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S1E09 – Arranging Your Song with Audio Painting

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Personally, I feel the division between an amateur to professional producer is in their arrangement.

It’s the patience they apply to their arrangement that constantly prepares and communicates with their listener.

This episode not only talks about arrangement, but how to build your song so it flows naturally, and brings out your song’s fullest emotion.

Links to the book Audio Painting, the course Song Structure and Arrangement, and the new FL Studio Intermediate Course (now released), will also be available in this episode’s resource links.

Arrangement Audio Painting Music Production Books

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S1E09 – Arranging Your Song with Audio Painting

  1. Hey, this is Gratuitous. Welcome to Music Production Made Simple, the show that
  2. focuses on best practices about music production, which is based on FL Studio.
  3. If you're wanting to become the best producer you could be, subscribe and listen
  4. weekly. You can also check out my courses, which teach you the principles and basics
  5. of music production that'll get you up and running quickly.
  6. In addition, I also have books on Amazon and tons of music on Spotify.
  7. Always feel free to hit me up at Hi at it'sgratuitous.com.
  8. So let's get into the episode.
  9. Alright, hey, what's everybody?
  10. Welcome to episode number nine.
  11. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about arranging your song with audio
  12. painting. Okay. Audio painting is a term that I've coined over the years.
  13. I've actually written a book on this, it's on Amazon.
  14. The book is called Audio Painting, and you can search for my author name, Riley
  15. Weller, okay? So a few things I want to share before we get into this episode.
  16. So I've actually been working on a new course.
  17. It's called FL Studio Intermediate Course.
  18. This course is going to teach you how to prepare your music to release it on a
  19. commercial level. We're gonna be covering like mixing, arrangement, mastering, and
  20. exporting your song you know, with best practices, especially now with like loudness
  21. normalization and all that kind of stuff.
  22. it will be releasing by the end of July 2019, so I'm really really close for it to
  23. be done, okay. I also have an in-depth course on arrangement and song structure.
  24. That course is called Song Structure and Arrangement music course by Gratuitous,
  25. okay? Because personally, at the end of the day, I feel that the division between an
  26. amateur to professional producer is really in their arrangement.
  27. It's the patience that they put in to create this amazing composition.
  28. So many times, you know, yes, you might be able to create great melodies, but if you
  29. rush your arrangement, then you know your melodies are all gonna fall apart because
  30. the arrangement is where you really build out the emotion for your listener.
  31. So let's get into the actual episode, okay?
  32. So the first point that I want you to remember about arrangement is that there is
  33. actually no rules. There's obviously some kind of fundamentals that you always want
  34. to follow, but for the most part, think about it.
  35. When you go to create your song, you can start with an intro, a chorus, a verse, and
  36. really it's just like it's up to you.
  37. And that's the cool part with arrangement.
  38. What's important is to figure out if your song actually flows.
  39. Okay. So when you hit play, does it make sense?
  40. if you're adding in all these different instruments, you know, is it starting to
  41. sound rushed? These are the things that you want to listen for.
  42. So, some basic fundamentals that I have discovered over the years when it comes to
  43. arrangement, is we must use some type of transition before adding or removing
  44. elements. Okay, so that is to do if you're adding in instruments, if you're actually
  45. removing instruments, or if you're actually changing up the song structure by adding
  46. in some type of transition, it's really gonna help communicate with your listener
  47. and prepare them for that change, and it's not gonna sound so rushed, okay.
  48. Another cool little fundamental is that hi-hats are like powerhouses, okay.
  49. So when it comes to adding tension and fullness, hi-hats are absolutely amazing,
  50. especially when you have like fast hi-hats.
  51. And the thing is once you've added in a hi-hat into your arrangement, it's really
  52. hard to remove because as soon as you remove it, you'll really find that your
  53. tension you know is kind of gone.
  54. And a really cool tip that I'll tell you right now when it comes to arrangement and
  55. your transition, silence is actually a super powerful transition.
  56. People forget about silence a lot, okay.
  57. So let's get into some different ways how you can approach arranging your song.
  58. So, one way how you can be doing it is you can create lots of instruments and add
  59. them into the chorus, and you use like the different combinations all throughout the
  60. verse, okay? So, in other words, you know, you start with one instrument, you keep
  61. adding instruments with those melodies, and pretty much your end chorus is just all
  62. those instruments playing together, and then again, when it comes to your verse,
  63. then you break them apart and you kind of find different combinations.
  64. Another way to do it is you create a totally different melody on your chorus, and
  65. I'm gonna talk about the pros and cons just quickly of both, okay.
  66. So so, let's talk about when you create. all your different melodies and they add up
  67. to that one big chorus In my opinion, that's probably the easiest approach to
  68. creating a song, you know, because it's just a matter of you create one melody, then
  69. you you know open up another VST, get a sound, you create another melody, and these
  70. kind of just keep building up into that chorus.
  71. And another really awesome benefit of this is when it comes to the verse.
  72. this is actually one of my most favorite times of arranging a song, is because you
  73. actually have a lot of unique combinations between the different instruments.
  74. If we talk about hip hop for a second, so you know, typically in hip hop, you know,
  75. when you go from verse one to verse two to verse three, many times that verse is
  76. like the same instruments, okay.
  77. But over my years, like I've kind of always liked to have my verse one different
  78. from like my verse two to my verse three, for the most part.
  79. You know, every song is a little bit different.
  80. One thing I want to mention quickly there is as you'll discover, some instruments
  81. can't hold their own by themselves.
  82. So many times, like you'll always need to have some type of supporting element with
  83. that one instrument, okay. So just repeat that one more time.
  84. So many times there's certain instruments where there are gonna be front and center,
  85. they can play by themselves the way how they're composed, like the actual notes are
  86. good, the sound selection that you've selected there is good, it can just play by
  87. itself, but then there's some instruments kind of like the filler instruments, where
  88. they're always gonna need some type of supporting layer in a sense of you might have
  89. to always play like three instruments at once when you're using that one sound or
  90. something, okay. Now, to talk about creating a totally different melody when it
  91. comes to your actual arrangement.
  92. So, for example, let's say in your verse, you've created these different types of
  93. instruments, and then you go to the chorus.
  94. Now you actually change up the chord progression.
  95. Whereas the other way, it's like you're always playing the same notes or whatever,
  96. it's just you know, you have different instruments going on.
  97. Now, this way actually requires a lot more knowledge and effort, and the reason for
  98. that is because when you come to your actual chorus, it's like now you have to
  99. create a new melody for all those different sounds that you know.
  100. For example, let's say in your verse you had, let's say, four instruments and
  101. they're all playing, you know, one type of chord progression.
  102. Now you go to your chorus, it's like now you actually have to create that new melody
  103. for the chorus with all those new sounds and stuff like that.
  104. Okay, so that requires a little bit more time and effort as well as knowledge with
  105. some music theory and stuff like that.
  106. but one of the biggest benefits of approaching it this way is it can create a really
  107. memorable and emotional chorus.
  108. That's just kind of what I found over the years.
  109. But typically the first approach where you just create one instrument and you just
  110. kind of keep building off that instrument, and then your chorus is typically you
  111. know, all the instruments added together.
  112. Again, that's probably like the easiest approach, okay.
  113. So let's talk about some different parts of a song structure.
  114. So I'm talking about like your intro, your verse, chorus, bridge, pre-chorus, and
  115. outro. So your intro is pretty simple.
  116. You know, not every single song needs that intro.
  117. Sometimes you can start a song right like the chorus, hit it hard, full of
  118. excitement. your verse again, depending on the style of music that you create.
  119. Typically, I always like to have verse one to verse two to verse three.
  120. I like to kind of mix them up, get different combinations of instruments going on,
  121. but but that's totally up to you.
  122. Your chorus is like the climax of the song, it's typically like you know, with the
  123. with your lyrics, you know, it's like the catchy words, as well as it's full of full
  124. of excitement, is typically you know what everyone's always waiting for in the song.
  125. Many times it's like what most songs are known for is like the chorus.
  126. Now, let's talk about like the bridge for a second.
  127. So, the bridge is kind of like a different vibe to the song, it's kind of like a
  128. nice little change up. So, you know, if you're always going from like verse one to
  129. chorus to verse two to chorus, sometimes you can throw in like a bridge somewhere in
  130. there., and it can just kind of give your music just a little bit of a different
  131. vibe And again, when it comes to like the combination of your instruments, your
  132. bridge, maybe you can you know use a new combination that you're not using anywhere
  133. else. Now let's talk about like the pre-chorus.
  134. So the pre-chorus is pretty cool, it's typically like always before a chorus, and it
  135. prepares that listener that the chorus is coming.
  136. So, for example, you know, someone's listening to like, you know, let's say verse
  137. one, the pre-chorse comes in, the chorus happens.
  138. Now, let's say verse two happens, and then now again, let's say you you do like the
  139. pre-chorus. Now you have prepared that listener previously in verse one, like they
  140. know that the chorus is coming when you play that pre-chorus.
  141. Okay, so again, it's just all about kind of communicating, and in that pre-chorus,
  142. you know, again, it could be like a different combination of instruments, and then
  143. your outro, when it comes to your outro, this is a really cool way to be creative
  144. with your song, whether that be like you play like a symbol at the very very end or
  145. like a kick drum or something with lots of reverb.
  146. The sky is the limit, and you can be super creative.
  147. But that's kind of like typically, you know, the elements of your song and how you
  148. can kind of use them. Again, I go way more in depth in this song structure and
  149. arrangement music course by me gratuitous.
  150. Okay. So let's talk about what is your goal of arrangement.
  151. Like, you know, what should be your end result and what are you aiming for?
  152. So you want to create a song that naturally flows from one part to the next, and
  153. like I was already saying, the sky is the limit in the combination of your
  154. instruments, when to add or remove sounds and the overall feel of your song, but you
  155. must be careful that when changing sections of a song or adding in new instruments,
  156. that it doesn't sound rushed or forced, okay.
  157. And then again, like I already mentioned to you guys.
  158. So, in my opinion, like the difference between an amateur to professional producer
  159. is in their arrangement, okay?
  160. It's the patience that they have to fine-tune their arrangement for the ultimate
  161. emotion in their song.. Okay So again, at the end of the day, the goal of your
  162. arrangement is to create a song that just kind of naturally flows from one part to
  163. the next. And again, as you're listening, it's just it just transitions.
  164. You know, you shouldn't even be really hearing any weird stuff when it comes to your
  165. arrangement that all of a sudden it's like, oh, you just added in the sound, it's
  166. like, oh, that's kind of weird, right?
  167. You always want to make it sound natural, and you know, many times adding in some
  168. type of transition again to prepare that listener that a change is happening,
  169. whether that is adding in an instrument, removing an instrument, or changing up the
  170. song structure from like verse one to chorus, for example, okay.
  171. I want to cover some powerful tips and workflow shortcuts with you guys.
  172. So here's a really really cool one.
  173. You can actually tease your chorus for only four bars, you know, like the first time
  174. you play the chorus, and then later on in the song, you can actually allow your
  175. chorus to play longer. So, for example, for like eight bars, and you can fully
  176. unleash your song's emotion. This is a really really cool approach.
  177. Again, in the very very beginning of the song, you kind of play just like a teaser
  178. of the chorus. Later on in the song, that's equal like the listener has been waiting
  179. for, okay. And you just kind of like you know, let them enjoy your creation.
  180. So here is a keyboard shortcut for you guys in FL Studio.
  181. It's control and B, okay, and this will duplicate what you have highlighted.
  182. So, for example, like I was saying, when I create my songs, I typically create songs
  183. with multiple instruments for like that big chorus, okay?
  184. So by the time I'm done beat making, what I'll do is I'll actually highlight all
  185. like the actual patterns within the playlist.
  186. And then what I'll do is I'll hold on control and B a couple times.
  187. And then what that does is it kind of like copy and pastes it over for you
  188. automatically. And then what I found for a really awesome workflow is to actually
  189. remove instruments to build the song, okay?
  190. So instead of adding sounds in, because I find that it takes longer to add sounds in
  191. than it is to remove sounds.es
  192. So by highlighting all these patterns, pressing control B a couple tim.
  193. Now you know you might have you know like 30 bars of like all like the same patterns
  194. going on. Okay. Now I would just simply remove stuff to kind of start building like
  195. my intro and kind of seeing what things, you know, how things work in terms of like
  196. my different instruments and stuff like that to kind of get cool combinations.
  197. One other powerful tip I want to pass on to you guys is something I've discovered
  198. over the years, and I'm calling it like the walk away approach.
  199. Okay, so once a song is nearing being complete, I will hit play, I'll walk away, or
  200. like lay on the ground and pet my dog, and I'll listen for things that stick out.
  201. So, for example, this could be like a sound that's too loud, sound that is rushed,
  202. or like the flow is not in the direction that I'm you know trying to achieve.
  203. And as soon as I hear something, I'll get up, I'll work on it, fix it, and then I'll
  204. just go, you know, back down on the ground or something and pet my dog.
  205. again, I'm calling that like the walk away approach, and this is something I have
  206. done for many many years. It just allows me just to listen to the music, you know,
  207. as soon as I hear something, either I actually make a like a mental note of it, you
  208. know. So I'll be like, okay, I remember I gotta do that, or I'll write it down, or
  209. I'll actually fix it right then and there.
  210. So I just want to talk a little bit about audio painting, okay?
  211. Because again, this is like a term I've coined over the years, and it's just a way
  212. to describe building emotion into your songs, okay.
  213. Again, I have that book on Amazon, it's called Audio Painting by me, Riley Weller,
  214. okay. So I tend to think of different stages of music production, and the order of
  215. these stages, you know, it can vary per song, but generally it kind of goes like
  216. this, okay. So you have like the actual beat creation stage, you know, this is like
  217. building the beat, creating the melodies, you know, creating the beat, right?
  218. Then you have mix mixing the beat, you know, that's adjusting your volumes., EQ,
  219. adding effects like compression to achieve you know the sound you want
  220. and then you have arranging the song, okay, making you know, your intro, your
  221. chorus, figuring out what instrument should be in your verse, you know, the
  222. different kind of combinations.
  223. And one thing I want to tell you is each of these stages is actually a specific job
  224. within the music industry. You know, each people sometimes specialize in each of
  225. these areas, okay. I also consider audio painting to be a stage here, okay.
  226. So, again, we've already covered beat creation, that's making the beat, mixing the
  227. beat, arranging the song, and now here comes audio painting.
  228. Okay, so what audio painting, so you know, you're listening if your song sounds
  229. rushed when adding in instruments, you're adding in transitions when you're moving
  230. from verse to chorus, or you're helping for like that build-up intention, okay.
  231. That's where I'm consider audio painting.
  232. This is like, you know, if you're adding in like reverse symbols, creating those
  233. sound effect risers, snare buildups, you're really helping build that emotion, okay?
  234. Because you know, when you arrange the song, typically for myself, you know, I'll
  235. kind of build out like my intro, my verse, my chorus, and I have a general idea of
  236. like what instruments are gonna be playing there.
  237. The audio painting then kind of pushes that arrangement further, helping enhance
  238. those emotions, okay. So again, that goes from like the beat creation, the mixing,
  239. the arrangement, and then I also call audio painting a stage here.
  240. If you think about it, it's pretty powerful, okay.
  241. And then the last stage is your you know, your mastering, so you're adding like the
  242. final touches and balance to your song, increasing your loudness, as well as
  243. focusing on your intro and outro timing of the song.
  244. Now, a really cool comparison of audio painting is like being on a roller coaster.
  245. As a roller coaster slowly brings you up to the top, you know that that drop is
  246. coming. And as it gets closer, you know, what do people do?
  247. Like they'll start raising their hands.
  248. Many people, you know, they're scared and like they're holding on as as you know as
  249. tight as they can. And no matter what they do, it's like that drop is coming.
  250. And many people who are on the ride, you know, they enjoy the ride because you know
  251. they're prepared, they went up, the drop's coming.
  252. So now to compare this with music, it's really, really similar, right?
  253. So on the roller coaster, they knew the drop was coming.
  254. And in music, we must prepare our listener for that drop through like snare roll
  255. buildups, fast kick drums, white noise for tension, or even like a synth riser sound
  256. effects. And it's just all about communicating beforehand, and that listener will
  257. know that that drop is coming, and you've you've prepared them for it, you know,
  258. you've you've built them up for it.
  259. so let's just talk about some kind of ideas of transitions.
  260. Now, you know, inside the book, I have like a ton, like I have like a huge list, but
  261. here's just some kind of general ones.
  262. You know, you could be using like reverse symbols.
  263. You can also be using like a forward symbol in conjunction with a reverse symbol for
  264. you know, it's a powerful transition.
  265. You'd use that when you're going from like the end of verse one into like the chorus
  266. or something. You could be using like white noise with like a filter, that's really
  267. awesome to build tension, or like even like on a breakdown and stuff like that.
  268. You could be using like snare rolls.
  269. Now, again, each genre is kind of different.
  270. So, if this is like you know, old school trap, like dirty self kind of trap, you
  271. know, they used to have those like really cheesy kind of snare rolls, or nowadays
  272. with like EDM, you have like those like you know, snare rolls that kind of start
  273. slow and they start building up really, really fast.
  274. Many times they also increase in pitch.
  275. You have like sound effects up and down risers, and then like I'm saying, silence is
  276. extremely powerful. So, near like the end of the transition from let's say verse one
  277. to the chorus, try just cutting out some sounds or even all the sounds, allow like
  278. the reaver of like a clap or something to kind of overlap into that silence, and
  279. also boom, you hit them with the chorus, super super powerful, often overlooked.
  280. Okay, so the next time. you're arranging your song, you know, just think about
  281. adding in an instrument Is it brought in rushed?
  282. Does it mess with like the flow of the song?
  283. And then again, so by using a type of transition to introduce new sounds, take them
  284. away, or change up a song structure.
  285. It makes this process easier as we've communicated with the listener that a change
  286. is coming. Okay, so again, it's all about the flow of the song.
  287. So these are like the kind of closing thoughts of this episode.
  288. So the biggest thing that I've discovered with arrangement is you must communicate
  289. with the listener. You want to use transitions when you add or remove sounds, again,
  290. even like the song structure. If you're going from like first one to chorus,
  291. patience is an absolute necessity when it comes to arrangement.
  292. You know, we always just kind of want to like build that beat, right?
  293. You know, you want to make the beat, you want to kind of mix it, you want to like
  294. master it, you want to get it out there.
  295. But I'm telling you, if you have the patience to really make your arrangement the
  296. most it can be, this is really going to enhance your song to the ultimate that it
  297. can possibly be. Like you're gonna really bring out the emotion in your song, okay.
  298. Another cool one to think about is songs, don't always need an intro.
  299. Sometimes you can hit them hard with the chorus, you know, full of energy, other
  300. times you can take it slow and you know, build up your intro.
  301. So those are some kind of things to think about when it comes to arrangement.
  302. There's a lot to say about arrangement.
  303. Again, you guys can check out the course, it's called Song Structure and Arrangement
  304. Music Course by Gratuitous. you know, that course is super super in depth.
  305. I show you guys, you know, each section of a song when it comes to intro, chorus,
  306. pre-chorus, bridge, outro, you know, different techniques you can apply, and really
  307. just bringing out the most emotion in your track, and also you know, introducing you
  308. to audio painting, how to use it, and really bring out you know, again, the fullest
  309. emotion in your song. So, I hope you guys like this episode.
  310. Be on the lookout for FL Studio Intermediate course..
  311. It's going to be released by the end of July 2019
  312. I'm just in the edited editing stage right now.
  313. Super super exciting, super, super in depth.
  314. It's really going to prepare you to create a really polished commercial sound and
  315. get you competing out there with your favorite producers.
  316. Okay. So I hope you guys enjoyed, and I'll talk to you guys in the next episode.
  317. Thanks for checking out the episode.
  318. If you had any questions, visit it'sgratuitous.com slash podcast, select an episode,
  319. and submit your question at the bottom of the page to the contact form.
  320. If you'd like to take my FL Studio courses, see my current studio and podcasting
  321. gear, read my books, or are interested in lessons, visit the link it'sgratuitous.com
  322. slash learning. That page will redirect you to more info and resources.
  323. I hope the best with your productions.
  324. I'm gratuitous, and I'll see you in the next
  325. episode.
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