Make sure every note or chord falls on the right spot.

Sometimes nudging a synth note one tick mark forward or backward can make a huge difference in the musicality of a melody. Soulless, overly quantized passages can suddenly spring to life. Different styles of music require different timings. What works well in one style may not work well in another.

Don't hesitate to cut the unnecessary.

In Reggae, you learn that less is more. You don't have to fill up the entire sonic space with a wall of sound. Sometimes building up to that wall of sound and backing off so that the listener has a chance to breathe is a thousand times more effective than keeping the wall alive for the entire length of the song. If your song doesn't have breakdowns and buildups, it will sound modal or worse... monotonous.

Tell a good story.

Your song has to tell a story from beginning to end and keep the listener entranced. It has to have a good intro to hook the listener in. It has to have good structure so the listener can follow it with little or no problems. It has to have at least one climax, a high point in the song, that captivates the listener and makes her feel good. Finally, your song has to have a good ending that eases off the climactic point. In dance music, there could be more than one climax, but you will need to create some space between the climactic points to give the listener a chance to breathe. In a sense, it's just like good sex.

Set the mood.

An effective song must have drama. It must tell a story that captivates the listener. Some people like gossip because they get to hear juicy tidbits of information on people they know. An effective song has elements like gossip. It keeps you hooked and wanting to hear more of something you may be familiar with. A lot of people like analog sounds so they tend to listen to electronica so they can hear more analog sounds, perhaps in the hope of hearing a new sound or an unusual variation of a familiar sound. Some people know good gossip! However, just like gossip, not everyone is into it, especially if they do not care for the subject matter.

A good song flows.

Just like a good story flows, a good song flows. There are no abrupt cuts from beginning to end. The characters (in this case, the sounds) are crisp and well-defined. The melodies in each verse contain the meat of the story and the buildups must reach a suitable climax just as any good story would. The breakdowns must allow the listener a chance to breathe so she will be ready to digest more as the song moves on.

Learn to be patient.

When creating dance tracks, do not throw everything at the listener within the first 10 seconds. Gradually build to a climax, enter a breakdown stage, build up again, enter breakdown, etc. A good dance track plays on the listener's emotions throughout.

Work on good mixing techniques.

If you like to do live EQ tweaking like I do, you will have to practice your knob twiddles and fader moves as often as a good singer practices her scales. Practice performing butter-smooth fades and pans. If you have the luxury of recording your knob twiddles and fader moves, you can do that, but be careful that you don't settle for a first or second pass unless you feel your performance was phenomenal.

Don't be afraid to experiment!

Sometimes the most awesome things happen by accident. Applying a guitar effect on a synth can result in a totally unique sound. Tweaking the EQ so only the highs come out or only the highs and lows come out while the other sounds get sandwiched in between can sound sonically interesting and sometimes musical. Do not restrict your creativity with a set of rules. Rules are meant to be broken so long as you exercise good judgement. The best artists are pioneers, not copycats.

Enjoy life!

Experience life and all its pleasures. A lot of music has to do with capturing experiences that are near and dear to us and the best songs provide a sonic picture of those experiences that others can enjoy and feel what you are feeling.

What if I can't play keyboards?

If you can hum a melody, you can play keyboards. The big problem is usually keeping in time with the music. In a fast song, it can be difficult keeping up with the other instruments while you're laying down a melody part. Try lowering the BPM of your song to a speed that you can play at. Quantize it and edit it to give it a more human feel. Raise the BPM to its original value, play it back, and you will hopefully sound like a maestro!

Do I need to go to school to learn about music and music gear?

It will certainly help if you attend a good training course on any subject, especially music, but it's not necessary. Some of the most popular musicians out there have very little formal training. Since we all hope to achieve what they have done, it will probably be easier for us to be successful if we have formal training. I studied electronic music in college and my bachelor's degree is in electronic music, although it officially says "computer science" on it. To complete your education after college, you will need to apply what you've learned in the classroom to the real world and the only way you can do that is by listening to and absorbing as many different musical styles as you can. Purchase a decent keyboard as your first instrument and practice playing as often as you can.

How can you tell if the bass too soft? Or if the drums are too loud? Or if the vocals or the guitars are too harsh?

Check your mix on as many different output sources as possible. You can get away with mixing on one set of speakers, such as your home stereo speakers, if you are thoroughly familiar with them and can get a mix to sound a certain way on them so that wherever you play your mix, it will sound good on those sources, too. This is a very difficult skill to achieve, but it can be learned. Not only must you be thoroughly familiar with your own output source, but you must be even more thoroughly familiar with other output sources. It is easier to have these alternative output sources within arm's reach so you know for certain what your mix will sound like on those output sources.

What is a good sound check device?

There are rack effects modules that produce single sine tones at different frequencies so you can test your output sources. While these are great for finding specific faults in devices, I still feel the best way to determine what is wrong with an output source is to listen to music coming out of it. If you are used to hearing your favorite album out of your output source for 19 times, then the 20th time should be no different. Your ears will pick up on both subtle and dramatic differences in the music. A good sound check device, in my opinion, is one that is capable of emitting many different types of demo songs of various styles so you can evaluate the frequency responses of each song. Of all of the keyboard and sound modules out there, one fits this description: the Quasimidi Sirius. There are 16 demo songs in it, ranging from techno to trance to drum n'bass, and the sounds used in each range from smooth and mellow to loud and crackling. These demos can test any speaker system in existence and are fun to listen to, too.

Someone told me my song sounds mono! What does that mean and can I fix it?

That comment usually applies to a song that doesn't make full use of the stereo field. Some people like hearing each instrument in its own separate frequency space and panoramic position. When a large number of instruments share the same panoramic position, such as the center position, a song is said to sound mono. This is not necessarily a bad thing as certain types of music sound better in mono. At the other end of the spectrum, there are artists who use all sorts of crazy panning and spectral effects on their sounds. While this may sound cool in stereo, it usually doesn't translate well into mono or output sources that don't really take full advantage of the stereo spectrum, such as your average car stereo or boombox. What you will need to do, as both an artist and a producer, is to try to strike a balance between the mono sound and the crazy pumped-up stereo effected sound. To do this, select some sounds whose stereo outputs you would normally pan hard left and hard right, but instead of panning to these extremes, try the nine o'clock and three o-clock positions. This is one of the tricks you learn when recording songs for vinyl. This trick will prevent the needle from skipping and give the cutting engineer some freedom to pump up the volume a little more.

What should I be listening for during the mixing process?

Pay attention to every aspect of the mix. Make sure all of your sounds are in their proper sonic space. Be critical of your music. The more mistakes you catch and erase, the more accomplished you will become. In the beginning, you will make plenty of mistakes. As you get better, you will notice the mistakes less and less because you're getting better. As you get even better, you will notice the mistakes more and more because you're getting better. If you're like me, you'll nitpick your mixes to death and never be satisfied with them. That's when you know you're a perfectionist.

How do I make my songs sound louder?

There are many products available that can give you pretty loud results. Notice I said loud and not necessarily good. It takes a while to master the art of compression and limiting, and, while you're at it, equalization. Most problems start before the compression stage is even reached. Certain frequencies may not be optimally adjusted and may severely restrict the song from reaching its true sonic potential. A song has to have dynamics, meaning the loud parts sound loud and the soft parts sound soft, and there has to be good transitions between the loud and the soft parts. There is a lot of sonic trickery you can do to make certain sounds sound louder than they actually are. As you listen to more good recordings, you will begin to understand the elements needed to produce these tricks. Practice equalizing a mix until it sounds great, then apply the compression and limiting stages to it. Sometimes just lowering the volume of a single specific sound will allow you to gain 2 to 3 additional dB, which may be enough to allow your mix to sound as hot as any mix out there.

Do I need to take voice lessons if I want to sing? Can't I just pitch-correct it nowadays?

If you cannot sing at all, then the best that pitch correction units like the tc electronic Intonator can do for you at the moment is make your voice sound like Cher in her song, "Believe." If you like this warped effect, go for it. It is much easier to find a good singer than do it all yourself. If you can sing reasonably well and just fall out of pitch from time to time, you can use the Intonator to pitch-correct those few notes and no one will be the wiser.

How much does it cost to produce an album?

In the old days, you'd need about $1,500 to press 1,000 copies of an album onto vinyl or CD. Nowadays, it will cost next to nothing as the entire production stays within the digital realm and your songs are available in the form of downloads.

Do I need a lot of money to produce good tracks?

No. You can produce good tracks with a 12-bit sampler, a drum machine, and your creativity. It would certainly help to have a lot of gear, but if you can't afford a lot of stuff, you will need to master what you have so that when you do eventually buy your dream gear, you will have learned some important production techniques that you can apply to your new gear.

Do I even need gear at all? Can't I do everything on my computer?

Some home studio musicians swear by the all-in-one music workstation concept. There are pros and cons to this. The convenience of having everything in one box (sequencing, sampling, synthesis, mixing, fx) is very appealing, but is also limiting. When you have exposure to many different types of gear, you gain the experience of learning new ways of doing things. Each new instrument has its own technical terms and ways to play it and the experience gained from mastering the new instrument is invaluable. Jimmy Jam mentions that he likes to keep different keyboards around because he likes the different feel of each of them and they force him to think in different ways.

Which is better for music production, a PC or a Mac?

Comparing the two is like comparing Coke to Pepsi. I happen to like Macs a lot better and you'll see that most studios agree with me. Nowadays, PCs are optimized for DOOM and Tomb Warrior. Macs are optimized for making top 40 music.

Do I need a sound card? Isn't sound already built into the Mac?

The sound capabilities built into a Mac are adequate for everyday listening, but if you want to produce professional-quality tracks, you'll need to buy a sound card, such as a Digidesign Audiomedia III or one of the MOTU hard disk recording systems.

Which is a good first sampler?

If you're strapped for cash, buy yourself a 12-bit sampler like an E-MU EMAX or Akai S-950. These can be had for $300 to $400 depending on their condition. The most important thing to note about old samplers like this and modern ones is sample time. Memory has gotten ridiculously cheap over the years. In the past, you had to pay loads of money to upgrade a 1 MB sampler to 2 MB. Nowadays, the same money will upgrade you from 64 MB to 128 MB. The EMAX and S-950 have limited memory, but learning how to use the limited memory effectively will make you a better person. Trust me.

Why get a drum machine when I have a sampler?

Technically, you can use your sampler as a drum machine and I am sure you can buy or produce some very effective drum samples that you can use in all of your tracks. The problem is variety and ease of use. If you have a set of, say, 12 drum samples recorded into your sampler, there are only so many variations of those 12 samples that you can produce. It's much tougher to produce a realistic nuance on a sampler than on a dedicated unit for producing drum sounds. A drum machine will also produce sounds in relatively short time whereas a sampler will oftentimes require long load times to get a sample set up and running. Of course, using a software sampler solves the speed problem, but one very important consideration is the number of outputs you have at your disposal. The more device outputs and mixer channels you have, the more control you have over each individual sound and the more control you have over each sound, the more professional-sounding your song will become. Keeping everything in software and routing all fx internally can be a big mess.

Why get a sampler when I have a drum machine?

Drum machines can't produce all types of sounds. Some drum machines have bass or lead sounds, but these sounds are usually not very flexible. Samplers give you the flexibility you need to radically alter sounds.

Do I need a mixer?

If you have one sampler and one drum machine, you can hook up the drum machine outputs to the sampler inputs. There is usually a way of routing the sampler inputs to the sampler outputs. In effect, the sampler is acting as a mixer. If you have more than a sampler and a drum machine, you will need a mixer to combine all of the outputs of these various devices into one pair of stereo outputs. Some computer sound cards have multiple sound input jacks that can be controlled in a similiar way to a mixer.

What is a good first keyboard?

There are many good keyboards on the market nowadays and what you should buy depends primarily upon what style of music you intend to do. For bread-and-butter sounds, like acoustic instruments, Roland keyboards are a good choice. The XP-30 has some decent sounds and there are even expansion boards that can add techno sounds to the internal sound set. For really warped analog sounds, probably the best choice today is the Novation Nova II keyboard or the Access Virus keyboard. These three keyboards are a bit pricey for a first-time purchase, but I think if you buy one of these, they will serve you well for a long time. The alternative is to go the used route and get a Roland D-70 for bread-and-butter and a Quasimidi Sirius for analog. These are still a little pricey, but they are considered great keyboards for serious musicians. If you are very strapped for cash, then get a Roland D-50 or a Yamaha DX-7. These are classic keyboards with sounds that are still considered great today. They do not have the same kinds of expandability as more modern keyboards, however.

Is the Yamaha DJX a good first keyboard?

Some snobby people will laugh at these kinds of keyboards because they look like toys, but if you look at something like a Quasimidi Sirius, that also looks like a toy but serious musicians love it and use it! Somebody must have lit a flame under the consumer keyboard development teams because these new keyboards are capable of producing some very good sounds. The biggest problems with them is, like all consumer devices, they are geared towards doing one thing well and that's it. No expandability. No real synthesizer functions. Terrible internal effects. A lack of a good MIDI implementation. If you can live with these limitations and don't have much money, the DJX is probably a good choice for you, but if you are serious about music, you will probably want to trade it up at some point for a better keyboard.

What is the best keyboard money can buy?

In my opinion, the best keyboard money can buy is not just a synthesizer or a sampler, but one that combines functions of both and has great internal effects, lots of controller options, lots of expandability, and a damn good MIDI spec. To date, the only keyboards that come close to this ideal is the Korg Triton, the Kurzweil K2600, and the Yamaha MOTIF. The first two are very expensive, but represent the Porsche and Mercedes of sampler/synth combo keyboards. The MOTIF is more akin to a BMW, a reasonably priced luxury vehicle that can be souped up with additional hardware.

What is the best sampler money can buy?

The sampler market is extremely competitive. What I recommend now will be ousted by a competitor in a few months and then the new product will be ousted again perhaps by the first manufacturer. I've always trusted E-MU products. I figure anything that Depeche Mode would use has got to be good. I think the E4XT Ultra kicks ass. The only thing that can kick its ass is the E4 Platinum. If you're on a budget, the E5000 is a very good unit.

What is a good first sound module?

There are two directions we can go with this question. First, you need to ask yourself if you are more interested in playing realistic acoustic instruments or playing strange alien bloopy noises and atmospheric sounds. If you are interested in the former, then a digital sound module, such as a Roland U-220, would be a great choice. You can buy one for about $150 with a sound card. There are 14 different sound cards available with additional sounds that you can use. Some of them are quite excellent even for a circa 1990 sound module. If you interested in the latter, then an analog sound module, such as an Oberheim Matrix-1000, would be a perfect choice. You can buy one for $325 and they pretty much hold their value. I would suggest that if you have the money, buy both because then you can experience both the digital and analog worlds.

Which is a better DJ controller for beginning DJs, the Pioneer DDJ-200 or DDJ-400?

I have extensive experience with both units having owned the DDJ-200 for about a month before trading up tp the DDJ-400. For just $100 more, you get controls to access and load tracks directly from the console, channel level indicators, additional functions accessible from the rubber touch pads, larger jog wheels, trim pots for input, selectable fx buttons, and a more logical way to split the audio to do pre-cueing through your headphones, since the DDJ-400 includes its own sound card, The advantages of the DDJ-200 is its compact size and built-in Bluetooth for cordless control from an iPhone, iPad, or computer, however, you will quickly outgrow the DDJ-200, so it is better to start with a controller that professional DJs use.

What is a good first effects unit?

Just like keyboards, it depends on what kinds of effects you want. You can go for a unit that specializes in a certain type of effect, such as reverb, or go for one that does all kinds of effects. How good an effect sounds is very subjective because I have heard sounds come out of expensive reverb units that don't sound as good as sounds that come of of bargain units. There are a lot more things to consider than just the quality of the effects unit. You also have to make sure the signal path from the instrument output to your final DAT or ADAT is as clear as possible. Bad cables, bad mixer inputs and outputs, and a faulty patchbay can all contribute to poor sound. Poor decisions on EQ can also contribute to poor sound. There are several good books (The Art of Mixing by David Gibson) that will help you improve your sound quality with your existing equipment. You don't need world-class equipment to produce good music, but it certainly helps. It is difficult to recommend one specific type of effects unit because how I produce music may be entirely different from how you produce music. What I use is a tc electronic M-ONE and D-TWO for reverb and delay. I think they represent the best reverb and delay units in their price range. For me, a $2000 Lexicon reverb is just overkill.

How do you feel about modular analog synths?

The ability to create unique sounds that are limited only by your imagination is very nice, but I tend to judge an artist by what she can do with the sounds she already has at her disposal rather than what she can do while sitting in a room concocting weird sounds like a mad scientist. Sure, it's cool to be able to create new and unique sounds, but not at the cost of composing new music. I would take composition over weird sound making any day. That being said, I am not afraid to delve into the world of true analog. I just started my collection of Synth Tech MOTM modules. In the future, expect to hear a remix of Make Love to Analog using MOTM modules.

What is in Gorgeous Girl's studio?

My Power Vault Studio™ is an all-in-one production and mastering suite. I used to have separate work spaces for production and mastering, but that got to be very awkward and time-consuming having to go back and forth between two systems when I could have done it all from one place. I used to have a lot more gear, but I've cut out about 33% of it and upgraded what was left. The result is now a well-oiled machine. I can produce, mix, and master from one location.

Okay, here's a laundry list of what I currently have: an Allen & Heath WZ3 16:2, a Mackie Onyx 1640, and twin Mackie 1604's monitored through Yamaha NS10M STUDIO monitors. MOTU 2408 hard disk recording system, Digidesign Mbox 2 installed in a PowerMac G5 with 8 GB RAM, Yamaha MOTIF7, Roland D-50, Roland TB-303, E-MU E4XT Ultra with Orbit and Planet Phatt cards, Roland MV-8000, Yamaha 01X, Roland A6, Roland SP-808EX, Roland MC-909, Studio Electronics SE-1x, Quasimidi Sirius, Quasimidi Rave-O-Lution 309, Novation Nova, Access Virus B, Oberheim Matrix-1000,  Roland TB-303, Roland U-220, TC Electronic M-ONE and D-TWO, BOSS SE-50, MOTM-120 Sub-Octave Multiplexer, Electrix EQ Killer, Electrix Filter Queen, Yamaha SPX-90, Reloop MIXON 4, Pioneer DDJ-400, Panasonic SV-3700 DAT, TC|Works Spark, TC Electronic Finalizer 96K, Waves Native Power Pack, and MOTU Digital Performer. Last, but not least, is a pair of Technics SL-1200's with Stanton Groovemasters.

My studio was once called The Burgundy Room™ because its walls were covered with burgundy-colored acoustic foam.

What other toys did you have in your studio?

I owned each of these items at some point during the last 12 years: Akai S-2800, Alesis SR-16, Aphex Aural Exciter, BOSS DR-202, BOSS DR-660, Casio FZ-1, E-MU EMAX SE, E-MU EMAX II, Korg Electribe A, Korg Electribe M, Lexicon LXP-1, Lexicon Vortex, Mac Plus, Mac IIsi, Quadra 700, Quadra 950, Power Mac 8500, Power Mac "Yosemite" G3, Nord Micro Modular,  Pioneer DDJ-200, Pioneer DDJ-800, Roland R-8, Roland TR-505, Roland SP-808, Studio Electronics SE-440, Tascam 246, Tascam 388, Tascam 464, Waldorf Pulse Plus, Yamaha FB01, Yamaha TX81Z, Yamaha TX16W, Yamaha RZ-1.

Do you believe in digital?

For final mixdown to DAT, yes. For recording, no. I was brought up with reel-to-reel analog tape recording, so I'm pretty old school. I'm not good at splicing tape, but I know how to coax great sound out of analog tape. If I were to replace my Mackie mixers with a digital mixer, I would probably need to get one of those tape saturator simulators.

"There are many great audio engineers who can work in a brilliant way to achieve incredible things in a studio. If you use a traditional compressor, okay. You can get a beautiful sound, but so many guitar and vocal tracks sound the same. The real creativity now is that you can use your software and really inexpensive plug-ins to get unique sounds on vocals and acoustic tracks. That's what I'm interested in: finding really exciting new sounds." - Mirwais Ahmadzai, producer for Madonna's "Music" album

"I don't really alter presets a whole lot, because I figure if people are getting paid to program great presets, then they'd better be great presets." - Jimmy Jam

CAVEAT

I do not pretend to know everything. There are lots of new things I'm learning each day that get incorporated into my music. I admit that I lack chops, but I can mimic certain styles with almost pinpoint accuracy because I pay careful attention to detail. I can spend hours working on a flute melody to get my synthesizer flute to sound exactly like how a real flute should be played. Much of my time in music production is spent reading books on technique and applying those techniques in practice. Listening to master musicians play their instruments also develops my musical sense.