Techno melodies: Getting started

Keen to make a new Techno banger but not sure where to start? When it comes to making Techno melodies, EVAbeat have got you covered.

Tempo and feel

Techno is a broad genre with lots of different styles and tempos, so it’s worth thinking about what type suits your tastes. Do you like slower (124 BPM) melodic tracks by the likes of Stephan Bodzin or big warehouse bangers (133 BPM) by the likes of Setaoc Mass?

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I’ve chosen 133 BPM for my track but I’m leaning more towards the style of melody heard in the Stephan Bodzin track. Ultimately it’s Techno and the rules were meant to be broken, so do what feels right to you.

Next is choosing the key. Techno is largely made in minor keys, with A, D, F and G being some of the most popular. For this melody, I went with F Minor. You can check out my previous blog post on choosing the right musical key for inspiration.

Pick your sound

You are really only limited by your imagination when it comes to sounds for Techno. Focus on giving your melody movement and dynamics. I added delay and a touch of reverb to give mine some life. For your Techno melody, it really depends on the feel and mood you’ve chosen. Try listening to some different producers to get a feel for the sounds they use and work out what you like.

Generating the best Techno melodies with Melody Sauce

When creating Techno melodies with Melody Sauce there a few things to select that will get you a great result quickly.

Syncopation, Syncopation, Syncopation!

Techno loves Syncopation, this cannot be stressed enough. Switch this on to give your melodies an offbeat feel. I left Swing and Triplet off, but feel free to experiment with these.

For my first melody I selected Fast, Dark and Complex. as I wanted a busy sounding acid melody.

The video above is the fourth Techno melody generated with these settings. I previewed the results with some automation to my synth and a touch of delay already applied. I dragged it out of the Melody Sauce VST and into my DAW, liking the results so much I didn’t make any edits at all. I’m happy keeping this as a 4 bars loop, but often Techno uses even shorter loops than that. This is worth bearing in mind when you’re making your own melodies – try shortening to 1 or 2 bars.

Next up I generated another Techno melody with my speed selected as Slow and using the Dark and Simple pad.

The fifth melody generated gave me a pattern I think worked well as it was, so I dragged into my DAW with no further editing. On the slow setting the melodies generated are 8 bars long. This melody is a 2 bar motif repeated with a contrasting pattern for the final 2 bars. This works really well with this genre.

As you can see from this blog, it is really quick and simple to create Techno melodies with Melody Sauce!