Expressive Melodies
So, you don’t want your melodies to be boring? My first suggestion would be to come up with different variations on a melody that you can use as a loop. Then vary which loop you use in the sequencer. For example, if you wrote two melodies (we’ll call them A and B) and then made a variation on B (call that one C), you could sequence A B A C. This is a very common pattern. Or perhaps try A A B B, or A B A B, etc. My next suggestion is automation of several different knobs on your synth. For example, you can automate the cutoff frequency, vibrato, volume, modulation depth, etc. One trick I commonly use on my synths is to route an LFO to the filter cutoff frequency. Then I route the modulation wheel on my keyboard to the LFO’s depth (the LFO speed should be synced with the tempo at 1/8th or 1/16th). You could also route the modulation wheel to the LFO’s speed for an interesting combo-modulation. The modulation wheel on any midi keyboard is handy for live performances. But when it comes to sequencing, there are no limits to how many automation tracks you can use. I suggest automating many parameters at once to keep things interesting. For an example, listen to the solo synth on my track, “your best shot”. In this track, I am automating the cutoff frequency for those intense moments (on a low-pass filter), amount of vibrato (depth of LFO routed to cutoff frequency), and amount of delay (via the aux send knob). All of these combine to make for an expressive, almost human-like quality to the synth.
In this screenshot of my song, (made with Ableton Live), you can see the automation of the vibrato amount overlayed on top of the notes.
Listen to the melody shown in this image.
April 9th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Hi
Where can I listen to an audio sample of this?
Thanks!