How to Make a Trap Melody

By Rebecca aka Blissedout Beats

BUILDING BEATS WORKSHOP LEADER & MUSIC PRODUCER DJ RAY BLK HAS SOME TIPS TO MAKE A TRAP MELODY USING THE FREE BROWSER-BASED MUSIC PRODUCTION PROGRAM SOUNDTRAP. YOU CAN ACCESS SOUNDTRAP ON YOUR LAPTOPS, PHONES, AND IPADS USING THE CHROME BROWSER.

This is a continuation video from our last video on How to Make a Trap Drum Pattern.  Today, RAY BLK shows you how to add melodies on top of your drum pattern using Soundtrap.

First, RAY BLK added 3 melody tracks on top of his existing drum pattern to create a beat - he has named these tracks Keys, Melody, and String Section.  The Keys track consists of chords played by themselves, an additional set of chords drives the Melody track, while the String Section acts as the counter melody.

To begin this project yourself, you’ll need to open your project that you created with your trap drums (you can revisit the trap drums tutorial here). To begin, start out with a catchy melody like the one RAY BLK has labeled Keys. RAY BLK used a synthesizer preset by selecting Synthesizer → Leads → Lyleish which has a synth type of sound often heard in trap music. This synth can be used to make a simple but bouncy melody.

Next, play it out using the keyboard.  Experiment by playing different keys together until you find something that sounds good. Once you’re ready, hit the Record button at the bottom of the screen and play your notes to the rhythm of your drum beat.

Now for the second melody track, as RAY BLK has in this video labeled Melody, add chords to give it some body. RAY BLK likes to layer sound to make it sound full. For this track, he uses keys from Piano & Keyboard → Piano → Pressure. Pressure keys have nice ambience and are very airy. This sound is also typical in trap music and RAY BLK wanted to use a sound that was similar. You can model your own chords after the chords commonly heard in trap beats. The chords RAY BLK uses have a nice bounce when heard all together. As with the first melody track, you can hit the Record button to capture your chord-playing.

For the last melody track, RAY BLK likes to add something to create a cinematic sound for the hook and used strings from the Strings section to create a variation of a melody that is commonly used in trap. He recorded this specifically during the hook section (otherwise known as the chorus).

After that, RAY BLK arranged the beat out a bit further, creating an intro, hook, verse and then the hook again.

To Recap:

RAY BLK’s process is to create a catchy melody first and then create a secondary melody layered on the first melody that kicks in after the intro. When he gets to each chorus section, he adds a third melody to let the listener, or the rapper, or the artist know that they have arrived at the hook. And that’s how you can make a layered Trap Melody!

If you enjoyed this, stay tuned for our other How-To videos.