Writing SYNTHWAVE For Music Libraries - My Production Tips, Composing Template & Experience Thus Far

In this video I outline my recent experience writing Synthwave music for licensing, and how my track Lotus '89 became a bestseller on Motion Array. I'll also be taking you through my composing template and we'll put a quick idea down in just minutes.
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Thank You:
Synthwave Car Loop from RoyaltyFreeTube
Laugh Track provided by LittleRainySeasons at freesound.org

[@Steven_Beddall]

👉 Writing, Mixing & Mastering SYNTHWAVE Course ►► bit.ly/3K69y9H

[@prettyeyesclef5018]

I’m over struggling to even come up with the bass pattern and u do a full song in minutes😂amazing work man

[@dscoff7687]

Trust me, once you get a good bass pattern, you can build off of it into a full song pretty easily with a bit of practice.

[@ParaFoxxen]

AMIGA 600+1200 ❤❤❤ The memories of Lotus, Jaguar 220, PROtracker, and all the other awesome games and programs of that time!

[@thepianomandan]

Thanks! Simple and within reach with a good template of sounds.

[@osynthw2364]

Amazing synthwave track, really great ! Thanks for sharing your workflow and ideas on this genre that I love !

[@Steven_Beddall]

Hey coming from you that’s a big compliment! Really appreciate that, and love hearing your music 🙏

[@aleksandra4396]

Such a creative intro! 😄😄😄 Looking forward to participate in the September challenge! Btw, I love those 80s tom fills: tum-du-dum-boom!

[@Steven_Beddall]

Thanks Aleksandra! I’m excited to hear what you come up with for the challenge! Haha yes I love the drum machine tom fills!!! 🥁 so classic

[@j.wright8157]

Haha...I started to sing, "Wo oh, what a feeling...when you're dancin' on the ceiling" as I listened to your track.😁

[@JakeDavies]

Just the video I've been waiting for!! ☺️💯

[@Steven_Beddall]

Hey thanks Jake! Hope you’re doing great man 👍

[@nicolerymercox]

Thanks for sharing!!

[@Music4Life2]

Wow what a beautiful sharing brother 👊

[@EricNivoBeats]

Sounds awesome !

[@rafaelhernandez5550]

Great to see your creativity and talent. thanks

[@Steven_Beddall]

🙏

[@aceaudiohq]

I've written synthwave since 2016, I uploaded one of my synthwave tracks to Motion Array when I was starting there 1.5 years ago, but for some reason it was rejected (one of my very few rejections), so I never uploaded more. They do sell fine elsewhere, though my best sellers are disco tracks. I use lots of Tal U-No-LX, Aly James Lab vLinn and VSDS-X, UVI Vintage Vault and U-he Diva. In addition to RC-20 I also often use the free VHS Audio Degradation Suite.

[@Steven_Beddall]

Thanks for the info, I’d say definitely worth giving the genre another shot on Motion Array! I was really surprised at how things turned out. I think it’s similar to anything ‘’lofi’ in the sense that a mix of modern production esthetic is probably more suitable for the library. I listen to Synthwave on Spotify often and sometimes it’s really pushing the degradation envelope, which I love! But maybe not the best choice for sync licensing in general.

[@fabienfustinoni1812]

Thanks for the good vibes! Great video🔥☀️🙏🏻

[@Steven_Beddall]

Thanks Fabien! Hope you’re doing great 👍

[@fabienfustinoni1812]

@@Steven_Beddall i’m fine! Thanks

[@marcusmanzoni]

Beautiful! Congrats. :)

[@al-creations]

Loving the course Steve! Very different style for me. I'm listening to the movie Drive ost for inspiration, great synthwave on there

[@Steven_Beddall]

Ah yes that's a great movie for Synthwave inspo!

[@guilhermeantonini4006]

Great stuff!! Which synth/preset have you used for the arpeggio?

[@cedricsimonakafrozenjazz]

Similar experience with SketchCassette II... RC-20 is often my favorite, but I tend to use SCII more and more. BTW, nice video, love your editing, was fun to watch!

[@Steven_Beddall]

Cheers 🍻 Thanks for watching Cedric!

[@TonyThomas10000]

Great sounding stuff...keep it up!

[@Steven_Beddall]

Thanks Tony!

[@TonyThomas10000]

@@Steven_Beddall Do you ever use tools like Unify and Scaler?

[@arko_s]

I like that track a lot, Great work Stevie! I was also trying out some new gnere or I should say sub-Gnere. It's always great to try out new stuff, you know.

[@Steven_Beddall]

Agreed! Cheers Arko 😊

[@matttorrence2900]

Hey man, great video… Did you do any videos on how to get your music uploaded to the right music library’s? Thank you.

[@slimyelow]

listening to Lotus 89 right now and it is really nice. I like.

[@Steven_Beddall]

Thanks!

[@rayderrich]

I just published my first try at synthwave on KZbin yesterday. It was so much fun to try this, but I can of course not do it as fast as you showed here. Thanks for the nice video.

[@Steven_Beddall]

Hey thanks so much for watching!

[@racalik]

hey what are the scale types you would usually go for to do synthwave?

[@Armadillo312]

Lotus esprit was a killer car racing game. Great track, very authentic. Diva is great for synthwave, but I've found myself using the Synthwave 1 and 2 soundsets for Avenger lately, and they contain both synth sounds as well as drums, and nails the vibe.

[@Steven_Beddall]

Awesome! I’ll definitely check Avenger out. Diva is on my list to purchase for sure, I know it’s a classic and I’ve wanted it for some time now!

[@liberektromusic]

@@Steven_Beddall I love Diva!!! A simple KZbin search allowed me to emulate with 99% authenticity the Korg Polysix fat bass preset just with the Jun-8 Diva template and some tweaks. Creativity sparks a lot when you are on a budget and need to make something work with what you already have. Great video as always!!!! Tons of value packed in just 10 minutes. It is a course in itself enough to get started in the synth-wave genre. Thank you very much for everything you do!!

[@DEADLINETV]

Great to see your workflow! I've been making Synthwave for some time now, non-commercial, just for fun. Never really thought about monetising it. There are a couple of synths that you might know about or might want to check out. So the Tal-Uno-LX is great ('cause synthwave really needs a Juno!), the PG-8X (free) is great for more Roland goodness and I tend to (over-utilise?) the Korg Polysix is awesome (for bass). Oh, and I see you have a guitar on the wall, use it for either leads or just simple powerchords. :D

[@Steven_Beddall]

Thanks so much for the suggestion! I haven't incorporated the guitar into any of my Synthwave just yet but would love to do that! I'll check out the PG-8X, haven't heard of that one!

[@DEADLINETV]

@@Steven_Beddall Well, Timecop1983 has a great preset pack for it. He's an amazing Synthwave producer if you haven't heard of him.

[@darrenhirst9900]

A good bass for eighties music Stevie is Korg Polysix under bass there is a pre-set called fat line bass. I use that in my test tunes for eighties music and it sounds really fat and perfect for it. I love watching your videos so thanks for making them.

[@Steven_Beddall]

Awesome! Thanks for the suggestion I'll check it out, cheers!

[@darrenhirst9900]

@@Steven_Beddall My pleasure and happy to help. Have a great weekend Stevie.

[@psrocker1]

Awesome!

[@Steven_Beddall]

🙏

[@govtpeaches4299]

​ @Stevie B // Production Music Academy Maybe you answer this Q somewhere else, but I've seen other people discuss how they don't use any royalty free loops from third party users when creating Sync music bc the algorithms they use when uploading can detect loops? Guessing it's different from site to site. I'm just building my library, but wondering what your thoughts are on this.

[@Steven_Beddall]

For royalty free libraries it’s not a big issue for the most part, tv / production libraries are a bit more picky about it I find. Overall, I think it’s best practice to avoid melodic loops and samples, percussion loops I tend to chop up and meld with other elements so there’s something fresh, my approach for sync music is to avoid instances where any loop on its own has too much exposure in the track, and so far I’ve never had an issue with content ID algorithm detection

[@cm16533]

Dang is that a custom CS-80 patch in the beginning? I couldn't find the preset

[@argniests5357]

do you include a copy of your starter template in your synthwave class?

[@Steven_Beddall]

The course includes a walk through of my personal template but I’m in the process of updating it to include a Logic Pro track template

[@TIPPYtoeup]

Stevie, I’m interested in purchasing your synthwave course. Currently I have a capable laptop and a MicroKorg I’ve enjoyed for years. But never implemented anything into production. Could you please share an equipment list on what I would need to get going? Also, I’ve been playing guitar forever. So I have a ton of great riffs “at least in my opinion 😅.” So with that in mind if you could please compose a quick list it would be greatly appreciated. And look forward to diving into your courses! Thanks man! Ps. I have Winpro as an OS so do you have a very user friendly recommendation for a DAW?

[@Steven_Beddall]

Hey thanks for reaching out, as for PC DAWs there’s a few options but I find Studio One to be quite user friendly and easy to look at. Cubase is also great. Check out my latest Synthwave vid that I just put out last Monday, there’s several free synths that are fantastic! I also feature a few other products I find useful 👍

[@TIPPYtoeup]

@@Steven_Beddall Excellent, thank you man!

[@makegamemusic]

Awesome video Stevie. Question: Are you finding Motion Array worth it? We uploaded 25 tracks a couple of months back to it and they got several hundred downloads but we haven't even hit the £50 minimum payout! We were think we're just too late to the party with that site.

[@Steven_Beddall]

I think it’s a matter of really understanding what type of music does well on the site, I often listen to the ‘most popular’ tracks of the week and month in the search results. My downloads generate over a $1000 a month for me on average so definitely very much worth it for me personally. That’s not including future earnings from content ID either, for me that e a long term strategy to count on due to the number of downloads per month.

[@makegamemusic]

@@Steven_Beddall Cheers for that, I think you're right. Video game music is probably not the best genre for that site lol! Keep up the great work.

[@user-mq4xi1yz8g]

I was watching your "Writing Synthwave for Music Libraries" video and I saw that you were using a midi controller. What kind of midi controller you were using in that video?

[@Steven_Beddall]

Novation Launchkey 49

[@JeremyGreysmark]

Is there a way to buy the specific course you are referring to without a subscription? I am really interested in your take of Synthwave, but subscribing seems a bit OTT for mer personally. Great content btw!

[@Steven_Beddall]

Hey Jeremy, yes for sure. I just added the link in the description, where it says 'purchase individual courses here' it will take you to my teachable site. Cheers!

[@JeremyGreysmark]

@@Steven_Beddall haha sorry, I feel a bit retarded for not seeing the link now! Thanks for the prompt answer :).

[@Steven_Beddall]

@@JeremyGreysmark no don’t worry I added it when I saw your comment! 😄

[@kreuhnkohrman4948]

ehm.. is there a difference between American and European synthwave? The tempo seems too fast to me (at least European synthwave tends to be slower ) and I miss the typical ducking. But of course that can also be a more European synthwave "stylistic element"...

[@TheMixClub]

Just Joined Up.... Stay Safe

[@Steven_Beddall]

Cheers Mix Club!

[@azynkron]

FYI Those scanline artefacts in the beginning should be horisontal.

[@melazmusic]

snare needs more reverb 😭

[@Twistedstar0320]

Can you give me a complete list of everything I would need to buy to get into this, like programs, plug-ins, hardware like keyboards, just everything you have there minus the computer. Please, and thank you

[@volkmarmohs9749]

very nice piece of music. You made a great job, but to be honest: it’s all but not 80s. The texture of the songs wasn’t so fat. And there was a lot of major seven or ninth chords. Base drums were played without so much punch like today. Only for your information. Again: Cool Synthwave, but not 80th

[@Steven_Beddall]

Appreciate that! But that's what I was going for, the style of Synthwave I write has more of a modern touch, especially w drums.. as I've found that's what works well for licensing. That's what my channel is all about :)

[@RolandaSupsene]

You put up ads, and that's all the chatter. Are you that poor or that greedy? So many commercials in a 10-minute video!

[@Steven_Beddall]

Poor or greedy?😂KZbin inserts the ads not me. If you don't want to see ads get KZbin premium. If creators monetizing their FREE educational content on a FREE platform with ad sense offends you, then I believe that makes you the greedy one.