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The Guidebook

Teaching companions for courses at Beat Kitchen School

Companion guides for some of our most popular courses — and more coming all the time. Everything from music theory fundamentals to studio acoustics to DAW-specific workflows. Each chapter is a standalone, one-hour teaching companion — read it after the live session, or use it as a reference anytime.

Why is this free?

Most music education is behind a paywall. This isn't. The knowledge — theory, technique, process — belongs to anyone who wants it. What we're selling is the teacher: someone who can listen to your music, talk to you in real time, and answer the questions you didn't know you had.

Read everything. Take what you need. If it's been useful, consider supporting the school — it helps us keep the guidebook free and fund access for students who can't afford tuition.

Quick Start

Setting Up Your Home Studio

Your room is the most important piece of gear you own. Here's how to set it up so it actually works — and so you actually want to be in it.

2 chapters Class Notes

Theory & Musicianship

Theory: Musician Basics

Musician Basics for Producers

Music theory for producers: scales, chords, cadences, modes, song form, ear training, and arrangement — 12 chapters from fundamentals to advanced harmony.

14 chapters Class Notes View Course

Primers

Mixing: Effects, Synths & Tools

What does this button do?

Free 26-chapter guide to effects, synthesis, and mixing — from sound waves and EQ through compression, reverb, stereo imaging, and mastering. From Beat Kitchen School.

27 chapters Class Notes View Course

Hardware & Recording Primer

Things you can touch. Mics, cables, interfaces, monitors and more

Free 20-chapter guide to audio hardware and recording — microphones, interfaces, cables, digital audio, studio acoustics, stereo technique, and session workflow. From Beat Kitchen School.

21 chapters Class Notes View Course

Mixing & Production

Next steps in audio mixing

18-chapter mixing guide: monitoring, EQ, compression, reverb, delay, stereo imaging, mixing drums, bass, vocals, guitars — plus automation, metering, referencing, and mastering delivery.

19 chapters Class Notes View Course

DAW Core Skills

24-chapter Logic Pro course — from first launch through advanced production workflows. Organized in seven phases: Orientation, Getting Stuff In, Building, Editing, Signal Flow, Creative Tools, and Finishing.

25 chapters Class Notes View Course

20-hour Ableton Live course covering DAW operations from first launch through live performance.

27 chapters 🔒 Editors Only View Course

Specialty

Orchestral Kitchen

12-chapter orchestral arranging and production guide: template setup, score reading, voice leading, writing and programming for strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion — plus orchestral mixing and a complete score-to-mix walkthrough.

13 chapters 🔒 Editors Only View Course

How synthesizers work — from oscillators to algorithms. Platform-agnostic concepts you can apply to any synth, any DAW, any era of electronic music.

16 chapters 🔒 Editors Only

Electronic Music Kitchen

Genre-aware production techniques for electronic music — from drum design to arrangement to the final mix.

11 chapters Class Notes

Reference

Music Production Glossary

Every term, every guide, one page

400+ music production terms — theory, mixing, recording, synthesis, and studio setup — with links to the guide chapters where each concept is taught.

Music Production Reference

Beat Kitchen At-A-Glance

Beat Ktichen Calendar

See the full calendar
Recent Resident Gyms
- THEORY-GYM: We took Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)" as a case study in how profound musical joy can emerge from radical simplicity — just three chords, the I, IV, and V in C major. The session dug into the harmonic texture underneath that simplicity: plagal cadences nested inside perfect ones, chord inversions described through figured-bass shorthand (6-4 and 6-3), and a piano technique called triad pairs where two chords alternate up and down the scale in shifting inversions. We also touched on how equal temperament creates a kind of constant low-level motion in tuning — and how that connects, philosophically, to the way harmony itself is never truly "still."
- OFFICE HOURS: Pro Tools import, Varun had questions about getting some files to line up in Pro Tools, we made a new session, got the correct files imported, and then began editing and talked about keyboard short cuts in Pro Tools.
- PRODUCTION-GYM: Lateralus by tool
- EAR-TRAINING-GYM: Bass - the importance of the right notes, different rhythms, and the different timbres that you can get from the instrument - and how they all can influence how it works with the song.
- OFFICE HOURS: Dewi had an issue with creating AI stems in Logic and we were able to troubleshoot the issue with the file format. Talked with Alee about video editing in DaVinci
- PRODUCTION-GYM: David Bowie - Space oddity: Production, songwriting, and recording. We compared three different versions. The original and Demo from the late 60's, and the remade version from 1979.
- OFFICE HOURS: Worked through a one-on-one FL Studio session focused on chord voicings, register, and arrangement fundamentals. We diagnosed why the student's chords were sitting too low and muddy in the mix, corrected it through manual note transposition and chord inversion principles, and then built out a basic bass layer to fill the harmonic space we opened up. Along the way we covered the four core arrangement zones — rhythm, harmony, bass, and lead — and talked through how they function together in a beat.
- OFFICE HOURS: Went through a mix of Alee's and talked about arrangement, distribution of frequencies and lumping in mixes
- THEORY-GYM: We dug into Al Jarreau's "We're in This Love Together" as a live analysis vehicle, unpacking its deceptively simple harmonic language — predominantly plagal motion, super sus chords, and bass-line-driven pseudo-chord changes. From there we traced a sophisticated turnaround section that flirts with a Giant Steps-style modulation before resolving differently, and closed with a brief but rich look at vocal formant production and how great singers physically shape tone without needing the engineer to fix it.
- PRODUCTION-GYM: Breakdown of "Time Moves Slow" by BADBADNOTGOOD, production style, tempo push/pull, song structure, drum texture and keyboard sound
Learn more about Residency
Upcoming Resident Events
- Office Hours: Nathan
  Mar. 29, 1pm (PT) | 4pm (ET) | 9pm (UK)
- Weekly Beat Challenge: Nathan
  Mar. 30, 7am (PT) | 10am (ET) | 3pm (UK)
- Office Hours: Cinnamontal
  Mar. 30, 9am (PT) | 12pm (ET) | 5pm (UK)
- Instrument Gym: Cinnamontal
  Mar. 30, 9pm (PT) | 12am (ET) | 5am (UK)
- Production Gym: Scott Hampton
  Mar. 31, 7am (PT) | 10am (ET) | 3pm (UK)
- Office Hours: Jam Phelps
  Mar. 31, 10am (PT) | 1pm (ET) | 6pm (UK)
Learn more about Residency
Upcoming Courses
- Apr 18, 2026 Harmony 1-Day Intensive
- Apr 19, 2026 Theory: Musician Basics
- Apr 22, 2026 Mixing: Effects, Synths & Tools
- May 11, 2026 Vocal Kitchen
- May 23, 2026 Logic Pro 1-Day Intensive
- Jun 10, 2026 Hardware & Recording Primer
- Jun 29, 2026 Hardware & Recording Primer
- Jul 12, 2026 DAW Core Skills
See All Courses
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