Drum and bass is one of the hardest genres in popular electronic music to mix cleanly. The reason is simple, and it’s the same reason the genre is so addictive when it works. In a drum and bass track, the sub-bass, the bassline, the kick drum, and the fast breakbeats are all fighting for attention at the same time. The sub holds the bottom.… Read More »How to Mix Drum and Bass (Without It Sounding Muddy)
As a producer, as a songwriter, I’ve spent a lot of time either in my bedroom or in studios, alone.” — Maggie Rogers That’s most of us now. You sit down with a laptop, a mic, and an idea. You write the song. And then you sing it. Finally you record it. Also do the mixing and mastering your creation. Then simply upload it. But in reality,… Read More »How to Write a Song Worth Releasing
A six-second drum break, a few warehouses in London and Bristol, and a tempo nobody had pushed that hard before. That is roughly where drum and bass starts. This post tells the story of how it actually happened, from the late-80s UK rave scene to the moment jungle stopped calling itself jungle. If you want the broader overview of the genre, start with our Beginner’s… Read More »How Drum and Bass Music Was Born
In 1969, a band called Led Zeppelin released a song that opened with a single guitar riff. Four bars, played slow, built from a handful of notes. The song was “Whole Lotta Love.” The riff has been stuck in the head of every guitar player since. Here’s what most people don’t realize. That riff uses five notes. Just five. The same five notes you’ll find… Read More »Pentatonic Scale: How Five Notes Built Modern Music
Before Avicii became Avicii, he was a teenager in Stockholm building tracks in his bedroom. One of the tools he reached for early was a piece of software called Mixed In Key. It did one thing well. It told him what key every song was in, and which keys would sound good together. He used it to pick samples that fit his… Read More »How DJs and Producers Use the Camelot Wheel to Match Keys
Most artists think of mastering as the final checkbox, something technical that happens after the real work is done. A 2009 study by researchers Bryan Paton and Phillip McIntyre proves it is far more than that. When listeners heard mastered and un-mastered versions of the same songs, they felt them differently, not just heard them differently. The mastered versions registered as more exciting, more… Read More »Why Mastered Music Feels Different (Even at the Same Volume)
In 1984, Bruce Springsteen recorded a rough vocal for a song he wasn’t sure he’d finish. The take was loose, almost careless, a placeholder while he worked out the arrangement. When the band tried to re-record it later, nothing matched the original feeling. So they kept the scratch. That song was “Born in the U.S.A.” This happens more often than people think. A scratch track or… Read More »What Is a Scratch Track in Music?
So your track sounds boring? Don’t say your tracks don’t make sense. Try syncopation this time and listen again to how it sounds. Syncopation is a crucial element in writing rhythms to make your track groovy and interesting. Have you ever heard a rhythm that instantly made you move, even if you did not know why? Sometimes the beat does not land where you expect, and that is exactly… Read More »Why Syncopation Feels Good in Music
If you have ever tried to write a melody that sounds emotional, cool, and slightly dark, but not too sad, you may have felt stuck without knowing why. Sometimes a regular major or minor scale just does not give you the color you are looking for. That is where many musicians get frustrated. You want your chords, riffs, or solos… Read More »What Is Dorian Mode in Music?
If the circle of fifths has ever looked confusing, you are not alone. A lot of beginners see it as a big music theory chart filled with random letters, sharps, and flats, without really knowing how it helps in real music. The truth is that the circle of fifths is much simpler than it looks. Once you understand the pattern behind it, it becomes… Read More »What is Circle of Fifths ( & 5 Tips to Memorize it)
