Tips on making music
====================

(that I wish I knew when I was starting out.)

General:
- Swap between >=2 contrasting parts.
- When developing a part, introduce changes 2+ at a time, not one-by-one.
- Leave the audience wanting more.

Mixing:
- An ounce of arrangement is worth a pound of mixing.
- EQ out the frequencies you don't hear.
- Raise/lower volume in increments of 3db; don't sweat small changes.
- Use limiter to get things to a reasonable volume (but no further).

Yamaha DX7 (TX802):
- Don't try to live-patch, instead (make preset, use preset).
- You can have either a wide layered sound or a deep harmonic-rich sound.
- Mute the parts of the sound you're not working on.
- More carriers = more stacking, intervals, chorusing, ensembles.
- More modulators = more control over harmonics (spectrogram shape).
- Ratio = how widely harmonics are spaced in peak
- Level (modulation index I) = number of harmonics present in peak.
- Peak shape is Bessel function of I, so ripples as level is swept.
- Wide peaks reflect at 0Hz and at the maximum frequency.
- Extra modulators, or feedback, multiply their harmonics, commutatively.
- Use "Y" branches to treat the modulators equally.
- Use "I" stacks to accentuate the output level of deeper modulators.
- Use "L" merges to efficiently reuse a modulator between carriers.
- To treat the 4stage envelope as an ADSR:  R=A,99,D,R; L=99,99,S,00
- To treat the 4stage envelope as a bar graph: R=30,30,30,30; L=W,X,Y,Z
- R="Rate", like the speed of a car.  L=travel destination.

Roland D50 (D550):
- Structure is always wide, []-x-[] []-x-[], not deep.
- Use chorus to smooth out the PCM sample crunch.