Spend $50, get $25 OFF — applied automatically.
Skip to Content Skip to Navigation Skip to Footer
Start freeJoin
Join Membership
Season 3 ·

S3E17 – Sound Selection for Noobies

0:00 / 0:00
This media could not be played.

Resources

Never Miss an Episode

Get new podcast episodes delivered to your inbox.

Home/Podcast/S3E17 – Sound Selection for Noobies

Do you want to learn how to select sounds in your beats?

Sound Selection is the #1 secret to clear, and full sounding beats.

If you choose sounds wisely, mixing beats is WAY easier.

But the question is.. how to select instrument sounds properly? And.. how do you choose drum samples so that your drum loops sound full and powerful, but not busy and there’s no fighting?

How to Choose Sounds in Beats – SECRETS REVEALED!

You should definitely check out Sound Selection in Beats Course.

I’ll teach you so many sound selection tips like:

  • Understanding the frequency spectrum, and how to use a frequency analyzer
  • How to fit multiple instruments in a beat without sounding busy
  • The choosing sounds for clear mixes
  • The different types of sounds producers have available to them
  • How to make sounds work no matter what in your beat!

I hope you enjoyed this sound selection episode which was like an audio sound selection tutorial.

To learn the secrets choosing sounds for beats.. view my sound selection course.

Sound Selection in Beats Course (GratuiTous FL Studio Course)
Sound Selection in Beats Course
Learn How to Select Sounds in for Beats, Melodies, and Drum Loops.

The best beats are ones that have different melodies that are unique from each other, but compliment each other!

# GratuiTous
Drum Loops FabFilter Sound Placement Sound Selection

Community

Questions about this episode

Transcript

S3E17 – Sound Selection for Noobies

  1. Season three, episode 17 sound selection for newbies.
  2. If you are brand new to making beats, you will hear the word sound selection out
  3. there a lot. And in short, the goal of sound selection is to select the right sounds
  4. at the right time for your instruments to cut through the mix by themselves so that
  5. when you go to mix the music, you are just enhancing your beat.
  6. Now I'll let you know I just released a sound selection and beats course over at
  7. it'sgratuitous.com. So if you are a member, you can log in and watch it.
  8. You can also purchase it by itself.
  9. You get the download if you want to watch for offline viewing, and you can also
  10. watch the course in the platform as well.
  11. Okay, so that is the sound selection and beats course, which reveals so many secrets
  12. of what I've learned about sound selection over the years.
  13. So when it comes to making a beep, I usually like to have seven, eight, nine, ten
  14. instruments. And when it comes to mixing the music, it makes it really tricky if
  15. you're not wise in your sound selection.
  16. So I talked to you about time, pitch, volume, I also talked to you about sound
  17. placement, the frequency spectrum, timbre.
  18. So again, you guys can visit it'sgratuitous.com and you will see the sound selection
  19. and beats course. But in this episode, we will be talking about sound selection for
  20. beginners. I'll give you a quick update of why I missed last week.
  21. So my website in the last couple months has become slow and it's really really
  22. bothering me. So just like in music production, if you want plugins, it's the same
  23. thing for a website. And I just want to quickly compare that.
  24. So let's say you purchase FL Studio, that is the software.
  25. So you have FL Studio, which is your music software.
  26. If you want to add extra functionality, you are going to bring a plugin in.
  27. So you install a plugin. Now you get further functionality out of FL Studio.
  28. It's the exact same thing with websites.
  29. So, for example, if you are a member on the website, the questions area, that is a
  30. plugin. So on the website, if a plugin is slow, it makes the website slower.
  31. And now, if we talk about in music production, if a plugin is really heavy, then
  32. it's really hard on your CPU. You might not be able to open up too many instances of
  33. that plugin. Again, picking why's plugins is so important.
  34. Now, one last thing I just want to quickly talk about is pricing of these plugins
  35. because in the website world, it's typically subscription model.
  36. And I'm seeing this trickle over into the music production world because in music
  37. production, when you buy a plugin, typically it's a one-time payment.
  38. Let's say you purchase Pro Q. Okay, so Fab Filter Pro Q.
  39. It's a really awesome EQ. Let's say you purchased version one.
  40. Fab filter will give you updates as long as they have Fab Filter version one going.
  41. And then if they release Fab Filter version two, it is an upgrade fee to get to
  42. version two. But you don't have to upgrade.
  43. And typically they will try to leave that plugin in a state where it is long-term
  44. compatible. And so in other words, you're just paying once for this plugin, you get
  45. to use it for super long and it's really awesome.
  46. In the website world of plugins, they are on a subscription model.
  47. And when I tell you that my website has about 50 plugins, and some of those plugins
  48. are paid and some are free. And some of the plugins are not cheap.
  49. So let's say you look at Fab Filter Pro Q, let's just say it's around $200.
  50. Okay. It's a one time payment, you're in, you get to enjoy it.
  51. On a website, a plugin could be $200 a year.
  52. And if you have five different plugins that are $200, the price adds up super quick.
  53. And so what's happening is, you know, all these renewals were starting to come in,
  54. and it just really makes me think it's like, do I still need to use this plugin?
  55. Do I want this plugin? I started thinking about oh, this one's actually slowing down
  56. my website, and it's just really annoying.ing because I want to be here to teach you
  57. beat mak but I also like to have the website where it makes it really easy for you
  58. to learn So what I'm seeing is that trickle over into the music production world.
  59. So my advice to you is do not purchase subscription model plugins for music
  60. production. For example if you stop paying for your subscription fee to the music
  61. production plugins do they not allow you to open up your music projects anymore
  62. because in music production how it works is you make your beats you open up your
  63. plugins and then if you have a missing plugin your music program will say hey this
  64. plugin's missing or if it's not activated because your license doesn't allow you to
  65. it will say like hey this plugin you can't use because you don't have an active
  66. license okay so let's move forward now you know there's a sound selection beats
  67. course available to you as well as I'm working on a new revamp to the website.
  68. So let's talk about sound selection for newbies.
  69. So when we talk about sound selection there's wise sound selection and poor sound
  70. selection and the whole trick here is to take advantage of octaves.
  71. So when we make our music there is the frequency spectrum and then there's a
  72. frequency analyzer so a frequency analyzer allows you to see the frequency
  73. spectrum. So let's say you play a piano chord the frequency analyzer will show you
  74. what frequencies are being played from that chord.
  75. And when we have the frequency spectrum you will see that it's from 20 hertz to 2000
  76. hertz. And the reason is because that's all based off of our human ears.
  77. So they say anything lower than 20 hertz, we typically just feel anything higher
  78. than 200,00 hertz, we cannot hear as humans.
  79. It's just too high for our ears.
  80. So when we look at the frequency analyzer, it's looking at the frequency spectrum
  81. from 20 hertz, which is super low to 20,000 hertz, which is super high.
  82. Now, when we are selecting our sounds, we are restricted from 20 hertz to 20,000
  83. hertz. So when you go to place your instruments, this is where sound selection comes
  84. in. But when you're picking your sounds, for example, on the low end, 20 hertz, that
  85. is so low. And speakers typically cannot produce 20 hertz.
  86. So really from like maybe 45 hertz to 50 hertz, like that's your low end.
  87. So really you're like, let's say 45 hertz, and then for what humans can hear is
  88. probably realistically like 17,000 hertz ish.
  89. And again, they say as you start getting older, your high end diminishes.
  90. So in other words, just because the frequency analyzer shows you 20 hertz to 20,000
  91. hertz doesn't mean that you actually have that range.
  92. And as well as your human ears not being able to hear that high.
  93. So when we're picking our sounds, we have to be thinking about how we can spread
  94. them across the frequency spectrum.
  95. All right. And this is the secret to sound selection.
  96. Now, a lot of people when they're teaching sound selection, they just stop right
  97. there. They talk to you about the frequency spectrum, the frequency analyzer, you
  98. got to spread your sounds around.
  99. Cool, we're done. But there's actually way more to it than that because again, for
  100. my beats, I like to have tons and tons of instruments.
  101. And the reason I do that is because it allows my beats to be really full in the
  102. arrangement. So for example, if I have verse one, chorus, verse two, chorus,
  103. verse three, I like to have verse one, verse two, and verse three typically a little
  104. different each time. Each beat is a little different.
  105. a If it's more simple beat, you don't have tons
  106. of instruments. So you kind of got to reuse that verse from verse one to verse two,
  107. and then you might mix it up just a little bit in terms of your arrangement if you
  108. want to kind of cut things out.
  109. And again, you'd really want to take advantage of audio painting.
  110. And if you don't know about audio painting, again, you can check out my book on
  111. Amazon, Audio Painting by Riley Weller or Gratuitous.
  112. So typically I like to have tons of instruments because I can mix and match
  113. different combinations of instruments from verse one to verse two to verse three.
  114. If we're gonna make our beat, we have sampling and we have original compositions.
  115. Those are like the only two ways to make beats sampling and original compositions.
  116. But then if you go to original compositions where we are playing our MIDI keyboard
  117. and making our MIDI note instruments, when we are making original compositions, we
  118. have kind of two types of beats.
  119. We have one beat where we are adding tons and tons of instruments, and essentially
  120. all instruments means chorus. And then we can break apart from verse one to verse
  121. two, and then when it comes back to chorus, we add all instruments in again.
  122. That is typically the easiest way to make an original composition because all you
  123. have to do is just keep adding instruments in, and then when you want to arrange the
  124. song, you just add and remove where you don't want things.
  125. Okay. Another way of the original composition is to actually change the chord
  126. progression when it comes to the chorus or when it goes to the bridge.
  127. And when you do that, it just makes beat making a little trickier because now you
  128. have to think about all the other instruments and you have to change all their
  129. melodies too. So I'm just gonna keep it really simple.
  130. We're gonna make an original composition and we're just adding our instruments in
  131. for a full chorus. And so if we are thinking about why sound selection, what are
  132. some things that we can do to have why sound selection rather than just thinking
  133. about spreading sounds over the frequency spectrum?
  134. So in order to spread sounds across the frequency spectrum, you simply just play
  135. over your octaves. So for example, on your MIDI keyboard, you have your octave
  136. buttons to go up and down. So when you're making your beat, the first thing you
  137. should be thinking about is what do you already have?
  138. Let's say you have your drum loop, let's say you have your main melody going on.
  139. What is it? Is it like a low kind of instrument, a mid instrument, a high
  140. instrument? Then you just think about when you go to the next sound, what type of
  141. sound do you want to add in? You can go high, mid, and low.
  142. And then again, you can just play on your MIDI keyboard, just a single note, and you
  143. can even test like is this gonna cut through?
  144. Okay. So that is spreading across the frequency spectrum with octaves.
  145. But again, that's where most education stops out there.
  146. The sound selection beats course is gonna be talking to you about these things,
  147. which we'll quickly cover now, okay?
  148. All right, so when it comes to getting your sounds to stand out in the same
  149. frequency spectrum, you have to be thinking about time, pitch, and volume.
  150. So when I talk about time, there's two things it's how long or short that note is.
  151. If a note is short, it's gonna take up less space in the frequency spectrum.
  152. If a sound is long, it's gonna really clog up the mix.
  153. That doesn't mean that the long note is bad.
  154. It just means that it takes up more space.
  155. So as a music producer, that is a good thing to know that a long note takes up more
  156. space, whereas a short note takes up less space in your frequency spectrum.
  157. A lot of this stuff is simple, but if you don't think about it this way, now it's
  158. really gonna help you, okay? So that's time.
  159. Now, another thing with time is actually just note nudging as well.
  160. So this is to do with sound placement.
  161. So when it comes to sound sele.ction, we actually have to talk about sound placement
  162. So sound placement is where you are actually clicking in your sounds, right?
  163. But sound placement will always win because what happens is if you play a sound
  164. where other sounds are not being played, then you know you're good to go.
  165. It's always going to stand out and you're probably not going to have too much
  166. clashing again unless that sound that you play has a long tail and
  167. overlaps. But let's just say we talk about short notes here.
  168. So sound placement is where you are actually clicking in your sounds, and if you are
  169. clicking sounds in different areas and they're not overlapping, then your sounds are
  170. gonna stand out no problem. Okay, that's a huge secret to know.
  171. But when you're making your beats, you're always gonna have some sounds that are
  172. overlapping, and so then you want to be thinking about short-tailed and long-tailed,
  173. and then again, you can also think about note nudging as well, which will allow you
  174. to have sounds stand out in their own way as well as have a looser feeling, okay?
  175. Pitch. So let's talk about pitch quickly.
  176. So again, pitch is octaves, which is the frequency spectrum.
  177. So if I play a note down low or a note up high, that's just simply pitch.
  178. So we want to take advantage of pitch, we want to spread our notes around the
  179. frequency spectrum. And again, the goal here is when you are selecting sounds, you
  180. want to be taking advantage of the frequency spectrum.
  181. You want to make sure that your instruments are standing out by themselves so that
  182. when it comes to mixing the music, that the instruments are already standing out,
  183. okay? And in addition to pitch, we actually have to talk about the word timbre,
  184. okay? So when I pick a sound, it's in pitch, okay?
  185. It has a fundamental note. So let's just say we play like C, okay?
  186. We play a C note, it has a fundamental note, and then we have frequencies on top.
  187. So if I go to a piano and and pla playy C C,. and then I go to a guitar, our ears
  188. hear the fundamental note, which means it's the pitch
  189. But the frequencies on top are called timbre.
  190. That's the harmonics, the overtones.
  191. Again, nerdy stuff, and I don't usually like to talk about that stuff because as a
  192. beat maker, I like to talk to you about what you need to know at a simple level.
  193. But some of these words are technical, so you kind of got to learn them.
  194. So we have the fundamental, which is what we hear in pitch.
  195. The frequencies on top are like the overtones or harmonics, and it gives the sound
  196. its timbre. So for example, if I play C on the piano, and then if I play C on the
  197. guitar, we hear the same pitch, we just hear a different sound, a different flavor,
  198. a different what we call timbre.
  199. Now, when we are picking sounds, sounds have more aggressive and less aggressive
  200. timbre. So in other words, they have that fundamental pitch, which we hear with our
  201. ears, so it's in tune with the music, because remember, music is just math.
  202. If I play this C note on this piano, and then I go to the guitar plug-in and I
  203. change the pitch, but then I play that C note again, it's gonna sound out of tune.
  204. So you have to make sure that the sound is in tune.
  205. And if you're playing the same C note, it's gonna be the same pitch, but just a
  206. different sound, okay? So when we are selecting our sounds, we have to make sure
  207. that we are selecting soft and aggressive sounds at the right time in order to get
  208. things to stand out. One other one I'll quickly talk about here is volume.
  209. So a lot of times, you know, if you're making your beat and you just can't get a
  210. sound a sound to stand out, it could just be churning it up.
  211. And I'm telling you, it could just be as simple as that.
  212. But sometimes the problem of turning up an instrument is because it could be too
  213. dynamic.. And so what that means is we have some really loud parts and some really
  214. quiet parts So if you are struggling to get a sound to stand out, this is where we
  215. are talking about tools like compressors or limiters.
  216. And in the sound selection and beats course, you will see that I use a limiter quite
  217. often in that course, just off of the plug-in.
  218. And again, I walk you through step by step.
  219. We actually make a beat from scratch, and you will see how I am actually selecting
  220. sounds to make them stand out in the beat.
  221. you will learn a lot in that, okay.
  222. Now, some other things we talk about in the course, and I'll mention them a little
  223. bit here. So, again, sound placement, right?
  224. Sound placement will always win because that's where you're clicking in a sound.
  225. If sounds are not overlapping, they'll always stand out.
  226. The type of sound, timbre, okay.
  227. Remember, we have the fundamental pitch of a sound, the timbre is just the way how
  228. the sound sounds. If you're picking more aggressive sounds, you're always gonna, you
  229. know, typically cut through. but you just got to think about that.
  230. Like, you know, if you want to pick a soft sound and you're using tons and tons of
  231. aggressive sounds, it might be a little bit hard to get that soft sound to stand
  232. out. But that doesn't mean that you can't get it to stand out, it just means that
  233. you might have to be a little wiser in your sound placement.
  234. And since we're talking about types of sounds, again, even things like pads versus
  235. pluck sounds, a pluck sound will typically always stand out if you're playing it
  236. with a pad. Why? Because a pad is so slow.
  237. A pluck is typically very, very quick and it's very aggressive, it really cuts
  238. through the mix. And again, I share examples with you in the course there, okay.
  239. again, octaves. Make sure you're playing down low, mids, and highs.
  240. Just be thinking about what type of instruments do you have already, and then play
  241. the instrument across the octaves, see where it cuts through the mix as well as
  242. where it complements the beat, okay?
  243. the beat. Just because the sound stands out doesn't mean it's complementing
  244. Here's a really pro tip for you that you may not think about single notes take up
  245. less space than chords. So when we're when we're doing wise sound selection, let's
  246. say we have eight instruments going on right now.
  247. Do you want to play chords there to add more fullness?
  248. Or is the beat super full and you're just looking for that one new instrument just
  249. to kind of finish the beat? Think about single notes versus chords.
  250. And you can do this test yourself.
  251. Just go into the frequency analyzer, the fruity parametric EQ2, and just play a
  252. chord versus playing a single note.
  253. You will see it takes up less frequencies, right?
  254. So again, a lot of people don't talk about these things because they really don't
  255. think about it this way. But because I make my beats with so many instruments, these
  256. are the things that I've just learned over the years, and that is again what I teach
  257. you in the sound selection and beats course.
  258. I also talked to you about dry notes and wet notes.
  259. So a dry note is how you can get a sound that kind of more in your face, and a wet
  260. note is kind of how you push it back in the mix.
  261. And essentially, I just show you you can add some reverb on to do that, okay?
  262. All right, so I hope you've been well.
  263. That is this episode about sound selection for newbies.
  264. So if you are brand new and you are looking for that sound selection tutorial, and
  265. if you've looked on YouTube and you just can't find your answer, again, check out my
  266. sound selection for beats course over at it'sgratuitous.com.
  267. Again, if you are a member, you can log in and watch it.
  268. And if you just want to purchase the single course, it is available for download.
  269. As well as if you do purchase the course, you also get to watch it in the platform
  270. as well. Okay, so again, that's over at it'sgratuitous.com.
  271. The link will be in the episode description.
  272. I will be working on the new website..
  273. Really, really excited The goal here is to make it fast and just enjoy it so that
  274. you know, for me, when I'm writing new FL Studio tutorials or even doing this
  275. podcast, if something's slow, like and and so this is probably the most annoying
  276. thing that if you get distracted easy, when I click a page in the back end of the
  277. website, so when you have a website, you have like the front end, which is what you
  278. as the user are using, like if you're gonna watch the courses or if you're gonna
  279. leave a question, or even if you're just viewing tutorials on the website, that is
  280. the front end, but the back end is what I get to see, which is what you know if I'm
  281. typing or if I'm adding in images or adding a new course, and if it's slow, you
  282. know, it just takes longer, and I can also get distracted easy.
  283. So, for example, let's say I click on a link and I know it's gonna take like three
  284. to four seconds to load. I'm just like, okay, and then someone sends me an email,
  285. I'll be like, okay, I'm gonna do that email quickly, and then 10 minutes later I
  286. come back. So I got distracted.
  287. Whereas if the website was quick, I would have ignored that email, I would have
  288. focused, I would have got it done.
  289. And so, yeah, the goal here is to reduce the plugins on the website, figure out the
  290. ones that I need to pay for and the ones I don't, because again, like I said, these
  291. website plugins are subscription model, and some of them are like 200 a year, and
  292. it's just kind of like, do I need them?
  293. Because sometimes there's free alternatives, free again, doesn't mean better, as
  294. well as paid doesn't mean better.
  295. It's just about selecting the right plugin for you, and then also thinking about
  296. long-term compatibility. That's a big thing that people don't talk about.
  297. So, in the music production world, like when I come and do education for music
  298. production, it's kind of relieving sometimes.
  299. Sometimes it's kind of nice because it's sometimes more simple.
  300. Like you know, you just have your music program., you get your nice plugin like Fab
  301. Filter, you get nice high quality drum kits
  302. And again, if you want to check out the drum kits I use, those are over at
  303. it'sgratuitous.com forward slash shop.
  304. You will see the drum kit section there.
  305. So I use the drum bundle trio a lot in the courses.
  306. But once you have the tools, once you know of the tools, it's like you're good to
  307. go. So thanks for listening. I'll talk to you in the next episode.
  308. Again, always feel free to visit me over at it'sgratuitous.com if you need help
  309. learning FL Studio. I offer FL Studio lessons.
  310. There's tons of FL Studio beat making courses, FL Studio Books, and again, there's
  311. also the FL Studio free tutorials, as well as this podcast that's over at
  312. it'sgratuitous.com. I'll talk to you in the next
  313. one.
GratuiTous Radio Start free Join Membership 0:00/0:00