Sunday Show Out - 12/28/2025
In the last devlog, I said it should be possible for me to use FL Studio to create a looping music track within a week. And it was indeed possible, and it did indeed happen. It’s not finished, and it’s not polished, but it’s pretty good. So, let’s walk through what I’ve accomplished. It all begins with me being a student.
What did I do?
It’s like I’m back in school
I found a Udemy course on game music and started learning. I already knew quite a bit about chords and chord progressions, and I had the barest familiarity with FL Studio, so I wanted a course that built off those and taught me how to expand my abilities. This course fit the bill nicely, so I bought it and started learning.
I haven’t finished the course. I prefer to watch 1-2 lessons, stop, and practice what I’ve learned in that time. Every few days, I write a review of what I’ve learned (and I mean write: pen and paper are still the best learning tools) and repeat the process. It’s not particularly fast, but it’s efficient.
First, a melody
There’s two apparent camps when it comes to making a song: the chords first camp and the melody first camp. I prefer the latter approach, particularly since FL Studio can show you the suggested scale of your song after a few measures. Once you have a decent-sounding melody, you can use the highlighted scale to build chords.
Speaking of decent-sounding melodies, here’s a melody for a piece I’m calling “The Place Just Beneath”:
I chose a dulcimer for the melody instrument: it’s my favorite string instrument (I own one! With mountain laurels burned into the fretboard!), it’s sufficiently bluegrassy/Celtic-y, and I have a good idea what it should sound like. It was certainly pretty enough, but it felt empty. What I needed was the underlying chord progression.
Now, the chords
I chose celli (which I learned is the plural of “cello”) to provide the chords and used Hooktheory.com to choose popular chord progressions that matched my scale (D minor). After some playing around, I had this:
The chord progressions is i-V-VI-VII followed by i-iv-V-i. I like how the chord progression gives the piece this otherworldly, almost foggy sound, as if the sun is rising on a world not seen by man in ages (note, this isn’t necessarily foreshadowing, but it isn’t necessarily not, either). It’s starting to sound much more game-y, it’s just missing a driving bassline.
It’s (mostly, but not quite) all about the bass
I don’t have an upright bass installed in FL Studio, and I’d already used cellis for the chords, so I used the mandolin instead:
Pretty nice, isn’t it?
The bassline is simply made of eighth notes on the beats, arranged in notes that are one the scale. I moved them around until I found a bassline that sounded good to me.
What did I learn?
I’m serious when I said I just played around with the bassline until it sounded right. I’m generally a rigid learner. I like to know exactly what to do, and then I do it. That got me as far as a solid melody and chord progression, but I didn’t find detailed instructions on how to build a bassline. I just had to wing it and find something that sounded good. That’s difficult for me but I knew I’d get nowhere if I didn’t put my head down and get through it. Music is as much about what you feel as it is what you know.
I also learned more about navigating FL Studio, especially moving between the Piano Roll, Channel Rack, and Playlist. I also learned how to export songs and the importance of having even a cheap set of over-ear headphones to monitor sound quality. Besides, I now get to look professional:
What’s next?
The piece sound good, but it feels bland on a loop. It’s in dire need of an intro (possibly just a chord progression, with or without the layered bassline before the melody hits) and maybe a second melody. I’ll continue playing around this week and hope to have a more complete song next Sunday.
I’m back to coding this week, adding knockback and cooldown to my combat system. I imagine that’ll take the entire week and that’ll have to be okay. I’ll also have a dedicated streaming day/time to announce in the next devlog. Next week is my last week of holiday break, so I’m going to make it a productive one.
See you next time!
