Chords for From Scratch: a Synthwave song in 7 minutes | FL Studio Tutorial

Synthwave is a subgenre of electronic music which [G] focuses on 80s nostalgia.
It's heavily influenced by the [F] soundtracks of 1980s video games and movies.
[E] Synthwave essentially takes all the [G] characteristic visual and musical elements of the 80s and filters out the best parts of it to be
recontextualized and repurposed.
The sounds used in the making of this type of music typically come from [F] emulated 80s synths.
Although if you have the money and you don't mind making the investment, you could [G] grab one or two actual 80s synths,
but it would set you back at least a couple racks.
The genre originated in the early to mid
2000s with [Am] GTA Vice City [Dm] being credited as the primary prototype for Synthwave's neon-drenched atmosphere.
The [G] genre gained more popularity during the 2010s with movie releases like Drive or Tron Legacy and
video game [Ab] releases like Far Cry [F] 3's Blood Dragon expansion.
In 2019, The [Em] Weeknd released a Synthwave [B] inspired track entitled Blinding Lights, [G] which peaked at number one on the charts in multiple countries.
Let's get into the cook-up.
I opened up this pad preset and I'm going to make a chord [F] progression in D minor.
[B] A quick thing to note is that 80s synths typically only had six voices,
[G] so I'm limiting myself to play no more than six notes at a time.
I'm also going to keep the notes that I would have played with my left hand spaced far apart [F] and I'll scrunch together the higher octave notes.
[B] Here's the chord progression I came up with.
It's basically just a [G] 1-6-4-5 progression.
[Dm] _ _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ _
[Am] _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _
_ Then I cut the lows and highs with an EQ. _ _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ [G] I opened up this preset in FabFilter Twin and I layered the chords.
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Let's get back into [Dm] the cook-up. _ _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Am] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I opened up this ARP preset in DX7 [Dm] and I just played the chords as regular 7th chords.
_ _ _ _ [Bb] _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ [F] _ _ I laid down a snare [Eb]
and _ I layered that snare with this lightly reverbed snare.
_ _ _ _ _ [D] _ I pulled up this bass preset and I laid down this bass melody. _ _ _ _
[Bb] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _ _
[A] _ _ [C] _ _ [D] _ _ I made this kick pattern. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ I added a shaker. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
I laid down some toms.
[G] _ _ _ I [A] put reverb on the snare [Gb] and I automated the wet level to give it a more [D] 80s vibe.
Here's what the drums sound [N] like all together. _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Gbm] _ _ Next, I sidechained the kick to the melody and the bass.
I felt like the beat was still missing something so I added [D] this lead in [G] Nexus.
And yes, I did see [Dm] Praxis' video on Synthwave [Gbm] and this is slightly inspired by the lead that he used in that video.
_ [Dm] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Am] _
_ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _
[G] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _ [Am] _
_ _ [D] _ _ _ _ _
Well, that's [Cm] pretty much everything.
Let's see what we've come up with.
[D] _ _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ [C] _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ [C] _ _ [D] _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ [C] _ _ [Dm] _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ [C] _ _ [Dm] _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ [Gm] _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ [C] _ _ [Dm] _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ Thanks _ [Gm] _ _
_ _ [Am] _ _ _ [C] _ [D] _ _
for [Bb] watching!
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ [C] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _