The Definitions You Need to Know
Publish date: 2024-05-10
Music production is an expression of art and emotion, but it takes more than creativity to successfully produce a song. It takes structure, strategy, and specific tools.
Before you can begin to compose your next hit record, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the right music production terms so that you can speak the same language as your producer, engineer, or sound engineer.
Here's a look at the most used terms and definitions, to help you navigate your path through the world of music production.
FREE DOWNLOAD: This cheat sheet is available as a downloadable PDF from our distribution partner, TradePub. You will have to complete a short form to access it for the first time only. Download the Music Production Glossary Cheat Sheet.
Music Production Terms and Definitions
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| AIFF | Short for Audio Interchange File Format. Similar to the WAV format, AIFF is a high-quality audio file format created by Apple. |
| AU | Acronym for Audio Unit, is a plugin format created by Apple. It's compatible with macOS only. |
| Bar | A musical term describing a measure of beats, with four beats being the most common, but any number of beats can be counted in a measure depending on the time signature. |
| BPM | Short for beats-per-minute; the tempo of a song, which is measured in the number of beats per minute. |
| Bus | An auxiliary track that is assigned audio from multiple other tracks in a DAW. This allows for group effect processing such as reverb and compression. |
| Chorus | This effect adds two or more delays with different time values, producing a detuning effect. |
| Compression | A dynamic range effect that reduces the volume of a signal when its amplitude exceeds a certain level, and increases the volume again when the amplitude drops below another set level. It's often used to make the overall volume of audio signals more consistent. |
| DAW | An acronym for digital audio workstation and is the term used to describe the software in which music is created, recorded, and edited in a modern studio environment. Popular DAWs include Logic Pro, Cubase, Ableton Live, and FL Studio. |
| Decibel | A standard measurement for loudness. All dB measurements are relative to a reference point. |
| De-esser | A type of audio processing tool that takes sound from the frequency bands where hissing—or sibilance—is likely to occur and raises or lowers their volume at certain times to create a less irritable listening experience. |
| Delay | The audio effect that creates a series of echoes occurring at intervals is called delay. |
| Distortion | A process whereby audio is enhanced, giving it a bolder sound. It might help to make your recordings sound fuller and more aggressive. |
| Dynamic range | The difference in decibels between the highest and lowest points in a source's amplitude is called its dynamic range. A high dynamic range means that there is a large difference between the two, while low dynamic range means that there is not much of a difference. |
| Early reflections | A continuation of a reverb tail, early reflections are the first sound heard when there is natural or algorithmic reverberation. |
| Effect | When you send an audio signal through an effect, the effect can modify it. Effects are often used to enhance or distort sounds. |
| EQ | The process of adjusting the levels of certain frequencies in a sound without changing the rest of it. |
| Feedback | A delay or distortion effect relies on the signal it is producing being fed back into its own input, resulting in a sort of reverberation. The more feedback a delay has, the longer the effect will last. |
| Filter | It only lets a certain group of frequencies through. Different kinds of filters include low-pass filters, high-pass filters, band-pass filters and band-reject filters. |
| Flanger | A time-based effect in which a copy of the original sound is created with a few milliseconds of difference, resulting in slightly different harmonic content or detuning effects. |
| Gain | The initial amplification level of a sound source. With higher gain, all of the harmonic content in the sound source is augmented. Simply put, it is how loud a sound is before it is put through an amplifier. |
| Gating | A means of cutting out unwanted signals that fall below a specific threshold. |
| Grain | A short snippet of audio, often looped in quick succession to achieve oscillation. |
| Headroom | The difference between the highest level a sound can reach and zero decibels on a master channel; having adequate headroom makes it possible for a mastering engineer to boost the volume without causing distortion. |
| IR | Short for Impulse Response, it is an audio file that can be loaded into a convolution reverb to apply a room or space’s natural reverb to any sound. It is useful to reproduce the specific acoustics of a room or environment without having to actually be in it. |
| Jitter | The time distortion of recording/playback of a digital audio signal. Essentially, it is the deviation of time between the sample rate and analog rates. |
| kHz | The unit of measurement used to measure sampling rate, or how often a device samples an audio input signal. |
| Knee | The knee setting of a compressor refers to its gradual activation when the predetermined volume threshold is reached. A hard-knee setting activates the compression immediately; a soft-knee setting ramps up the compression as the signal gets louder, creating a smoother effect. |
| Latency | An audio delay between input from a sound source and output in a performer's headphones. |
| LFO | A low-frequency oscillator (LFO) is an oscillator typically below the range of human hearing. It is used as a modulation source to change the character of a sound over time. |
| Loop | A repeated section of a song, often using an imported sample. |
| MIDI | MIDI—or Musical Instrument Digital Interface—is a set of digital codes that represents musical notes and instructions. These instructions are recorded by electronic instruments, such as MIDI keyboards, and they can be played back using Digital Audio Workstations. |
| Mono | A sound that has one source, rather than two. |
| Panning | The practice of positioning a sound in the stereo field to the left or right speaker. |
| Parallel compression | A type of multi-band compression, parallel compression mixes the effected signal in parallel to the original sound. |
| Phase | The vibration of air caused by the position of the signal and generated sound at the same time. |
| Phono | A commonly-used term for RCA inputs/outputs and the cable format used to connect line-level devices like turntables, cassette decks, and mixers |
| Pitch | A synonym to describe frequency. |
| Polyphonic | A capability of some instruments to play more than one note at once. |
| Quantize | A feature that analyzes MIDI or audio input and adjusts it so it is "on the grid" and in time. |
| Room tone | The sound of reverb in a room. It also refers to how a room colorizes a sound. |
| Sibilance | The "s" sound. It occurs in words such as sit, stay, masks, etc. |
| Stereo | Opposite of mono; a sound that has two sources, rather than one, for the purpose of creating the illusion of space or distance. |
| Threshold | A control that sets the level at which a compressor, noise gate, or other effects device will begin working. |
| Transient | The very beginning section of a sound, which is also the loudest and most percussive part of the sound. |
| Transport | An area that contains the playback controls in DAW. |
| Velocity | A MIDI parameter that determines the loudness of each performed and recorded note. |
| Wavetable | A cycle of waveforms that can be scanned through, blended with one another, and modified. |
| WAV | WAV, or Waveform Audio File Format, is the standard format or lossless audio files. |
| XLR | An electrical connector that features three pins and is round. It is commonly used to connect microphones or speakers. |
| Zone | The keyboard mapping assigned to a sample or group of samples and controls pitch and velocity. |
Start Your Musical Journey on the Right Note
Music production is constantly evolving, taking on new forms and techniques, but there are some key terms that shouldn’t slip you by. After all, as the saying goes, “the devil is in the details.” In music production, oftentimes it's the little details that make or break a record—and that’s where this glossary can come in handy.
Keeping your focus on the task at hand will help you to produce quality music that translates into more hits and less time wasted.
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