Brizm
Your four-week plan, toolkit and glossary
Four weeks of practice at about 45 minutes a day, the kit you need to start, and plain definitions of the terms used across the course.
Four weeks, about 45 minutes a day
-
Week 1: Sound
- Rebuild every synth lab preset from Init without loading it.
- Active listening: pick one track from each listening list and write down what the kick, bass and main chord sound are made of.
- In your DAW, recreate the dub sub, a pluck and a pad with its built-in synth.
-
Week 2: Theory
- Learn the keyboard until you can find any note in two seconds.
- Build every chord type on C, A and D in the chord builder, then on a real keyboard or piano roll.
- Daily: ten interval questions on the starter level until you score 80%, then move to all intervals.
-
Week 3: Harmony and rhythm
- Play every progression in every style in the progression player.
- Program each rhythm lab pattern into your DAW from memory.
- Daily: chord quality quiz, triads then sevenths.
-
Week 4: Three loops and a track
- Make an 8-bar loop of each genre in your DAW.
- Turn your favorite loop into a full arrangement of 3–6 minutes.
- Record a live dub mix of one loop: one take, no editing.
A daily 20-minute routine after the course
- 5 minutes of ear training.
- 5 minutes designing one new patch from scratch.
- 10 minutes programming one 4-bar loop in a genre you didn't do yesterday.
A starter toolkit
- A DAW: Ableton Live is the most common choice for dub techno and minimal. Its Intro edition is affordable, and Live Lite comes free with a lot of music hardware. Bitwig, FL Studio and Logic all work; Reaper is very cheap and capable.
- Free synths: Vital (wavetable), Surge XT (open source, deep), Dexed (DX7-style FM for minimal blips), TAL-NoiseMaker (simple analog-style).
- Free effects: Valhalla Supermassive for huge delays and reverbs, plus your DAW's own delay and reverb.
- Hardware, optional: a small MIDI keyboard helps more than anything else. Affordable boxes like the Korg Volca series or a Roland TR-8S are fun for live dub mixing.
- Monitoring: one pair of headphones you know well. Check your low end on them and on a phone speaker.
Glossary
The terms used across the course, each with the lesson that teaches it.
A
- ADSR
- Attack, decay, sustain, release: the four stages of an envelope. The synthesizer
B
- Bar
- A group of beats, usually four in 4/4. Rhythm and groove
- BPM
- Beats per minute, the tempo. Rhythm and groove
C
- Cadence
- A chord move that ends a phrase, such as V7 to I. Harmony and progressions
- Chord memory
- A synth feature that plays a stored chord shape from one key, used constantly in dub techno. Dub
- Clave
- A two-bar key rhythm in Latin music, in 3–2 or 2–3 form. Cumbia and Latin rhythm
- Cutoff
- The frequency where a filter starts removing sound. The synthesizer
D
- Diatonic
- Using only notes from the current scale. Harmony and progressions
- Dominant
- The V chord, or a major triad with a ♭7 that pulls back to the tonic. Harmony and progressions
- Drop-out
- Muting instruments in a dub mix, then bringing them back. Dub
E
- Echo throw
- Sending a single hit or phrase into a delay so only its echoes continue. Effects and the mix
- Extension
- A chord tone beyond the 7th: 9, 11 or 13. Chords: 7ths, 9ths and more
G
- Ghost note
- A quiet in-between hit that fills a groove. Rhythm and groove
- Guacharaca, güiro
- Scraped instruments playing cumbia's long-short-short pattern. Cumbia and Latin rhythm
I
- Interval
- The distance between two notes, counted in semitones. Intervals
- Inversion
- A chord with a note other than the root at the bottom. Chords: 7ths, 9ths and more
L
- LFO
- Low-frequency oscillator: a slow wave that moves another control. The synthesizer
- Llamador
- The cumbia drum that keeps the offbeat. Cumbia and Latin rhythm
M
- Mode
- A scale built from a different starting note of the major scale, such as Dorian. Scales and modes
O
- Offbeat
- The “&” halfway between beats. Rhythm and groove
- One drop
- Reggae drum pattern with kick and rim together on beat 3 and nothing on beat 1. Dub
P
- Polymeter
- Loops of different lengths playing together, such as 3 steps against 16. Minimal techno
R
- Resonance
- A boost at a filter's cutoff that adds whistle and squelch. The synthesizer
- Riddim
- The instrumental backing of a reggae song, often reused by many singers. Dub
S
- Send and return
- Routing part of a track into a shared effect channel. Effects and the mix
- Sidechain
- Using one sound (usually the kick) to duck another (usually the bass). Effects and the mix
- Skank
- The short offbeat chord chop in reggae. Dub
- Sonidero
- A Mexican cumbia sound-system DJ. Cumbia and Latin rhythm
- Stab
- A short chord hit, often run into delay. Minimal techno
- Steppers
- Reggae and dub drum pattern with the kick on every beat. Dub
- Swing
- Delaying every second subdivision to create a lilt. Rhythm and groove
T
- Tonic
- The home note or chord of a key. Harmony and progressions
- Tresillo
- The 3+3+2 rhythm at the root of many Latin patterns. Rhythm and groove
- Tritone
- The six-semitone interval, the source of tension in dominant chords. Intervals
V
- Version
- The instrumental or dub mix on the B-side of a reggae single. Dub
- Voicing
- How a chord's notes are spaced and ordered. Chords: 7ths, 9ths and more