Author: Daren McLeod

Nov 17

New Lesson Tuesday – Live Evil – Bang That

by in Music, New Lesson Tuesdays

Over the past few weeks we have taken you through a wide range of genres lesson wise. This week we delve into the wonderful world of Trap music. Our lessons this week comes from DJ/Producer duo ‘Live Evil’ made up of Kutcorners and DJ Marvel. Based in Vancouver they started performing together way back in 2011 as ‘The Freshest Live Set’ and put with some equally ‘Fresh’ videos on Youtube.

Their latest single released earlier this year ‘Bang That‘ is definitely in your turn up realm and uses an awesome vocal sample from ‘Detroits Filthiests’ 2002 ghettotech classic “Pass out”, available on iTunes. Used with permission.

This lesson will teach you all the elements that make up Trap from the drum and bass patterns to the hi hats!

You will start with these simple elements before moving into a song mode, that will have you playing vocal loops and triggering a police siren. These lessons are simply a must for all the trap enthusiasts out there looking to improve there live performance skills.

Check out our trailer for this lesson to get you in the mood and also check out Live Evil’s Soundcloud. 

As always send us through videos of yourself having a jam with Melodics! You can do this via Instagram or Facebook using the hashtag #Melodics.

 

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Nov 17

Melodics Is Now Available On Windows

by in Melodics, Music

Since launching Melodics just over a month ago one question has come up time and time again through our support and social media channels. ‘When will Melodics be available with Windows?’

Well  the wait is now over as the team are excited to announce that Melodics is available on Windows and can be downloaded now.

11-clippy

As you can see Clippy has even come out of retirement to show his support and is currently a Level 5 Melodics player.

We hope you enjoy Melodics on Windows and feel free to get in touch via social media or our support page.

Minimum Specs

Melodics runs on Windows 7, 8, or 10.

Minimum Processor: i3: 1.07GHz 64 bit or equivalent
Minimum screen resolution is 1280 x 720
Memory: 512 MB

1GB of free hard drive space.

Note: You do not need a pad controller, but it is much better with one.

 

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Nov 12

Use Melodics To Improve Your DJ Sets: Cue Point Drumming Lessons

by in Melodics, Music, Pro Tips

For the next five days all Melodics Premium DJ content has been unlocked and can be played by all our users. In these lessons you’ll learn the art of cue point drumming and how it can be applied across a range of  tracks in your library, to create interesting flips of an original beat. These skills will set you a part from all the other ‘laptop DJs‘ out there and make your next DJ set fresh to death.

When applying our techniques to your own tracks make sure to keep these steps in mind.

 1) In your DJ software, choose a bar within the track and set 4 cue points

2) Set the four cue points on the 4 beats of the bar – typically the 1st kick, 1st snare, 2nd kick and 2nd snare.

3) Make sure you’ve practiced the pattern you want to use in Melodics and your timing is on point

To give you an idea of this in action we have included videos of three very different songs all using the same pattern from our lesson ‘Cue Point Drumming Lesson 1′.

Cue Point Drumming Lesson 1 – applied to Jay Z – Dirt Off Your Shoulder (82 BPM)

Cue Point Drumming Lesson 1 – applied to Disclosure – White Noise (Featuring AlunaGeorge) (120 BPM)

Cue Point Drumming Lesson 1 – applied to Led Zeppellin – Kashmir (81 BPM)

The pattern used across these examples is one of many that are included in Melodics waiting to be tried out. Melodics will teach you these different patterns through lessons that gradually increase in difficulty.

Once you feel all trained up the next step is to try what you have learned with your DJ controller/software. So set the cue points to the pads on your controller and get drumming. We recommend also looking at the Serato Flip which will help you to capture and loop your cue point drumming live.

We would love to see what kinds of flips you are able to do with tracks in your library using the techniques you have learned in Melodics. So send us through some videos using the hashtag #Melodics and we will find you on Instagram and Facebook.

If you have not downloaded Melodics yet do so now :)

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Nov 10

New Lesson Tuesday – DJ Edition #2 (Flips)

by in Music, New Lesson Tuesdays

Last week our lessons introduced you to the art of cue point drumming and how it can be used in DJ sets. This week we are taking it a step further and using cue point drumming techniques to flip tracks to create new and unique variations.
Flipping has been used throughout the years by producers in particular to sample old records and express them in a modern context. Some of your favourite tracks all have origins from older tracks with hip hop and soul being closely linked. In this week’s lessons you will be able to take an old soul song and flip it into a hip hop jam. These techniques and flipping patterns can potentially be used in other songs in your library to make your DJ sets even more interesting.
Before you dive fingers first into our new lessons check out some of histories finest flips to get you in the mood.

Flip 1

Original:  Roberta Flack – Gone Away  (4:00 in)
Flipped Track: TI – What You Know  (0:17 seconds in)

Flip 2

Original: Imogen Heap – Just For Now  (0:00 in)
Flipped Track: Clams Casino – I’m God  (0:28 in)

Flip 3

Original: 10cc – Johnny, Don’t Do It  (1:56 in)
Flipped Track:  J Dilla – Waves (0:00 in)

So the lessons are up, you’ve heard some incredible flips, now it’s time to get playing!

Also as a special promotion this week all our premium DJ content has been unlocked for ALL Melodics users to enjoy.

So get practicing and feel free to send us through videos of yourself killing one of our lessons via Instagram using the hashtag #Melodics.

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Nov 03

New Lesson Tuesday – DJ Edition #1

by in Melodics, New Lesson Tuesdays

This week we bring you Cue Point Drumming Basics, a set of lessons designed to build skills that you can use with your favourite DJ software.

These lessons will help you to practice and perfect drumming patterns that you can apply to a wide range of tracks.

The art of Cue Point Drumming is becoming a valuable tool in every top DJ’s arsenal. With all previous winners of Red Bull’s Thre3style DJ World Championships using cue point drumming within their sets to gain an edge. Check out 2014 World Champion Eskei83 cue point drumming up a storm with a Pioneer DJM-S9.

So while you may not become a world champion right away, these lessons will push your fingers in the right direction. So practice these lessons, apply the techniques during your next DJ gig and set yourself apart from all the wannabe DJ’s in your city.

P.s – We are always interested to see you guys killing a lesson on Melodics. So send us through videos of yourself doing just that via Instagram using the hashtag #Melodics.

See You Next Tuesday.

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Oct 27

New Lesson Tuesdays

by in Melodics, New Lesson Tuesdays

Our new lessons this week come from two Melodics featured artists Tall Black Guy and Mark de Clive-Lowe. While both lessons are technically different they both possess commonalities in regards to being incredibly inspiring.

nlt-27oct2015-TBG
Tall Black Guy

Tall Black Guys lesson will teach you how to play his 2013 track ‘From Home To Work, And Back’ off his debut album 8 Miles To Moenart. This track as the title suggests delves into the day to day living for Tall Black Guy that involves going to work during the day and making music/watching NBA highlights in the evening . From a technical perspective this lesson will have you playing drums, bass and a very sultry riff with a harp guitar. If you can’t get enough of that harp guitar check out the actual song as well as the original sample. You will not be disappointed.

 

nlt-27oct2015-MDCL
Mark de Clive-Lowe

Mark de Clive-Lowe has gone a different route and has made a completely original lesson called ‘Broken Boogie’. This original piece has many different steps and starts you off with some drums and some cowbell… Yes Cowbell! While it may have taken myself a few attempts to master the cowbell it was a lot of fun to learn and definitely had me wanting more. Once you have mastered these elements there is a great synth pattern to learn that takes this lesson to another level both sonically and grade wise.

See you next Tuesday :)

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Oct 20

New Lesson Tuesdays

by in Melodics, New Lesson Tuesdays

In this lesson Ninja Tune artist Nick Hook takes us on a journey back to the days of early electro/hip hop.

A time where MC’s wore wraparound sunglasses and dressed like Egyptian Pharaohs.

Fashion commentary aside ‘Jamit feat. Egyptian Lover’ is a modern day homage to this era and the 1982 hit ‘Planet Rock’ from Africa Bambaataa and Soul Sonic Force.

Melodics have deconstructed the beat and broken it down to it’s instrumental parts so you can learn some key elements of the song. We have also included a ‘song form’ lesson that gives you the feel of sequencing loops live. The challenge with this song is that the original is all made on sequencers so that means you have to have near robotic timing. If you’re a fan of Roland tr-808 drums, vocoders, fast synth arpeggiators and frantic button pushing you will love this lesson.

For further inspiration make sure to check out a behind the scenes video that shows Nick Hook and Egyptian Lover putting this beat together.

Finally feel free to post videos of yourself or your cat jamming ‘JAMIT’ with Melodics and we will feature it on our Instagram page

See you next Tuesday for some more lessons

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