Amable / Guides / Melodic techno
How to make melodic house and techno in Ableton Live 12
Melodic house and techno put a moody synth story on a steady four on the floor: a rolling bass, wide minor-key pads and a hypnotic arp that slowly opens up. Here it is step by step in Live 12, then the one-line version.
1. Set the tempo
Melodic techno usually sits between about 122 and 125 BPM; melodic house a little lower, around 118 to 124. Click the tempo field in Live's Control Bar, type 124 and press Enter.
2. Add a MIDI track with a drum kit
Insert a MIDI track (⌘ Shift T). In the browser, open Drums, pick a kit and drag it onto the track. A kit with a deep, round kick, a clap or rimshot and soft hats suits the style.
3. Make a clip
In Session View, double-click an empty clip slot on the drum track. Live makes an empty MIDI clip and opens it; the pattern below is one bar. Set the grid to 1/16 with the grid chooser at the right of the Clip View header (⌘ 1 and ⌘ 2 narrow and widen it), so each beat has four steps and the bar has 16.
4. Program the drums
Switch to Draw Mode (B) and click the notes in. Most Live kits follow the General MIDI layout (kick C1, snare D1, clap D#1, closed hat F#1, open hat A#1); check the pad names in yours.
- Kick on every beat: steps 1, 5, 9 and 13.
- Clap or rimshot on beats 2 and 4: steps 5 and 13.
- Open hi-hat on the off-beats: steps 3, 7, 11 and 15.
- Closed hi-hat rolling on the even steps, soft.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kick | ||||||||||||||||
| Clap | ||||||||||||||||
| Open hat | ||||||||||||||||
| Hi-hat |
Dimmer cells are notes played softer.
5. A rolling bass
The bass rolls between the kicks: short notes on the three sixteenths after each kick, and nothing on the kick itself, so the two never clash. Put Drift on a new MIDI track and play the root (A, in A minor) on those steps.
Then make it duck: a Compressor on the bass with the kick as its sidechain source, so the bass dips on every kick. The sidechain guide has the settings.
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kick | ||||||||||||||||
| Bass |
6. Pads
Wide, moody pads carry the harmony. On a third track, play Am, F, C and G, one chord per bar, as long notes, and add a long reverb.
7. The arp and the build
Drag the Arpeggiator from the browser's MIDI Effects onto a fourth track with a pluck sound, set its Rate to 1/16 and play the same chords into it. It turns each held chord into a running pattern.
For the build, put Auto Filter on the arp and draw its frequency opening slowly over 16 bars, so the arp gets brighter until the drop.
Or ask Amable
Amable does these steps in your set when you ask in plain words:
set the tempo to 124 and make an 8-bar melodic techno loop in A minor
add a rolling bassline on Drift and sidechain it to the kick
add an arp over Am, F, C and G pads
It writes the pattern into a clip and fires it. Want to learn it instead? Ask it to walk you through it, and it guides you one step at a time, checking your set before the next.
Free trial, no card needed. Needs Ableton Live 12.