So how do you get sounds to work together?

[Fir]

Hey everyone.

So I've started using this funky new thing called OpenMPT and tried to make some sounds. Presently I've learnt how to write notes, import samples and I'm slowly poking my nose into Vst(i)'s to see what I can do with them, but I have a problem.

While I'm able to make a (not fantastic, but not awful) short spot of music with a single instrument, usually no longer than one standard 63row pattern long, I'm having real difficulty writing two different instruments to sound good together.

Basically, I can't get them to mutually support each-other and sound better playing together rather than alone.
So I'd like to ask everyone on the forum (if what I've asked isn't clear let me know) what they do to get your instruments to sound good when they're all playing together, not just solo'd.


Cheers

(If you feel like adding anything extra, such as how to not have one channel overpower the others in terms of volume and whatnot, feel free).
(Also apologies if this is the wrong board, I couldn't decide between this and the help one.)

[Saga Musix]

Well, writing music obviously involves music theory. You can write entire books on that topic. The "easy" way is to listen to other people's music, see how they do it and imiate them. That is particularly easy with OpenMPT because it's a tracker and the tracker scene is open and friendly and shares their creations in their source formats (MOD, S3M, XM, IT, ...). Go over to ModArchive and grab some music, listen to it, look at the patterns, see how people do stuff, etc. You won't learn how to write coherent melodies in a day, maybe not even a month, but it will be a lot of fun that way.

Concerning your problem, you probably don't want to have two melodies playing at the same time anyway. Have a bassline, some drums, a melody and chords and you're done. Find a simple bassline that fits your melody (change the bass note every 16 rows, i.e. every measure), then find some chords that fit the bassline, and you have something that should kinda fit together.

[LPChip]

Jojo nails it. What you're asking is plain music theory.

But I understand that writing a bassline and a melody line are 2 different instruments already, so here is a really basic thing from music theory that should get you started.


In music, you have what we call "chords" A chord often combines 3 or 4 notes together to form the basic. For example, a C major chord would be: C, E, G.

A bass often works with the 1st and occasionally with the 3rd note of the chord, although it is not limited to it.

So the first step for you is to write your pattern and follow one or more chords. I bet you only have a melody that goes all over the place and that might make it difficult for your experience level to add one or more chords for that. I suggest to write the chord first. Adding a melody to that will be easier.

When writing the melody to the chord, take the basenote (1st of the chord) and make sure you are not using the half up and half down note: B and C# for a duration longer than 1 beat or it will sound off key. Same goes for the other 2 notes in the chord, but for those two notes, its often not that worse.

[Rakib]

If you want two different instruments playing together and sounding nice, I suggest you also think about the facts that the instruments need some space for each other. The simplest way to achieve this is to separate them in different sound frequency area.

[Fir]

Thanks guys, I'll take that and see what I can come up with. If you have any links/know of some good places for some theory literature, I'd love to hear it. I think I need to read up a bit before I'll make any real progress.

Thanks again.

[Saga Musix]

Can't think of any specific sources, sorry. Wikipedia might be a good place to get started. Their articles on music theory have a long list of recommended books at least.