What sort of D&B are you wanting to write?
I've got a couple of pointers for you that will hopefully help! (Especially with you using FL).
- Select a Key that you want to write in (i.e D#minor ....or everyone's favourite, Fminor ) - If there's a certain song you like, you can always find out the Key of it on Beatport.
- Go on your master channel and load up "Pitcher" (it's a default FL plug-in) - And select your chosen Key. This will now show you all of the notes that you can play in the said Key. - TURN THIS OFF on your Master Channel though - you'll see why as soon as you press play.
- Now open up a blank Sampler and open up the Piano Roll and put a midi note on each key that you can play - These are known as your Ghost Notes (I usually do them from C3 upto C6).
- Lastly, select your chosen VST, click the Piano Roll - Now you have in front of you every single note you can play!
If any of the above has confused you then drop me a PM and i'll help you out!
This is a great tool and will 100% help your writing, especially for Arps & Chords. The only downside is that it is heavily Midi based and doesn't really help you to play a piano...
Which leads me onto my second pointer ..Learn the piano or guitar! There's a million and one free online classes out there. Don't worry if you have to take 6 months out of the studio just to learn it, you will never look back!
Another good tip, especially for writing Leads is to find a few tracks with really powerful leads. I use Sub Focus, Metrik, Netsky, Pendulum etc. Learn how to play them, write down the Midi and really look at what they are doing. This will hopefully give you a better insight when it comes to writing your own Leads (and also gives you the chance to reverse engineer their Synth work now that you have the Midi).
Listen to different genre's outside of Drum & Bass, hundreds of the top D&B songs have been inspired by other musical genres. House, Funk, Reggae, Rock, Classical, Jazz etc.
As for "where do you start a track" - There's no real set way, some people are inspired by Drum loops, some people are inspired by Samples and others start with Chords. That part is really down to you. However, to speed up workflow I would recommend creating a new Default Project with some custom settings.
I hope that some of the above will come in use for you. Above all though remember that it takes A LONG time to be able to write music that you are happy with. Try not to compare your music with others around you, even if someones making better tracks than you in less time. I go by the saying "A Master has Failed more times than an Apprentice has Tried". - Even if you go a whole year without writing anything half decent, don't give up ...you never know just how close success is! Drop me a message if there's anything else I can help with
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