Writing Riffs – Biggest Mistake! This is the biggest mistake when writing riffs. Especially with beginner guitarists and bands. Are you making this mistake? Hopefully you found this post helpful. If there’s anything you want me to cover in the future videos let me know. Send me an email or leave a comment below. […]
What Is Half-time and Double-time? How to Use Them in Songs? What is half time and double time? How to use half time and double time? In this video you learn what they are and how to use them. Includes two example songs. Hopefully you found this post helpful. If there’s anything you want […]
How to Make Full Songs Instead of Short Demos How to take your short idea and take them to a full song? It’s frustrating to create only short demos. This way of composing has helped me a lot – hopefully it will be useful for you too. Hopefully you found this post helpful. If […]
Songwriting Hacks for Fast and Smooth Workflow Songwriting tricks and tips for getting ideas down faster. Super helpful! Hopefully you found this post helpful. If there’s anything you want me to cover in the future videos let me know. Send me an email or leave a comment below. Ask if there’s anything unclear or if […]
Bigger Synths by Stacking Preset Sounds Can you make preset synths sounding great and suitable for your songs? I’d say you can. If you haven’t got the time, the skills or the interest to start crafting own sounds from the start – then you can do this instead. In this video I’m showing […]
From an Idea into a Full Song In case you have a lots of unfinished song ideas, this post is for you. What I’m about to show you can help you with that. In this video I’m showing how my idea transformed into a full song. Start from the Hook and Build Around It […]
Stop Doing This When Songwriting (WASTE OF TIME!) Most of us are wasting time when we’re composing, it’s the harsh truth. If you think about it… Are you finishing your songs? There are three things that we tend to do, but they don’t really help the progress of songwriting forward. In this video […]
Save Processing Power During Songwriting Disk too slow, CPU error, system overload.. Does these messages ring a bell? When you’re writing a song or arranging it, and you need to have a lot of tracks playing simultaneously, the chances are your computer will slow down. Even though computers today can take a lot, the […]
Instant Energy Lift Trick In this video you’ll find a way to instantly boost your track with a simple and effective trick. While there’s a chance you may already be familiar with the trick itself, the execution is probably something entirely new. Check out the video to learn the instant energy lift trick. […]
Creating More Interesting Metal Intros In this video, you’ll find three steps to create more interesting metal intros. While some of them might be more obvious ones, others are somewhat sneakier. Watch the video to find out what you could do to boost your introductions to be more engaging. Did the intro get […]
Using Midi Synth Bass in Metal Music? This is a quick video about using midi synth bass in metal / aggressive rock. Have you ever thought about using one in such a genre? I don’t mean in an effect-kind-of-way, but INSTEAD of real instrument bass? Well, I use it in one of my […]
Faster Songwriting with Songwriting Template I’m excited to share you my songwriting template, because it has made my songwriting – and just putting ideas together – so much faster. In this video I’m going through the template and showing you how I use it whenever there’s an idea to work on. Hopefully this […]
5 Steps to Spice Up Chord Progressions When you’re in the process of writing a song, you might have an acoustic demo, simply chord progressions marked down or something in between. As you start to arrange the song, you might want to spice up the original chord progressions, making them more unique. In this […]
Arrangement Trick to Highlight the Hooks In this video you’ll find a cool arrangement trick – or rather a move – to spice up the hooks of your song. As an example I’m using one of my own songs that I’ve been working on. Let’s dive right in: Did you hear how those […]
How to Create Bring Me The Horizon Synths (With Stock Plugins)? In this video I’m showing you how to create those glitchy, Bring Me The Horizon – like synths with stock plugins. You can do it in any DAW. The process contains five different parts: 1. At first, pick up lead sound that […]
Can You Make Pro Quality Metal Music at Home? In this video you’ll find the answer to the burning question: Can you make pro quality metal music at home? The point of this video is just to demonstrate the quality that can be produced at home, with some budget gear and a simple […]
Structure Hack to Writing Lyrics Do you have some sort of a hack to writing lyrics that works every time? How do you come up with lyrics to your song? Is it hard for you to even get started or to form a structure for lyrics? For me it sure is. Writing lyrics […]
Unique Chord Progressions With Simple Melodies I like to use simple melodies to regenerate my choruses and sometimes other parts of a song too. The places I usually use these melodies are in the background of a chorus, pre-chorus or verse. I use them mostly in chrouses, but when it comes to verses, I usually […]
Spicing Up Power Chord Progressions Imagine that you’re writing a song. You have the parts of the song figured out and the chord progressions in place. Even the melodies are already done. Yet, something’s missing. The song seems somewhat generic and maybe a little static too. It needs something, but you can’t quite pinpoint what […]
How to Form and Choose a Chord Progression? How to select the right chords and chord progressions for a song? That’s a thinker, especially if you have no understanding of music theory. If you don’t know which chords go together, it’s kind of hard to start composing. I suggest that you read my post about […]
How to Understand Chords and Keys the Easy Way? How to understand chords and keys if you don’t have any music theory background? Is it possible to get around it? Understanding why certain chords go together, why sometimes a chord is a major and sometimes a minor and dealing with multiple scales and terms can […]
How to Plan a Song and Why? I talk about planning on every turn – in several different posts. Why is that? Is planning a song really necessary? Isn’t it just a bunch of hooey? Believe it or not – planning makes songwriting so much faster and it’s essential for the outcome. It’s not a […]
Ways to Write an Intro for a Song How do you start a song? What is an intro in music? How long is an intro for a song? How to write a good intro for a song? What different options are there for intros? These are all valid and common questions that are about to […]
How to Make Second Verse Different Than Verse One Imagine listening to a song that you like. It flows smoothly from one section to another. The song takes you to a journey and you just love every bit of it. Nothing bothers you, or comes across as dull. That’s a characteristic of a great song. […]
More Powerful Chorus with Arrangement Have you ever listened back to your mix and asked yourself “Oh man.. How can I get more power into the chorus?” I sure have. For a long time my choruses were okay sounding, but I never got them to hit as hard as they did in my favourite records. […]
My Exact Method for Writing Lyrics I am not a good writer, far from it. Writing lyrics is a huge struggle for me. Am I going to let that stop me? Heck no. Over the years I’ve developed a method that helps me deliver lyrics from thin air, so to speak. See, lyrics rarely just […]
Write and Mix Songs Faster With Custom Presets Custom presets are great, but you’ve probably heard it (even from me) that mixing with presets is unwise as the plugin manufacturer has no idea how your tracks sound like and what the song needs. Let’s say you insert an EQ to a vocal track and start flipping […]
How to Create Midi Drums Faster? Composing midi drums can be frustratingly slow, especially if you’re just starting out and / or you’re not a drummer. Somehow you manage to put together a decent two bar beat for your song. You’ll end up using the same two bar loop over and over again. In the […]
How to Make Realistic Midi Drums? As you know, drums are the backbone of basically any genre, let alone rock, metal and other similar hard hitting music. In an earlier post, I covered the topic about why drums are so important and why getting a third party drum plugin might be a good idea. If […]
The Importance of Great Sounding Midi Drums Let’s face it, drums are essential in today’s music. Drums are the bedrock of heavy metal, rock, dance music – you name it. In order to get pro sounding drums you’ll need either a talented drummer who can play your songs, and enough preamps, microphones, cables, mic stands […]
The Recipe of a Pro Mix (Most Skip 3-4 Out of 6 Crucial Steps) What actually is the recipe of a pro mix? Is there such a recipe? What are the steps to go from demo to pro? You’re about to find out. Watching the “behind the scenes” and studio diaries of your favourite bands […]
What to Do After the Second Chorus? What to do after the second chorus? Have you ever stumbled upon this very question? I know, I have too. How does it always seem so difficult? You get everything else together with a decent amount of work, but the part that comes after the second chorus, man […]
Three Song Structures to Learn From There are certainly many different ways to structure a song, but the main ideas stay the same. Usually songs have two (or more) verses and a couple of choruses, but not a pre-chorus or an intro nearly as frequently as you might think. Here are three songs and three […]
Arrangement – I Overlooked This Part of Composing for Years What is it that keeps a listener interested from the very first sound to the last chord? Without it the song doesn’t even exist. However, it is one of the things, you and I tend to overlook while getting stuck on it more often […]
Do You Make or Break Your Songs? If you think about it – what makes a great song? Amazing studios filled with expensive gear and instruments? A great mix? A well-known singer or player? There are probably as many answers as there are people, but it is the music itself that we tend to focus […]
