Learn to create soulful, progressive, and EDM house beats using BandLab's free web studio with step-by-step instructions.
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Key Takeaways
- BandLab's free web studio offers versatile tools and sounds for creating various house music sub-genres.
- Swing and velocity adjustments are key to achieving authentic soulful and progressive house grooves.
- Using effects like compression and reverb enhances the dynamics and spatial quality of beats.
- Samples from BandLab Sounds can be effectively used to build EDM loops with precise control.
- Users can duplicate and modify projects easily, promoting creativity and learning.
What the video covers
- Introduction to making house beats in soulful, progressive, and EDM styles using BandLab's free web studio.
- Step-by-step guide to creating a soulful house beat at 120 BPM using drum pads 909 and swing notes.
- Instructions on adjusting velocity and adding dynamics compression to enhance the beat.
- Tutorial on making a progressive house beat with the new house drum pads, including adding rides and reverb effects.
- Demonstration of creating an EDM loop using BandLab Sounds samples and sampler track.
- Tips on using snap to grid, duplicating MIDI clips, and adjusting sample start/end markers.
- Encouragement to fork the project via the video description link and customize beats.
- Use of velocity adjustments and effects to shape the sound dynamics and texture.
- Detailed sequencing of kicks, claps, hats, snares, rides, and other percussion elements for each style.
- Final encouragement to experiment and have fun making house music with BandLab.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Overview
- 00:37Creating a Soulful House Beat
- 01:28Adding Swing and Velocity Adjustments
- 01:58Duplicating Clips and Adding Compression
- 02:55Making a Progressive House Beat
- 03:32Adding Ride Cymbals and Reverb
- 04:36Creating an EDM Loop with Samples
- 07:06Finalizing and Duplicating EDM Beat
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
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Foreign. [Music] With BandLab's array of included sounds, you can make music in whatever sub-genre you like. In this video, we'll show you how to make three house music beats in soulful, progressive, and EDM styles. You can open this project yourself with
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the link in the video description. And if you find this guide useful, please hit the subscribe button and the notification bell to be the first to know when new videos drop. First, we're going to make a soulful house beat. I'm going to keep the project
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tempo at the default 120 beats per minute and begin by adding a virtual instrument track, setting it to drum pads 909. I add kicks on every beat of the first bar. [Music] I add claps on every other beat.
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I then place open hats between the beats. Foreign. This sounds okay, but it needs some 16th note swing to really sound like soulful house. I turned off BandLab's snap to grid function, which you can find in the settings menu.
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I add a closed hat around halfway through the 8th 16th note and turn its velocity down to 62 to make it a touch quieter. I also add a snare around halfway through the last 16th note of the bar
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and again set its velocity to 62. [Music] Now that I'm done adding swung notes, I reactivate snap to grid. This time, I'm going to use the handy magnet icon rather than the menu. I duplicate this bar out for the rest of
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the four-bar clip. To duplicate notes or clips in BandLab, hold option on Mac or alt on Windows and drag them over. [Music] I'd like this beat to sound louder, so in the effects panel, I add a Dynamics
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BL1176 compressor. Foreign. That sounds good to me. Let's make a Prague house beat next. For this, I'm going to add a virtual instrument track, and this time set it to drum pads new house. I place kicks on every beat of the bar.
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[Music] I then add claps on every other beat, turning their velocity down to 55.
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[Music] I then put hats between the beats, turning their velocity down to 66. [Music] Next, I deactivate snap to grid. You can place a side stick about a third of the way through the final 16th note of the
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third beat. I set the velocity of this hit to 55. I reactivate snap to grid. I duplicate the MIDI out for the rest of the four-bar clip. [Music] I feel like this beat could do with the ride, but the new house kit doesn't
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include one, so I create a new virtual instrument track and set this one to drum pads 909. I sequence rides on every beat, duplicating them out for the rest of the clip. Foreign. [Music] The ride is a little loud, so I set this
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track to -9 dB. [Music] The ride also sounds a touch dry to me, so in the effects panel, I add a reverb, studio reverb. Foreign. Cool. Now it's time to make an EDM loop. For this, I'm going to use samples from
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BandLab Sounds rather than one of the ready-made kits, so I add a sampler track. I opened BandLab Sounds and enter EDM into the text search field. I opened the Melodic EDM Volume 1 pack, kit 2 drum kick 128 4 bar. Sounds good to
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me, so I drag it onto the first sample pad and drag the sample end marker to the end of the first kick drum. Now I can place the single kick drum sound as I wish. I add kicks on each beat
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of the bar. Next, I drag kit 2 drum hi-hat 128 4 bar onto the second pad. I used the sample start and end markers so that this pad just plays a single hat with no unwanted silence at the start.
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I sequence this between the beats and turn these notes' velocities down to 74. Next, I want to use kit 2 drum ride 128 4 bar. I added it to the third pad and used the sample end marker to isolate a single
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ride. I place these on every beat, turning the velocity down to 64. [Music] The final sound I add is kit 1 drum stadium clap 128 4 bar, which I crop using the sample end marker and sequence on every other beat.
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[Music] I duplicate this beat out for the rest of the clip. [Music] So there, you've seen how to make these three different types of house beats in BandLab. Remember, you can fork this project and make your own version of it
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using the link in the video description. Have fun!
Topics:BandLabhouse beat tutorialsoulful houseprogressive houseEDM beatfree music productiononline DAWdrum programmingmusic production tutorialBandLab Sounds











