P3 Sound design and the mix

Warm-up

Ladder maintenance: 7ths and add9s, rotating the fluent keys

Study

Start Syntorial and keep it running through the fortnight. Mixing study #1: gain staging — Dan Worrall first.

Syntorial ↗Dan Worrall ↗Mylar Melodies ↗

Exercises

• Classic recipes from scratch on the modular: a pluck and an acid bass. No presets exist here anyway.
• Patch notes photographed and named.
• Every mix session from now on ends with a loudness-matched A/B against a Tycho or Bonobo master on the Week 0 reference channel.

Deliverable

Two Befaco patches from scratch that you could rebuild tomorrow.

Warm-up

Ladder maintenance: extensions in rotation; transpose one old motif to a new key by ear

Study

Syntorial continues. Mixing study #2: EQ as subtraction.

Syntorial ↗Dan Worrall ↗Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio — Mike Senior ↗

Exercises

• Evolving pad from scratch on the Befaco; capture long takes via the Bluebox.
• Start and finish an original around the Befaco material — constraint: this synth only for everything melodic.
• Verify low end on headphones and the car before trusting any bass decision — the room lies.

Deliverable

Track #8 exported, mixed against a reference at matched loudness.

Warm-up

Ladder maintenance: the Tycho sus2 voicing in three keys

Study

Hydrasynth architecture: wave morphing, mutants, the macro system — Loopop’s deep dive. Mixing study #3: compression with a stated purpose every time you reach for it.

Loopop ↗Dan Worrall ↗Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio — Mike Senior ↗

Exercises

• Build the Tycho-style sus2 pad from init. Save it.
• Build a morphing lead from init with macros assigned. Save it.
• Start a personal patch bank — everything from this fortnight lives there.

Deliverable

Two init-patch builds saved to the personal bank.

Warm-up

Ladder maintenance: play the new patches through ii–V–I — sound design and harmony in one sitting

Study

Mixing study #4: sidechain — audible pump versus transparent ducking, and when each is the right call.

Dan Worrall ↗Mr. Bill ↗

Exercises

• Start and finish an original built on the personal bank — constraint: Hydrasynth + Digitakt only.
• Mix it: gain staging, subtractive EQ, purposeful compression, the sidechain choice made out loud.

Deliverable

Track #9 exported and credible next to the reference.

Warm-up

Ladder maintenance: rotation keys; one progression rebuilt on the Digitone keys

Study

FM without fear: operator ratios and what they do to timbre — Loopop’s Digitone deep dive. Mixing study #5: bus glue.

Loopop ↗Cuckoo ↗Dan Worrall ↗

Exercises

• Recipes from init: DX-style electric piano, glassy bell.
• Solid FM bass that survives the car test.
• One deliberately nasty metallic tone — seed material for the étude.

Deliverable

Four FM patches including the nasty one.

Warm-up

Ladder maintenance: free — improvise over a vamp with the FM e-piano

Study

Mixing study #6: loudness and limiting — the end of the chain, learned last on purpose.

Dan Worrall ↗Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio — Mike Senior ↗

Exercises

• Work the FM palette into the current track or a new sketch.
• Full mix pass on your strongest Phase 3 export so far, the whole sequence in order: gain → EQ → compression → sidechain → glue → loudness.
• Scout remix competitions with legal stems (Splice and label-run comps post these constantly) and shortlist one with a deadline you can hit.

Deliverable

A mix that survives the loudness-matched A/B. A remix target chosen.

Warm-up

Ladder maintenance: rotation keys, brief — the sessions belong to sound design now

Study

Virtual Riot on the resample workflow. The Skrillex itch, scratched properly.

Virtual Riot tutorials ↗Mr. Bill ↗

Exercises

• Design a tone (Digitone metallics or Hydrasynth morphs) → bounce to audio → mangle in Ableton (OTT, multiband distortion, formant shifting) → re-bounce → repeat.
• Build a folder of mangled one-shots and basses from the chain.
• Download the remix stems; map the song’s key and tempo into the template.

Deliverable

A library of resampled material that sounds nothing like its source.

Warm-up

Ladder maintenance: rotation keys

Study

Mr. Bill on arrangement-as-sound-design — how the IDM school structures chaos.

Mr. Bill ↗Virtual Riot tutorials ↗

Exercises

• Produce the 60–90 second tearout-style étude from the resample library. It counts as a finished track.
• Note what the layering discipline taught you — it transfers straight back to downtempo.

Deliverable

The étude exists and is exported.

Warm-up

Ladder maintenance: the remix’s key, all voicings

Study

Learn the Camelot wheel for key-compatible re-pitching — also your bridge into DJing whenever you want it.

Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio — Mike Senior ↗

Exercises

• Arrange the remix — material, key, and tempo are decided for you; arrangement, harmony, and sound design are exactly what the plan taught.
• Mix it against the original at matched loudness.

Deliverable

A full remix draft, one session from submittable.

Warm-up

Free play. You earned it.

Study

Re-read all the monthly scorecards. Which lane pulled: deep house/garage, downtempo/organic, or bass-music sound design?

Exercises

• Submit the remix somewhere real.
• Final scorecard: tracks, transcriptions, keys, applied concepts.
• Declare a major and sketch the next six months: genre-specific study, a 4-track EP as the deliverable. No gear purchases until 10 finished tracks exist.

Deliverable

The remix is submitted. The next plan has a name.