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Divided

June 6, 2024 · Beat Kitchen · Synthesis

Synthesist Masterclass

Our community is deeply divided. I want to hear from all of you, and I know I can count on you to keep the dialogue civil and constructive. Some of you are high-pass filtering your tracks.

Some of you are using shelving filters. Which one are you and why? And remember, whatever your feelings are about this, we’re all in this together.

Learn more in the Synthesis Fundamentals guide.

Tags: eq, synthesis

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Setting Up Your Home Studio 2 chapters

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- INSTRUMENT-GYM: We did two different types of finger dexterity exercises that work for both bass and guitar, and talked about how to structure daily practice sessions- even if it means breaking the practice into two chunks. We talked about improvisation, and muscle memory, and did some practice drills of "not looking" at the instrument. Finally we closed with a G pentatonic scale, and talked about how to make practicing scales more interesting to open it up to writing and playing in a more intuitive way.
- THEORY-GYM: Covered tritone substitution — what it is, when to use it, and how to hear it in a ii-V-I-IV context. Also worked through a question about half-step intervals and when they're problematic versus idiomatic depending on chord function. Spent extended time reviewing a student's original singer-songwriter piece, with feedback focused on piano pedaling technique, rhythmic intentionality, and harmonic ambiguity around an A-flat chord center.
- WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE: We reviewed submitted beats from several community members this morning, focusing on harmonic choices in minor-key compositions. Along the way, we got into a substantive discussion about how minor scales work in practice — why treating "minor" as a single binary category is limiting, and how chord function and tonal center are more useful frames than scale labels. We also covered inharmonicity as an acoustic phenomenon, talked through DAW workflow for free-tempo recording, and discussed the value of quantity-over-quality as a creative practice.
- OFFICE HOURS: we talked about drum machines, listened to some student songs and discussed sound treatment
- PRODUCTION-GYM: We shared a production breakdown of The Doors "People Are Strange'. We talked about instrumentation, arrangement, structure, and production techniques- panning- close miking- even the choice of musicians and how that can change a recording. We also spent some time contrasting the Echo and The Bunnymen cover of the same song, to see how 1967 sounded agains 1988! We noted production and structural changes, as well as changes to the arrangement and parts.
- INSTRUMENT-GYM: Single strokes, double strokes, paradiddles and sung vs straight feels.
- OFFICE HOURS: we talked about re-creating songs as a production exercise, some mixing ideas and mixing tips, and communicating with others in the music business.
- EAR-TRAINING-GYM: We explored ear training through deep listening to a single contemporary R&B track, using it as a lens for examining background vocals as independent instruments, arrangement and layering strategy, mix placement and reverb use, vocal delivery and articulation, and song form. The session was open dialogue throughout — students brought their own observations and we used them to go deeper into production craft, melody writing over static harmony, and how a song's emotional arc can be built through stacking and restraint rather than harmonic movement.
- OFFICE HOURS: So many audio questions today. alot about recording and mixing with busses
- OFFICE HOURS: We welcomed a new resident, Hind, who shared a compelling a cappella vocal work-in-progress featuring layered harmonies and an unconventional phrase structure (alternating bars of three, four, and five). The session became a wide-ranging conversation about developing a production ear — listening deeply to music you love, building shared vocabulary with collaborators, and honoring the raw energy of first ideas. We also touched on the unique perspective drummers bring to production, and how to communicate effectively with musicians when your vocabulary is still developing.
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