TUTORIAL–A Guideline To Tune Stucture For Hard Dance–

This article was written by Olly P and is just an example and guidline for tune structure which may help some people just starting out to put some structure to there tunes.

It is one of the first articles i ever read when i first started out and it helped me alot and with Olly’s kind permission it is re-printed here. Be sure to check out Olly P’s site.

Rhythm

The first thing which needs to be done in any sort of track is the rhythm, known as the drum loops. A simple kick drum (bass drum) "loop" (repeated rhythm) can be made using Fruityloops. On the grid which first comes up, you can program a simple kick drum rhythm by doing the following:

Every dance music tune comes in "bars" of 4 beats, meaning you can count "1,2,3,4" and then, the next bar will start with another 4 beats, etc. With a kick drum, you want to place a drum on each beat of the bar. This can also be extended by placing a Hi-Hat sample (also found in fruityloops) on the 2ND and 4TH beat of each bar. This will give you a simple rhythm, with which to start a track.
Oh, there is an easier alternative Using Soundforge, you can load up an existing song, and "steal" the drum loops from the start, by editing the song right down, until you are left with a loop.

Cymbals

Each dance song also contains "phrases" of 16 beats, or 4 bars. These can be counted, simply by counting the beats, as "1,2,3,4" etc. On every 16th note, usually you will find a cymbal clash, to indicate the start of a new phrase. Sounds confusing? Well it can be made easier – After exporting a cymbal noise using Fruityloops, load it up into Acid, and set the zoom to Normal mode. At the top of the vertical lines, you should see numbers. These will read : 1.1, 9.1, 17.1, 25.1, 33.1 etc – These are indicating the starts of new phrases. All you have to do, is place a cymbal clash on each of the lines, where there are numbers. As an addition, you can add new percussion lines or synth lines after each of these cymbals, to help "build up" your track, and also make it DJ friendly, which is important here.

Synths/Riffs

Making a riff in fruityloops is very simple. A "riff" is the main hook of a tune, which makes it instantly recognizable. For instance, the big singalong bit in Zombie Nation – Kernkraft 400 is known as a "riff". These can be made in fruityloops, by simpling loading up one of the many preset synth samples (Found usually under the "Instruments" sections) and clicking the little keyboard image above the main grid. This will bring up a virtual keyboard known as a piano roll. You can also use VSTI’s aswell as samples for this.

You can now compose a simple riff, by playing about with the keys on this "keyboard", and putting them together to form a main riff

Basslines

Basslines can be the hardest part of a tune to make, because its hard finding a bassline which fits with the rhythm lines. I suggest that for hard house/trance, use a sample from Fruityloops under the "Bass" in "Instruments", and place it on every OFFbeat. The term offbeat, means not on the beat (duh!), so in a simple rhythm of 1-2-3-4, you want to place a bass sample BETWEEN each beat, i.e. at 0.5,1.5, 2.5, 3.5.
This can then be further pitched down in Acid. When the sample is placed onto the main grid in acid, use the "-" key on the keyboard, to pitch the bassline down -perhaps to about -1 or -2 (Anything further will distort the sample)

Sequencing

Now that you have each of the composite parts of a dance music track – The rhythm, understanding and marking of bar structure, the bassline, the main riff, and any odd synths, you can start to put it together. Here is a simple notation for a BASIC hard house tune, of where each bit should go. This is only a rough guide, and doesn’t need to be followed exactly!!

First 4 Phrases (Phrase = 16 Beats) = Rhythm section – Don’t forget to place a cymbal at the start of each phrase…..

Next 8 Phrases = Build Up. Here, place the bassline, and any FX which you might want to use, and also, slowly build up the main riff, by using the volume controls (The V Key) in Acid. Again, Don’t forget those cymbals!

Next 8 Phrases = Breakdown. Here, you cut all the drums/rhythm out, and concentrate on the main riff line. Again, think of Zombie Nation – All the percussion cuts out, and the big riff comes booming in – This is what you want to do here. At the start of the 8th phrase, concentrate on placing a lot of cymbals at the start of each bar, in order to give a "building up" sensation

Next 8 Phrases = Main body of the tune. This is where you combine EVERYTHING together – the riff, FX, bassline, drums, everything. This is the main bit of your tune where the crowds will go mad

Next 8 Phrases = Build Down. This is basically a repeat of the 2nd section – take out the riff, but leave everything else in, and gradually stop each FX/Synth/added percussion line

Final 4 Phrases = End Repeat of the first section – Leave the kick drum on its own, for 4 phrases of 16 beats. This will allow any DJ playing the tune, to successfully mix out.

And there you have it. A stripped down view of how to produce your very first tune