An Introduction to Mastering Hip-Hop and Pop Music
While most artists send their tracks out to a pro for mastering, you can achieve a decent result yourself with some focused experimenting.
While most artists send their tracks out to a pro for mastering, you can achieve a decent result yourself with some focused experimenting.
A thoughtful OpEd in response to WIRED’s recent prediction of a forthcoming CD revival in the music market. (And why we’re skeptical.)
A historical look at the work and legacy of Philadelphia lawyer turned composer for early American politicians, Francis Hopkinson.
Borrowed from our friends at Reverb.com, this interview with producer RJD2 tracks his progress from student of the MPC to Soundfly teacher.
An OpEd, a full playlist, and some personal reflections by the Soundfly Team on the legacy of Black American Music that we cherish everyday.
Here are eight great tips taken from behavioral science to help you get better at making and setting deadlines, to defeat your procrastination demons..
With the Covid-19 pandemic lasting this long, music fans are wondering whether live music will ever truly return. Here’s why it should…
I made a lo-fi hip-hop beat using iZotope’s Spire app for iPhone, and you can too. Here’s how simple and fun it was to use…
Learn about the history and legacy of Hip-Hop turntablism and record scratching with these 10 essential cuts.
Watch me perform on a new hybrid playable hardware instrument that approaches solving some of my biggest performance issues with digital music.
+ Learn to create and arrange original, instrumental hip-hop music from sampling pioneer RJD2 himself in his new course on Soundfly, RJD2: From Samples to Songs. This article originally appeared on Ethan Hein’s blog. One of my projects for this summer is to realize my decades-old ambition to learn how to scratch. I borrowed a Korg Kaoss DJ controller from a…
The right kick drum sound can make or break the energy of your song, and the way the rest of the instruments stand up in mixing. Here’s how to choose it.
Like many historically significant Japanese things (Zen Buddhism, character writing, the kimono, temple architecture), the shakuhachi originated in China. And while, like the parenthetically aforementioned items on this list, the shakuhachi can claim Chinese origin, over the course of its history, it has diverged and evolved quite differently from its Chinese relative, the xiao. The shakuhachi is an…
What makes a great debut album? Its reflection on its time and place in contemporary society? The hype it generates? An ethereal and indescribable showing of artistic genius and virtuosity? While there are certainly patterns and similarities within the athenaeum of commercial music — the “sophomore slump,” the “edgy cover artwork,” or the scorched-earth PR campaigns…
The beautiful, complex, and strange historical relationship between sound recording and music has changed a lot over the past century. Composition, performance, and audio capture, once relatively discrete disciplines, are now more often treated as one big, amorphous, creative process. But even though recording and mixing tasks have been increasingly wrested away from specialists, these…
Whether you’re working out of a home studio or a small project studio, your Digital Audio Workstation (or, DAW) is probably the single most important part of your setup. It’s the bridge of your musical Starship Enterprise, containing and co-ordinating all the software and hardware you use to create and communicate each of your decisions. It’s…
As DAW and recording technology gets ever better, musicians can collaborate in ways they’ve never imagined… which leads to a whole new host of problems.
Throughout my examination of the wide world of musical electronics, I’ve gazed longingly at the spider-web patches of modular and done an in-depth analyses of notable synths and their inner workings. One area we haven’t investigated deeply is the intersection of acoustic instruments with the electronic world — specifically, the burgeoning intersection of “classical,” or solo concert instrumentalists,…
+ Bridge the worlds of theory, improvisation, and jazzy hip-hop, and improve your piano chops with Grammy-winner Kiefer in his course, Kiefer: Keys, Chords, & Beats. Beautiful, versatile, and astoundingly complex, the piano holds a key place in nearly every form of music. It can be found across the globe in the back corners of smoky nightclubs, the…
+ Welcome to Soundfly! We help curious musicians meet their goals with creative online courses. Whatever you want to learn, whenever you need to learn it. Subscribe now to start learning on the ’Fly. Earlier this year, I was delighted by a dynamic new solo piano album called The Moving Decade. Of all the types of albums to make sound original, surely solo…
The first song on Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo album, and my favorite so far, is the beautiful, gospel-saturated “Ultralight Beam.” https://open.spotify.com/track/1eQBEelI2NCy7AUTerX0KS?si=DaJabeEnQDyKwSumoryq3g The song uses only four chords, but they’re an interesting four: C minor, E♭ major, A♭ major, and G7. To find out why they sound so good together, let’s do a little music theory. “Ultralight…
Go beyond your standard stable of chords and explore a whole new world of alternate tunings to make your songs stand out.
By Marihiko Hara I love how time flows in Kyoto, not too rapidly and not too slowly. A five minute walk will lead me through streets, temples, and gardens, where I can feel that I am in ancient spaces. To know where I stand, all I have to do is find out which direction points north.…
In the last few years, many artists have taken their fans on a digital journey towards more immersive experiences by releasing content viewable, listenable, and navigable only in app form. Marketers will say that since 52% of all digital music listening now happens on mobile and tablet, artists should stick to digital forms of disbursement.…