Hope you enjoyed this vid - this is definitely one of the most important aspects of arranging... also, I added a whole new mini-course on arranging in Producer Accelerator. So you should check that out... right here produceracceleratorcourse.com
6:01 about "You can just change the stereo field" its a bad move because when you hear your song on mono it will be cluttered. If you want to fix this problem you have two ways. 1, the path of effects. Using EQ, Dynamic EQ, Compressor on side-chain to make space for other instrument. 2, the path of arrangement. changing the way you play the instrument(Staccato, Pizzicato...), the notes(octaves, other notes of the scale or something), the timing you play the instrument. I liked that you touched this topic because it opens the mind of the beginners(including me :P) and make it faster for them to speed up the process to be better at Arrangement. to be better at creating art.
Great advice! I also think another great way to do this is play more intervals, broken chords, and arpeggios, using as little notes as possible and spreading the melody or harmony between more instruments similar to what you did with the guitar but have the electric piano or pads only play the 1-5 or 1-3 version of the chords or even just the root note or a single harmony note.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you can put a lot more instruments and sounds in the high pitches than in the low pitches without it getting too muddy because of overtones (you can find videos online of your curious about overtones)
This is very much a consideration when I'm working on a song. Not only the vertical space, but listening for places where one instrument is overlapping in a bad way with another and EQing or adjusting filter cutoff for one or both to open up more space. I mean sometimes the overlap is a feature, not a bug, but sometimes one steps on another.
🙏🏻thank you very much ☺️ that was one of the best/most important tutorials in a long time! please do another one on this topic. it can be longer and more detailed ☺️🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Great video! I'd add furthermore that compressing too many instruments in the same pitch range also causes them clashing frequency wise: that means too many things in the midrange or in the low end. In fact the reason why your songs - and dare I say that? Mine too! - don't sound overloaded in certain frequencies even when there's a lot going on maybe in the last chorus is that we space out the instruments, resulting in a way less likely frequency overload.
Super useful big concept! Has me wondering if taking away arrangement pieces can be done deliberately to create tension, that is release when that part of the vertical space returns to the arrangement.
Thanks! Problem I keep running into is when a VST only has a certain range that works for the song. For example piano pad that I literally can’t use lower notes and then when it gets too high it sounds weird. Haha. Stock plugins.
Yes, but no 😁 because you can have the same note made with 2 different strings but on different frets. (I said notes, not "sound" as these 2 notes can sound different, which is an interesting feature)
Yes but it will not sound natural. A bit hard to describe how to do it in a comment. Basically you can use Flex Pitch or go the inspector window (select the audio) and then use the transpose option.
