Chris Avantgarde Makes A Melodic Techno Track From Scratch

Chris Avant-Garde creates a melodic techno track from scratch, sharing his production techniques and creative process in Ableton Live.

Key Takeaways

Creative ideas can happen anywhere, not just in a studio environment.
Using diverse samples from various genres helps avoid repetitive techno sounds.
Ableton Live offers powerful tools for recording, quantizing, and automating musical ideas.
Sound design techniques like distortion, transient shaping, and pitch automation enhance track dynamics.
Arranging with call and response and thoughtful spatial mixing improves track interest and clarity.

What the video covers

Chris Avant-Garde introduces himself as a classically trained pianist turned electronic music producer.
He emphasizes that his best ideas often come outside the studio, such as in hotel rooms or at home.
Chris uses a personal sample library spanning multiple genres to avoid generic techno sounds.
He starts his track by creating tension with drones and layering rhythmic elements like hi-hats and kick drums.
Ableton Live features such as recording clips, quantizing MIDI, and automation play a key role in his workflow.
He applies effects like distortion, transient shaping, and pitch automation to add character and movement.
Chris discusses arranging techniques including call and response between synth parts and spatial placement with reverb.
He highlights the importance of mixing elements in the stereo field and frequency spectrum for clarity.
The video includes tips on using plugins like Addictive Drums 2 and Soothe for sound design and mastering.
Chris encourages building a music catalog and sharing work even if initial plays or recognition are limited.

Chapters

How does Chris Avant-Garde start his melodic techno track?

Chris begins by creating tension with a drone sound and then gradually adds rhythmic elements like kick drums and hi-hats.

What tools and plugins does Chris use in his production process?

He uses Ableton Live features such as recording clips and quantizing MIDI, along with plugins like Addictive Drums 2 for drums and Soothe for removing harsh frequencies.

Why does Chris use samples from different genres in his techno tracks?

He uses a diverse sample library including jazz and reggae to avoid the generic and repetitive sounds common in typical techno sample packs, aiming for a fresh and inspiring start.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

Everyone, this is Chris Avant-Garde, and this is my beat from scratch. I started playing in bands. I'm classically trained on the piano and got into producing pretty much through noticing that I could play a whole band by myself on a computer.

Speaker A

a computer. The best ideas usually don't happen in the studio per se just because I travel so much now. So sometimes it might be a hotel room, it might be a couch somewhere. But also, I mean, if I have

Speaker A

The best ideas usually don't happen in the studio per se, just because I travel so much now. So sometimes it might be a hotel room, it might be a couch somewhere. But also, I mean, if I have a week or two where I'm just at home, then I'm getting creative there. And that's when those ideas happen.

Speaker A

like a drone. I like to create tension first. I use obviously splice and loop cloud and things like that.

Speaker A

Sometimes I might start with a beat and just kick drums. Sometimes I might start with something musical. I think let's start with like a drone. I like to create tension first. I use obviously Splice and Loopcloud and things like that.

Speaker A

lot of the like just electronic or let's say just techno based sample packs all make everything sound pretty same samey and it's not very inspiring to like start on something fresh right now for example this process may take the longest which is just okay which

Speaker A

But I also have, I mean, I can show you here, I have samples. This is like my library that I've created over the years, all sorts of different sounds and different genres from jazz, reggae to, yeah, any genre really because I find a lot of the, like, just electronic or let's say just techno-based sample packs all make everything sound pretty samey and it's not very inspiring to like start on something fresh.

Speaker A

Soothe I like to use just to like clear any harshness that might be in the material to I like that. Now let's get some rhythm. Maybe like transgate.

Speaker A

Right now, for example, this process may take the longest, which is just, okay, which sound inspires me, which is like where do I want to start. So the whole like clicking through. So let's play with this drone a little bit, put it a bit more in the background with some space blender here.

Speaker A

fundamental and maybe some noise which noise are we going for maybe just sh1 this is where it gets fun because if you add it This is where it gets fun, because if you add a distortion to this...

Speaker A

Soothe, I like to use just to like clear any harshness that might be in the material too. I like that. Now let's get some rhythm. Maybe like transgate.

Speaker A

and let's also put it on the level also on the level of the noise so it doesn't always So yeah let's see one of my favorite Ableton features if you haven't recorded something you just click this button up here and whatever you just played on the keyboard for the last whatsoever bars

Speaker A

Normally now I'm like, okay, let's find like a little counter melody, counter bass line, something like that. So I would start, they could start or an F second oscillator. Let's go with maybe like harmonic series, which is pretty cool because it adds harmonics like based on the fundamental, and maybe some noise. Which noise are we going for? Maybe just SH1.

Speaker A

use in the quantize settings here, use also the end point. Now what you see what happens here is all the end points of the midi get cut as well, so you never have an overlap that you didn't want initially.

Speaker A

This is where it gets fun because if you add it... This is where it gets fun, because if you add a distortion to this...

Speaker A

bounce the whole track in place and just use the audio let's add some hi -hats i like this plug in a lot addictive drums too because it has Some hi -hats. I like this plug -in a lot of addictive drums too because it

Speaker A

Let's try maybe an eighth rhythm against the stutter. So I would put an LFO on eighths, like that, and maybe put that LFO. Let's put it on the drive of the distortion.

Speaker A

and then I will just repeat that and now obviously you can tell that like this hi -hat has lots of room on it so you can go into the kit and Now I obviously can tell that this hi -hat has lots of room

Speaker A

And let's also put it on the level, also on the level of the noise so it doesn't always... So yeah, let's see. One of my favorite Ableton features, if you haven't recorded something, you just click this button up here and whatever you just played on the keyboard for the last whatsoever bars

Speaker A

And that's actually the volume envelope for the whole thing, including the room, so I'm not even affecting the room just yet. I can take the room out here as well. And there's no reverb on it at all, but I like what it does.

Speaker A

has actually been recorded. That is a great little tip. And here, quite actually been recorded. That is a great little tip. Then here, quantize. I often, with especially baselines and stuff, so that the notes don't overlap, I like to

Speaker A

There you go. I'm not sure if you mix it up. I'm gonna mix it up. Let's mix it up.

Speaker A

use in the quantize settings here, use also the end point. Now what you see what happens here is all the end points of the MIDI get cut as well, so you never have an overlap that you didn't want initially.

Speaker A

add a little counter melody serum again maybe just go through some presets of mine, for example.

Speaker A

And actually this drone, I like what it sounds like but I don't like that it's a little bit offbeat. I could now either use the delay compensation to compensate for that but what I'm just going to do is I'm just going to

Speaker A

introduce like a call and response thing so that not. And yeah, what I'd like to do later on is introduce like a call and response thing so that none of the synths actually play all the way through, but they would sort of complement

Speaker A

bounce the whole track in place and just use the audio. Let's add some hi-hats. I like this plugin a lot, Addictive Drums 2, because it has

Speaker A

Also what I like to do after the fact is add delays after I've done the filter automation because then whenever you open or close the filter the delay is obviously comes after the instrument so i can show you then the the delay continues then you can add

Speaker A

Some hi-hats. I like this plugin a lot, Addictive Drums 2, because it has hundreds or rather thousands of different drum kits that you can use and combinations thereof. Just stick to the very first one and add some hi-hats. And then afterwards we can cycle through presets and see which sound we like most.

Speaker A

that I can then add things that I feel like in my brain, in the context of the rest, makes sense.

Speaker A

And then I will just repeat that and now obviously you can tell that like this hi-hat has lots of room on it so you can go into the kit and Now I obviously can tell that this hi-hat has lots of room

Speaker A

This is a very I think it's actually a very well -known trick by now many people do this, but you can do a lot of like little automations where the hat feels like it opens or closes and even though this is

Speaker A

on it, so you can go into the kit and edit the hi-hat, which is here.

Speaker A

I feel like a rule of thumb is everything reverb -wise, the mix over 50 % puts it in the background, everything mixed below 50 % is further in your face. So you can actually place elements in the room

Speaker A

And that's actually the volume envelope for the whole thing, including the room, so I'm not even affecting the room just yet. I can take the room out here as well. And there's no reverb on it at all, but I like what it does.

Speaker A

this one, which is treated, you can feel the element in the sound actually moving back and forth. And also I like doing pitch automation. element in the sound if you're moving back and forth and also I like doing pitch automation on like vocals

Speaker A

It sweetens those hats a little bit. What it does, it sweetens those hats a little bit. This is a drum shaper, which is basically a transient shaper with some extra sauce.

Speaker A

other which then is already building some sort of like, you're already building arrangement while you're working on the song.

Speaker A

There you go. I'm not sure if you mix it up. I'm gonna mix it up. Let's mix it up.

Speaker A

Kick three. Like that. That actually ends on a D. It's hard to tell with kicks in different rooms where you've never worked because in my studio obviously I wouldn't know immediately if this kick works or Okay, now we introduce some side -shining, kickstart 2.

Speaker A

Like that and then what I would start now is because I'm going to use a drum bus for all the high drums, I put this into a group and already call this, um, my higher drums and then everything else like shakers, other hi-hats and stuff I would add to this group.

Speaker A

it's master meter quickly and explain what that is so on here i have a couple of different plugins first one is span which vox angle span this is a free plugin that everyone can download for free gives me mid side information so

Speaker A

Add a little counter melody, Serum again, maybe just go through some presets of mine, for example.

Speaker A

you can see two things. You can see your overall frequency, where your frequencies hit in the track. There's a couple of different presets that are just for reference. Again none of these make any sounds, they just analyze the audio that's fed into them.

Speaker A

I want to do like a few pitch bends in here so let's see what the pitch bend range is right now, plus minus two. Let's go to five. Obviously right now everything is very linear. What I'd like to do later on is

Speaker A

You also get a waveform here so you can tell okay is my transient massively louder than my body of the kick or is the bass way too quiet like just if you look at tracks that that you really like from other artists and

Speaker A

introduce like a call and response thing so that not... And yeah, what I'd like to do later on is introduce like a call and response thing so that none of the synths actually play all the way through, but they would sort of complement

Speaker A

where am I sound -wise in this world right now? Maybe we even stay just on the root note here for a little bit.

Speaker A

each other with like a call and response thing. Now let's introduce some more tension in this whole part just with filtering it.

Speaker A

breakdown but now I have an element that says something for the first one, two, three bars and then afterwards another element responds to that and then the first element comes back in again.

Speaker A

Also what I like to do after the fact is add delays after I've done the filter automation because then whenever you open or close the filter, the delay obviously comes after the instrument. So I can show you then the delay continues, then you can add

Speaker A

use one plug -in. I like to use Volcano for this because it's a filter plug -in but because here you have, wherever the fundamental is, the correlating key on the keyboard and knowing that we're working D I like to filter this up to

Speaker A

like effects where they pitch up an octave and things like... How did you build the drums out more? I probably built the drums out more, so I got some hi-hats. I keep playing the loop all the time so

Speaker A

Classic 909 hat. Also something I like to do for everything to be super tight is, for example, this hi -hat For example, this hi -hat obviously is longer than I've just cut it here, but because I know the clap

Speaker A

that I can then add things that I feel like in my brain, in the context of the rest, makes sense.

Speaker A

I'm not going to quantize these because I like that they're a little bit swingy also obviously this first clap is super short and it's just sort of like complementing the the groove a little bit but it's not really it's not really hitting so

Speaker A

This was this one and for drums there's two approaches: either you work in audio or MIDI or you do both. I like to just mix the two sometimes like you don't need to have everything in MIDI. Then also to give some movement to that hat I like to add a vocoder.

Speaker A

one over here and also do the same in the very beginning Just bounce that again And then when if I want to just because I want this rye to like go through the whole thing But in the very beginning if

Speaker A

This is a very, I think it's actually a very well-known trick by now. Many people do this, but you can do a lot of little automations where the hat feels like it opens or closes and even though this is

Speaker A

glued a little bit more Let's try this little stutter synth we had in the very beginning and now introduce it let's do that here but now we don't do it all the way through now we do it like a call and

Speaker A

just a sample, I feel like a rule of thumb is everything reverb-wise, a mix over 50%.

Speaker A

I spent too much time on this breakdown section now because this is where it can get really, really intricate. I just need some re -space.

Speaker A

I feel like a rule of thumb is everything reverb-wise, the mix over 50% puts it in the background, everything mixed below 50% is further in your face. So you can actually place elements in the room

Speaker A

I'm going to keep this bass and just adjust the pad recording. build that out again to build and then we go into like a final drop I filter out this space that I introduced in the breakdown, so towards the end,

Speaker A

wherever the mix is. If you want something to feel further back, you can put the mix of the reverb above 50% to like 60%, 70%, and then play with the decay time. And you can feel if you're sitting in a room like

Speaker A

i would see anywhere we do i know i'm in d minor so i would see anywhere that's i mean let's start with the simple stuff let's let's put exhaust music to play out needs a lot less effects than you think just for like

Speaker A

this one, which is treated, you can feel the element in the sound actually moving back and forth. And also I like doing pitch automation. Element in the sound if you're moving back and forth and also I like doing pitch automation on like vocals

Speaker A

if i was to use like a little reverse thing just hearing that already adds anticipation to something oh something's going to happen and then Now we look for example to this little bass response thing That's cool but it's very far away

Speaker A

like this as well just to give a little bit of a different feel. Okay, I feel like we've started a little bit of a breakdown section here, so let's just build that out. So now you can introduce every element one after the

Speaker A

saturation and I just used like this for example a bit warmer but now like in here like this is one tile I can move this to any tile I want and then I can say okay I'd also This is one tile, I

Speaker A

other which then is already building some sort of like, you're already building arrangement while you're working on the song.

Speaker A

Basically now in the process I would clean everything up and see okay what inspired me before is nice I like it but like obviously now I need to clean everything up and make it make it punchy I would then start again with like

Speaker A

Pulling more and more tension. What I'd like to do here is start a group for the lows as well which will include all the bass material, so like kick, which we haven't even gotten to yet, but let's add that.

Speaker A

Let's just say that I've mixed this already and what would I do on the master? I'd probably start with some catching peaks so compression I don't want more than like 2 -3 dB also what helps with like stuff

Speaker A

Kick three. Like that. That actually ends on a D. It's hard to tell with kicks in different rooms where you've never worked because in my studio obviously I wouldn't know immediately if this kick works or... Okay, now we introduce some side-shining, Kickstart 2.

Speaker A

like 4 dB compressions meaning okay it's probably too loud in the mix right so then you turn it down a little bit and then it might have too much low -end information which little bit and then it might have too much low -end

Speaker A

Now we introduce some sidechaining, Kickstart 2, Kickinput. I would already now start putting like analy...

Speaker A

most balanced mix possible then you can see in some of your mastering plugins you can see where there might be issues that you haven't seen before this is also a nice little thing i like to do i'm doing this on the master now

Speaker A

just to show make a point but let's just assume i was doing this on a group on like my synths group oh i know okay the synths and the vocals for example they mostly sit in the mid -range so I know, okay, the

Speaker A

synths and the vocals, for example, they mostly sit in the mid -range, so if I see it in my mix after the fact, I have a bit of a dip in the mids that I would like to fix, either it's just a volume

Speaker A

thing, or what I like to do is this is Waves Factory Spectre, it's also a saturation plugin, so it just adds harmonic information to your signal instead of just boosting amplitude or volume in EQ. So what this does is, if I look in

Speaker A

the Tonal Balance Control to see which frequencies were lacking in this part earlier. earlier.

Speaker A

I can see like between 700 and 3k I can see okay there might be a little bit of a boost needed so what I can just do I can just take one of these bands and see this is 700 and this is 3k

Speaker A

so it's literally just here it's just part here. And you can already tell that now this curve is way more in the in the balanced area.

Speaker A

I'd then do some sooth on the high end because the balanced area i'd then do some soothe on the high end because the high end here is obviously a little bit harsh there are some good presets in this mastering advanced ear friendly top

Speaker A

on master too like to use this you can boost the low end at the low end you can boost the highs before maybe compress them a little bit and then add sooth after so that you find that balance where like you hear okay

Speaker A

it's brighter now but it still doesn't hurt my ears let's just put like a diamond eq on here Lastly, I probably do, I mean limiting comes at the very end to be fair Put a pro L on again i don't want too much gain reduction there either then this is also something

Speaker A

i like to do this is like classic loudness wars thing now but you'd add standard clip after the fact and then there's like a little preset called final maximizer i use after limiter um also i don't do this all the time but for

Speaker A

techno or like dance music it has it has I don't do this all the time, but for techno or like dance music, it has it has its perks.

Speaker A

Because you can introduce saturation into the clipping, meaning you get more of a fuller sounding mix. That's how I would approach a production from start to like almost finish.

Speaker A

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.L .A .L .A .L .A .L .A .L .A .L .A .L .A .L .A .L .A .L .A .L .A .L .A .L .A .L .A .L I can't really speak on that when the track is finished because that's such a

Speaker A

personal thing. It's just you have to sort of like make peace with the fact that this is the best you can do at that point to really finish songs, especially arranging songs. It's just take a track that you like and that's in a

Speaker A

similar lane, in a similar genre, drag it into your door. that's in a similar lane, in a similar genre, drag it into your DAW, adjust the BPM to be the same as yours. Don't ever listen to the track, but just look at the

Speaker A

waveform, let's just use this as an example. You take any song into your DAW and then throughout the arrangement of the song you can tell, okay, this is the part, for example, you can tell already in the intro, okay,

Speaker A

the first, let's say 30 seconds of this track have no sub -information, they have no kick, okay, fine. Then after that, the bass comes in. no kick okay fine then after that um the bass comes in then around here this happens around here

Speaker A

that happens even without listening to the song in the waveform you can tell sort of where a track that you really like or that you feel like inspires you what are they doing in in their arrangement don't copy it musically at all because

Speaker A

that's not going to lead you anywhere good but um just copy the arrangement and you'll learn that where you learn how to arrange things you learn where like the tension is building dance music it's all pretty it's very very formulaic in a good

Speaker A

way because that's what works on the dance floor most of It's very, very formulaic, in a good way, because that's what works on the dance floor most of the time. Obviously, sometimes it doesn't work because your song is so different to the one

Speaker A

that you try to reference. But it's a good starting point to at least get the full track from an eight -bar loop to actually five and a half, six and a half minute arrangement. The best advice I can give is just to put

Speaker A

things out, even if you don't have any connections. The barrier of entry now is so low, you can literally upload anything you want to the internet. I would do that. And if you have anything that you're proud of in the moment and you

Speaker A

think, oh, I want to show. this to people, do it. And if that song gets three plays on SoundCloud, that's fine. Build a portfolio of music of your catalog that you can show people. Because what happens to many people, and

Speaker A

it's happened to me multiple times throughout my career, is you put something out that you don't expect much of in the moment. And then years, months down the line, something to that song happens where someone's like, oh, I heard that. And then they

Speaker A

made a connection to you and introduced you to another person. Or they were like, hey, that thing you put up in SoundCloud four years ago, that's me. or they were like hey that that thing you put up in soundcloud four years ago that's

Speaker A

made me do this and then someone contacted me to work on a movie because they heard something i've made seven years ago which has never had i don't know 20 000 streams but you create opportunity by just putting yourself out there more don't

Speaker A

be too scared of what other people think because if you look back at yourself 10 years from that moment you'll be like yeah i was horrible back then i'll think the same of myself in 10 years like what did i do 10 years

Speaker A

ago you always improve you know like it's the constant improvement you never get to that point I do 10 years ago you always improve you know like it's the constant improvement you never get to that point where like yeah I'm perfect now that

Speaker A

does not happen

Topics:Chris Avant-Gardemelodic technomusic productionAbleton Livesound designelectronic musicmusic arrangementsample librariesmixing tipsmusic production tutorial

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