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Ear Candy

Free creative resources for music producers — chord toolkits, randomizers, audio utilities, and extras from Beat Kitchen.

Free creative resources for music producers — chord toolkits, randomizers, audio utilities, and extras from Beat Kitchen. Get in touch if you need help finding the right class.

Beat Kitchen Audio Tools

A free right-click utility for macOS that analyzes loudness (LUFS, true peak, loudness range) and converts audio files — right from Finder. Works on audio and video files. No account required, no install wizard, no nonsense.

Requires macOS 12 or later. ffmpeg is downloaded automatically on first use.

Download (.dmg) View on GitHub

Chordle — Chord Randomizer

Four chords... Go! Click any chord to hear it.

Explore on the Wheel

10 Chord Toolkit

10 Chord Toolkit

The foundational chord set from our Musician Basics curriculum — packaged as a Logic Pro session you can play with immediately.

Download (.zip)

BK Harmonic Synthesizer

An additive synthesizer that builds sound from the harmonic series. Fold overtones below the fundamental, scan partials by scale, gate harmonics by chord. 51 scales, mod matrix, per-voice filter. Runs free in your browser — no install, no account.

Play It Now Plugin Version

Scales, Tetrachords & Harmony

Build any scale from two four-note groups, rotate through modes, and harmonize in 3rds, triads, tetrads, or 6ths. 65 scales from pentatonic to bebop.

Weather Sonification Project

Weather Sonification Project

The lowest frequency microphone on earth? Download and manipulate barometric data as sound.

View on GitHub

Music Theory Didn't Ruin Me t-shirt

Music Theory Didn't Ruin Me

Wear it proudly. Available as a tee or download the artwork to print your own.

Buy the Shirt Download Artwork

Creative Transparency Initiative

A simple, voluntary system for disclosing how AI was used in creative work — not whether it was used.

Learn More on GitHub

Beat Kitchen At-A-Glance

Beat Ktichen Calendar

See the full calendar
Recent Resident Gyms
- PRODUCTION-GYM: We used Tom Petty's *Wildflowers* as a production study, comparing the original home demo recordings to the final album to explore what restraint and omission look like as intentional production choices. The central question was: when a song arrives nearly fully formed, what is the producer's job — and why did they choose to leave certain things out? We also touched on the folk and blues traditions of shared musical vocabulary, the placeholder nature of demo sections, and the producer's role in helping an artist gain objectivity on their own work.
- PRODUCTION-GYM: We did a deep-dive breakdown of "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)" by Talking Heads, from the 1980 album *Remain in Light*, using Logic Pro's AI stem splitter to pull apart the drums, bass, and "other" elements. The session traced the song's Afrobeat DNA through Fela Kuti and James Brown, examined how the album was recorded (live jamming in the Caribbean, vocals overdubbed separately at Sigma Sound Studios in New York), and used the track as a jumping-off point for discussions about genre, rhythmic feel, copyright, and the creative value of loose, imprecise playing.
- EAR-TRAINING-GYM: We worked through a series of ear training exercises covering chord identification (including interval isolation, inversions, and dissonance), tempo recognition, DI vs. amp source identification, LFO waveform recognition by ear, and EQ analysis — specifically distinguishing a high shelf from a high-pass/low-pass cut and estimating its frequency and depth. The through-line across all exercises was the same core skill: isolating individual elements from a complex sound and naming them with increasing precision.
- THEORY-GYM: We took a deep dive into David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" (from *Scary Monsters*, 1980), tracing the song's unusual harmonic journey across multiple tonal centers — A-flat, B-flat, D-flat, and beyond. Rather than a single-key analysis, we mapped out the song's distinct vignettes, each with its own harmonic logic, and examined how Bowie's asymmetric phrasing, modal interchange, and tendency to lead with lyric over convention makes the song almost impossible to fake. We also touched on Tony Visconti's production approach and the value of combining active listening with formal harmonic analysis.
- OFFICE HOURS: We talked about how some things work on Dischord, to help Christian get his bearings being new here. We talked about what kinds of things are covered in office hours, and instrument gyms.
- WEEKLY-BEAT-CHALLENGE: We reviewed a handful of submitted beats this morning, with conversations ranging from the mechanics of guitar string maintenance to some genuinely deep territory around creative process, objectivity, and why the Beat Challenge works the way it does. Central themes included the danger of over-familiarizing yourself with your own work, the liberating power of removing naming pressure from your pieces, and the idea that making music is closer to journaling than to monument-building — a snapshot of who you were, not a permanent statement of who you are.
- THEORY-GYM: Breakdown of the Beatles' She's Leaving Home. Use of B Dorian, implication of different chords and cadences compared to B minor. Use of tension chords- Dominant 7th, Diminished and Sus chords. Analysis of chord and scale tones used in melody.
- EAR-TRAINING-GYM: This morning's gym was a keyboard practice exercise that focused on both the drop to voicing and the Barry. Harris diminished bebop scale system. This not only reinforces harmonic thinking within every scale, but cord identification and finger dexterity.
- THEORY-GYM: We explored Strawberry Fields Forever as a deep-dive analysis piece, working through its psychedelic production choices, unusual metric structure, and striking harmonic language — including line clichés, modal interchange, chromatic mediants, chord inversions, and figured bass. I also gave a live walkthrough of the Harmonic Synth tool, demonstrating how it visualizes the harmonic series, partials-based synthesis, and harmonic-aware tuning systems as a companion lens to the theory work.
- PRODUCTION-GYM: Production breakdown of Bjork's Army of Me. History of the the Led Zeppelin "Levee Break" drum sample used, analysis of synth sounds, use of Locrian mode, use of chromatic samples in riff.
Learn more about Residency
Upcoming Resident Events
- Production Gym: Nathan
  Apr. 09, 5am (PT) | 8am (ET) | 1pm (UK)
- Office Hours: Nathan
  Apr. 09, 2pm (PT) | 5pm (ET) | 10pm (UK)
- Office Hours: Nathan
  Apr. 09, 5pm (PT) | 8pm (ET) | 1am (UK)
- Office Hours: Jon Mattox
  Apr. 12, 1pm (PT) | 4pm (ET) | 9pm (UK)
- Weekly Beat Challenge: Nathan
  Apr. 13, 7am (PT) | 10am (ET) | 3pm (UK)
- Office Hours: Nathan
  Apr. 13, 9am (PT) | 12pm (ET) | 5pm (UK)
Learn more about Residency
Upcoming Courses
- Apr 19, 2026 Theory: Musician Basics
- Apr 22, 2026 Mixing: Effects, Synths & Tools
- Apr 27, 2026 DAW Core Skills
- Apr 27, 2026 FL Studio
- May 23, 2026 Logic Pro 1-Day Intensive
- Jun 10, 2026 Hardware & Recording Primer
- Jul 8, 2026 Hardware & Recording Primer
- Jul 12, 2026 DAW Core Skills
See All Courses
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