Music Technology · A Level · Core topics
Five topics, each built as a working bench. You assemble the machine by learning it: every stage you pass switches its module on, until the whole rack runs.
Each stage ends with a short check — answer it and the rail lights up. Take the stages in order the first time; after that, jump anywhere. Below the benches sit the explorers, where you take one real machine apart instead.
1.3 · Synthesis
Assemble a synthesiser voice from the oscillator up — waveform, filter, envelope, then the movement that brings it alive.
IN → Oscillators → Filter → Envelope → Modulation → Paradigms → OUT · The synth
Open the bench1.9 · Dynamic processing
Build a working compressor and hear what the curve, the clock and the side-chain each do to a live loop.
IN → Squeeze → Curve → Clock → Family → Side-chain → OUT · The rack
Open the bench1.11 · EQ
Learn the bands, the filter shapes and the three knobs that drive them, then make real mix moves.
IN → Bands → Shapes → Knobs → Family → Moves → OUT · The rack
Open the bench1.12 · Modulation
Chorus, flanger and phaser all grow from one idea — a copy of the signal, moved in time. Build each in turn.
IN → The idea → The LFO → Chorus → Flanger · Phaser → The moves → OUT · The rack
Open the bench1.12 · Delay
One sound sent back late, then again, quieter each time. Build the line, set the clock to the tempo, and hear where the repeats land.
IN → The line → The loop → The clock → The colour → The field → OUT · The rack
Open the benchThe explorers · take a machine apart
1.2 · Capture of sound
A dynamic and a condenser, in 3D. Turn them, pull them apart, cut them in half, and watch each one turn air into a signal — then take the phantom power away and see the condenser go quiet.
Open the explorer2.2 · Monitor speakers
A passive and an active nearfield, in 3D. Follow the signal back out into air, see where the crossover splits it, and look at the back panel — that is where the two designs part company.
Open the explorer1.12 Reverb · 2.1 Acoustics
A cutaway recording room, in 3D. Clap and watch the direct sound, the early reflections and the tail arrive in true order; treat it with absorbers, diffusers and bass traps and watch RT60 fall band by band; then step out to the bench — spring, plate and digital rack.
Open the explorer2.1 · Acoustics
One tone, three scales. Drag it from a rumble you feel to a hiss you almost don't, and watch the same frequency play out as wavelength against a metre rule, as compressions moving through a block of air, and as a pressure map you can walk around inside a real room.
Open the explorerSection B · Extended writing
C3 Q5 · C3 Q6 · C4 Q6
On both exam papers, Section B is where the essays live. Three questions, three marking machines — each on its own page, built from what the examiners actually reward.
Open the essay pages