Beat Kitchen School

08/29/2026

A brief discussion of the Lissajous figure generated by Beat Kitchen Harmonic synthesizer. A couple things that did not fit in this video: a goniometer typically displays each mono channel as a diagonal line. The leases you display convention tends to be horizontal and vertical. on a traditional stereoscope, a tall narrow signal indicates mono coherence and if it is wide towards the vertical center, it suggests signals are out of phase. I am discussing this and using both conventions which might be a little confusing. Either way, at 180°, two channels – left and right – generate a flat line whereas a quarter, 90° rotation will push two sine waves tuned to the same frequency into the shape of a circle. It’s precisely this type of relationship that a traditional scope can’t show you. the tool I’m using to demonstrate this is the Beat Kitchen harmonic synthesizer which is an interesting twist on additive synthesis with some tricks up at sleeve. In addition to being an extremely flexible and cool sounding synth, it also happens to be a terrific audio visualization tool.

08/28/2026

Few things make me feel simultaneously so small and so large as a lunar eclipse—here, shrouded by wildfire smoke. But that’s my shadow. It’s our shadow, and your shadow too. If you are along the 15°E line where the sun is rising, stick out your hand and make a shadow puppet on the moon for us all to see.

08/25/2026

08/19/2026

Not sure how many of you are interested in this sort of thing, but I guess we will see. A quick lesson on harmonic thinking using Duke Ellington‘s I got it bad and that ain’t good. Some ways to approach filling in simple chords with more color and movement. This was from this week‘s music the gym. I teach these live every week where you can join and ask questions.

08/15/2026

BKS Harmonic now ships with a very unique noise and modulation source: WEATHER. Today is the last day at its introductory price. Grab it now! Then come join us at Beat Kitchen where you can talk to us live about how to use it. Harmonic is our twist on additive synthesis — I’m calling it *harmonic synthesis*. It’s a wildly flexible creative tool, capable of lush, airy pads and glitchy sound design, built on an engine made to visualize and teach how sound works while being aware of scales, harmony, and intonation.

Harmonic synthesis sidesteps traditional filters: you shape the overtone series by hand, folding or drawing each partial’s pitch, level, and place in the stereo field. Folding is a unique technique that turns the harmonic series upside down — moving upper partials below the fundamental so a thin, bright tone gains weight, body, and a sub that wasn’t there before. With nearly limitless modulation and routing and 454 scales and modes to work with, the overtone series becomes a harmonic playground. Add the ability to move formants to create vowels and resynthesize the envelopes of each of those partials, and you have a synth that can operate on samples to mimic vocoder effects as well as granular or even wavetable-type sounds.

In addition to being a wild synthesizer, Harmonic now operates as an audio effect. Feed it an imported sample, a live mic, a guitar, or a track: play chords and hear them resonate inside your own sound, or set moving, panning vectors that turn what you play into harmonies you haven’t heard yet. Fold, Sculpt, Overtone Scan, and Freeze all work on what you feed in. that now includes over 84 years of barometric data that you can load as a source. I will be rolling this out as additional modulation sources and including some new weather adjacent presets in the coming days.

08/13/2026

I ran this back in 2022 and I don’t think it’s seen the light of day since. I saw a discussion of this elsewhere and so I thought this might be a nice reminder to everyone that a music production, the medium is ultimately memory. It’s easy to forget, amidst all the technology and jargon, that we are artists in the canvas is time.

08/13/2026

A walkthrough — about 1hr broken into chapters — so save it. I’ll try to do a full lesson at some point. But this thing is massive. Meet the BKS Harmonic synthesizer — my twist on additive synthesis, with partials built from the bottom up. It started as a tool to visualize sound and to teach with, and grew into a playground for overtones — built to answer questions that start with “what if.” As a synth, Harmonic is dense and powerful, and it doubles as a pretty good lesson in synthesis overall, so follow along. We get into folding, the partials matrix, harmony-aware tuning, overtone scanning, formants and vowels, resynthesis, and a lot more.

GET IT
Plug-in (VST/AU) and the web version: https://beatkitchen.io/synth/

iOS (AUv3 app): https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beat-kitchen-harmonic-synth/id6780983442

It’s also included free with a Beat Kitchen residency — live weekly classes and a production community at beatkitchen.io

08/09/2026

CORRECTION: BKS Harmonic is a VST/AU plug-in (as well as an AUv3 “app”). The plug-in and iOS versions are feature identical. And yeah, Beat Kitchen is still a production community and school you can join. This and other tools are included with residency for the duration of your stay.

Harmonic is our twist on additive synthesis — I’m calling it *harmonic synthesis*. It’s a wildly flexible creative tool, capable of lush, airy pads and glitchy sound design, built on an engine made to visualize and teach how sound works while being aware of scales, harmony, and intonation.

Harmonic synthesis sidesteps traditional filters: you shape the overtone series by hand, folding or drawing each partial’s pitch, level, and place in the stereo field. Folding is a unique technique that turns the harmonic series upside down — moving upper partials below the fundamental so a thin, bright tone gains weight, body, and a sub that wasn’t there before. With nearly limitless modulation and routing and 454 scales and modes to work with, the overtone series becomes a harmonic playground. Add the ability to move formants to create vowels and resynthesize the envelopes of each of those partials, and you have a synth that can operate on samples to mimic vocoder effects as well as granular or even wavetable-type sounds.

In addition to being a wild synthesizer, Harmonic now operates as an audio effect. Feed it an imported sample, a live mic, a guitar, or a track: play chords and hear them resonate inside your own sound, or set moving, panning vectors that turn what you play into harmonies you haven’t heard yet. Fold, Sculpt, Overtone Scan, and Freeze all work on what you feed in.

Harmonic’s engine is visual and hands-on. Drag the partials to reshape the spectrum and watch them respond as modulation moves through them.

This isn’t a sale. I don’t run sales, and I’m not lowering the price on the plugins. I’m just holding it where it is for a few days, for anyone in the community who caught the video and wants to jump on it before it goes up — after that it at least doubles. The plug-in’s on our website; the iOS version’s in the App Store.

08/06/2026

I think it was the opening to this email that rubbed me the wrong way. But I’m glad the free ear training game landed with the gen ai crowd and I’m excited to see if my attempt to speak their language resonates. In the meantime, play chorDLE! No homework required. On the web site or in the App Store.

08/04/2026

I couldn’t bear to make another cable wrapping video so I made you this. Also, check out upcoming songwriting incubator. Waitlist open on our website. A new synthesizer plug-in released alongside a free ear training game. All on our website and Discord.