The most popular keys and chords

The most popular keys and chords

For many people, listening to music elicits such an emotional response that the idea of dredging it for statistics and structure can seem odd or even misguided. But knowing these patterns can give one a deeper more fundamental sense for how music works; for me this makes listening to music a lot more interesting. Of course, if you play an instrument or want to write songs, being aware of these things is obviously of great practical importance.

That said I just read a most fascinating study of 1300 popular songs on the Hooktheory site that attempts to determine the most popular song keys and chords. This is what they found:

The most popular keys in order are C, G, Eb, F, D, A, E, Db, Bb, Ab, B, F# and their relative minors.

Next came the most popular chords. First, all the songs were transposed to the key of C for a common reference point. They then found that the most popular chords were G, F, C, Am, Dm, Em, E, D, Bb, A.

Finally, they looked to see what chord should come next after an Em (or the 3m in the key of C). Surprisingly, the most popular chord was F (the 4 chord), followed by Am (the 6m), and Dm (the 2m).

One of the things that most songwriters inherently or experientially know is what chords work with others, so even that the survey didn't exactly brought much new information, it confirms this fact.

The Bauhaus school and it's impact on art and design

Bauhaus logo

Staatliches Bauhaus, commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was an art school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught.

The Bauhaus is widely regarded as one of the greatest influences of the modern era. Famous for its “uncluttered and clinical” approach to design the Bauhaus very much focused on simplicity and elegance as the basis of modern design. “Ideas from all the advanced art and design movements were explored, combined, and applied to problems of functional design and machine production.”

History

The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 in the city of Weimar by German architect Walter Gropius (1883–1969). Its core objective was a radical concept: to reimagine the material world to reflect the unity of all the arts. Gropius explained this vision for a union of art and design in the Proclamation of the Bauhaus (1919), which described a utopian craft guild combining architecture, sculpture, and painting into a single creative expression. Gropius developed a craft-based curriculum that would turn out artisans and designers capable of creating useful and beautiful objects appropriate to this new system of living.

The Bauhaus style later became one of the most influential currents in modern design, Modernist architecture and art, design and architectural education. The Bauhaus had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design, and typography, the blooming of the Bauhaus school had to do with the fall of the Germany Monarchy and the abolition of censorship under the new liberal Weimar Republic. This allowed an upsurge of radical experimentation in the arts suppressed by the old regime.

The most important influence on Bauhaus was modernism, a cultural movement whose origins lay as early as the 1880s, and which had already made it’s presence felt in Germany before the world war. The design innovations commonly associated with Gropius and the Bauhaus - the radically simplified forms, the rationality and functionality, and the idea that mass production was reconcilable with the individual artistic spirit - were already partly developed in Germany before the Bauhaus was founded.

The Bauhaus combined elements of both fine arts and design education. The curriculum commenced with a preliminary course that immersed the students, who came from a diverse range of social and educational backgrounds, in the study of materials, color theory, and formal relationships in preparation for more specialized studies. This preliminary course was often taught by visual artists, including Paul Klee (1987.455.16), Vasily Kandinsky (1866–1944), and Josef Albers (59.160), among others.

Following their immersion in Bauhaus theory, students entered specialized workshops, which included metalworking, cabinetmaking, weaving, pottery, typography, and wall painting. Although Gropius’ initial aim was a unification of the arts through craft, aspects of this approach proved financially impractical. While maintaining the emphasis on craft, he repositioned the goals of the Bauhaus in 1923, stressing the importance of designing for mass production. It was at this time that the school adopted the slogan “Art into Industry.”

The Bauhaus had a major impact on art and architecture trends in Western Europe, the United States, Canada and Israel in the decades following its demise, as many of the artists involved fled, or were exiled by, the Nazi regime. Tel Aviv in 2004 was named to the list of world heritage sites by the UN due to its abundance of Bauhaus architecture;it had some 4,000 Bauhaus buildings erected from 1933 on.

In 1925, the Bauhaus moved from Weimar to Dessau, where Gropius designed a new building to house the school. This building contained many features that later became hallmarks of modernist architecture, including steel-frame construction, a glass curtain wall, and an asymmetrical, pinwheel plan, throughout which Gropius distributed studio, classroom, and administrative space for maximum efficiency and spatial logic.

The Bauhaus building in Dessau

The cabinetmaking workshop was one of the most popular at the Bauhaus. Under the direction of Marcel Breuer (1983.366) from 1924 to 1928, this studio reconceived the very essence of furniture, often seeking to dematerialize conventional forms such as chairs to their minimal existence. Breuer theorized that eventually chairs would become obsolete, replaced by supportive columns or air. Inspired by the extruded steel tubes of his bicycle, he experimented with metal furniture, ultimately creating lightweight, mass-producible metal chairs. Some of these chairs were deployed in the theater of the Dessau building.

The textile workshop, especially under the direction of designer and weaver Gunta Stölzl (1897–1983), created abstract textiles suitable for use in Bauhaus environments. Students studied color theory and design as well as the technical aspects of weaving. Stölzl encouraged experimentation with unorthodox materials, including cellophane, fiberglass, and metal. Fabrics from the weaving workshop were commercially successful, providing vital and much needed funds to the Bauhaus. The studio’s textiles, along with architectural wall painting, adorned the interiors of Bauhaus buildings, providing polychromatic yet abstract visual interest to these somewhat severe spaces. While the weaving studio was primarily comprised of women, this was in part due to the fact that they were discouraged from participating in other areas. The workshop trained a number of prominent textile artists, including Anni Albers (1899–1994), who continued to create and write about modernist textiles throughout her life.

Metalworking was another popular workshop at the Bauhaus and, along with the cabinetmaking studio, was the most successful in developing design prototypes for mass production. In this studio, designers such as Marianne Brandt (2000.63a-c), Wilhelm Wagenfeld (1986.412.1-16), and Christian Dell (1893–1974) created beautiful, modern items such as lighting fixtures and tableware. Occasionally, these objects were used in the Bauhaus campus itself; light fixtures designed in the metalwork shop illuminated the Bauhaus building and some faculty housing. Brandt was the first woman to attend the metalworking studio, and replaced László Moholy-Nagy (1987.1100.158) as studio director in 1928. Many of her designs became iconic expressions of the Bauhaus aesthetic. Her sculptural and geometric silver and ebony teapot (2000.63a-c), while never mass-produced, reflects both the influence of her mentor, Moholy-Nagy, and the Bauhaus emphasis on industrial forms. It was designed with careful attention to functionality and ease of use, from the nondrip spout to the heat-resistant ebony handle.

The typography workshop, while not initially a priority of the Bauhaus, became increasingly important under figures like Moholy-Nagy and the graphic designer Herbert Bayer (2001.392). At the Bauhaus, typography was conceived as both an empirical means of communication and an artistic expression, with visual clarity stressed above all. Concurrently, typography became increasingly connected to corporate identity and advertising. The promotional materials prepared for the Bauhaus at the workshop, with their use of sans serif typefaces and the incorporation of photography as a key graphic element, served as visual symbols of the avant-garde institution.

Gropius stepped down as director of the Bauhaus in 1928, succeeded by the architect Hannes Meyer (1889–1954). Meyer maintained the emphasis on mass-producible design and eliminated parts of the curriculum he felt were overly formalist in nature. Additionally, he stressed the social function of architecture and design, favoring concern for the public good rather than private luxury. Advertising and photography continued to gain prominence under his leadership.

Under pressure from an increasingly right-wing municipal government, Meyer resigned as director of the Bauhaus in 1930. He was replaced by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1980.351). Mies once again reconfigured the curriculum, with an increased emphasis on architecture. Lily Reich (1885–1947), who collaborated with Mies on a number of his private commissions, assumed control of the new interior design department. Other departments included weaving, photography, the fine arts, and building. The increasingly unstable political situation in Germany, combined with the perilous financial condition of the Bauhaus, caused Mies to relocate the school to Berlin in 1930, where it operated on a reduced scale. He ultimately shuttered the Bauhaus in 1933.

During the turbulent and often dangerous years of World War II, many of the key figures of the Bauhaus emigrated to the United States, where their work and their teaching philosophies influenced generations of young architects and designers. Marcel Breuer and Joseph Albers taught at Yale, Walter Gropius went to Harvard, and Moholy-Nagy established the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937.

Impact 

The influence of the Bauhaus on design education was significant. One of the main objectives of the Bauhaus was to unify art, craft, and technology, and this approach was incorporated into the curriculum of the Bauhaus. The structure of the Bauhaus Vorkurs (preliminary course) reflected a pragmatic approach to integrating theory and application. In their first year, students learnt the basic elements and principles of design and color theory, and experimented with a range of materials and processes. This approach to design education became a common feature of architectural and design school in many countries. For example, the Shillito Design School in Sydney stands as a unique link between Australia and the Bauhaus. The colour and design syllabus of the Shillito Design School was firmly underpinned by the theories and ideologies of the Bauhaus. Its first year foundational course mimicked the Vorkurs and focused on the elements and principles of design plus color theory and application. The founder of the school, Phyllis Shillito, which opened in 1962 and closed in 1980, firmly believed that "A student who has mastered the basic principles of design, can design anything from a dress to a kitchen stove".

One of the most important contributions of the Bauhaus is in the field of modern furniture design. The ubiquitous Cantilever chair and the Wassily Chair designed by Marcel Breuer are two examples.

Many of the same ideals that Apple represents directly come from the teachings of the Bauhaus. One of the quotes that designers regularly throw around, or post, on their Facebook wall and Twitter feed, is Jobs’ famous “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” This quote, however, shows specifically how much Jobs, and Apple as a whole, was influenced by Bauhaus.

Take the iPod as an example. The iPod is what revolutionized the music industry leading people towards the digital music trend and away from transferable media. The iPod, however, wasn’t the first portable MP3 player nor was it the one that had the most features and functionality. The iPod was simple and effective. Bauhaus modernism first utilized this approach of striping down the object, like furniture, to its bare essentials while maintaining its beauty. Looking at Wagenfeld’s Bauhaus lamps compared directly to the fourth generation iMac you see that these objects are nearly identical in their aesthetics.

The Bauhaus was also known for its bright primary color palette. Early versions of the iMac featured a very similar color palette. Though not directly primary colors Apple utilized these bright colors throughout many of their designs and maintained a strict palette. Even today, each new product they come out with is available in three colors. The new color palette, however, is much more sophisticated than the early iMac colors but the strictness remains. If you don’t like Silver, Space Gray or Gold you might want to shop another brand.

These colors, however, aren’t chosen arbitrarily. Just as the Bauhaus was careful to use primary colors for their simplicity, Apple is using colors based on the materials they’ve chosen. Bauhaus believed in technology and evolution in production. “They believed the machine should be exploited, creatively.” (Bartram) Like the Bauhaus, Apple has chosen manufacturing processes that push the boundaries of conventional wisdom and methodology. Several years ago Apple introduced the aluminum uni-body for the Macbook Pro. This new concept allowed for the minimization of craftsmanship. No longer were all the pieces held together with screws, tabs and connectors. Now, the case held all the components with minimal connectors. Even the choice of aluminum itself was intentional for its cooling characteristics and the ability to pull heat away from the processors.

Even the user experience of Apple products is based on Bauhaus ideals. Like the Bauhaus, Apple almost exclusively uses sanserif typefaces. Both believe that typography is a “tool of communication. The visual aesthetic of all of Apple’s products focus on simplicity and functionality rather. Every icon, image or concept Apple creates is boiled-down to the very simplest form. Like Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Bauhaus final director said, “less is more”

There's another man whose products are at the heart of Apple's design philosophy, an influence that permeates every single product at Apple, from hardware to user-interface design. That man is Jonathan Ive and he owes a lot to Dieter Rams, who took Bauhaus functionalism and made it genuinely popular. His vision has become so universal that you have to remind yourself that it's the product of a very particular time and place. Much of the impetus for his designs came from his collaborations with the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, the successor to the famous Bauhaus design school of the 1930s.

Rams is synonymous with the German company Braun, the wildly versatile manufacturer of everything from record players and televisions to food blenders and watches. He joined Braun in 1955, and under his creative direction from 1961 until the mid-1990s, the company exemplified high-end, no-nonsense design. Rams's ethos was essentially modernist functionalism inflected with a touch of Japanese minimalism. Every object, whether it was a radio or a lighter, was reduced to an essential form, erased of unnecessary detail. Walking through the Design Museum retrospective, it might seem hard to imagine what all the fuss is about; these days many things look like this. But that's a mark of his extraordinary influence. Before Rams, electronic devices like televisions and speakers were disguised as furniture, covered in wood veneer and bits of carpet. Rams gave products their productness. He took boxes full of wires and made them into objects of desire. They were hi-tech, but sexy, idiot-proof hi-tech.

Rams's take on design is, after all, rather puritanical – you might even say totalitarian. There's no sense of humour at work here. Colour is all but forbidden, except where Rams deems it necessary, yet these design principles have proven inspirational and timeless, many modern designers and many "Revolutionary" products are inspired in Ram's old designs for Braun during the '50s and '60s just to give an example, these hold all the clues not only for past and present Apple products, but their future as well:

When you look at the Braun products by Dieter Rams—many of them at New York's MoMA—and compare them to Ive's work at Apple, you can clearly see the similarities in their philosophies way beyond the sparse use of color, the selection of materials and how the products are shaped around the function with no artificial design, keeping the design "honest."

This passion for "simplicity" and "honest design" that is always declared by Ive whenever he's interviewed or appears in a promo video, is at the core of Dieter Rams' 10 principles for good design:

• Good design is innovative.

• Good design makes a product useful.

• Good design is aesthetic.

• Good design helps us to understand a product.

• Good design is unobtrusive.

• Good design is honest.

• Good design is durable.

• Good design is consequent to the last detail.

• Good design is concerned with the environment.

• Good design is as little design as possible.

Ive's inspiration on Rams' design principles goes beyond the philosophy and gets straight into a direct homage to real products created decades ago. Amazing pieces of industrial design that still today remain fresh, true classics that have survived the test of time.

The similarities between products from Braun and Apple are sometimes uncanny, others more subtle, but there's always a common root that provides the new Apple objects not only with a beautiful simplicity but also with a close familiarity.

Braun Atelier TV and latest iMac 24.

Braun T1000 radio and PowerMac G5/Mac Pro.

Detail of the radio perforated aluminum surface.

Braun T3 pocket radio and Apple iPod.

Braun L60 sound system and Apple iPod Hi-Fi.

Braun LE1 speaker and Apple iMac.

If it’s true that “the Bauhaus invented the modern art student (Bauhaus: The Face of the 20th Century),” then it must also be true that Steve Jobs was one of these modern art students. It’s clear that the Bauhaus’ influence not only permeates design and modern furniture but also one of the most regarded businesses in the world today.

The six elements of a great Mix according to Bobby Owsinski

Go from ok mixes to great mixes this these Pro Tips from Bobby Owsinski

Although most engineers ultimately rely on their intuition when doing a mix, they do consciously or unconsciously follow certain mixing procedures.

Every mix, according to Bobby Owsinski’s ‘The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook’ in order to be great, must include six main elements.

By and large, most mixers can hear some version of the final product in their heads before they even begin to mix. Sometimes this is a result of countless rough mixes during the course of a project that gradually become polished thanks to console or digital workstation automation and computer recall if an engineer is mixing a project that he's tracked. Even if an engineer is bright specifically to mix, he might not even begin until he has an idea of where he's going.

Engineers who can hear the finished product before they start normally begin a mix the same way. They become familiar with the song either through a previous rough mix or by putting up all the faders (when using a console) and listening to a few passes. Sometimes this is harder than it seems though. In the case of a complex mix with a lot of tracks (in the old analog days, some tracks shared different elements or synced multitrack) the mix engineer might have to spend some time writing mutes ( a cut pass) before the song begins to pare down and make sense.

So let's get started with the 6 elements to produce a great mix.

The 6 more important elements of a mix

Element 1: Balance - The mixing part of mixing.

The most basic element of a mix is balance. A great mix must start here, for without balance, the other mix elements pale in importance. There's more to balance than just moving some faders though.

Good balance starts with good arrangement. It's important to understand arrangements because so much of mixing is subtractive by nature. This means that the arrangement, and therefore the balance, is changed by the simple act of muting an instrument whose part doesn't fit well with another. If the instruments fit well together arrangement-wise and don't fight one another, the mixer's life becomes immensely easier. But what exactly does "fighting one another" mean?

When two instruments that have essentially the same frequency band play at the same volume, the result is a fight for attention. Think of it this way: You don't usually hear a lead vocal and a guitar solo at the same time do you? That's because a human ear can't decide which to listen and becomes confused and fatigued as a result.

So how do you get around instrument "fighting" First and foremost is a well written arrangement that keeps instruments out of each other's way right from the beginning. The best writers and arrangers have an innate feel for what will work, and the result is an arrangement that automatically lies together without much help.

But it's not uncommon to work with an artist or band that isn't sure of the arrangement or is into experimenting and just allows an instrument to play throughout the entire song, thereby creating numerous conflicts. This is where a mixer gets a chance to rearrange the track by keeping what works and muting the conflicting instrument or instruments. Not only can the mixer influence the arrangement this way, but he can also influence the dynamics and general development of the song.

To understand how arrangement influences balance, we have to understand the mechanics of a well written arrangement.

Most well conceived arrangements are limited in the number of elements that occur at the same time. An element can be a single instrument like a lead guitar or a vocal, or it can be a group of instruments like the bass and drums, a doubled guitar line a group of backing vocals and so on. Generally, a group of instruments playing the same rhythm is considered an element. For example, a doubled lead guitar or doubled vocal is a single element, as is a lead vocal with two additional harmonies. Two lead guitars playing different parts are two elements, however. A lead and a rhythm guitar are also two separate elements.

Element 2: Panorama - Placing the sound in the sound field

One of the most overlooked or taken for granted elements in mixing is panorama, or the placement of a sound element in the sound field. To understand panorama, first we must understand that the stereo sound system (which is two channels for our purposes) represents sound and spatiality. Panning let us select where in that space we place that sound.

In fact panning does more than just that. Panning can create excitement by adding movements to the track and adding clarity to an instrument by moving it out of the way of other sounds that might be clashing with it. Correct panning for a track can also make it sound bigger wider and deeper.

So what is the proper way to pan? Are there rules? Well, just like so many other things in mixing, although panning decisions might sometimes seem arbitrary, there's a method to follow and a reason behind the method.

Imagine that you're at the movies and watching a Western. The scene is a panorama of the Arizona desert, and right in the middle of the screen is a cowboy sitting on his horse in a medium shot from his boots up. A pack of Indians (we'll say six) is attacking him, but we can't see them their impact as a suspense builder is limited, and they cost the production money that just went to ease. Wouldn't it be better if the director moved the Indians to the left out of the shadow of the cowboy so we could see them? Or maybe spread them out across the screen so the attack seems larger and more intimidating?

Of course, that's what we do with the pan control (sometimes called pan pot, which is short for potentiometer, the name of the electronic component used to pan the signal). It allows the engineer (the director) to move the background vocals (Indians) out of the way of the lead vocal (cowboy) so that in this case we can hear (see) each much more distinctly.

Element 3: Frequency range - Equalizing

Even though as an engineer has every intention of making his track sound as big and as clear as possible during tracking and overdubs, the frequency range of some or all of the tracks is often still somewhat limited when it comes to the mix. This could be because the tracks were recorded in a different studio using different monitors, used a different signal path, or were highly influenced by the producer and the musician. As a result the mixing engineer must extend the frequency range of those tracks.

In the quest to make things sound bigger, fatter, brighter and clearer, the equalizer is the chief tool that most mixers use. But perhaps more than any other tool, the use of the equalizer requires a skill that separates the average engineer from the master.

• There are three primary goals when equalizing:
• Make an instrument sound clearer and more defined.
• Make the instrument or mix bigger and larger than life

Make all the elements of a mix fit together better by juggling frequencies so that each instrument has it's own predominate frequency range.

Element 4: Dimension - Adding effects

The fourth element of a mix is dimension, which is the ambient field where the track or tracks sit. Dimension can be captured while recording but usually has to be created or enhanced when mixing by adding effects such as reverb, delay, or any of the modulated delays such as chorusing or flanging, Dimension might be something as simple as re-creating an acoustic environment, but it could also be the process of adding width or depth to a track or trying to spruce up a boring sound.

Actually there are really four reasons why a mixer would add dimension to a track:

• To create an Aural Space
• To add Excitement
• To Move a Track Back in the Mix (Give the impression it's Farther Away)

Element 5: Dynamics - Compression and gating

In years past the control of the volume envelope of a sound (dynamics) would not have been included as a necessary element of a great mix, in fact dynamics control is still not a major part of Classical and Jazz mixing. But in today's modern music, the manipulation of dynamics plays a major role in the sound. In fact, just about nothing else can affect your mix as much as in so many ways as compression.

Compression is an automated level control using the input signal to determine the output level. You set compression by using the Threshold and Ratio controls.

Compressors work on the principle of gain ratio, which is measured on the basis of input level to output level. This means that for every 4dB that goes into the compressor, 1dB will come out, for a ration of 4 to 1 or 4:1. If a gain ratio of 8:1 is set, then for every 8dB that goes into the unit, only 1 will come out of the output. Although this could apply to the entire signal regardless of a level, a compressor is usually not set up that way. A threshold control determines at what signal level the compressor will begin to operate. Therefore, threshold and ration are interrelated, and one affects the way the other works. Some compressors (like LA2-As and UREI LA-3s) have a fixed ration, but on most units the control is variable.

Most compressors also have attack and release parameters. These controls determine how fast or slow the compressor reacts to the beginning (attack) and end (release) of the signal. Many compressors have an Auto mode that sets the track and release in relation to the dynamics of the signal. Although Auto works relatively well, it still doesn't allow for the precise settings required by certain source material. Some compressors (like the dbx 160 series) have a fixed attack and release, which gives it a particular sound.

When a compressor operates, it decreases the gain of the signal, so there is another control called Make-up Gain or Output that allows the signal to be boosted back up to it's original level or beyond.

Most compressors also have an additional input and output called a side chain, which is an input and output back into a compressor for connecting other signals processors to it. The connected processor only gets the signal when the compressor exceeds threshold and begins to compres. Side chains are often to EQs to make a de-esser, which softens the loud SSS and PPP sounds from a vocalist when he exceeds the compressors threshold. But you can connect delays, reverbs, or anything you want to side chain for unusual, program level dependent effects, Side chains are not needed for typical compressor operations, so many manufacturers don't include side chain connectors.

Element 6: Interest - The key to Great (As Opposed to Merely Good) Mixes

Although having control of the previous five elements might be sufficient for many times of audio jobs and might be just fine to get a decent mix, most popular music requires a mix that can take it to another level.

Although is always easier with great tracks, solid arrangements, and spectacular playing, a great mix can take simply okay tracks and transform them into hit material so compelling that people can't get enough of them.

That's been done on some of your all time favorite songs.

To close this post I'll quote Bobby Owsinski: "Although having control of the previous five elements, might be sufficient for many types of audio jobs and might be just fine to get a decent mix, most popular music requires a mix that can take it to another level, Although it's always easier with great tracks, solid arrangements, and spectacular playing, a great mix can take simply okay tracks and transform them into hit material so compelling that people can't get enough of them. That's been done on some of your-all time favorite songs.

Most neophyte mixers have only four or five of these when doing a mix, but all of these elements MUST be present for a GREAT mix, as they are all equally important. You can read about these six elements in more detail in The Mixing Engineer's Handbook".

10 Tips for music producers.

Want to produce great sounding tracks? Well the good news is that nowadays it's possible to achieve at least 90% of the quality of a professional studio with expensive equipment in a home studio using only vsts and your computer, what is the most important is to develop the habits that are considered the best practices and also to learn the basic mechanics of the art and science of mixing. You can start out with these simple tips.

Take your production abilities to the next level with these simple tips.

1. You don't need expensive hardware to achieve that fancy sound.

Are you looking for a fancy sound that your Vst's are unable to achieve? Have you tried layering several synths to create one single big fat sound? You can even group them together as a single channel and compress, eq, and apply effects to al of them together.

2. Make consistent mixes with the use of send effects.

While mixing, many people tend to load their channels with insert effects, this not only consumes a lot of computing power unnecessarily but it also makes mixes inconsistent, you can save a lot of computing power and glue all your sounds together by the use of global reverb and delay effects applied to all the channels in different intensities.

3. Think of your mix as a three dimensional field where you can place all your sound objects anywhere in the space.

This is called imaging and it's done by using several techniques to achieve deep and spacey mixes, engineers use stereo panning, and other techniques such as stereo image manipulation to work with the X axis, engineers use EQ to work with the Y axis, and Volume faders, Compressors, Reverb and Delays and other plugins to manipulate the Z axis.

Panning is the key to the X axis with the pan pot you can place your sounds to the left or right, with the use of plugins and techniques you can also make your sounds wider or narrower.

Frequency is the key to the Y axis. Sounds with low frequencies sound in the bottom while sounds with high frequencies sound in the top, this is because of the way how speakers are set up, the tweeters are in the top and the woofers in the bottom, you can use EQ to make a sound appear to the listener in a higher or lower position, yet you can only work with the information that's already there, either by boosting or attenuating it, so you can't place a hi hat in the bottom or eq a kick drum all the way to the top, at least not without radically altering the sound so that it looses it's originally properties anyway.

Volume is the key to the Z axis, with the use of volume you can place your sounds nearer or farther away from the listener, as volume is something dynamic and is constantly changing, the use of dynamic reduction plugins such as compressor can make sounds more stable thus giving the feeling of being "nearer" the listener, Reverb and filters can also change the perspective of a sound, usually sounds with heavier reverb effects sound "far away" and sounds that have their higher frequencies filtered by a high pass filter will give this effect too.

Try messing around with the settings of the different plugins, volume faders, pan pots, etc for some interesting mixes for your music.

4. The use of reverb make your sounds more natural.

In real life all sound generated in a closed environment will be reflected by walls or other obstacles present, this creates something called "Ambience" because of the reverbs and echoes generated by the collision of the sound waves with the reflecting materials, because of this fact sounds without reverb sound "dull". When you apply reverb to a sound is like putting it in a "special room" you can have "multiple rooms" in your mix if you want to give perspective and dimension or have a "single room" with the use of a few sends for a big, solid and consistent mix.

5. Are you having trouble with colliding frequencies, try stereo fattening.

When you apply a delay into a sound and the time is really small (less than 30 ms) the sound is stretched between the speakers. This effect is called fattening. The primary consideration for using fattening is the duration of the dry sound. Fattening is rarely used on staccato sounds. They just seem to take up too much room for something so quick. On the other hand sounds that are longer in duration, are often planned completely left and right in stereo with fattening.

6. Create more space in your mixes and more consistent sound for the rhythmic instruments by narrowing them out.

Most modern sequencers come with plugins that let you widen or narrow the stereo image of a sound source. Professional audio engineers narrow the base rhythmic sounds such as the kick drum, baseline, low frequency percussions, snares, main hi hat or rides. They do this because when you narrow the stereo image of a sound it sounds more and more in the center and the sound becomes less diffused and much more solid as well. Usually the base rhythmic sounds lead the other sounds in a track and for that reason is good to put them in the middle, with higher frequency sounds you can do the opposite and widen them or apply stereo fattening to create a nice contrast between sounds that can be clearly felt in the centers, and others that give you that amazing feeling of openness. Narrow sounds use less space so if you have two different tones sharing the same frequency space you can try to narrow one of them and widen the other to make them fit in.

7.  Less is more.

Often times, when musicians want to make a better track they add something, more detail, more features, the track gets bigger and better with every feature they add.

While the instinct is to add more features you can actually increase the creativity of your track by subtracting items. This will also give your sounds more space to breathe and more possibilities for creative mixing. So when you are designing your next track try and find something that is in every track and then take it away.

8. A clean and arranged environment is always best to work.

When your track starts to get busy with sounds is important to pre-mix them on the fly otherwise it'll become a confusing mess of sounds that will be hard to work in, there are many unfinished tracks that started out great but were lost in this way. So try to keep your track simple and well arranged with all the sounds on it "well groomed" that way it'll be much easier for you to mix and finish the track. Sometimes it's hard to get rid of a sound because you worked on it and you've grown attached to it, but if it's a sound that make other sounds collide or is something that isn't really making much for the track is best to say goodbye.

9. Everything in it's place.

Every sound has it's own personality and character, they also occupy different parts of the space according to their frequency, it's usually good to have one kind of sound in every part of the spectrum instead of having only one or two regions of your available space cluttered with clashing sounds and other parts totally empty.

10. EQ and effects are really powerful and can radically change the way something sounds, just don't overdo it.

They are like the spices used in food, they can make food taste great and smell incredible, but they should be using sparingly, otherwise they will completely mask the food instead of highlighting it's features, the same can happen if you overdo with effects, the details of the main guitar, of the lead singer, of the awesome solo drum riff will be muffled and dulled by an excessive use of effects.

I hope you find these production tips useful, and remember the more you do anything the better you get at it so make this affirmation your mantra: Everyday I get better and better on what I do.

The first step

All beginnings in life start as an idea a dream a thought, a mental picture, but this is just the first step. If you want to enjoy and live the dream you created in your mind, you need to take action. 

This is the hardest part because it's usually easier to work on something that has already some momentum that start something out, completely new from scratch. It is here that most people stop and don't go further. The people who succeed are those that think, plan, read and look around them to find opportunities, in order to find or create those opportunities you need motivation and faith in yourself.

Dare to take the first step!

This has to do with every area of life, including relationships, work, material success, self-improvement, meditation and spiritual growth.

These are the thoughts inspired the creation of this blog, which is the beginning of an amazing journey, to share with you my thoughts, useful information, production techniques, interesting facts about my life passions: Music, Sanskrit, Yoga, Languages, World Culture's, Mathematics, Science, Programming Languages, Computers, Videogame and Technology, etc. I have lots of interesting events planned for this blog. Stay tuned.