How To Use That 800 Year Old Melody Technique That's Awesome 👨‍🔬

Howdy doody, Buckaroonies! Let's talk about the power of the magical Fugue Machine and how you can recreate it in any DAW!
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▼▼▼TIMESTAMPZ:▼▼▼
0:00 Howdy
0:51 Where I Got The Idea
1:16 What Is Fugue Machine?
1:53 Before/After Example
3:05 Starting From Scratch
3:48 Stretching The MIDI
4:49 Final Result
5:14 Making It Interesting
6:16 Splitting The Instruments Up
6:45 Adding Probability
7:48 Expanding The Idea
9:50 The Finished Piece
11:48 Closing Thoughts
Stay classy!
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#musicproduction #tutorial #bitwig

[@VenusTheory]

What do you think of this technique? 🤔 💿 DistroKid (Save 7%) ► distrokid.com/vip/venustheory

[@WHALEx3]

I thought it was great, thanks dude

[@jfilbert]

Always looking for ways to make my two-bar loops into something. Appreciated!

[@palyndrumatix7790]

I still use HY plugins for similar use cases.

[@alfonsodiaz6235]

Love this stuff! Thanks for sharing. Definitely trying this for fresh ideas.

[@MrJansteiner]

Cool technique. I'm not sure is time stretching Midi clips possible in Ableton though, is it??

[@greedokenobi3855]

MIDIval melodies ⚔️

[@rockhills]

This technique reminds me of music cues specifically on medical themed tv shows. Lol I can see how this would benefit a composer who has to churn out material on a weekly basis.

[@VenusTheory]

Honestly after trying this out the last few weeks I swear I was able to recreate half the random cues from House MD haha. With the right sounds it's incredibly close to most modern medical dramas!

[@dumafuji]

Lol. It’s a fugue. It’s a lot like a lot of music from like everywhere in western civilization since the renaissance. I do love it still. It sounds like tons of modern classical music to me. Add drones and noise swells and we are in a crime drama in Iceland.

[@scottnelle]

Yup, this genre is definitely called House music. 😁

[@austincopeland6177]

I hate that you put this in my head 😝 because it does sound like a medical drama. It’s like when someone says something sounds like elevator music or infomercial music. I guess it’s all in what you do with it. What kind of instruments and drums you use and how you arrange it.

[@bharathj63]

House MD was what came to my mind immidiately !

[@belverticale]

Yes, this is like a cannon in classical music. I use a similar technique but kind of non MIDI...rendering audio files in Fruity Loops at half tempo, double tempo, pitched up and down an octave, reversed, using different sounds, etc. and then layered up in Acid in its main arrange window...it's my secret weapon for the ambient/classical music I make.

[@joshstead6078]

Isn't it more like a fugue? Which would make sense given that plug in

[@uhhhclem]

@@joshstead6078 Canon is much more rigid than fugue. (The word "canon" literally means "rule.") In a canon, each voice uses the same material, altered only through translation (i.e. starting later), inversion, transposition, or change in tempo or articulation. In a fugue (the word comes from "fuga," meaning "flight"), the voices are variations on the same material, which gives the composer much more expressive freedom. Compare Bach's Canon 4 (kzbin.info/www/bejne/lam5fauvm6qCl9E) and the D Major Fugue from WTK (kzbin.info/www/bejne/sJ7YhIyYbZmVZ7s, which is also one of the best performances of any piece of music ever recorded in my not so humble opinion). The technique Cameron's using here generates canons. (Specifically, as Pat Cupo observes, prolation canons. There are a lot of subdivisions of the canon form, and I'm relatively innocent of pre-Baroque music so I'm oversimplifying here.)

[@hball6695]

not any more...

[@SungazerDNB]

@@uhhhclem Thank you for the elaborate explanation. If this comment wasn't 10 months old I would suspect Chat GPT to be at play, which is really dumb when I think about it. - Goes to show you where the world is at right now.

[@metacortexvortex2131]

I like your approach to the theory! It shows there are more ways than one to skin that kitty. I use Ableton and I am going to experiment with how I can use the more recent midi clip functions to arrive at similar outcomes.

[@scottnelle]

I gave it a shot. Spent a total of five minutes with a $5 soft synth and I've just been blissed out looping the chillest 8 measures of music I've ever heard. I love this! Thanks for sharing.

[@krisrhodes5180]

Which soft synth?

[@patcupo]

Very cool and never heard of Fugue Machine. The technique is very old though, like pre-Baroque. It’s called a “Prolation Canon” or sometimes a “Mensuration Canon”. Perfect fit for a DAW, good idea.

[@MagnaKay]

I read "menstruation cannon", and I can't tell you the image was pleasant...

[@patcupo]

@@MagnaKay Autocorrect had the same idea, but the name is what it is 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@WHALEx3]

@@MagnaKay bro same

[@LiftPizzas]

It was invented during the mensuration period.

[@JohnSmith-pn2vl]

@@LiftPizzas we should mensurate less and can on more

[@j3ffn4v4rr0]

Great video! I've loved using my own variations of fugue composition techniques for a long time...here are a couple suggestions you can try: 1) experiment with uneven loop lengths...like 3, 5, 7...since they won't line up with your bars of 4 (for example) they will overlap in more interesting ways over time. 2) When you get further into the arrangement stage, duplicate your basic main loop of all voices, across however long your song is...then start pulling out layers, and let different voices come through to create the various sections of your song.

[@mind_money_morphology]

2:07 Felt like I just tuned into an episode of House 😭sooo good

[@thesundrinker]

I've only been making DAW music for about three months. Of all the videos and how to's this is beyond helpful. Not only was this straight forward and fun as heck to do I got to learn a lot more about my DAW. Will for sure be trying more of this. Thank you so much.

[@archaicmelody8119]

Ironically, this method is very close to how I learned how to produce audio in FL Studio. Though a few years later I moved away from that approach as I felt it was lazy or too simple. A the time I started to abandon it, I was just getting into utilizing complex chord progressions in my works. I recently returned to this approach when I got stuck trying to work out the composition of a track I was working on. Sometimes it's good to return to the basics and simpler things.

[@sovietdolphin]

Do you know if there’s any way to use note probability in Fl Studio?

[@WillCMAG]

@@sovietdolphin Not really, the closest think I can think of that would use note probability is its Riff Machine in the Tools drop down menu. I recommend giving it a try.

[@marcolengsdorf]

@@sovietdolphin you can use a plugin called Stochas. It works like the piano roll of FL. You can place your midi notes inside that plugin and also set the values for the probability.

[@reaktiv1408]

Very interesting techniques you showed lately here, thanks a lot for sharing them. Simple and very effective, I love it and this Fugue inspired one is my favorite.

[@vontyger6759]

You have some of the best quality and most helpful videos I have ever seen!

[@KitKeenlyside]

Thanks Cameron! Been experimenting with this idea a little, but you offered new insights as usual!

[@apricotdog]

OMG, this is sublime!

[@seantrottier2466]

Ok... This is ridiculously fun. Thank you for this one. So good for ambient kind of sounds, and likely way more.

[@EricWatkins7]

I seriously love your channel more and more as KZbin keeps throwing you on the tracks in front of me. Just wanted to say thanks for all of it. The technical, the synth stuff, the production techniques, the theory, and especially the human aspect of it all with work/life balance. Wishing you the best!

[@shpongled587]

I came up with this method some time ago and keep forgetting to implement it. Thanks for the reminder, Buckadoodaloo.

[@OneNeverEnds]

This is a great tutorial for an awesome technique. About half way through the video I tried it simply in my DAW and came up with a great foundation for a track already. Thanks for this.

[@griffingibson4389]

This is awesome. I love this. Will definitely play with this.

[@butt317]

Sounds perfect for me, I love making chill loops and layering multiple permutations of one idea.

[@jimmac]

Just played around with this technique on my Dirtywave M8 and it sounds pretty amazing in seconds! Thank you for an amazing tip.

[@Flat8G]

Wow! What a great tool to combat creativity block! Thanks for this video! 😀

[@sebastianmoggia4800]

Love it!!! Super inspiring trick 👏👏👏. Thanks for shearing

[@forsale313]

Free Loop/Arp maker. You never cease to amaze. Thank you very much.

[@mudi2000a]

Amazing!! Need to try this out! Thanks a lot!

[@Ferna471]

When i started making music i did this on a son i had to make for a class intuitively, idk how but even to the point of each layer being played by different instruments and all and to this day making fuges is the technique i love the most

[@realtonaldrum]

3:48 thanks for showing this stretching technique. also made me look up "the reverse" shortcut that I wasn't aware of!

[@wardka]

I had already figured out a similar technique for making sleep ambient music for myself (using much longer notes in general), except I didn't know how to make the probability thing work in my DAW. I thought it was just an amateur lazy way to go about things at the time. Now I'm feeling a little smug and I want to try it again.

[@left0verture]

Excellent video/audio quality, useful/interesting content and the dude has a serious radio voice.

[@watchaddicts1213]

Great show, Cam! You're a ver y good teacher.

[@EskildTrulsen]

It would be really cool hearing the same procedure, with only percussion/drums :) Thanks for sharing!

[@recordednowhere]

this is so cool. Although i often use similar techniques when it comes to "timestretching midi", I had never used reversed midi patterns before. So I just looked up how to reverse or invert midi patterns in Reaper (mirrored through the x or y axis). Came up with a really fun song idea that way. THANKS for the inspiration!

[@jennoscura2381]

I need to learn how to do that in Reaper.

[@recordednowhere]

timestretching is possible with alt + drag right edge of midi items

[@jennoscura2381]

@@recordednowhere Yea I looked it up and figured it out. Now I need to figure out how to flip midi.

[@recordednowhere]

@@jennoscura2381 like i said, it's somewhat hidden in the (midi editor) actions. :) "reverse midi", there's several options. (might wanna choose a scale in the midi editor as well, so flipped notes along the y axis snap to the scale)

[@jennoscura2381]

@@recordednowhere Thanks for the info.

[@JayBee6801]

The possibilities here are limitless. I was going to get off of youtube then said "ah screw it. One more video." To think I may have missed this gem and the inspiration it has given me. Now I just gotta fight the urge to fire up my DAW 6 hours before I have to be at work. Thank You for this video.

[@jayrose4804]

as someone who makes music solely on an ipad and also someone who has and loves fugue machine, this is a BRILLIANT idea. you get a lot more flexibility and control. thanks for sharing!

[@craigburton4447]

It's like you have less control and yet more control at the same time, proper zen business. I like this a lot.

[@Alckemy]

Great stuff here! it's a cool way to get a musical tune started. for me I'm already thinking about adding arpeggiators and throwing all this stuff into a granular synth. will definitely try this later

[@TheCosmicTeapot]

A liberal sprinkling of instances of Bleass Granulizer and Output Portal would be 🔥. Output Movement would be great to breathe some fluid rhythm into the time-stretched parts with some XY pad modulation thrown in. Bitwig is fantastic for modulation, among other things.

[@redwardmoon6345]

This is great stuff just what I dig! Very trancy. Thanks for doing this vid!

[@petrknedlik]

I am seriously thinking about getting Bitwing thanks to you. So many cool and easy accessible features! 🤯

[@brkofdon]

this is sooo cooooool. going to be messing with this for awhile. adding the probability function and recording it for awhile creating limitless variations to later sample, and even mangle even more with plugins like portal....and on and on and on!!

[@bandybandy7485]

I like this dude. Inspired me with new ideas every video I watch.

[@samkenny3075]

Love it-- I had no idea-- thanks!

[@iosmusicman]

Ace! Thanks. As a huge fan of fugue machine, I’m more inspired to take up your daw concept. Cheers. Lee

[@frigi62]

GREAT IDEA THAKS SO MUCH!!!

[@electron7373]

Excellent technique!

[@trickfall8752]

I use a lot of these techniques on the Toraiz Squid Sequencer which has the advantage of being real time. I hadn't thought of slowing parts down though and will definitely try out having tracks play at different speeds.

[@connyolovsson]

Great tutorial, thanks!

[@bartjelories]

Very inspirational and a great sound. Thank you

[@wmsi_t_k7086]

love this technique

[@hrorm]

This is wonderful information for this old guitar player man ! :)

[@TerenceKearns]

Gtreat thinking. I love fugue machine. This idea is a a great way to conquer writers block and give inspiration for something bigger.

[@Lordxfx]

I've known you for a very long time V, and still I can not get over the timbre of your voice. Epic frequencies when you speak. Ok, back to the technique you were showing. :)) That's nice too...

[@rabornjohnson]

Super cool idea!

[@jjc75019]

Works like a charm. Pick some good sounds and off to the races :-) Thanks for posting this.

[@dvdny]

Informative video, thanks for posting,

[@ldp7090]

That was very cool thank you for sharing 😄

[@godkekliveshere431]

This sounds so good.

[@Rhythmattica]

I used to do this with Atari Cubase and the Phrase synth! Great Vid.

[@marklarm]

Great video man. Love the sense of adventure with these techniques.

[@chitlun]

Nice one an, a fun technique for sparking some ideas. Used Fugue Machine a fair bit but never thought to ‘transpose’ the concept to a DAW like this, cheers. Peace ✌️

[@rogercawkwell5413]

Looking forward to using some of these techniques but combined with some through-composed parts and probably a few changes of chords.

[@markbelcher1777]

Wish I was home and not at the gym! Need to try this now! Thanks you again

[@jrugeshjoshi6308]

Awesome, thank you.

[@PavanSibal]

Great idea. Love it.

[@jetlag1488]

Someone has already said it but yeah this is prolation/proportional/mensuration canon. I've been doing it for years. What inspired me to utilize the technique was Pachelbel's Canon and memories of when we used to sing in canon back in elementary school.

[@l0rdw3rm]

hi mmm mmmmm mmm l no uuÿyyyuoû

[@wizzack75]

neato burrito. the ad placement was a nice touch, magic!

[@peterelfman]

I saw the Fugue Machine video mentioned here. I got really excited, until I learned it was available for Mac users only. I'm super glad you made this video, Cameron, I'll try to play around with this myself. Also, apropos of the theme of this video.... I absolutely love the way your voice rumbles my sub-woofer, bro. I need your mic and to know how you process your own vocals. :D

[@sevenfifteen]

Another nice trick! Thank you :)

[@shadowfall2823]

Very interesting video, thanks for sharing this. I had no idea I could Alt drag on a MIDI region in Logic to "time stretch" the MIDI events, great to know.

[@ticketless_applause7234]

Can’t wait to try this

[@reddbaron82]

Love your content

[@RolfSchild]

Thanks for this video. Very helpful. You can also add halftime by cableguys to create an enhancement for this technique.

[@tonycorlett2099]

You have an excellent natural instrument! Your voice! You should be getting plenty of voice over work! It's a shame you are not based in the UK as I would definitely be your agent.

[@micksworldofdrums]

Fantastic tutorial and such a great creative concept. Had a lot of fun using this technique in Cubase, though reverse didn't work, the Cubase equivalent seems to be "mirror". Love your channel. 🙂

[@GrvMUSIC4U]

This is my to go to video for writing ideas when i have a beatblock

[@aviralxd3583]

Seems very interesting for classical and soundtrack music (like you said).

[@jennoscura2381]

This is brilliant! I am a stage in my music making abilities that I can only come up with short snippets. I will have to try this out to see if my short snippets can be turned into a full on song with this technique. I love the random aspect. I need to see if I can do the probability thing in Reaper.

[@xMaSSxHyST3RiA]

Cool!!! Now I can make a lullaby if I ever need to lol

[@jaimealvarez143]

What a great tutorial. I am sorry I can't contribute as a patreon as I live inVenezuela and our credit cards are useless over the internet. I really enjoy your channel. Fantastic and very well explained information! Keep the great work my friend!

[@DocBolus]

Very cool idea

[@odiroot]

Cameron, I think your intros are absolutely the USP of this channel. That's what separates you from others.

[@Lordxfx]

Just great. Thanks..

[@jonprudhomme7694]

Funny, have been working on a Zoia patch to do something similar when I stumbled upon this. Sounds great, looking forward to finishing up my gadget.

[@EqDior]

Very awesome trick!

[@ackzz]

Great info,-Thx 👍

[@EarJuice]

This is why I like those loop packs. The MIDI can be super useful rather than the audio loops.

[@dumafuji]

Perfect KZbin video. Short, clear, replicable, inspiring. I think fugue machine makes it (almost too) easy to quantize to scale when raising or lower the pitch. But it also is easy to start from a different location too - all of which are next steps. Ableton also allows you to flip or invert the sequence. I’m sure most daws do too.

[@aldotanca9430]

That's interesting. I do baroque improvisation, or try to anyway, and I often wonder about ways contemporary hobby musicians might benefit from that approach and learn some of it in intuitive ways. While what you show is obviously a bit mechanical, it does make for a good and easy entry point. I like your work, you obviously put a lot of effort in producing your videos and make a very good job of it.

[@tobins6800]

Minor addition to the background, a nice airy pad.

[@alainterieur794]

I used to do that when I first started making music on FL Studio in the early 2000s.

[@SproutyPottedPlant]

I ❤️ poking around with my Fugue machine!

[@motherbrain2000]

great idea

[@beatnikcafe]

Great vid! I use canon techniques and never knew the correct terminology so thanks to those who mentioned that below. I would like to know if and what specific techniques equal which function, meaning for example, if there is a name for creating a variation using time stretching and a name for reversal? I think this could be a great topic to bring up when improvising and jamming in a small ensemble.

[@Zeisslermusic]

Thanks, this was a great idear

[@markdavenport2613]

Brilliant

[@jeremiahlyleseditor437]

This was great

[@musiceclipse]

I am very impressed with this approach and I hope to try it out soon. I do have to take issue with the title. Counterpoint, let alone fugue was unknown in 1300. Bach started on The Art of the Fugue in 1742 and, with many interruptions, continued working on it until 1749.

[@isajoha9962]

Ohm feel, cool trick, thanks. 👍

[@Tabazan]

I'm doing this tonight . . Thanks

[@ArondightStudios]

Interesting, I am going to have to try this out but with darker more sinister sounds and see what I get,👍 thanks

[@Interstellore]

This channel is fkn amazing