The Artsulli Blog
The Artsulli Blog
5 of the Best MIDI Keyboards for Music Producers
Learn about the best MIDI keyboard for beginners, portable use, and professional music producers. Discover which MIDI keyboard is right for you.
How to Record Vocals Through a Hardware Compressor
Learn about 3 of the most popular hardware vocal compressors on the market and discover recommended vocal compression settings.
4 Types of Audio Compressors You Need to Know About
Learn about VCA compressors, optical compressors, FET compressors, and tube compressors. Hear the difference with audio examples.
My Favorite Home Studio Workflow Hack
Learn how to connect two computers to your home studio setup, and toggle control of peripheral devices using a switch.
5 Ways to Instantly Produce Better Songs
Learn how to produce better music without spending more money on plugins and gear.
How to Mix DI Guitar Recordings
Discover the 4 simple steps you can take to take to turn your home guitar recordings into the crazy amped-up guitars you hear in rock and metal songs.
4 Tips to Produce Better Mixes Using Headphones
Discover how mixing with headphones compares to mixing with studio monitors and learn 4 tips to produce better mixes using headphones.
How to Use a Vocoder
Learn how to use a vocoder to create robotic vocals. Control a vocoder, like Waves' OVox, using its built-in synth or Xfer Records' Serum.
Clipping vs Limiting
Learn how clippers and limiters differ from one another by taking a look at Kazrog's KClip 3 and FabFilter's Pro-L 2.
Music Mastering: DIY vs. AI vs. Pro
Learn about the pros and cons of mastering your music going the DIY route, using an automated AI mastering service, and hiring a pro mastering engineer.
4 of the Best DAWs for Music Production
Learn about 4 of the best digital audio workstations (DAWs) for music producers and discover which DAW is the best fit for you.
Theory Thursday: Musical Homophones Part 4
I sort of dropped the ball on this series, but I’m back. Anyway…when I last left this discussion, we had defined 2 of our 4 answers to the question ofhow many unique triads there are (48 and 68). Today, as promised, we’ll talk about the next answer, which is 84. To recap, we get 48 by simply multiplying the 12 unique tones of the octave by the 4 types of triads to get how many different sounding triads there are. 68 we got by adding in enharmonic spellings of black keys (e.g. F# and Gb are two different spellings of the same tone). This gave 17 possible roots x4 possible chord types. And this set is the set of chord spellings for every chord which cannot be spelled in a simpler way (but may have 2 equally simple spellings). So, let’s talk 84. As it turns out, black keys aren’t the only ones that have multiple names. When you first start learning music theory you might have learned that there is no such thing as B#. But that’s not exactly true. B# does exist, it’s just enharmonic to C. To sharp a note really just means to raise it by half a step (the opposite is true of flatting). This can be done even if there is no adjacent white key to raise or lower it to. So the note B# is actually the white key we would normally call C. Like any note, though, we can build triads off of it. In this case, B# diminished would be (B#, D#, F#). C diminished on the other hand is (C, Eb, Gb). The same keys. Just as the two notes sound identical but are spelled differently, so too the chords we build off of them. So, to our list of possible roots, we can now add B# (enharmonic to C), E# (enharmonic to F), Cb (enharmonic to B), and Fb (enharmonic to E). 4 more roots x 4 triad types yields 16 more possible triads, which gets us to 84. But the weirdest is yet to come. Next time we’ll talk about how there are actually an infinite number of triads.