6 min read

Glossary

Almost 60 technical terms explained briefly — from BPM to true peak.

Acid: Squelchy bass with resonant filter, accents and slides — the sound of the 303. → Bass Lab
Arpeggio: Chord notes played one after another instead of together: up, down, random. → Melody Lab
Automation: A parameter that changes over time — e.g. a filter opening over 16 bars. Exportable as MIDI CC. → Filter Lab
Bar: Four beats in 4/4 time. Electronic music thinks in groups of 4, 8, 16 and 32 bars.
BPM: Beats per minute — the tempo. House usually sits at 120–128, drum & bass at 170–176. → Genre Atlas
Breakdown: Calm section without kick: room for melody and atmosphere before the next build. → Arrangement Planner
Build-up: The build towards the drop: rising tension with risers, snare rolls and filters. → Arrangement Planner
Call and response: One phrase asks, the next one answers — same start, different ending. → Melody Lab
Camelot: Wheel with codes like 8A or 11B. Neighbouring codes (±1, A↔B) sound good together — ideal for mixes and layers. → Working harmonically with Camelot
Cent: A hundredth of a semitone. ±10 cents is barely audible, ±50 cents is a quarter tone off.
Correlation: How similar the left and right channels are: +1 mono, 0 very wide, negative is trouble. In the bass it should stay above 0.9. → Analyser
Crest factor: Gap between peak and average in dB. High crest = lots of dynamics, low = heavily compressed. → Analyser
Cutoff: The corner frequency of a filter: from here it attenuates. With a low-pass a low cutoff sounds dark, with a high-pass thin. → Filter Lab
DAW: Digital audio workstation — the program you produce your track in. The devices deliver MIDI and WAV for any DAW.
Degree: A chord's position in the key, written as a Roman numeral: i, iv, V … upper case is major, lower case minor. → Chord Lab
Drop: The peak after the build-up, when bass and kick come in fully. → Arrangement Planner
Energy curve: How intense a track is over time. Good tracks breathe: build, release, pull back. → Arrangement Planner
Euclidean rhythm: k hits spread as evenly as possible over n steps: E(3,8) is the tresillo, E(5,8) the cinquillo. → Rhythm Lab
Extended mix: Long version with DJ-friendly intro and outro (usually 16–32 bars of rhythm only). → Arrangement Planner
Field recording: A recording made outside the studio with a recorder or phone — nature, city, machines, rooms. → FX Lab
Gain staging: Keeping levels sensible at every stage of the chain — individual tracks around −18 dBFS RMS. → Mix Coach
Granular: Sound is split into many short grains and redistributed — any recording becomes clouds and pads. → FX Lab
Groove: The interplay of timing, accents and space that makes a rhythm danceable.
Headroom: Room before clipping. Leave about −6 dBFS peak in the mix so mastering has space to work. → Mix Coach
High-pass: Filter that lets highs through and attenuates lows — the build-up classic. → Filter Lab
Hook: The part that sticks: a melody, a vocal, a sound. → Melody Lab
Humanize: Small random deviations in timing and velocity so programmed notes do not sound mechanical. → Groove Workshop
Inversion: A chord without the root at the bottom. Helps voice leading.
Key: Root note plus mode, e.g. A minor. All devices are key-aware so parts fit together.
Kit: One-shots that belong together (kick, snare, hats …), tuned and level-matched. → Sound Factory
LFO: Slow oscillator that moves a parameter rhythmically — tempo-synced e.g. at 1/8 for wobble basses. → Filter Lab
Library: Your folder of samples, MIDI and presets. The devices store new files there and keep an index. → Export to your DAW
Low end: The range below about 150 Hz: kick and bass. Must be mono and tidy to carry in a club. → Mix Coach
Low-pass: Filter that lets lows through and attenuates highs — the “next room” sound. → Filter Lab
LUFS: Loudness as people perceive it, to ITU-R BS.1770. Streaming normalises around −14 LUFS, club masters often sit at −8 to −6. → Analyser
MIDI: Note information instead of sound: which key, when, how long, how hard. Any DAW can play MIDI files with any instrument. → Export to your DAW
Modal interchange: Borrowing chords from the parallel mode, e.g. a major chord in minor. Adds colour and surprise. → Chord Lab
Mode: Church mode such as Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian or Mixolydian — a different colour of the same notes.
Mono: Both channels identical. Bass and kick belong in the centre so they sound the same on every system.
Motif: A short, recognisable sequence of notes — the core of every hook. → Melody Lab
One-shot: A single sound without rhythm: one kick, one snare, one impact. → Sound Factory
Percussive ↔ tonal (HPSS): Separates hits (short vertical strokes in the spectrogram) from tones (long horizontal lines) — e.g. footsteps from hum. → FX Lab
Phrase: A musical section, usually 8 or 16 bars. DJs mix in phrases — which is why sections start on multiples of 8. → Arrangement Planner
Pitch: How high or low a note sounds, measured in hertz. Hum to MIDI detects it with the YIN method. → Hum to MIDI
Polymeter: Tracks with different cycle lengths run against each other and only meet again after many bars. → Rhythm Lab
Progression: A sequence of chords that repeats, e.g. i–VI–III–VII. → Chord Lab
Quantize: Pulling notes onto a grid. With strength below 100 % some human timing remains. → Groove Workshop
Radio edit: Short version, about 2:30–3:30 minutes, that gets to the point quickly. → Arrangement Planner
Ratchet: One step repeats rapidly several times — typical of trap hats and rolls.
Reese: Wide, beating bass from two slightly detuned saws — typical of drum & bass. → Bass Lab
Reference track: A finished track in the same genre to measure your mix against — loudness, bass, width. → Mix Coach
Resampling: Recording your own material as audio and processing it further — new sounds from old ones.
Resonance: Emphasis of the frequencies right at the cutoff (also Q). Little sounds gentle, lots whistles and squelches. → Filter Lab
Rotation: Shifting a pattern by steps. Same hits, different starting point — often a completely different feel.
Round robin: Several slightly different versions of the same sound played in turn — against the “machine-gun effect”. → FX Lab
Scale: The notes that belong to a key. Minor sounds dark, major bright, Dorian and Phrygian in between.
Seed: Starting value for randomness. Same seed, same result — so every roll can be repeated.
Sidechain: One signal controls the level of another — usually the kick ducks the bass so both have room. → Mix Coach
Slice: A cut-out piece of a sample that sits on a pad and can be rearranged. → Sample Chopper
Slide / glide: The pitch glides to the next note instead of jumping. A trademark of 808 basses and acid. → Bass Lab
Sound DNA: Measurements of a recording (partials, envelope, brightness, noisiness) from which a synthetic twin is built. → FX Lab
Spectral gate: Noise reduction per frequency band: anything not clearly above the measured noise profile gets quieter. 12–24 dB of reduction sounds natural. → FX Lab
Step: One cell in a step sequencer. With 16 steps per bar each step is a sixteenth note.
Sub: Deepest bass below 60 Hz — felt more than heard.
Swing: Every second eighth or sixteenth is delayed slightly. 50 % is straight, 54–58 % grooves, from 66 % it sounds like a shuffle. → Groove Workshop
Transient: The short, loud start of a sound — the crack of a snare. The chopper slices at transients. → Sample Chopper
True peak: The real peak level between samples. At most −1.0 dBTP for releases, otherwise it distorts after encoding. → Analyser
Velocity: How hard a note is played, from 1 to 127. Varying velocity makes hi-hats and melodies feel alive.
Voice leading: From chord to chord the voices move as little as possible. It sounds smooth and professional. → Chord Lab
Voicing: How the notes of a chord are spread: close together, wide apart, with a note in the bass. → Chord Lab
WAV: Uncompressed audio format. The devices export at 48 kHz and 32-bit float — lossless, with headroom for further processing. → Export to your DAW

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