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Music theory is basically the maths that underpins all of music. And while you can certainly get by without it, it's a really useful tool which can help enhance your musical output.  Knowing some of the key points of music theory is essential if you want to be a serious music producer. These days, Music Theory seems to have developed a bit of a stigma surrounding it, which is understandable. The sheet music and all those complicated symbols can certainly be offputting, but this is an undeserved reputation.  In fact, familiarising yourself with music theory can have a profound effect...

A large portion of the world's producers will be completely in-the-box musicians. Which simply means that they do all of their production 'inside' their laptop, using only digital softwares and plugins within an all digital environment.  Though I used to use a lot of outboard gear, these days I'm producing pretty much all in-the-box, as the demands of day to day life (and being a parent!) mean I don't have the time or the space for a complicated set up. But on the other hand, many producers use lots of external hardware in their music production.  We recently did a...

Vocoders are typically used on vocals, right? Sure, when we think of a Vocoder it's easy to mentally play Daft Punk in our minds, hearing that stereotypical vocoder sound that we're all so familiar with. But it turns out that you can do a lot more with the Vocoder in Ableton Live, applying it across a range of situations to create some really cool effects. So, in this guide we're going to give a bit of an overview of Ableton's Vocoder, and some of the creative ways you can apply it in your music making. So let's jump right in!  ...

There's something amazing about being able to create music entirely within the physical confines of a laptop or computer, with no external gear whatsoever.  The amount of virtual synths and plugins, and the vast array of Digital Audio Workstations in which you can play with these sonic tools, gives endless possibilities to making music. But there comes a time in pretty much every producer's music journey where they want to upgrade their set up and invest in a MIDI keyboard. It's one of the most basic additions to your set up you can make; no more will you have to...

A lot of music is surprisingly math-heavy.  When you study music theory, you notice that a lot of what governs the relationships between notes, scales, harmony and rhythm are mathematical concepts.  This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, though. After all, we're all used to the fact that we count music in beats and bars, time signatures and Beats per Minute. In this sense, it's impossible to separate the idea of music and maths. But there can be a lot more to this relationship than you'd think, and you can get some really cool results when you introduce...