All the tutors here at Point Blank are experienced music industry professionals. They include Grammy Award winning songwriters, platinum selling producers and sound engineers who have worked with some of the biggest names in the game. If you choose to study here, you will be getting expert tuition from people who understand what it takes to succeed in the music industry.
The following video gives you a taster of life as a Point Blank student. Watch adward winning DJ/producer Ben Medcalf (aka The Rogue Element) guide students through the process of mixing down one of the tracks from his latest album, Lumina.
The video is taken from the Introduction to Logic Pro Course
In the final week of the music production course each student has the opportunity to bring in their own track for a 1-2-1 mixing session with the tutor. So on completion of your course, you will have a whole track that has been professionally mixed down.
Click here to meet more of the pro producers who teach here at Point Blank.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Friday, 5 February 2010
Mixing Dance Music Course - Preview Video
Being able to properly mix-down your tracks is often the difference between amateur producers with potential and producers who are releasing their records. A track may sound good in your bedroom, but big club sound systems can be a lot more unforgiving, amplifying any imperfections in the mix.
Mixing techniques such as EQ, compression, effects, sidechaining and automation are vital to adding the necessary professional sheen to your tracks however they are by no means easy to comprehend, and this is usually the stage in the music production learning curve where people come un-stuck.
So as you’ve probably guessed, we at Point Blank have come up with a comprehensive 4 week course focussed on mixing electronic music. The course includes over 100 Quicktime tutorial videos and 40 Logic projects, and features music from pro producers Danny J. Lewis (Defected/Enzyme Blank), Mike Koglin (Noys), and Ben Medcalf (Rogue Element/Disco of Doom). They will demonstrate how to achieve a punchy professional mix that is guaranteed to detonate the dancefloor
Each week you can upload your projects and you will receive tailor-made, personalised video feedback from a professional producer on your music. On top of all this, you also get access to the student forums where you can share tips and advice, as well as a weekly web-chat with your tutor. The techniques covered can be applied to a wide range of electronic music genres.
The video below is a preview of the course. It gives a great overview of our style of teaching as well as the types of techniques and processes you can expect to cover.
If you like the look of it, you can check out the full course brochure and enrolment information by clicking on the following link:
Mixing Dance Music Course
Mixing techniques such as EQ, compression, effects, sidechaining and automation are vital to adding the necessary professional sheen to your tracks however they are by no means easy to comprehend, and this is usually the stage in the music production learning curve where people come un-stuck.
So as you’ve probably guessed, we at Point Blank have come up with a comprehensive 4 week course focussed on mixing electronic music. The course includes over 100 Quicktime tutorial videos and 40 Logic projects, and features music from pro producers Danny J. Lewis (Defected/Enzyme Blank), Mike Koglin (Noys), and Ben Medcalf (Rogue Element/Disco of Doom). They will demonstrate how to achieve a punchy professional mix that is guaranteed to detonate the dancefloor
Each week you can upload your projects and you will receive tailor-made, personalised video feedback from a professional producer on your music. On top of all this, you also get access to the student forums where you can share tips and advice, as well as a weekly web-chat with your tutor. The techniques covered can be applied to a wide range of electronic music genres.
The video below is a preview of the course. It gives a great overview of our style of teaching as well as the types of techniques and processes you can expect to cover.
If you like the look of it, you can check out the full course brochure and enrolment information by clicking on the following link:
Mixing Dance Music Course
Monday, 18 January 2010
A Guide to DIY Recording and Home Production
One of the tutors from our audio engineering courses Ian Button has recently been scribing an in-depth guide to DIY recording and home production. Below you can find part 1... for parts 2-4 head over to Thee Awkward Silences blog where it was originally posted.
Like all of the Point Blank tutors, Ian has a wealth of experience as a musician and producer. Not only does he teach the Music Production HNC Course but he is also the guitarist for Death in Vegas, drummer and producer for Thee Awkward Silences, as well as having sessioned for Pete Doherty and many other well-known artists. Clearly a chap who likes to keep himself busy then!
DIY Record Production – Part 1: A View – by Ian Button July 2009
Absent-mindedly scanning the 2009 Mercury Prize nominees in the paper the other morning, I noticed that one of the contenders’ biog/blurb seemed to be making a big point about their album being recorded ‘on a laptop in a shed’.
While on the one hand I’m glad to see that Sweet Billy Pilgrim are proud of their work and how it was made, I was frankly surprised that in 2009 their ‘DIY’ approach was worthy of such note (it was practically the only thing the feature mentioned about them). People have been making records ‘at home’ for many years if you think about it – from Les Paul’s early multitracking experiments in his garage, to Joe Meek’s hit-factory flat in Holloway Rd, to Daniel Johnston’s cassette recordings – artists and producers have been putting so-called ‘professional’ production values into perspective by doing it themselves. Some are being subversive, some are just being practical.
Over the years, a variety of acts have occasionally surprised/annoyed the traditionalists with releases that weren’t recorded…er… ‘properly’: Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska was recorded on a 4-track portastudio; The Cowboy Junkies’ Trinity Sessions used a single microphone and no overdubs. Ok, it was quite an expert/expensive microphone, but it made a point; Baby Bird was hailed as a bedroom genius; White Town got to No.1…the list goes on, with Bon Iver being one of the most recent artists to become famous for locking himself away in a hut with some simple equipment and coming out with an acclaimed album. I myself can vouch for the fact that much of Death In Vegas’ first album Dead Elvis was made in a bedroom, using some fairly non-standard approaches to recording guitars, editing, mixer controls way beyond safe settings etc etc.
But the point is that it’s the content on these recordings that matters – they were all accepted on their own particular terms. I’d like to think the same applies to the production I do now, for Paul’s stuff, Extradition Order, David Cronenberg’s Wife, Deep Cut and all the others (of which more in a future article).
No one took Springsteen’s album back to the shop because he hadn’t used enough tracks. Thankfully Radio 1 didn’t send Thee Awkward Silences stuff back and tell us to record it again.
Sure, there are nerds like myself who like to go on about how albums are made, and as producers/artists pride ourselves on attention to detail and doing what we think is right to make the best of the project, but the fundamental point and goal of any production, DIY or otherwise, is that we are able to make something convincing with whatever resources we have, or choose to use, and the consumer/listener either likes the result or doesn’t, but accepts it as a record alongside all the other records that have ever been made.
That attitude has always been there – I’ve had it myself for over 20 years, at the same time as working in countless projects that – for whatever reasons – had to do it the textbook (i.e. expensive, studio) way. I’m talking about making DIY ‘rock’ records (e.g. The Anthony Anderson Project), but anyone who’s been involved in making electronic/dance music will have been aware of that same production ethic for just as long.
The main difference between home and studio recording used to be sound quality (tape width, number of tracks etc). That issue is no longer there. Today’s technology and the accessibility of recording/production tools means it’s even more feasible to make a musical product independently/at home/cheaply/in any style, and send it out there into the big wide world and no one will know (or care) how you recorded it – they will judge it, of course, but it will be about how good your lyrics/chorus/haircut/bandname are, not your mics or reverb settings or whether you used Protools (thousands of pounds) or Audacity (free). There’s another issue here too: the current music consumer ethic and sales trends are going to mean that expensive recordings won’t make any sense for any but the most massive artists. It’s going to be no bad thing for us all to learn how to create our art quickly, cheaply and realistically.
Basically, the same thing applies to production as it does to playing/writing/performing – if you are confident about what you can do, and honest about what you can’t do, you will find a sound, an approach, and a way of working that will fit.
In the next article I’m going to go into a bit more detail about how I record Paul’s and all the other bands’ stuff, with a few suggestions for what you are going to need if you want to get started yourself.
Like all of the Point Blank tutors, Ian has a wealth of experience as a musician and producer. Not only does he teach the Music Production HNC Course but he is also the guitarist for Death in Vegas, drummer and producer for Thee Awkward Silences, as well as having sessioned for Pete Doherty and many other well-known artists. Clearly a chap who likes to keep himself busy then!
DIY Record Production – Part 1: A View – by Ian Button July 2009
Absent-mindedly scanning the 2009 Mercury Prize nominees in the paper the other morning, I noticed that one of the contenders’ biog/blurb seemed to be making a big point about their album being recorded ‘on a laptop in a shed’.
While on the one hand I’m glad to see that Sweet Billy Pilgrim are proud of their work and how it was made, I was frankly surprised that in 2009 their ‘DIY’ approach was worthy of such note (it was practically the only thing the feature mentioned about them). People have been making records ‘at home’ for many years if you think about it – from Les Paul’s early multitracking experiments in his garage, to Joe Meek’s hit-factory flat in Holloway Rd, to Daniel Johnston’s cassette recordings – artists and producers have been putting so-called ‘professional’ production values into perspective by doing it themselves. Some are being subversive, some are just being practical.
Over the years, a variety of acts have occasionally surprised/annoyed the traditionalists with releases that weren’t recorded…er… ‘properly’: Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska was recorded on a 4-track portastudio; The Cowboy Junkies’ Trinity Sessions used a single microphone and no overdubs. Ok, it was quite an expert/expensive microphone, but it made a point; Baby Bird was hailed as a bedroom genius; White Town got to No.1…the list goes on, with Bon Iver being one of the most recent artists to become famous for locking himself away in a hut with some simple equipment and coming out with an acclaimed album. I myself can vouch for the fact that much of Death In Vegas’ first album Dead Elvis was made in a bedroom, using some fairly non-standard approaches to recording guitars, editing, mixer controls way beyond safe settings etc etc.
But the point is that it’s the content on these recordings that matters – they were all accepted on their own particular terms. I’d like to think the same applies to the production I do now, for Paul’s stuff, Extradition Order, David Cronenberg’s Wife, Deep Cut and all the others (of which more in a future article).
No one took Springsteen’s album back to the shop because he hadn’t used enough tracks. Thankfully Radio 1 didn’t send Thee Awkward Silences stuff back and tell us to record it again.
Sure, there are nerds like myself who like to go on about how albums are made, and as producers/artists pride ourselves on attention to detail and doing what we think is right to make the best of the project, but the fundamental point and goal of any production, DIY or otherwise, is that we are able to make something convincing with whatever resources we have, or choose to use, and the consumer/listener either likes the result or doesn’t, but accepts it as a record alongside all the other records that have ever been made.
That attitude has always been there – I’ve had it myself for over 20 years, at the same time as working in countless projects that – for whatever reasons – had to do it the textbook (i.e. expensive, studio) way. I’m talking about making DIY ‘rock’ records (e.g. The Anthony Anderson Project), but anyone who’s been involved in making electronic/dance music will have been aware of that same production ethic for just as long.
The main difference between home and studio recording used to be sound quality (tape width, number of tracks etc). That issue is no longer there. Today’s technology and the accessibility of recording/production tools means it’s even more feasible to make a musical product independently/at home/cheaply/in any style, and send it out there into the big wide world and no one will know (or care) how you recorded it – they will judge it, of course, but it will be about how good your lyrics/chorus/haircut/bandname are, not your mics or reverb settings or whether you used Protools (thousands of pounds) or Audacity (free). There’s another issue here too: the current music consumer ethic and sales trends are going to mean that expensive recordings won’t make any sense for any but the most massive artists. It’s going to be no bad thing for us all to learn how to create our art quickly, cheaply and realistically.
Basically, the same thing applies to production as it does to playing/writing/performing – if you are confident about what you can do, and honest about what you can’t do, you will find a sound, an approach, and a way of working that will fit.
In the next article I’m going to go into a bit more detail about how I record Paul’s and all the other bands’ stuff, with a few suggestions for what you are going to need if you want to get started yourself.
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Radio One Star Annie Mac Reveals The Secrets Behind Her Success
We were delighted to welcome BBC Radio One DJ Annie Mac to Point Blank Music School this week as the next instalment in our series of celebrity guest lectures. Studio 8 was packed to the rafters with students lucky enough to get a spot in the audience, all eager to hear the story of how she rose through the ranks at Radio One to become one of the nation’s most in demand club DJs.
Annie has just taken over Pete Tong’s prime-time Friday 7-9pm slot on Radio One. As well as this being significant for her own career (Pete had held that slot for almost 20 years!), it also has a wider cultural significance; the popularity of her eclectic tastes representing the new breed of producers who are blurring the boundaries between genres, and a generation of dance music fans who will happily embrace a club-night that showcases dubstep alongside techno.
So the chance for students to quiz Annie about her take on the current music scene was undoubtedly one of our most exciting guest lecture offerings yet.
She spent over an hour taking questions from students on everything from how to build a successful music industry career, to her current favourite artists, to insider tips on how to get your music featured on her show! She happily accepted demo CD's from students and assured us that each and every one gets listened to.
The video of the lecture will be available very soon so keep your eyes peeled for that.
Annie, Tayo and the PB Students gettin' gangsta
We'd like to extend a massive "thank you" to Annie for being so generous with her time. If you want to see her in action behind the decks then she will be playing just down the street from Point Blank at MODA at The Macbeth on Thursday 3rd December.
If you fancy following in Annie's footsteps check out our radio courses
Annie has just taken over Pete Tong’s prime-time Friday 7-9pm slot on Radio One. As well as this being significant for her own career (Pete had held that slot for almost 20 years!), it also has a wider cultural significance; the popularity of her eclectic tastes representing the new breed of producers who are blurring the boundaries between genres, and a generation of dance music fans who will happily embrace a club-night that showcases dubstep alongside techno.
So the chance for students to quiz Annie about her take on the current music scene was undoubtedly one of our most exciting guest lecture offerings yet.
She spent over an hour taking questions from students on everything from how to build a successful music industry career, to her current favourite artists, to insider tips on how to get your music featured on her show! She happily accepted demo CD's from students and assured us that each and every one gets listened to.
The video of the lecture will be available very soon so keep your eyes peeled for that.
Annie, Tayo and the PB Students gettin' gangsta
We'd like to extend a massive "thank you" to Annie for being so generous with her time. If you want to see her in action behind the decks then she will be playing just down the street from Point Blank at MODA at The Macbeth on Thursday 3rd December.
If you fancy following in Annie's footsteps check out our radio courses
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
The Cut Up Boys Guide to Mash Ups
If you want to give your DJ sets a unique flavour and guarantee entertainment on the dancefloor, creating your own mash ups is a great way to go about it. A mash up can be defined as a song comprised of elements of two or more pre-existing pieces of music.
The undisputed kings of the mash up are Bournemouth based duo The Cut Up Boys having released 6 highly acclaimed Mash Up Mixes on Ministry of Sound. They took some time out of their busy schedule to come to the Point Blank studios and give us their secret recipe for a monster mash up! Check out what they had to say and for even more inspiration take a listen to our choice of Top 5 Monster Mash Ups.
"The aim for anybody putting a mash up together should be to create a track that not only juxtaposes two or more existing pieces in an interesting way but does so with production values equal to any piece of "non-mashed" music fresh out of a commercial studio. This usually involves a lot of hard work, tedious preparation and legwork if you really want your productions to stand out from the crowd. Don't look at mash ups as the easy option if you want to make something special.
The first crucial stage in achieving this is to ensure that the components you are using to make your mash up are of the highest quality. If you are using the classic mash-up ingredients of an acapella of one track and an instrumental of another, do whatever you can to find the cleanest, highest quality versions of these components possible. If these tracks are grainy and scratchy versions to start with, the extra processing and mangling that "mashing-up" usually involves is going to end up making the finished product even harsher. This is especially critical concerning the music/instrumental track which You want to be clean and as fat as possible. A scratchy acapella can still sound great over a clean and tidy backing if processed and polished right, but the reverse is rarely the case.
Next, you must make sure that the components you are putting together are in key and time with each other. A professional producer recording a professional vocalist would never let any vocals pass that were either out of tune with the backing track or out of time. Why should you have different standards with your mash-up? At this point it is very useful to have a high-quality time-stretching/pitch-shifting processor at hand. Most audio software packages such as Ableton, Cubase etc have these tools integrated. It can take time and practice to master the art of getting tracks in tune and time…stick with it... and be as critical as you can of what's going on. If it sounds dodgy... it's dodgy!
The tracks must now be arranged, that is, the vocal laid down over the music in a way that flows properly, drops in the right places and doesn't have any messy awkward moments where the components are fighting each other. The two (or more) tracks you are putting together are highly unlikely to work to the same arrangement and so will not "fit", with choruses and verse sections aligning perfectly unless you get in there and edit them. When doing this, look to keep all cutting and pasting as tidy and accurate as possible. Don’t worry if one of the components has to get brutally edited to fit with the vocal or vice versa... it's often the way. Sometimes you might find that whole sections of tracks are best avoided, especially if they involve key changes or other musical cleverness. Its going to be hard to bend the vocal over these sections if they don't pull the same moves.
Finally, take all the care you can in balancing the levels and tones of the tracks you are putting together. Listen to a range of similar tracks to get a feel for how the vocals should sit over the music, level and EQ-wise. Mash ups can often benefit from a touch of compression/ limiting over the whole mix. This can help stop the vocal from sticking out and feeling detached from the music, drawing it all together dynamically. Good luck and happy mashing!"
A massive thanks to the Cut Up Boys for that advice. Check out their myspace if you want to hear more from them.
And remember to have a listen to the Point Blank Top 5 Monster Mash Ups
The undisputed kings of the mash up are Bournemouth based duo The Cut Up Boys having released 6 highly acclaimed Mash Up Mixes on Ministry of Sound. They took some time out of their busy schedule to come to the Point Blank studios and give us their secret recipe for a monster mash up! Check out what they had to say and for even more inspiration take a listen to our choice of Top 5 Monster Mash Ups.
"The aim for anybody putting a mash up together should be to create a track that not only juxtaposes two or more existing pieces in an interesting way but does so with production values equal to any piece of "non-mashed" music fresh out of a commercial studio. This usually involves a lot of hard work, tedious preparation and legwork if you really want your productions to stand out from the crowd. Don't look at mash ups as the easy option if you want to make something special.
The first crucial stage in achieving this is to ensure that the components you are using to make your mash up are of the highest quality. If you are using the classic mash-up ingredients of an acapella of one track and an instrumental of another, do whatever you can to find the cleanest, highest quality versions of these components possible. If these tracks are grainy and scratchy versions to start with, the extra processing and mangling that "mashing-up" usually involves is going to end up making the finished product even harsher. This is especially critical concerning the music/instrumental track which You want to be clean and as fat as possible. A scratchy acapella can still sound great over a clean and tidy backing if processed and polished right, but the reverse is rarely the case.
Next, you must make sure that the components you are putting together are in key and time with each other. A professional producer recording a professional vocalist would never let any vocals pass that were either out of tune with the backing track or out of time. Why should you have different standards with your mash-up? At this point it is very useful to have a high-quality time-stretching/pitch-shifting processor at hand. Most audio software packages such as Ableton, Cubase etc have these tools integrated. It can take time and practice to master the art of getting tracks in tune and time…stick with it... and be as critical as you can of what's going on. If it sounds dodgy... it's dodgy!
The tracks must now be arranged, that is, the vocal laid down over the music in a way that flows properly, drops in the right places and doesn't have any messy awkward moments where the components are fighting each other. The two (or more) tracks you are putting together are highly unlikely to work to the same arrangement and so will not "fit", with choruses and verse sections aligning perfectly unless you get in there and edit them. When doing this, look to keep all cutting and pasting as tidy and accurate as possible. Don’t worry if one of the components has to get brutally edited to fit with the vocal or vice versa... it's often the way. Sometimes you might find that whole sections of tracks are best avoided, especially if they involve key changes or other musical cleverness. Its going to be hard to bend the vocal over these sections if they don't pull the same moves.
Finally, take all the care you can in balancing the levels and tones of the tracks you are putting together. Listen to a range of similar tracks to get a feel for how the vocals should sit over the music, level and EQ-wise. Mash ups can often benefit from a touch of compression/ limiting over the whole mix. This can help stop the vocal from sticking out and feeling detached from the music, drawing it all together dynamically. Good luck and happy mashing!"
A massive thanks to the Cut Up Boys for that advice. Check out their myspace if you want to hear more from them.
And remember to have a listen to the Point Blank Top 5 Monster Mash Ups
Wednesday, 28 October 2009
FREE Studio and Recording Sessions for Bands throughout November
Calling all bands and musicians!
Throughout November Point Blank's Music Production HNC students are looking for bands to engineer and record at our state of the art studios in Hoxton, East London. We are giving you the fantastic opportunity to get free studio time and audio recordings of your music.
The available dates are as follows-
SUNDAYS
8/11/09
15/11/09
22/11/09
29/11/09
10 am - 7 pm.
Please send your demos to jc@pointblanklondon.com or ruth@pointblanklondon.com or call 0207 7294884
We also book for regular gigs around London so please get in touch if you are looking for chances to perform live.
Throughout November Point Blank's Music Production HNC students are looking for bands to engineer and record at our state of the art studios in Hoxton, East London. We are giving you the fantastic opportunity to get free studio time and audio recordings of your music.
The available dates are as follows-
SUNDAYS
8/11/09
15/11/09
22/11/09
29/11/09
10 am - 7 pm.
Please send your demos to jc@pointblanklondon.com or ruth@pointblanklondon.com or call 0207 7294884
We also book for regular gigs around London so please get in touch if you are looking for chances to perform live.
Thursday, 22 October 2009
La Roux Engineer Joins the Teaching Staff at Point Blank
Point Blank prides itself on providing students with the best standard of tuition available. Unlike some other music production colleges, we ensure that all of our tutors have substantial experience of releasing records within the music industry.
All have achieved significant success, either as artists themselves or working alongside others as producers, sound engineers or remixers. Amongst the artists our tutors have worked with are Bjork, Massive Attack, Lou Reed, Quincy Jones, Bob Marley, Groove Armada, and Portishead.
We are excited to announce the latest addition to our staff roster, Ian Sherwin, who boasts credentials that certainly adhere to Point Blank’s high standards. Having worked with Primal Scream, The Rakes, Incognito, Terry Callier, The Veils and Freemasons in the past his latest project was engineering the Mecury-nominated debut album by La Roux. With the forthcoming Stereophonics album lined up too, the demand for Ian’s talents shows no sign of letting up.
Check out a video of him in the studio with La Roux
Ian will be teaching the Introduction to Music Production Logic course.
If you want to learn from the very best, Point Blank is the only place to be!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
