Whatever your own particular studio setup, it is likely that you will be using a particular

music production program as the heart of that setup. Within your program of

choice, you will have access to numerous sound-producing devices, such as synthesizers

and drum machines. In the end, no matter what kinds of devices you ultimately use, your

desired result is the same—a finished musical track. So to begin, I want to take a look at the

various characteristics of the sounds you’ll be using to create those finished tracks.

Music versus Noise

First, we need to distinguish between noises and musical sounds. Realistically, you can use any

sound whatsoever in a track, such as the sound of waves crashing on the shore, excerpts of

speeches, samples of animal noises, the noises made by machines, and so on. Samplers, of course,

are ideal for importing, manipulating, and sequencing such sounds into compositions.

Percussive noises are also important in electronic music. Whether these result from shaking,

scratching, scraping, or banging, they are interpreted by the ear as being musical, provided

that they are used within an intelligible rhythmic framework.

However, noises are only a part of the picture. If music used nothing but noises, its appeal to an

audience would be much more limited. What makes music so special are sounds that are specifically

thought of as being musical. So what makes a sound musical, rather than just being a

noise?

The sounds we hear in music result from a vibratory disturbance of the atmosphere and objects

in the environment around us—sound waves, in other words. When those sound waves are chaotic,

jumbled, and confused, we call the result a noise. The pleasure we get from noise is limited.

However, some sound sources—particularly musical instruments—produce regular, ordered,

and patterned sound waves. These sound sources create music, rather than just noise.

Perhaps you have heard of the experiments of the scientist and acoustician Ernst Chladni, who,

by placing sand on metallic plates, discovered that when the plates are bowed with a violin bow,

the sand forms into regular geometric patterns. Due to the various harmonic modes of vibration

of the metal plate, this regular geometrical patterning is more akin to what we would call music