the lab
a synth school that synthesizes for you. each room is a machine, an era, a scene. dial the knobs and the story unlocks with the sound — 909 in chicago, moog in detroit, SP-1200 in queens, buchla in berkeley. practice mode for technique, free mode for what you actually make.
pick a machine
frankie at the warehouse. derrick in detroit. the 909 was the second-life drum machine — flopped on release, got fished out of pawn shops by chicago kids and turned into the heart of house. every kick, snare, hat is a circuit you can dial.
- · Phuture — Acid Tracks (1987)
- · Mr. Fingers — Mystery of Love (1985)
- · Rhythim Is Rhythim — Strings of Life (1987)
bernie worrell teaches subtractive 101 from inside flashlight. one oscillator, one filter, one envelope — and an entire vocabulary of P-funk leads, stevie wonder textures, and the cabaret voltaire/sheffield industrial lineage.
- · Parliament — Flash Light (1977)
- · Stevie Wonder — Songs in the Key of Life
- · Cabaret Voltaire — Red Mecca (1981)
12-bit 26.04kHz with the pitch trick. premier, large pro, rza, pete rock all sat at this box. ties straight into your sample bank — chop, tune, swing, and learn why this exact machine sounds like new york in 1992.
- · Pete Rock & CL Smooth — Mecca and the Soul Brother
- · Gang Starr — Daily Operation
- · Mobb Deep — The Infamous
FM theory taught by the way it actually entered the world: the DX7 was the default keyboard for half a decade. the bell on whitney's greatest love. the slap bass on every 80s ballad. the bright lead that came back as vaporwave.
- · Whitney Houston — Greatest Love of All
- · Brian Eno — Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks
- · Kenny G — anywhere
three oscillators, one filter, a chip designed by an analog engineer who didn't know he was making the most expressive video game sound chip ever shipped. rob hubbard, martin galway, the demoscene tradition that still echoes in chiptune today.
- · Rob Hubbard — Monty on the Run (1985)
- · Martin Galway — Wizball (1987)
- · everyone in the demoscene since
the moog had a keyboard. don buchla refused — touch plates, source-of-uncertainty, complex oscillators. subotnick made silver apples on a 100-series. suzanne ciani made an entire commercial sound language. this is synthesis as a philosophy.
- · Morton Subotnick — Silver Apples of the Moon (1967)
- · Suzanne Ciani — Buchla Concerts 1975
- · Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith — Ears (2016)
modular last. once you've earned the other rooms — once subtractive, FM, west coast all live in your hands — the patch bay opens up. cv, gate, attenuation, modulation matrices. eurorack, serge, suit yourself.
- · yours, eventually
two modes per room
recreate the canon
each room ships with a set of canonical patches — the kick from mystery of love, the bass from flash light, the snare from strings of life. dial yours in until it matches. story + audio reference + target sound.
build whatever
same machine, no target. sequence, jam, export to WAV (and eventually move kit + ableton project). everything you learn in practice transfers — same knobs, same sound.
also live in the practice room
14 cities, 56 lessons
each room you learn here has a city in the practice room — Brooklyn boom bap uses the SP-1200 kick, Berlin techno uses 909, Paris uses 909+disco, CDMX dembow uses 808 sub. drum the same machine into a real beat.
the encyclopedia
breaks · players · techniques · producers · hardware. every iconic record cross-linked to the lessons that teach how it was made. browse it like wikipedia for drum craft.