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#Tutorials
Learn about Effects: Amp Simulators
There’s nothing like the feeling of 100w amp on top of a 4x12 cabinet roaring in front of you. It's the "dream studio setup", but let's face it: today, convenience is king. We don’t all have the luxury of having ten different amps and cabs sitting around the studio waiting… Read more
#Tutorials
How to Produce a Trap Track in Minutes
Even if you’re not the biggest hip hop fan or music head, you’ve probably heard trap music. From mainstream hip-hop to EDM and even K-Pop music, trap's distinctive sound can be found everywhere. You’ll instantly recognise a trap beat from its subwoofer breaking sub-bass, rapid-fire hi-hats, and multi-layered synths. The… Read more
#Tutorials
Learn about Effects: Compression
You might have heard musicians talk about compression as if it were some kind of dark art. To the uninitiated, the level of hoo-ha is baffling, because unlike delay or reverb, compression is not something you can easily hear as a listener. But audio compression is something we hear on… Read more
#Tutorials
How to Produce a Funk Track in Minutes
With beginnings that go back as early as the 50s, funk music has influenced every new genre throughout every decade. Still as fresh as ever, no genre makes you want to get up on your feet and break into dance the way funk music does. The 50s and 60s were… Read more
#Tutorials
Learn about Effects: Delay
Last month, we looked at the reverb effect, the indispensable and utilitarian effect that gives life and space to your sound. This week we’ll show you another tool which creates ambience, texture and complexity to any element in your mix – delay. What is delay? Simply put it, delay is… Read more
#Tutorials
Unlock your full Profile Potential on BandLab
Your BandLab profile is the place you express yourself and an opportunity to show your listeners and fans who you are. A well-polished profile page goes a long way, and having a complete profile also gives you access to some of our less obvious features. Read on to unlock your full… Read more
#Tutorials
Learn About Effects: Reverb
Learning theory might sound dull, especially when you could be spending that time playing around with loops and instruments. We love that part too! But when it comes to production, knowledge is power, people. Taking a little bit of time each week to learn one or two things and putting… Read more
#Tutorials
How to make Electronic Dance Music in Minutes
The North of England. An epicentre of the Northern Soul movement in the 60s and early 70s, venues like Wigan Casino became iconic for not only for the music, but for the dancing that went on inside. People would travel from far and wide to hear the music being played,… Read more
#Tutorials
Slice Up Your Life: 5 Ways to Manipulate Loops and Make Them Your Own
Our sample library of over 5000 free loops is absolutely kicking with all the sounds you need to create a full track in most genres and styles. From Neo Soul Jams, to Trap Hits and House Classics, we’ve got it all. It’s stored in the cloud so whether you're on… Read more
#Tutorials
A Beginner’s Guide to Mixing Music
Mixing - one of the “dark arts” of music production. It can be time consuming, but mixing your music well can mean the difference between a track sounding weak, or sounding full and professional. “Music is not math. It's science. You keep mixing the stuff up until it blows up… Read more
#Tutorials
How to Produce Hip Hop in Minutes
Hip hop formed as a subculture in the Bronx area of New York City in the 1970s. Neighbourhood block parties became a place where suburban communities could come together and share a mutual love for music, dance and street art. The likes of Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash emerged as… Read more
#Tutorials
Producer Series: Guitar and Bass
Whether you are looking to release your inner Hendrix, or you’re looking to create basslines that Flea would be proud of, there are plenty of options and features for you to get the most out of on BandLab. But before we dive in, here’s the man behind the Red Hot… Read more
#Tutorials
Make Money With Your Music
“The fame and the money and all that stuff that comes along with it is all great, but that's not the sole purpose of why I make music.” (Macklemore) The vast majority of artists don’t start on their musical journey with the primary goal of making money and most don’t… Read more
#Tutorials
What Is MIDI? A Simple and Practical Guide.
“To me, it's always a joy to create music no matter what it takes to actually get there.” Skrillex In the following article, we’re going to give you a whistle stop tour of MIDI to show you how you can get great results without having extensive instrument playing experience. MIDI… Read more
#Tutorials
Tips and Tricks For Recording Vocals At Home
The actor, rapper and singer Daveed Diggs says that “recording vocals has the same kind of physical demands as you experience a lot in theater work.” Those demands aren’t just physical either! If you are thinking about of recording it’s most probably because you have a good voice. Recording vocal tracks… Read more
#Tutorials
Make Music Instantly: A Simple Guide – Part 6: Combining Looper Tracks
Making music instantly sounds like it might be an overstatement, but if you’ve tuned into our Looper series, then you’ve found out just how easy it is. A few taps of a button or a swipe of screen is really all it takes to get started and there is a… Read more
#Tutorials
What Is Automation?
When you think of automation, you probably imagine hitting a switch and a robot grinding coffee and preparing scrambled eggs while you take a relaxing shower. And while that future might be all that far away, automation in music production is already here and being used by producers globally to… Read more
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Make Music Instantly: A Simple Guide – Part 5: Tempo & Key Signature
Welcome back, everyone! If you managed to catch this week’s blog, we took you through some basic music theory which gives you a quick beginner’s crash course in key and tempo. If you’re just starting your music making journey or new to production, we’d recommend reading the blog first here…… Read more
#Tutorials
Advanced Production Techniques: Manipulating Key and Tempo
Being able to recognise the key of a song is an extremely valuable musical skill which can take some time to develop. To give you a quick crash course, every song is made up of a variety of notes, but the key, is a group of seven notes or chords… Read more
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Make Music Instantly: A Simple Guide – Part 4: Trigger Functions
Hey everybody and welcome back to our Looper How-To series! We hope you've been having fun making music with the Looper and have been able to check out our simple guides… If not, then do check out what we've covered so far; Make Music Instantly: Part 1 - Looper Introduction… Read more
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Staying Organised With Your Music Projects
Unfinished music files, random band projects, audio snippets of an idea you recorded on the go. Sound familiar? As professional music producers will tell you, housekeeping is a really important part of the production process and something you should try to keep on top of, but staying organised isn’t always easy.… Read more
#Tutorials
Producer Series: Beat Making 101
Having just passed its 25th anniversary, New Order’s Blue Monday cemented itself as an iconic part of music history for many reasons, most notably, it’s distinctive kick drum intro… The original single peaked in the top ten in many countries worldwide and the single still currently stands as the best-selling… Read more
#Tutorials
Make Music Instantly: A Simple Guide – Part 3: Editing & Effects
Welcome to week 3 of the Looper how to’s. If you have caught part 1 and part 2 of these tutorials, then I’m sure you are well underway to making music and incredible beats with our freshest update! If not, then check out the first few videos before this one… Read more
#Tutorials
What Is Latency?
Imagine you’re recording vocals. You’ve got a drum track and rhythm parts ready... you hit record, sing over the track and you're feeling good about the take. But when you play your recording back, your vocals sound slightly out of time. Chances are, you’re suffering from a serious case of latency… Read more
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Make Music Instantly: A Simple Guide – Part 2: Sound Packs and Recording
Welcome back to Part 2 of the Looper how-to series! We hope you liked the first how-to video that we posted last week and had a go at making music with the Looper. In case you missed it, or if you happen to be one of those binge watcher types, then… Read more
#Tutorials
Getting Exposure For Your Music
“There is a lot of music in the world that I love that does not always get the appropriate exposure.” Moby If the documentary Searching for Sugar Man taught us anything, it’s that you can be an incredibly talented musician, but without the right exposure, your talents really could go… Read more
#Tutorials
Make Music Instantly: A Simple Guide – Part 1: Looper Introduction
The all-new BandLab Looper is a revolutionary beat creation tool available on mobile, for iOS and Android. It’s a fun and easy-to-use beatmaker in your pocket with a range of dope functionalities right at your fingertips, ready for you to make music instantly, whatever level you are at. In the… Read more
#Tutorials
Quantization: A Beginner’s Guide
What is Quantization? “The process of transforming performed musical notes, which may have some imprecision due to expressive performance, to an underlying musical representation that eliminates this imprecision”. Wikipedia In simple terms, quantization is a production technique you can use to make your imperfect timing, perfectly in time. When you… Read more
#Tutorials
Finishing Your Music Projects
“I can make something for a long time and just not come up with an ending. It's finishing things that I don't enjoy.” Jamie XX Even for seasoned producers, finishing music projects can be a quite a frustrating process. It tends to come from a place of perfectionism, but often… Read more
#Tutorials
How To Approach Record Labels
Sending demo after demo and getting no response from anybody? Don’t worry, It’s quite normal. The industry we find ourselves in is a highly competitive space and labels are inundated often overwhelmed by artists trying to get on their label. This is very much a process and one if you… Read more
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Tips For Achieving Creative Flow
Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips couldn’t wait to quit his day job to focus on his music full-time. He started the band in 1983, but it was all of 10 years later that their breakout hit She Don’t Use Jelly would shoot The Flaming Lips to stardom. In those… Read more
#Tutorials
Get Creative with Vocal Effects
Throwing in an effect on a vocal track takes you just a couple of clicks of the mouse these days, but the history behind those effects stretches back many years. Let’s go way back to 1972 with Annette Peacock’s Pony. In what birthed a production masterclass, Peacock flaunted her vocal… Read more
#Tutorials
A Simple Guide To Starting A Band Online
On our Explore tab, you’ll stumble upon BandLab’s hidden gems - new musicians, communities, genres, and collections. Of our featured collections, shines a playlist titled Long-Distance BandLab Collaborations, showcasing collabs amongst musicians littered in different corners of the world. Take In The Rhythm by The Spring Reverberates for example; a… Read more
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A Musician’s Guide To Self-Promotion
It’s time we looked at our online behaviour with a new perspective. As suggested in our earlier post about increasing fans and followers, frequent engagement with your audience will give your profile a persona, but you’ll have to be wary of how it shows on social media. Is the content… Read more
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Basslines: How To Get Creative
A great bassline is central to creating a piece of music that gets the people moving - whatever your style, whatever your genre, and whatever your creative process. It’s the low-end bass frequencies that really connect your listeners with the heart and soul of what it is you are trying… Read more
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Collaborations: Take Your Music To The Next Level
Queen and David Bowie, Aerosmith and Run DMC, Jay Z and Linkin Park - throughout music history, collaborations have created magical genre-bending sparks - a sound clash which fans and followers find difficult to resist or celebrate. Collaborations can be great ways to understand new creative processes you didn’t think… Read more
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Setting Music Goals For The Year Ahead
There really isn’t anything like the fresh start to the new year. It's a great time to plan out exactly what you want to achieve and how you plan to get there. 2018 is an exciting year to be musically creative, and at BandLab we're excited to help you in… Read more
#Tutorials
7 Types of Reverb and Why You Should Use Them
“A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing a large number of reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is absorbed by the surfaces of objects in the space” (Wikipedia). Famous in the Motown renaissance during the 1960s, artists would bring… Read more
#Tutorials
Sampling and The Law
You've familiarised yourself with creative ways to use samples and loops, but there are some music rights you'll have to be mindful of. Sampling has been a contentious legal issue since it first began. Repurposing somebody else’s work and creating something out of it walks the tightrope of copyright infringement, and… Read more
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6 Creative Ways To Use Loops and Samples
According to Mark Ronson’s Ted Talk; How Sampling Changed Music, "La Di Da Di" by Doug E., Fresh & Slick Rick is the fifth most sampled record of all time: it’s featured in a mere 547 tracks. Samples can create interesting textures in your tracks, but can also be a… Read more
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Increasing Fans And Followers Online
Got your profile all glossed up and ready to go? Good. Now it’s going to be about working on your fan base, or at least creating one. Browsing through tweets, or hitting like on the next funny video isn’t going to cut it. It’s time you got rid of the… Read more
#Tutorials
Create Your Social Profile Online
Getting your profile up and running isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, especially with the wide range of different social platforms. They all have specific rules and objectives, but if you're just starting out, your immediate goal is personal branding as well as cultivating a strong fan base. Starting from scratch is… Read more
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Video: How to use Automation
Remember that first magical moment you had a beat flow from one side of your earphones to the other? Our QA Engineer Tommy demonstrates parameter automation on BandLab; allowing you to program knob-twisting robots to affect your track parameters. All this while you sit back and head-bop between coffee sips.… Read more
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Video: How to use Mastering
What is Mastering, and why should I do it? It's a good question. But, an even better question is: 'How do I master my tracks on BandLab?' In under two and a half minutes learn to use this unlimited, free, and quality tool, to give your music the edge in… Read more
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Video: How to use Beats & Loops
One of the most common questions we get at BandLab is 'How do I make a beat?' Watch this video to see our QA Engineer Tommy take you through the basics of laying down your first beat on the web Mix Editor. Once your beat is down, you can rap,… Read more
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Video: How to Record, Save and Mixdown Music
We have made BandLab for the web as simple and intuitive to use as possible. If you are brand new to music recording, or just brand new to BandLab, you can watch our quick 1 min 30 sec video on how to get started and create a basic track.… Read more
#From the Team
Loops: Indie + Industrial
We’re dropping some awesome loops this week. Whether you’re an indie darling or an industrial deviant, there’s something in it for you here. Indie Loop We’ve captured those elements that make an indie song. An easy combo of melodic guitar lines and alternative beats and samples are perfect for that… Read more
#From the Team
How to use Loops
If you’re a budding songwriter or beatmaker you should be checking out our latest Loop packs for creating your next song. Think of them like, ‘a backing track for your tunes’ or ‘the missing member of your virtual band’. Check out this week’s featured Loop packs. As well as containing… Read more
#Tutorials
What is Mastering?
What is Mastering? Mastering takes an audio mix and and brings it to distribution-quality. It’s the final step to balance your mix, unify sonic elements and optimise playback response for all file formats and devices. Mastering typically consists of a series of subtle audio processes including stereo enhancement, compression, equalisation… Read more
#From the Team
16 Brand New Guitar and Bass Effects on BandLab
In music, necessity has always been the mother of invention. When musicians tire of the sounds of their instruments, they’re willing to do anything for a fresh new sound. Back in 1964, the Kinks even took to slashing their speaker cones with razor blades, looking for cool new sounds! Read more
