How to make a track in the style of Bicep in Ableton Live (using Cthulhu and Sylenth1)

[@OscarUnderdog]

Find Oscar's video courses here: courses.underdog.brussels 🖤🖤🖤 Join the Underdog Discord channel: discord.gg/z5N9CTA 👾👾👾 Sign up to the mailing list here: tinyurl.com/yy92sx5u 💌💌💌 Pledge to the Patreon: ​ www.patreon.com/underdogmusicschool 🌱🌱🌱

[@Bleymusic_]

I dont normally comment on videos but this is one of the best learning resources I have used, even small things like drawing out the melody and using the DAW arp isn't something I have used before being fairly new to producing and its a game changer for me thank you

[@WillHatton]

There was never a man more fit for this tutorial. Killer tutorial, killer track!

[@OscarUnderdog]

Fastest commenter in the west 🎊 Legend

[@batteryincorporated]

What he said!!

[@KletoReese]

Agreed!! He smashed this!!

[@christucker8174]

@@OscarUnderdog What soundbanks do you have on Sylenth1 i just purchased and the stock presets dont sound too good

[@OscarUnderdog]

@@christucker8174 I'm pretty sure I only have the factory ones myself!

[@eggycat]

Sick. These artist focused videos are great.

[@eladiomontero]

Dude, I actually recreated this and I learned so much, keep em coming!

[@KletoReese]

What a brilliant tutorial on Bicep, best one on the internet hands down!!

[@AndreLackmann909]

Thanks so much for all the tutorial content Oscar. You've inspired me to get into producing after DJIng for a long time. The learning curve is steep, but your insights in these videos help make it accessible and encourage me to keep going. Keep up the great work 💪

[@frankcunkstein3281]

Just a heads up for anyone joining the Underdog Patreon specifically for this Project file, the link is dead on there as well and Oscar has been unresponsive to the numerous requests to fix it.

[@victormedeiros3144]

Great video! I’d love to see more videos like this with analog gear and melodic techno artists!

[@habichiblah7534]

Underdog - yet again, showing how tutorials on all things electronic should be done. Such a great learning resource and a great tutor. Again, thank you!

[@joskun]

That was amazing! I love those genres/artist breakdown/reconstruction videos. Especially to see the workflow. Will try to recreate these my dude thanks 😊

[@MrSyNRG]

Do or do not. There is no try. Just kidding. but DO IT ;)

[@adamtochuj]

that first sylenth part OMG

[@martinklepsch]

You're making some of the best educational content on music production out there - for me personally anyways - keep it up

[@PausedTV]

Amazing tutorial. Keeps the fun of finding your own sounds but the arrangement and processing is so easy to follow. Thank you

[@OscarUnderdog]

Yeah! So many songs are "easy, when you know how it's done" 😁 Like many things in life, probably. I hope to make these things achievable for as many people as possible.

[@TheirIAre]

You are great. Will recommend you to more peeps ! Thank you so much !

[@anthonyblears5877]

Awesome and inspiring tutorial. I love that melancholic Bicep sound. Also a big fan of Underworld and Leftfield - would love a tutorial on recreating their sounds too.

[@OscarUnderdog]

Love underworld, and wasn't familiar with Leftfield! Any track in particular you're interested in?

[@anthonyblears5877]

@@OscarUnderdog Leftfield - Melt is such an interesting track. Their album Leftism hasn't aged despite being from 1995. And I've always wondered how Underworld made Rez - a true standout moment from 90s techno.

[@oliviermissal8739]

For me this is your best video ever!!! I learned so so much from this! Thank you for this it’s just awesome! Big fan 👏🏻👏🏻

[@darrend7386]

created a nice track outta that good job sounds very like bicep we love glue here in ireland think every one does

[@3xAudio]

Brilliant. Hoping to blend some of this Bicep Style with some of my own music!

[@modgrip805]

I'd recommend not stopping at C! Go A to Z with different chops and blips and phlaaangggs. Then use fx on each individual sample and then pan and change velocities 🤘

[@TheJimmyJoker]

is it possible to make a acab section?

[@binsquirrel]

nice one, I really like that breakdown of the garage-y beat. And am being pushed further towards cthulu

[@OscarUnderdog]

Haha indeed, and it has so many more features than I even used here.

[@andrestahlhofen4353]

Absolute quality 👌

[@OscarUnderdog]

Cheers Andre!

[@damianszwed9913]

nice piece. you must complete this arrangement. great sound

[@leerass]

I think it is fair to say it is the Burial style....credit to the pioneers of a style ✌️

[@SebastianGrantElKiva]

Burial is a production language that I think is best understood via modeselektor don’t you think?

[@leerass]

@@SebastianGrantElKiva in the end every style harkens back to older styles.

[@jorgebou9626]

Proper teacher Oscar! 👏👏👏

[@dondiegodelavega1695]

Cher Oscar tu illustres tes parties théoriques avec de belles compos très inspirantes, ça donne toute suite envie de se mettre au travail. Tu joins l'utile à l'agréable et ça, beaucoup de chaines devraient s'en inspirer. Ta cote grimpe et c'est amplement mérité. Bravo. 3DLV.

[@OscarUnderdog]

1000x Merci mon ami 🙏

[@davidrichards6342]

Fantastic! Thanks for another brilliant tutorial.

[@klinkske]

Amazing how it evolves from meuhh to awesome

[@5150quintis]

Great job!! Can't stop watching!

[@keithforrester82]

Very cool, some really nice techniques in there I will use!

[@OscarUnderdog]

Perfect - share the result when you do!

[@sebastians1766]

hello, huge praise to you. Can't speak English and I'm a logic user, but your tips are great. was able to implement a lot. especially the explanation of the terms are great. keep it up.

[@billpayer3745]

I can't say any more than "you nailed it". Great work (as always).😎

[@OscarUnderdog]

:D

[@jenks_music]

This is so cool man! Thanks for this! You’ve just gained one new fan ahah

[@JonnoRobinson]

Thank you for this

[@lukeyd13]

Man I love this so much, Ive been trying and fialing to deconstruct bicep and this is so helpful. My only feedback is the vocals are little off, Bicep (in my opinion) seems to make theirvocals more euphoric and these are a little garagey maybe. Also what scales / modes would this song fall in it? Anyway keep up the great work.

[@OscarUnderdog]

Great feedback, I think you're right! I didn't spend a lot of time hunting for a better vocal. The chords were simply taken from one of the bicep songs using chordify.net, it's just a 3 or 4-chord progression in most Bicep songs.

[@KletoReese]

@@OscarUnderdog Thank you for including this valuable site

[@chargedrat5415]

Great video dude, unlocked a lot for me :)

[@OscarUnderdog]

Perfect, glad to hear!

[@andysaavedra]

This is so detailed. Question on Step3: Drum Design - When you made the Drum bus, did you also add the kick to that so that it too received some delay and reverb effects?

[@OscarUnderdog]

Hey Andy! Thanks man! I'll do you one better, here is the project file: we.tl/t-uDXbxNkjW9 To answer your question, I actually did put the delay and reverb on the kick+clap together! I felt it was ok in this scenario, despite the advice you sometimes here to not do that. The reverb is more of a short ambience-style reverb, and allowing the kick to go through it sort of "glued" them together I felt.

[@csengegonczol430]

@@OscarUnderdog First of all thank you for the valuable video and for sharing your knowledge.:) Is it possible by any chance to get the project file again? The link has expired and as a total newbie in Ableton it would be soo helpful to see how you worked on this project.

[@OscarUnderdog]

Hey! Can you come ask this on the Discord? There I can follow up more easily :) Comments tend to get lost in the flow a bit.

[@OscarUnderdog]

Here is the project file! underdogmusicschool.com/YT-share/2021-01-26-Bicep-style-Project.zip

[@andysaavedra]

@@OscarUnderdog do you have the project file in the Discord chat? I didn't download it in time and would love to see how you went about it.

[@beardgang333]

Great video man. Thank you

[@antoineguilbeault8025]

Great video Oscar! you certainly have great taste. Could we get a Stephan Bodzin video ? cheers!

[@OscarUnderdog]

For sure, love doing Bodzin 🤘

[@OscarUnderdog]

Hey Antoine, check this out! kzbin.info/www/bejne/l2K8q6GwmLx7n5I

[@sausausaus]

Thank you , this was so helpful!!!

[@deephouseway790]

this youtube is such a ''mafia'' all day long after putting new bicep track into my mix been thinking about there should be name for the beat pathern that bicep use and here you go your video pop ups on my screen from nowhere . abit too busy for me your example but you made enough to catch my attention to watch another one . thanks

[@batteryincorporated]

Quality as always!!

[@OscarUnderdog]

Thanks dude! 😁

[@siegfriedmasson2466]

nice and clear....

[@lewismurray7531]

What software are you using and is it free?

[@aleksandrgoliak3520]

amazing content 🔥🔥🔥

[@kamilwierzbowski111]

beautiful loop 🙏💥

[@beirch]

Nice tutorial, learned some cool tricks. Didn't know Cthulu could do step sequencing/gating for one. Quick note though; I *really* don't think the vocal sample you've used is in the same key as the rest of the track. Sounds very off to me.

[@fahadha]

mate! excellent video full of stuff I need to know and can put into use soon! questions: for the swing, are you using an ableton midi template or putting in the trigs in a "swung" way yourself? I'd like to recreate this with a drum machine (Digitakt or Toraiz SP 16) and am wondering how to get the swing with those. when you use chordify to learn the chords, how do you get the key/scale too? I have zero musical knowledge so is there a cheat of any kind? does chordify include that info too? thanks.

[@OscarUnderdog]

Asking all the right questions! Drum swing I programme directly into the MIDI (see my video on funky hihats on how to do that), but in your case your drum machine will have swing built into it, so use that and record the audio from them! The synth has swing too, which is given by cthulhus internal swing setting. The key of the track: the hack is, usually the root note of the 1st chord IS the key of the track! But you can also just put all the chords into 1 midi clip, and that is like a list of "legal" notes for you 😁

[@fahadha]

@@OscarUnderdog aha, yes, that's what I used to do before I got novation midi controllers with scale and chord modes! should go back to working things out manually, at last some times

[@MrQuentini]

Great video man very inspiring

[@kyrregjerstad]

Great tutorial Oscar!

[@tablaremixes6421]

excellent thanks

[@OscarUnderdog]

no YOU'RE excellent thanks

[@ItsGrantM]

Nice work! In step 4 you say "harmony" but i think you actually mean melody, as harmony is a secondary melody that compliments the first.

[@truthkeny2388]

Hello, Is there any change to find again the project file because the transfer expired? Thank you!

[@georgeapperly6269]

Would be ace if you could break down stage 6 more - what synth did you use/preset etc...

[@georgeapperly6269]

And also what chords..!

[@Tevmina]

The theme is To The Moon And Back :-)

[@dieterclaes3657]

Love the vid, Oscar!!

[@OscarUnderdog]

Great to hear from you Dieter 😊 hope the production is going well!

[@dieterclaes3657]

@@OscarUnderdog All fine! But need some stronger PC fo sure :(

[@sebastians1766]

Reminds me of Burial Music 👌🏻

[@alexeikai]

thanks for all the videos! this one sounds a bit dated thought and production very elementary / robotic. love vids with more of a spark / creative ideas instead of the more basic rundowns. that said, love your work, signed up for patreon and many thanks for all the great tips!

[@johnmax5652]

Music is the Art Of Repetition. Best Regards.

[@toniasquino9124]

Unfortunately the project file link does not work

[@supersmileyclub544]

Great tutorial, thanks :)

[@amado7760]

Really nice Oscar !

[@s1omann]

fantastic thanks a lot

[@jamieohanlon4698]

Is there a full release of this?

[@karinho_]

hi there! is it possible that you do a tutorial on jungle, dnb bass that u r mentioning ! btw your channel is golden, tnx for sharing the knowledge!

[@luuinternational5914]

ABAC! DAMN THAT PATTERN!

[@sanjaisankar9194]

Hey man, enjoyed this video. However having tried to install Cthulu, my Live 10 software doesnt recognise it as its in 32 bit, whereas Live 10 only deals with 64 bit plug ins....Would have been useful to know this beforehand....

[@OscarUnderdog]

Hi! Something must be confused, because I'm in Live 10, and it works smoothly for me. Where did you buy it? Are you sure you used the right download link? I think I bought mine directly from Xfer, but I'm sure the splice or adsr versions work as well...

[@Lewis-YouTube]

Hi, the link for the project doesn't work. Is there anywhere I can find it? thank you :)

[@adriano1707]

I think Bicep might often use a beat-triggered gate on the synth instead of triggering new notes for the rhythm. But anyway, great tutorial and a really great channel.

[@OscarUnderdog]

Totally agree, the "trance gate" effect is all over their records!

[@walidjaziriofficial]

Perfect mon grand

[@nikostalk5730]

Very good tutorial. But, idk why, but you wouldn't say anything about breakbeat type or early jungle beats. This is basically, how "oldschool" trance anthems sound (in alternate way) This is, how Bicep done a Glue.

[@ccrowe714]

So damn good!

[@ProfilerGman77]

Good work!

[@polaritymakina8440]

Boris brejcha tutorial next pleeeease 😎

[@davef21370]

Another great tutorial. Any chance you could recreate something by The Future Sound of London? Papua New Guinea maybe?

[@DAUBSKI]

May i ask what ohmage your d770's are?

[@OscarUnderdog]

Hey Daubski! These are 80 ohms, which I understand are a safe ohmage to get. But I also have the DT990s which are 250ohm and honestly I can't say it makes any difference to me - I always get plenty of volume out of both of them!

[@iancain6647]

Killer

[@OscarUnderdog]

Ninja 👽

[@mpkend]

Is it possible to get the arpeggiated harmony sound with Operator/Analog instead of Sylenth?

[@OscarUnderdog]

For sure you can get great results with those synths too!

[@andycordy5190]

When you make the first swung element in the drums I was thinking I lost the groove but then you do the hi hat fragment swung and suddenly the groove is wonderful. Masterstroke!

[@Jvssvl]

What’s the name of the Ableton theme? Great video btw.

[@ahoi370]

The weTransfer expired :( Is there any way i can get the project file?

[@andyjacob7877]

Love the chord progression, perfect for this style of music, what key is this song in?

[@OscarUnderdog]

I think it's literally the chord progression from one of their tracks, taken from chordify.net :D

[@simog.8889]

Probably A major

[@pk3776]

👍bloody awesome top tips🙏❤️🙏🇬🇧🤟💯

[@nikakebuladze]

WTF, it is exactly like Bicep track :D Master at work makes everything look so easy, I will lose respect to the artists if I keep watching your videos, haha :D

[@abhishekc1458]

This is Interesting

[@ScottAdair]

How about Max Cooper - that I want to see

[@OscarUnderdog]

Me too actually. But he is so complex and nuanced 👨‍🚀

[@felipeveiga1897]

This guy is the son from Fisher and Paul Kalkbrenner hahahah, very nice tutorial!

[@ConfusedArmy]

Or father

[@OscarUnderdog]

👀

[@TENKATRANCE]

the link is run out ! :(

[@LukezyM]

Jeeez, did you go from 8k subs to 20k literally over night?

[@OscarUnderdog]

Right?! I'm as surprised as you are 😅

[@LukezyM]

Crazy. You deserve it.

[@4lpina]

What headphones you're using?

[@OscarUnderdog]

Beuerdynamic dt770 80ohms! Very affordable and good studio headphones :)

[@4lpina]

@@OscarUnderdog cheers, good to know, i will look into them! Currently have hd25's which are great but personally uncomfortable. dt700 looks comfortable, but no idea if they actually are haha

[@hejsandu1215]

Same chords as Can't stop by RHCP, sing it with the chords and listen :D

[@ryankeane6614]

Violin pad first 4 bars mainly 5ths . Last bars 5-8 are mix of 3rd and a root and fifth but in bar 7 the C plays over a B chord how does that work sound great and not sound harsh , is it even a chord ?

[@OscarUnderdog]

Sure, for single voices like that it's worth focusing on your emotion and not on theory. A little harshness isn't your enemy, it's like tension and release. C over B is a 9th chord if you prefer to think like that!

[@ryankeane6614]

@@OscarUnderdog would it be a B minor add flat 9th ? never even heard of that Chord ! Thanks yes balance between theory and emotion is prob the way like most things balance is key ! I’m Just out of balance heavily focused on learning theory at the minute just need to bring my ear back into the game lol! Massively appreciate u btw one of the very few teachers I won’t hesitate to watch when I see u come up on KZbin 🤙

[@OscarUnderdog]

@@ryankeane6614 Oh yeah of course You're right it would be flat, brain fart from me. Well, having that flat 2nd can evoke the prhygian scale then I guess? Honestly I dont know enough theory to say this confidently, I just like the tension a flat 2nd introduces sometimes :)

[@ryankeane6614]

@@OscarUnderdog yes it sounds ace and that’s all that matters it’s quite nice having something that doesn’t fit neatly into a music theory box! 🙌

[@komma6719]

Abac or acab? Theres a big difference

[@kaizen5415]

_i just discovered bicep 'cause he went viral on spotify dance _i fvck w/ it heavy_its intelligent_ambient_change of pace but im surprised the mass sheep are gettin' it

[@benbeezydj]

Please do Denis sulta!!!

[@astro_poly]

not quite the same but got some good tips

[@joni.sirvio8867]

Makes garage beat. Suffle: am i joke to you?

[@retali8one]

I prefer to use ACAB for my patterns

[@SebastianGrantElKiva]

13:28 sounds like glaSs candy! Let’s take off our masks!