Every lesson, one list

1. Why six chords is enough

Pick a key — say C. The chords that naturally belong to it are C, Dm, Em, F, G and Am. That is the family. Everything you hear in a huge share of…

2. Getting the shapes under your hands

Now the physical part. On a keyboard, each of these is three white notes with a gap between them: play a note, skip one, play the next, skip one,…

3. The change is the skill

Nobody struggles to play a chord. People struggle to leave one. The change is the actual skill, and it has one rule: move early. Your hand should…

1. 1-5-6-4 — the one you already know

In C that is C, G, Am, F. Play it once and you will recognise it, because it is under thousands of songs you have heard since childhood. It works…

2. 6-4-1-5 — the same chords, sadder

Now start on the shaded chord: Am, F, C, G. Identical chords, completely different feeling, because starting on Am makes the shade the home instead…

3. 1-4-5 — the oldest one that still works

C, F, G — three chords, no shade at all. Blues, rock and roll, country, gospel, most campfire songs. It is blunt and it is honest, and its bluntness…

1. Choose a song that fits your six

Pick a song you already love that uses one of your three progressions. There are lists everywhere, but the faster route is your ear: play 1-5-6-4 and…

2. One rhythm, all night

Do not learn a strumming pattern per song. Learn one steady pattern and use it on everything for now — down on every beat, or down-down-up-down.…

3. What to learn next

You now have the six chords, three progressions and one finished performance. That is genuinely the foundation — everything else in music is built on…

1. Download the kit and import it

Everything in this module runs off one small ZIP: four MIDI files and a README. MIDI holds the notes only, so whatever instrument you drop it on is…

2. I–V–vi–IV in C major

C – G – Am – F. The most-used loop in pop for a reason: it leaves major, touches the relative minor in bar three, then lifts back on the IV. Nothing…

3. vi–IV–I–V in A minor

Am – F – C – G. Identical chords to the last lesson, rotated so the minor lands first. Starting on vi is the cheapest way to make a bright set of…

4. ii–V–I in F major

Gm – C7 – F. This is the sentence-ending of Western harmony. The ii sets up the V, the V leans hard on the I, and the arrival feels earned rather…

5. i–VI–III–VII in D minor

Dm – B♭ – F – C. The natural-minor loop behind an enormous amount of electronic and cinematic music. It never resolves to a major tonic, so it can…

6. Turn one file into a finished sketch

The kit is only useful if something leaves it. Pick one of the four files and take it to a sketch you would play to somebody — not a mix, a sketch.

1. Which one you are in, and why it matters less than you think

Cubase, FL Studio and Ableton Live all do the same three jobs: hold notes, hold audio, and play them back in time. Every disagreement between them is…

2. Cubase — interface and chord workflow

Cubase is the most 'studio desk' of the three: everything is a track on a Project window, and the deep tools sit in editors you open from it. Its…

3. FL Studio — interface and chord workflow

FL Studio is pattern-first. You build small blocks in the Channel Rack, then paint those blocks into the Playlist to make an arrangement. Once that…

4. Ableton Live — interface and chord workflow

Live has two faces of the same set: Session View, a grid of clips you trigger freely, and Arrangement View, the ordinary left-to-right timeline.…

1. What a plugin actually is, and what a preset is

A plugin is a small program your DAW loads inside itself. An instrument plugin turns MIDI notes into sound; an effect plugin changes sound that is…

2. Installing Vital, the free synth the presets run on

Every preset in the pack is written for Vital, a wavetable synth with a free tier that plays all of them. You download it from vital.audio — we do…

3. Loading the presets in FL Studio and saving them as .fst

FL Studio keeps its own preset format, the .fst, in the browser on the left. The fastest workflow is to load one of our .vital files once, then…

4. Loading the presets in Ableton Live and keeping them as devices

Live can store a loaded plugin, its settings and its effect chain as one device in your User Library. Once you do that, our presets stop being files…

5. The mix chain each preset expects

Presets are half a sound. The other half is what comes after them, and our patches are programmed dry on purpose so they do not fight the reverb you…

6. Installing plugins safely and legally

Producers lose more sessions to bad plugin housekeeping than to bad ideas. This lesson is short and worth reading once.

1. What is in the free Cubase harmony pack

Two free downloads sit behind this module. The harmony starter holds sixteen chord progressions as MIDI and four pad loops as audio, all at 90 BPM in…

2. Getting Cubase to see Vital (VST Plug-in Manager)

Cubase keeps its own list of plugins and only rebuilds it when you ask. Most 'the plugin is missing' problems are that list being out of date, not…

3. Installing the six presets and finding them in the browser

Vital reads user presets from one folder, whatever DAW it is loaded in. Copy ours there once and every future session, in Cubase or anywhere else,…

4. Saving them as Cubase track presets

A track preset in Cubase saves more than a sound. It saves the instrument, its patch, the channel's inserts, sends and even the track colour, and it…

5. Dropping the harmony pack into a real Cubase session

Now the two packs meet. The harmony starter supplies the progressions, the preset pack supplies the sounds, and Cubase's tempo and key settings keep…

6. The Cubase mix chain these patches expect

Our patches are programmed dry so they do not fight the space you build in the project. Cubase's stock effects handle all of it; nothing below costs…

1. Why a template is the cheapest speed you will ever buy

Most unfinished tracks die in the first fifteen minutes, while you are loading a piano, hunting a drum kit, setting a tempo and naming tracks. By the…

2. The layout: five tracks, two busses, two sends

Every layout in the pack is the same shape, because the shape is what matters, not the DAW. Five instrument tracks, two busses and two effect sends…

3. Saving it as a Cubase project template

Cubase templates appear in the Steinberg Hub every time you start a project, which makes them the easiest of the three to actually use.

4. Saving it as an FL Studio template

FL Studio templates live in the New From Template menu, and they store the channel rack, the mixer routing and the playlist together.

5. Saving it as an Ableton Live default set

Live has two useful options: a default set that opens every time, and named templates in your User Library. Most writers want both.

6. The mix chain sheets, and using the template on a real song

The /chains folder holds four short sheets — chord bus, bass, drum bus and master — with settings that already work before you tweak anything. They…

1. Install the pack and build the practice session

You cannot learn a mix chain by reading it. You need four parts playing at once, which is exactly what the free pack beside this lesson gives you:…

2. Gain staging: the boring step that fixes most mixes

Most mixes that sound harsh are not badly EQ'd — they are too hot going into every plugin. Compressors, saturators and the master limiter all behave…

3. The chord bus: glue, not gloss

The chord bus is where a track starts sounding produced. Two or three parts sharing one compressor stop being separate sounds and start being one…

4. Bass and kick: one low end, shared

There is only room for one thing at a time below 120 Hz. Every mix that sounds muddy on a phone and boomy in a car is two instruments arguing down…

5. The drum bus and the lead chain

Drums want weight and attack; a vocal or lead wants to sit on top without stepping in front. Both are solved with two compressors doing small,…

6. The master chain and saving it as your default

The master is the last 1 dB, not the first. Everything you do here is small, and if it is not small it means something earlier in the chain is…

1. Install the pack and set up a mastering session

Mastering is not mixing with a limiter. It is a separate pass on a finished stereo mix, in a fresh session, at a calibrated monitoring level — and it…

2. References and a fixed monitoring level

You cannot master what you cannot hear honestly. Two decisions fix most of that before a single plugin opens: a fixed, moderate monitoring level, and…

3. Corrective EQ: small moves, wide curves

On the master, EQ is a scalpel and a duster, never a paintbrush. You are removing problems the mix left behind and tilting the overall tone — a dB at…

4. Glue compression on the stereo bus

A good stereo compressor on the master does one thing: it makes the mix feel like one performance instead of four parts. You are taking half a dB to…

5. Stereo width and a touch of saturation

Two optional moves, used only if the mix needs them: a gentle stereo widen above 150 Hz, and 1–2% tape-style saturation for density. Both are…

6. Limiter, loudness targets and the export QC

The limiter is the last plugin and the loudest decision. Streaming platforms normalise everything to about −14 LUFS, so chasing loudness buys nothing…

1. Install the pack and line up four genre sessions

The fastest way to learn genre mixing is to mix the same song four times. The free pack gives you one four-bar progression (Cmaj7 – Am7 – Fmaj7 – G6,…

2. Pop: the vocal is the record

In pop, everything serves the vocal or the lead line. The mix is bright, wide, upfront — and ruthlessly tidy: anything that masks the melody gets…

3. Hip-hop: the low end is the record

Hip-hop mixing is a negotiation between the kick and the bass for the bottom octave, with everything else deliberately dry and close. At 140 BPM in…

4. House: the groove is the record

House is four-to-the-floor discipline: the kick is identical every bar and everything else pumps around it. The mix is built so the groove never…

5. Lo-fi: the texture is the record

Lo-fi flips every rule from the pop lesson: the mix is dark, narrow, soft-edged and deliberately imperfect. You are mixing a mood, not a frequency…

6. The genre pass: bounce, compare, and choose on purpose

You now have four mixes of the same four bars. This last lesson is the actual skill: bouncing them, level-matching, and learning to hear genre as a…

1. Install the pack and map the song form

Most unfinished tracks die as eight-bar loops. The fix is not more parts — it is a map. The free pack gives you one eight-bar loop as four MIDI parts…

2. The energy map: decide before you edit

Arrangement is energy over time. Before touching a note, draw the energy curve of the song: where it whispers, where it peaks, and where it breathes.…

3. Intro and verse: less, on purpose

The intro and verse exist to make the chorus feel earned. That means withholding: fewer parts, shorter notes, and a melody that holds something back.

4. Chorus: everything you saved, all at once

The chorus is the verse plus everything you withheld: full bass movement, the complete top line, the off-beat keys, and one new colour the song has…

5. Breakdown and outro: the fall and the landing

After two choruses the ear needs a fall. The breakdown strips the song to its smallest idea, so the final chorus can be the biggest moment. The outro…

6. Finish it: from arrangement to mix-ready session

An arrangement is finished when every section is intentional and the session is ready for mixing: named tracks, coloured sections, and a bounce you…

1. Install the pack and map the seven stages

Everything you have built across Modules 11 to 16 is a stage of one process. This module joins them up: a pipeline you can run on any song, so…

2. Capture and write: the first hour, protected

The first hour is the only part of the pipeline where judgement is banned. Capture is recording the idea before it evaporates; writing is turning it…

3. Arrange and choose sounds: the shape and the palette

Stage three is Module 16's work applied to this song: the eight bars become a 48-bar form with an energy curve. Stage four is the one most producers…

4. Mix: run the chain once, in order

Mixing inside the pipeline is Module 13's chain applied in a fixed order, once. The order matters more than the plugins: gain staging, balance,…

5. Master and quality-check: the final 2 dB

Mastering here is Module 14's chain on the bounce you just made: corrective EQ, glue, width, saturation, limiter, then quality control. It is the…

6. Release: files, metadata and the archive

The last stage is admin, and it is where finished songs sit unreleased for months. Do it as part of the pipeline, on the same day as the master, and…

1. How the shop works

Everything in this module is a one-time purchase, not part of your Pro subscription. You buy a pack once, it is attached to this account forever, and…

2. Using the MIDI pack in a session

Forty-eight progressions written one chord per bar, in six keys. The point is not to hand you a song — it is to remove the twenty minutes you…

3. Getting a beat under your chords

A progression judged without drums almost always sounds slower and sadder than it really is. The kit exists so you can put a plain, dry groove…

4. Chopping loops without losing the key

Twelve chord and pad loops at 90 BPM plus twenty-four tonal one-shots, all with the key and progression written into the filename. That naming is the…

5. Building patches from recipes

No installers, on purpose. Plugin formats break between DAW versions and operating systems, and a preset you cannot open in two years was never…

6. When the bundle is the right call

All four packs in one download for $39 instead of $60. If you expect to buy two or more, the bundle is already cheaper than the pair.

1. Voice-leading the diatonic set

Once you can find all seven chords in a key, playing them in root position is the slow way. Advanced work means moving the smallest distance between…

2. Inversions on purpose, not by accident

First inversion softens a chord and keeps a bass line walking. Second inversion is unstable and wants to resolve — which makes it perfect right…

3. Every degree as home

The same seven notes sound like six different things depending on which one you treat as home. Playing C major from D gives you D Dorian; from E,…

1. Rhythm is most of the genre

The same four chords are a ballad, a house track or a country song depending on where they land. Genre lives in the placement far more than the chord…

2. Borrowing one chord

The fastest way out of a bland progression is a single borrowed chord — bVII in a major key, iv in place of IV, or a major IV in a minor key.

3. Voicing density by genre

Gospel and neo-soul stack sevenths, ninths and elevenths. Punk plays two notes. Country lives on triads with an open fifth on top.

1. Beating the clock, not the puzzle

At an advanced level, correctness is assumed — speed is the variable. Set a per-puzzle time budget (start at twelve seconds) and treat anything…

2. Keeping an error log that pays

Random practice makes random progress. Write down every miss with the chord quality and the key. After a week the log almost always shows two or…

3. Transposing the puzzle

After you answer a puzzle, immediately play the same shape in two other keys. Most players are fluent in three keys and guessing in nine; this closes…

1. Testing away from the keys

If you can only answer with your hands on the keyboard, you know the shape but not the theory. Advanced testing happens silently first: name the…

2. One attempt only

Multiple attempts turn a test into a lookup. Score yourself on first answers alone and the number becomes honest — usually ten to fifteen points…

3. Naming function, not just the chord

Advanced answers include the role: not 'A minor' but 'the vi in C, tonic-ish, can be a soft landing'. Function is what lets you substitute chords…

1. Choosing the right weakness

Most people drill what they already half-know because it feels better. Pull the top three items from your error log instead, even when they are the…

2. Interleaving beats blocking

Twenty repetitions of the same chord feel productive and mostly train your short-term memory. Mixing three related shapes at random is harder in the…

3. Knowing when a drill is finished

Retire a drill when you hit ninety percent accuracy at your time budget on two separate days, with at least one day off in between. Anything less and…

1. Bass first, always

Transcribing top-down is guesswork. Get the bass note for each bar first, then the quality, then the extensions. The bass line alone usually narrows…

2. Hearing borrowed and modal chords

When a chord refuses to fit the key, it usually is borrowed rather than exotic. Check bVII, iv, bVI and the secondary dominant V/V before assuming…

3. Spotting a modulation

A key change announces itself with a chord that becomes the new home rather than resolving to the old one — usually a pivot chord shared by both…