The Codex
The whole craft, distilled. Every technique, parameter and convention — synthesised from the sources the pros trust, in plain language.
The 12 notes, keys & intervals
Everything sits on twelve semitones. Learn the map once and the piano roll stops being a maze.
Chords & the progressions that work
Triads, sevenths, and the four or five progressions behind most of the music you love.
Signal flow: oscillator → filter → amp
Learn one subtractive synth deeply and every other synth suddenly feels familiar.
ADSR envelopes
Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release — the four sliders that shape how a sound moves through time.
The four synthesis types
Subtractive, wavetable, FM and granular — what each is for.
Four-on-the-floor
The house skeleton every dance genre borrows from.
Half-time feel
How 140 BPM ends up feeling like 70 — the backbone of dubstep and trap.
The 8-bar phrase
Dance music thinks in blocks of 8 — and that’s what keeps it mixable.
Club house structure
A ~7-minute club arrangement, section by section.
Gain staging & EQ
Get levels and frequency balance right and the mix half-mixes itself.
Sidechain compression
The pump — and the cleanest way to keep kick and bass out of each other’s way.
−14 LUFS & translation
The loudness war is over. Here’s the number that matters and why.
Genre BPM & drum map
A quick-reference cheat sheet for tempo and feel across the main genres.
Suno / Udio → stems → your DAW
AI isn’t a “make a song” button. It’s a production step — here’s the real workflow.