Studio Plan Setup

The Plan

Principles

  • 01 Finishing is the curriculum. The loop ceiling is ~80% an arrangement problem. One ugly completed track teaches more than ten beautiful loops.
  • 02 Theory enters through the hands. The Hydrasynth is the classroom — nothing counts unless sound comes out of the speakers the same session.
  • 03 Hardware sketches, Ableton finishes. Capture early via Bluebox or Overbridge; dawless purism is a finishing tax you can’t afford yet.
  • 04 One constraint per track — one synth, one scale, one drum machine, or a 90-minute box. Constraints make a big setup usable instead of paralyzing.
  • 05 The reference artists are the syllabus: Tycho teaches Lydian shimmer, Bonobo teaches Dorian groove, Disclosure teaches extended harmony, Emancipator teaches melody over pads.
  • 06 The three-session rule: any track touched in three sessions ships within two more, in whatever state it’s in. Abandonment is allowed only after export.

Weekly rhythm — 8 sessions

  • 4× Warm-ups 10 min keyboard ladder on the Hydrasynth — the highest-compounding ten minutes in the plan
  • 1× Study 45 min with the current phase resource. One concept, written down in one sentence.
  • 2× Production 60–90 min on the current track. Every session ends with a bounce, even a rough one.
  • 1× Listening 30 min active listening or transcription on a reference track.

P1 Break the loop ceiling

w0–w6

Three finished tracks. Ugly, derivative, under-mixed — all fine. ≥2:30 with a beginning, development, and ending, exported as a file another human could hear. All three start from loops you already have: conversion, not generation.

Quota: 3 tracks shipped

P2 Theory through the hands

w7–w14

Four finished tracks, each with a one-line harmonic intent written before the first note. Plus a working keyboard-harmony vocabulary in 3–4 keys — the Hydrasynth is the classroom.

Quota: 4 tracks shipped

P3 Sound design and the mix

w15–w24

Four-plus finished tracks, including one remix and one bass-music sound-design étude, with mixes that survive a loudness-matched A/B against a reference. One machine per fortnight, from init.

Quota: 4 tracks shipped