How to Summervibe Melodic House Like Kygo & Lane 8 + Templates | Live Electronic Music Tutorial #350

How to Make Summer-Vibe Melodic House Like Kygo & Lane 8 — Live Production Walkthrough

In episode 350 of the Live Electronic Music Tutorial series, the producer builds a melodic house track at 124 BPM completely from scratch, in real time, with an empty project. The goal is summery, euphoric melodic house in the spirit of Kygo and Lane 8 — starting from a simple chord progression and layering sounds, percussion, effects and melodies until a full arrangement of ideas takes shape. It’s an idea-generation session: capture as much as possible quickly, then refine into the finished track later.

What you’ll learn

• How to lay down a simple I–IV–ii–vi chord progression in C as the harmonic foundation
• Choosing warm, old-school synth sounds for a Faithless / Berlin-style melodic vibe
• Two sidechain compression tricks — ducking a reverb bus and ducking the bass under the kick
• Programming percussion and keeping drums in key with the track
• Layering a sub melodic pad, a piano arpeggio played by hand, and an ambient background pad
• Crafting an alternative bassline and re-using composed melodies across new parts

1. Record the chord progression in C

The track is built around a simple progression practiced earlier: the I, IV, ii and vi chords in the key of C (C – F – Dm – Am). The producer records the chords first as a stabby part just to capture the idea, quantizes them, and notes there’s already a touch of delay in the part. This rough chord sketch becomes the backbone everything else is written around.

2. Pick warm, old-school lead sounds

Reaching for Sylenth1 and browsing its banks, the producer hunts for a melodic, housey lead with an old-school Faithless and Berlin-flavored vibe. The emphasis is on a sound that feels warm and slightly retro rather than overly modern or advanced — the right character sound is what sets the mood for the whole track.

3. Program percussion in key

Next come the drums. The producer keeps the kit tuned to C so the percussion sits in key with the music — a clean-mix habit worth adopting. Several kick and groove sounds are auditioned until one with a better groove is found, and the percussion starts to build into a steady old-school melodic-house rhythm.

4. Sidechain trick one: duck a reverb bus with the chords

To add ambience, a reverb bus (a big-room verb) is created and the chords are sent to it. Then a compressor is placed on the reverb return and sidechained to the dry chord signal. When the keys play, the reverb is compressed and pushed back; in the gaps the verb blooms forward. The producer credits this as a Cosmic Gate trick — it keeps the reverb from sounding too present and washy while the chords are sounding.

5. Build the bass pad and sidechain it to the kick

A bass pad is played in by hand — just a couple of keys following the chords — using Sylenth1 again. Then comes sidechain trick number two: a compressor on the bass keyed off the kick so the bass ducks every time the kick hits. This classic ducking carves space for the kick and gives the groove its pumping movement, with the depth dialed back so it isn’t too aggressive.

6. Add open hats for groove

Open hats from a deep-tech kit are dropped in to lift the groove. The producer is picky about hats — some sounds just work and these do — and notes the chosen kit will ship inside the sampler when you grab the template, so you can load the exact same hats.

7. Layer a glassy lead and a lush sub melodic pad

A glassy, slightly epic lead is added and sent to the reverb bus so it isn’t bone-dry, picking up the bus compression from the lead for extra movement. The producer then opens an Anjunabeats-style pad patch — used not as a sustained pad but played as single-key melodic stabs — reaching for happy, beach-y melodic house energy and cleaning up the tone as the part develops.

8. Record a piano arpeggio and an ambient background pad

Returning to an earlier idea, the producer plays a simple piano arpeggio by hand — no arpeggiator, just the keys — tweaking velocities and splitting it into two parts to find the stronger phrase. Pianos don’t always fit electronic music depending on the key, so it takes testing. Finally an Alchemy pad fills out the bottom and a step/gate effect is inserted on the piano, with everything sent to the reverb bus and a filter sweep used to open the section up. From here the segment is replicated into a track-length arrangement, ready to be refined into the finished song.

Get the project file: Want the full Sylenth1 patches, drum kit and arrangement to build on? Grab the multi-DAW template for Logic Pro, Ableton and FL Studio. Download the template →