The Music Producer’s Dictionary

808 – A classic Drum Machine released in 1980. The sounds from the 808 are embedded in a lot of hip hop and typically found all over the trap music scene.
Sentence “My drop is sounding ripped, all it needs is a fat 808 kick”

909 – Another classic Roland drum machine released in 1983. The 909 open hi-hat can be found in 99% of all bass house music.
Sentence “That 909 hat is perfect for our house tune, slot it into the session m8”

Break The Rail – A classic saying typically found at bass heavy gigs. The rail is placed at the front of the mosh and is the only this separating the crowd from the DJ. ‘Breaking the rail’ describes the motion of aggressively shoving the rail with the rest of the front line in the crowd in time to the music.
Sentence “Yo, everyone in the front row, I want you to break the fucking rail!!!”

Bad – Either that’s great or it sucks. Often hard to differentiate, the body language will give it away which one it is.
Sentence “Mate, no gonna lie that tune is bad….”

Bang – To have impact and power.
Sentence “The pressure is on Jimmy, this next collab of ours need to bang”

Banger –  Instant #1 hit
Sentence “Have you heard the latest Skrill tune, what a banger!”

Collab –  Short for ‘Collaboration’ – The act of 2 or more artists working together on a tune.
Sentence “I slid into his Soundcloud dm’s and asked if he’s down for a collab”

Crunch (1) – Referring to loads of high end frequency content and a bright harmonics
Sentence “That saw wave bass is mint! It’s got so much crunch to it”

Crunch (2) – The over compression of a sound
Sentence “What did you do to the poor drums, you gave ’em way too much crunch!”

Dank – Typically associated with Trap music, it means that sound is Fire.
Sentence “Yo Jimmy, Imma rip this vape, you look for a dank sounding 808″

Fatness – The sonic qualities of a juicy bass line
Sentence “Ive got the bass melody down, I just need to add the fatness to it”

Fire – Really, really good. This is the pinnacle of producer’s compliment range
Sentence “Check out this tune, it is complete and utter fire!”

Flow – The energy/transition of one part of the track to the other
Sentence “The drop was good, you need to work on the flow between it and the breakdown though…”

Huge – When a sound fills out the majority of Frequency Spectrum with lots or reverb and space
Sentence “Then after the build up, there’s this huge bwaaaarrrrrrppp”

Lit – If you must use it, then fine. Lit = Good.
Sentence “yo did you hear that trap tune with the brass stabs last night, that was lit “

Mastering – The final stage in completing a track. Mastering makes your track, loud, rounded and ready for playback on any speaker system.
Sentence “Check out my tune, but go easy on it, it’s not mastered yet.”

Mixing – The penultimate stage of completing a track. Mixing is the process of balancing out the levels of various sounds and instruments within a track, making sure everything sounds good together before being ‘mastered’
Sentence “I just need to do a spot of mixing before I send this off to mastering.”

OTT – Referring to a sound of a Multiband Compressor effect with intense settings. OTT has the power to squish the living daylights out of a sound while subsequently making it good at the same time.
Sentence “That bass is all over the place, just use some OTT to tighten it up!”

Sausage – Often referring to the look of a waveform once it has been completely maximised and loud af
Sentence “Just mastered my track, look, its a perfect sausage”

Serum – The godlike VST Plugin made by xFer Records. Serum is a Wavetable Synthesiser.
Sentence “Just upgraded my computer, I can run like 70 Serums!”

Sub – The low end bass typically between 40hz to – 150 hz that rumbles your chest
Sentence “I was in the front row and I just had sub in my face the entire time!”

Transient – A first few milliseconds of the beginning of a sound. A transient usually sounds like a really fast ‘click’ and helps to provide the punch for a sound
Sentence “Those drums are sounding so good! It much be those punchy transients.”

Tune – A song/track
Sentence “10/10 bro, big tune!”