Study diatonic harmony.

Triads (3 notes)
Seventh Chords (4 notes)
Extended Chords (5-7 notes)
Borrowed Chords (Chords from a parallel key)
Inversions (Chords played in a different voicing)
Voice Leading (The smooth translation of the notes between chords)

Use google.  These should point you in the general direction though.

The biggest challenge of learning how to produce I think is that once you've learned the basics it becomes very hard to find what you're looking for via tutorial videos.


I've found some of the EDMprod/Cymatics courses to be valuable.

We gotta work with what we've got. And for some of us that isn't a whole lot I think is what he's trying to say. 

Try doing things the opposite. Instead of how do you choose your melodic synth relative to your bassline the question can be how do you choose your bassline relative to your melodic synth?

The reason why I say that is because I choose my bassline AFTER I write my melodic material. The way I choose my bassline is simple cause the majority of the time it's just a simple sine wave and note wise it just follows the root note of the harmony.

I divide my bass layers like this.

1. Subbass. (Sine Wave)
2. Bass (Sine wave)
3. Upper Bass (anything)

The reason why I use a sine wave for my two bottom layers is because for the most part every sound wave below 200hz pretty much sounds the same when you filter out all the high end. The upper bass is where all the variation comes from. Basically to me it's the high end of a bass sound (200hz+) that gives it a unique characteristic. Everything else below that just sounds the same.

how do you pick a melodic sound / chord sounds based off that?

I don't usually write my bassline first but if I were to do so then the answer would just be experimentation. There are so many different combinations of instrumentations that you can use. (Cello, Piano, Guitar) for example or (saw pluck, detuned square pad, sine bass). For the most part the two bottom layers of a bass sound (below 200hz) blend well with just about anything. Start with just using those two layers to fill out the low frequencies and then choose your lead sounds. Once you got things sounding nice then maybe you can go back and experiment with the upper bass layer.

do you re synthesize the sound so its basically the same sound as the bassline with slightly different qualities so it sounds concise?

Sometimes I do actually. When you use the same sound but in a higher octave register it's almost like it comes from the same instrument family  because they share the same characteristics. (Cellos to Violins) Naturally things blend pretty well.

I wouldn't get too stuck on that though cause you don't need to use the same sound in the bass as you do in the leads. Anything goes. Just experiment with different instrumentations until you find a combination that you really dig and make it part of your signature style. Pretty soon people will be on youtube with HOWTO videos in massive on how to make a "r3mington lead stab"

For the longest time I refused to update to Logic Pro X. I started learning on Logic Pro 9 and Logic Pro X just felt so different for some reason even though it was the same software. I eventually updated only because when I updated my mac to capitan Logic Pro 9 stopped working. 

I'm glad I made the update though because not only is the GUI a hell of a lot nicer but there are some features in logic pro X that you can't use in logic pro 9. (At least not to my awareness)

But yeah it's just hard moving on to something different especially when you're used to a certain workflow. Also it doesn't help that there are SIGNIFICANTLY less track color options in Logic Pro X which annoyed the hell out of me for a really long time.

Edit:

maybe they're using 32 bit plugins and don't know about 32 lives

This one as well is HUGE. ^^^ You can't run 32 bit plugins in Logic Pro X without a 32bit>64bit wrapper like 32 lives. (Bye bye Sylenth) I think sylenth might have a 64 bit version now but this seriously prevented me from changing for a really long time until I found out about 32 lives.

In

Inspiration = Zedd

Background is been listening to electronic music since I was born cause my dad would DJ in his garage old school Above & Beyond, Kaskade, and Armin Van Buuren. Never really found a passion for it until I was 16. Before then I started playing guitar at 12 and studied music/practiced all day when I came back from school and during the summer. Taught myself music theory and ear training so that my musical foundation was incredibly solid at age 15. Eventually gave up on my dream of becoming a guitar virtuoso and found myself resonating a lot more with the recent innovation in the electronic music community. Started producing/composing when I turned 16 1/2 but never took it too seriously. Taught myself bass, piano, & drums along the way to at least an intermediate level because I was confused about whether I wanted to make rock or electronic music. Finally decided somewhere around the same time that I wanted to learn how to DJ and I picked it up quickly because of the musical background + my dad was my teacher and has been doing this for 30+ years. Now I just turned 19 and I'm just here trying to find my identity as an artist and continuing to fine tune my chops everyday as a college student.

But you guy's don't care about any of that.