry of the success criteria, could this student improve? Let's listen together now. (upbeat music) Well done if you said something similar to they could choose a more suitable timbre or instrument for the chords. An instrument with a sustained or held sound would be more effective for creating that thicker texture that we've been aiming for. A synthesiser would be more suitable for the EDM style. So well done if you noticed. (indistinct) said something similar. They could also improve it by making sure that the chords are actually in time with the beat. So there are two ways to do that, they can either quantize it or they can rerecord the chords. Again, well spotted if you managed to pick that up. So our third and final section of this lesson is developing this texture and timbre. So we can use texture and timbre to develop our remix. To change the texture as we've discussed, we can add additional instruments or tracks that's gonna thicken the texture. We can also remove instruments or tracks to make the texture thinner. And to change the timbre, we can change instruments to have a contrasting timbre, such as using a different synth pattern. So to develop the texture and timbre of your mix, we will need to do a few things on our remix project. There are a number of videos here that are going to help us to achieve this. So the first one is labelling the tracks. Let's take a look at that now. Now I'm gonna have a go at developing the texture and the timbre of my remix. To keep things simple, I'm gonna rename the regions that I've already recorded in. I'm gonna right click on my chord region here, click rename, and I'm just gonna call it chords. My complex bass line, I'm gonna do the same. I'm gonna rename it complex base. My simple bass line, I'll do the same simple base. My hi-hats, I'll rename it, hi-hats. My snare or my clap, I'll rename it, snare or clap. So in this case, I used clap. My kick drum, I'm gonna rename it kick. And with my melody track up here, I'm gonna rename it melody. This will keep things nice and simple when I'm developing the texture of my remix. The second video is gonna show us how to add tracks. Here's the video. There are three ways we're gonna look at developing the texture. The first is by adding additional tracks to thicken texture. The second is by removing tracks to make the texture thinner. And then the third is by changing the timbre and changing the instruments that we're using. So the first I'm gonna have a go at doing, is thickening the texture. I'm gonna add a track, and I'm not gonna record anything new in here, but what I'm gonna do is a little bit of copy and paste of some of the things I've already recorded in. So I might decide, for example, that at bar nine I want to create a slightly thicker texture. And the way I'm gonna do that is by having two tracks, two instruments playing the chords at the same time. So I'm gonna right click on the chords, I'm gonna copy these and I'm gonna paste them into this new track starting at bar nine. Then I can loop the tracks I've already recorded. So now in this section from nine to 17, we have a thicker texture. What I also want to do is I want to change this instrument, change the timbre so that it really fits with my remix. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put it playing, and I'm gonna try and choose another synthesiser that I think really blends well with the other sounds and adds something really effective. So I'm gonna press play, and then I'm gonna try a few synthesisers until I find one that I like. (upbeat music) That last one was okay, I'm gonna try a couple more until I find another one. (upbeat music) I like that one. So I'm gonna stick with that. That's the new synthesiser I'm gonna add in at that point. Okay, so there we've thickened the texture. This next video will show us how to remove tracks. Now I'm gonna have a go at making the texture thinner in the next section. So what I might do here is we'll make another track, and this time I'm gonna loop everything, but I'm gonna take a few of my regions out. So I'm gonna loop everything for the next eight bars up to bar 25. Now at this point, to create a thinner texture, I've got a few options. I could take out some of the drum parts, I could take out the bass line, I could take out the melody, or I could take out some of the chords. Now I don't really wanna take out the melody because that's the most memorable part, and without that, it might feel a bit empty. So I don't think I'm gonna do that. But what I might do is take out some of the drum parts. So for example, I could experiment by try and taking out in this section the kick drum and the claps. We just have the hi-hats playing, and maybe I will also take out my original chord track. So now we have my simple bass line playing, my hi-hats, my new chord track, and my melody. We can see there, there are four parts playing at the same time, which makes it a much thinner texture. Let's have a listen to that. (upbeat music) I am relatively happy with that. Here's a look at how to change the timbre or instruments. I think Now what I'm gonna do is this next section, thicken the texture again. So here what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put this complex base part in so it can start at bar 25. I am gonna loop my hi-hats. I think at this point I'm gonna bring back in my kick drop. So right click copy, right click paste. I'm definitely gonna keep my melody going, but I'll come back to that in a second. So we're going up to 33 here. (indistinct) And I'm definitely gonna keep a chord track going. I think I'll stick with this new chord track that I recorded. Now, the melody so far has been played on one instrument, this one called bright synth strings. Now for me, I'd like to develop that a bit and that'll help develop the texture. So I'm gonna add another track, and here I'm gonna copy the melody in and find a new instrument to play the melody. So I'm gonna paste that in, making sure we select the right track while we paste. And I'm gonna find another instrument to play that melody. So I'm gonna put it on, I'm gonna experiment with a few synthesisers and see what I find. (upbeat music) That one's okay, try a couple more. (upbeat music) Yeah, I really like that one. So I'm gonna stick with that. Consider this video to be just some final pointers, tips and tricks. Enjoy. Now, if we zoom out here, we can see I've varied the texture quite a bit. Starts with five parts, it gets a little bit thicker, bar nine, bar 17 we thin it right out and then at bar 25 it gets thicker. And if I was carrying on doing this, I think maybe what I'll do at bar 33 is bring back all my parts playing together. So we've got a really thick texture for a big climax. In the examples of EDM we've looked at, that's what they do. They vary between thick and thin, and then they build to a big climax. Now when you're doing this, you will do this for longer you will extend it further and you'll be able to experiment more with the texture. A couple of things to make sure you do. First of all, make sure whenever you copy or paste a region, so your chords, your bass, your melody, whatever it is, there is an eight bar chunk. If we started copying and pasting them in smaller chunks, it's gonna get messy quite quickly. So do make sure you're keeping them in the original full length eight bar chunks. And you can see that my regions and my tracks line up at bar nine, bar 17. Some of them finish and some of them start bar 25 and bar 33. So you wanna make sure that those eight bar chunks stay together and that they stay lined up with each other. So we've had a lot of information in those videos, and I'm sure that some of you watching would've already known a lot of that. Let's just check our understanding. So which two of the following would change the texture of our remix? A, add additional parts or layers. B, change the tempo. C, change the instruments. Or D, remove some parts and layers. Well done if you said A and D, remember when we're talking about texture, we're talking about layers. So adding layers is gonna make a thicker texture. Removing layers is gonna make a thinner texture. So task C. We're going to develop our texture and timbre of our very own remix. We're gonna look at the success criteria in a little bit of detail now, just before I set you up on this task. So we're gonna make sure that our chords, base, melody and drum regions are all labelled correctly. We're going to choose some different instruments with contrasting timbres. The instruments should be suitable for EDM. So to be safe, let's stick in that synthesisers part of our instrument library. We're going to create contrast between the sections with a thin texture and a thick texture and making sure that each part or region, so the chord sequence and melody and the bass line are all aligned. So we must make sure that they start at the same time in our project. And just a little note that if you are using a DAW that is not GarageBand or Logic Pro, then you will not be able to edit the instrument of the melody, but move the six versions of the melody into your project around to develop texture. So I hope that all makes sense and I hope that you enjoy this task. Again, if you need to go back and rewind the video to have a look at how to label the chords and the other things that we looked at just a moment ago, then make sure that you do otherwise pause the video here, and when you finish with task C, come back and we'll wrap up the lesson with a little part two to this task. Enjoy. So for part two, we're going to listen and observe this clip from a student's project. Referring to the success criteria, identify two next steps. Think of it as a little bit of advice and a bit of feedback for this student. Here's the video. (upbeat music) Great. So thinking about our success criteria, thinking about what we know about how to develop texture and timbre in an EDM remix, how could this have been improved? Well, well done if you said something similar to they could improve this by creating some sections with a thicker texture, at the moment it mostly has a thin texture throughout that kind of doesn't change really throughout. They can also improve it by making sure that all of the regions start and end together. So the cord region is not aligned at the moment so well spotted if you notice that. They could also improve it by making the drum part more buried so that it's not the same throughout. So well done if you picked up on those pointers. That brings us to the end of this lesson. In summary, we know that in music texture is how many layers of sound are heard at the same time and how they fit together. When there are many layers playing at the same time, we call that a texture thick, when there are only a few layers playing at the same time, we describe that texture as being thin. In EDM, the texture varies between thick and thin to maintain interest and build energy. Remember, it's our job as the songwriters and the producers to control that flow of energy throughout the song. And adding textures and removing is a big part of that. Which brings us onto our final point, which is you can develop the texture and timbre by adding and removing and also changing those instruments and tracks. Today's lesson was full of lots of new information and also big practical tasks. And our remix is really taking some shape. We've got one more lesson in this unit and I'm very much looking forward to teaching you in that one. So I'll see you then and enjoy the rest of your day.