> Step by step

5. Building a structure

1 We now have a basic 8-bar pattern and it’s time to tidy things up a bit and create a better structure. First up label the tracks using the right-click menu. We have Beats, Bass, Percussion, and Noise FX. We can also add icons from the Properties menu and label the clips properly.

2 Next up, create a structure that we can use moving forward. We’ve copied our 8-bar loop around to create a 64 bar section and then gone in and muted various parts. Sometimes this is individual notes but mostly it’s whole sections which you can see in grey.

3 Now we’re going to add some piano. Load up the Collective instrument as before onto Track 5. The sound we want is a regular piano, and the preset Warm Concert Grand does the job. We don’t want the reverb though, so go to the Effects edit page on Collective and bypass Effect 1.

4 We’ve played the piano in and recorded and then edited the MIDI in the MIDI Editor. Alternatively, if you zoom in on a MIDI track, Waveform lets you edit the MIDI in the Arrange panel, complete with all the same editing options.

5 Now let’s add some further keyboard sounds. For this we’re going to use a synth from the library, Dmitry Sches Thorn CM. As mentioned in our intro you can grab this from the FileSilo vault. So load this up onto Track 6.

6 Now we have the piano and bass doing musical parts, we are looking for textures to fill out the overall sound. We’ve chosen an ethereal-sounding preset from the Pad folder – Neutrino. If we add single-note legato parts across the track it fills out the track nicely.

7 The Neutrino pad already has a mod-wheel assigned to its oscillators and distortion effect. Let’s draw some controller data in to modify the sound. First, expand the track and select the clip. From the Controllers tab, select Modulation Wheel and, from the Snap tab, select a fine option such as 1/64. Now draw in some data using the pencil tool.

8 We’re going to add one more sound and that’s an arpeggiated synth. For this we’re going back to the Collective synth again, so load that up on track 7. The preset we’re going to use is Short Stuff. To find this quickly you can type the name into Collective’s preset search bar on the top right.

9 We’re going to use the arp just as a lifting texture for the last 16 bars of our track. We’ve chosen a very simple threenote chord and recorded the MIDI part straight in. That’s all our MIDI parts programmed. On the next page we’re going to manipulate what we have.