Have you ever wondered what defines a pop song? Well I have, and decided to find out. I gathered data from 52 Number 1 hits, the most successful from each year spanning 1960 through to 2011 as determined on the Australian pop music charts and came up with some interesting recommendations as to what technical aspects this group of songs has in common.

This video tutorial series by Jonah Guelzo will teach you everything you need to know about timecode for film and television featuring the Timecode Buddy system and Movie Slate software.

Reverb is an incredibly important effect that can add life to a track. How you use it is totally up to you. Reverb can be subtle or blatant, sound natural or add interesting flavors to the mix. Using it effectively takes skill and experience, and knowing the right techniques.

Here is a broad collection of tutorials that aim to teach you those techniques, starting with great advice for the beginner, progressing to advanced techniques, and showing you how to produce some classic reverb effects. Work through them in order, or jump to the tut that most interests you. When you're finished, review what you've learned with the quiz.

Sometimes a mix just does not turn out the way we want it to no matter how often we throw down the faders and start over. While we can talk about it for hours and hours, sometimes we need to just sit back and listen. This series is designed to help you listen to music as you've never heard it before. Enjoy!

Many advanced synths in Reason have a Mod Matrix – an essential component in creating great patches. In Part 1 we become familiar with the way the Mod Matrix works, and in Part 2 we cover some more advanced topics.

This pair of quick tips will give you an introduction to to often baffling world of self-oscillation and FM synthesis – two processes which are fundamentally linked. I am using Reason 4 for this example, but the principles here will translate to most synths/samplers/DAWs.