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MELODY TUTORIAL | How to Make a Melody in FL Studio (EDM) | Tips for Beginners

In this lesson you’ll learn how to make a melody in FL Studio. This melody tutorial shows good tips for beginners, but also for more experienced producers. It’s very useful for any musical genre, so it applies to any form of EDM.

Knowing how to make a melody is definitely an essential part of making music. That’s why it’s important to pay close attention to this lesson and gain smart strategies to boost your melody creation.

This lesson is simply part of the basics and goes together with my How to Make Chords in FL Studio lesson. They belong together and are both equally important. So please, make sure to check it out as well.

How to make a melody

In the video I am showing you a good method how to make a melody. This method is especially useful when you don’t have a lot of musical talent. To create good melodies, we simply use some rules that help as guidance.

Rule 1 to make a melody

Make sure you’ve enabled the “Scale highlighting” helper on the piano roll (set it to “Automatic”). When it’s enabled, FL Studio will tell you which musical scale it thinks you’re using.

In the video example, I’m using the F minor scale. A scale basically tells you which notes you CAN use and which notes you CANNOT use.

Rule 2 to make a melody

Simply pick a musical scale and stick to it. You can ONLY use the notes on this scale. I’ve chosen the F minor scale in the video.

Rule 3 to make a melody

Make a musical loop with the lower layer of the melody (the carriers). This has to be an F minor loop. So, it’s easiest just to start with an F note.

Always check the piano roll helper if your lower notes play an F minor loop. If it doesn’t say “F minor”, change it until it does.

Rule 4 to make a melody

Make a musical loop with the upper layer (top layer) that creates the real melody.

  • Make sure your first note is a chord of the lower note. In the video example, G# is a chord of F in the minor scale.
  • The total upper melody needs to be an F minor loop as well. Only select the upper layer to see if FL Studio says it’s played as F minor.

TIP: The lower notes we created earlier, can play the same rhythm as the upper melody. This makes it sound as a unity. The note helper generally should say “F minor” as well.

Rule 5 to make a melody

This rule is just optional. Copy the lower layer, paste it and move it down 1 octave. This makes the melody sound heavier.

NOTE: For a beginner this is more than enough to get you started. Skip rule 6 until you get the hang of these first 5 steps.

Rule 6 to make a melody

For the more advanced, make a musical loop with the middle layer. These are also always part of the chords the scale (F minor) dictates. See which notes within the chords are still “free” to use and build from there.

In the video example, the very first notes now are F (lower) and G# (upper). The note C is still available within that chord. Use that note and build from there.

Final melody making tip

Always try to use your ears and make sure it sounds good to you. This takes some practice. That’s why I tried to create these rules to help you guide. But these are NOT hard rules. These are just strategies.

Let me know if this helps!

And before you go, I want to stress again that it’s important to learn the How to Make Chords in FL Studio lesson. It goes together with this lesson. So please, check it out. You may also want to check out the Hardstyle Piano Melody lesson, where we’ll take a look at the melody making strategy in action.

Plugins

For this lesson, the following FL Studio stock plugins were used:

  • 3x Osc
  • Fruity Reeverb 2
  • Fruity Parametric EQ 2
  • Fruity Waveshaper

If you have a question you would like me to answer in a future video or article, you can send it (3-4 paragraphs/500 words max) to this email address: cep@screechhouse.com

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Thank you for your support and please, keep practicing!

– Cep
Music producer & creator of Screech House

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