In this course, Dan Larsson will guide you through his complete process in making a professional-quality Tech House beat in Ableton Live. He’ll go through the basics, as well as more advanced steps, of creating and processing the drums, bass, vocals, synths, FX, and more.
Video 1 – Drums
To start, Dan creates, then expands on, the main drums with detailed percussion to design a unique and effective groove.
Video 2 – Bass
In the next video, Dan designs an analog-sounding sub-bass to fill up the low end of the frequency spectrum and give the track a heavy and thick bottom.
Video 3 – Main Percussion
Now, Dan uses Operator to create a huge lead percussion sound that drives the movement of the groove and starts taking the beat to the next level.
Video 4 – Vocal Percussion
In this video, Dan creates a vocal hit out of a sliced vocal sample to pair nicely with the main percussion hit.
Video 5 – Vocal Pad
Next, Dan uses vocals again in conjunction with the free M4L plugin to create a nice pad sound to add a mid-layer to our Tech House beat.
Video 6 – RX Percussion
iZotope RX De-Clip is a very useful plugin to kill digital clipping in your music, but it can also be useful to destroy your sounds for massive awesomeness. Dan shows you how here.
Video 7 – Breakdown 1
In this video, Dan starts working on the buildup by arranging the previously created instruments and adding fx risers, noise sweeps, and more.
Video 8 – Breakdown 2
Next, Dan adds additional instruments to make the buildup more effective and have increased tension.
Video 9 – Tiny Synth & Drum Roll
There is a tiny but very strong and important synth playing in the breakdown that is made out of simple waveforms. In this video, you can see how Dan makes it in Operator.
Video 10 – Extra Vocal Pad
In the last video, Dan creates another pad out of vocals, but this time using a different technique. He also puts the finishing touches on the drums and the master. Our Tech House beat is now complete!
