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.
Showing posts with label Learn Logic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Learn Logic. Show all posts
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
Rogue Element Reveals Studio Secrets
Acclaimed producer and Point Blank tutor, Ben Medcalf (aka The Rogue Element) is featured in iDJ magazine this month, revealing some of his essential production tips and tricks. Click on the picture for a large version. If you want to find out more of the secrets behind his sound then Ben will be hosting the Music Production Masterclasses throughout the summer.
He also teaches the 3 month Introduction to Music Production course on Logic.
If you would like to hear some of Ben's work check out his latest album "Lumina" which has been receiving rave reviews in the dance music scene.
Monday, 3 August 2009
Grammy-Nominated Mike Koglin to Develop and Teach New Trance Course
We are excited to unveil our new Trance Pro-Producer Course which has been developed in association with Grammy-nominated DJ and producer Mike Koglin.
Mike burst onto the scene in 1998 with his top 20 hit "The Silence". Since then he has released a string of productions and remixes, winning support from all the major players on the scene including Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto and Paul Van Dyk. Mike also runs his own label Noys Music, described by Mixmag as "one of the hottest trance labels in the UK". Last year he was named as one of the Top 100 DJ's in the world in DJ magazine’s annual poll.
The course is taught online and will be enrolling monthly from August 31st. It includes a wealth of course materials including tutorial videos, comprehensive notes, samples, song files and other resources. Each week students have the opportunity to upload their own tracks and get personal feedback, tips and advice from this hugely respected pro producer.
In addition to providing students with regular one-to-one feedback, Mike will also host a weekly webchat where the class can discuss course topics and exchange ideas with like-minded music producers from all over the world. This unique interaction has proved especially popular with students.
Check out the taster video:
...and for full course brochure and booking information please click on the following link:
Friday, 26 June 2009
Fabric London Resident DJ Tayo - Learning Logic at Point Blank
In this video, DJ Tayo talks about his time on the Logic Music Production Course at Point Blank. Since he took the Logic course Tayo has scored some top underground hits on the bass music scene and seen his reputation as a DJ soar, landing a residency at world famous London club Fabric and a slot on BBC Radio 1 Xtra.
Check out the full details of the Music Production Merit Course
Check out the full details of the Music Production Merit Course
Friday, 13 March 2009
Student Diary - Getting to grips with the mix-down
Coming towards the tail end of the Introduction to Logic module it is time to learn how to properly mix down our tracks in order to make them sound as balanced, clear, and punchy as possible.
Once again I was itching to get to this lesson because I recognised that my mixes were not sounding nearly as good as the records I buy and listen to. I had tried incorporating a couple of my tunes into my sets when playing out on big sound systems and it was immediately obvious that there was much scope for improvement on the mix-down. As you may have realised yourself, any part of a mix that sounds iffy at a relatively low volume on a pair of studio monitors will be amplified and sound increasingly more obvious as the size of the sound system increases. It's a bit like slicing a shot in golf... the stronger the headwind you are hitting into, the more viciously the ball will curve away from its intended target.
So, I understood the theory and purpose of the mix-down; the importance of using dynamic processors such as 'eq', 'compressors' and 'limiters', but I was struggling to get to grips with the correct practises when using these, and the complex terminology and elements of mathematics involved. How do the various parameters affect the sound exactly? How do you calculate ratio and threshold? I was unsure whether, through my own learning, I was heading along the right lines or starting to pick up some bad habits.
You can tell Ian knows the workings of a mixing desk like the back of his hand, so he was adept at presenting the basic principles in clear and simple terms for us. Eq is used to create room in your mix, and compression and limiting allow you to add punch, crispness and volume.
The key to uniting these 3 elements is 'routing': The dynamic effect of eq, compression and limiting is affected by the order in which they are routed. Often it makes sense to group parts of your track together (for example your percussion parts); routing, using sends and buses, makes this possible and enables you to apply effects to multiple channels at once. What surprised me is the level of detail Ian was going into to get the sound perfect, sometimes eqing then running sounds through up to 3 compressors as well as a limiter. So it's clear to see how crucial it is to comprehend this technique.
Good mixing skills are all about practice. A producer's ear can only be refined by hour upon hour of listening, tweaking, listening again, then tweaking again... your ear never stops learning. But on top of that, your mixes must be based on a firm foundation of knowledge of the tools you are using. Within more creative aspects of production, the rules are there to be broken, but in the mix-down there are certain rules you must follow before you can achieve professional sounding results hence why this professionally taught course is so beneficial.
I've uploaded my latest track onto my Soundcloud account, so you can check out how I'm getting on. Feedback is much appreciated.
Cheers!
Once again I was itching to get to this lesson because I recognised that my mixes were not sounding nearly as good as the records I buy and listen to. I had tried incorporating a couple of my tunes into my sets when playing out on big sound systems and it was immediately obvious that there was much scope for improvement on the mix-down. As you may have realised yourself, any part of a mix that sounds iffy at a relatively low volume on a pair of studio monitors will be amplified and sound increasingly more obvious as the size of the sound system increases. It's a bit like slicing a shot in golf... the stronger the headwind you are hitting into, the more viciously the ball will curve away from its intended target.
So, I understood the theory and purpose of the mix-down; the importance of using dynamic processors such as 'eq', 'compressors' and 'limiters', but I was struggling to get to grips with the correct practises when using these, and the complex terminology and elements of mathematics involved. How do the various parameters affect the sound exactly? How do you calculate ratio and threshold? I was unsure whether, through my own learning, I was heading along the right lines or starting to pick up some bad habits.
You can tell Ian knows the workings of a mixing desk like the back of his hand, so he was adept at presenting the basic principles in clear and simple terms for us. Eq is used to create room in your mix, and compression and limiting allow you to add punch, crispness and volume.
The key to uniting these 3 elements is 'routing': The dynamic effect of eq, compression and limiting is affected by the order in which they are routed. Often it makes sense to group parts of your track together (for example your percussion parts); routing, using sends and buses, makes this possible and enables you to apply effects to multiple channels at once. What surprised me is the level of detail Ian was going into to get the sound perfect, sometimes eqing then running sounds through up to 3 compressors as well as a limiter. So it's clear to see how crucial it is to comprehend this technique.
Good mixing skills are all about practice. A producer's ear can only be refined by hour upon hour of listening, tweaking, listening again, then tweaking again... your ear never stops learning. But on top of that, your mixes must be based on a firm foundation of knowledge of the tools you are using. Within more creative aspects of production, the rules are there to be broken, but in the mix-down there are certain rules you must follow before you can achieve professional sounding results hence why this professionally taught course is so beneficial.
I've uploaded my latest track onto my Soundcloud account, so you can check out how I'm getting on. Feedback is much appreciated.
Cheers!
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Making Music with Logic Pro
Welcome to part 2 of making music with Logic Pro. In this article we will cover getting started with your MIDI keyboard in Logic including set up for your audio card and drivers, latency and buffer size.
Once you have installed your MIDI keyboard and audio card, you will need to make sure that Logic communicates with them.
For Logic to communicate with external MIDI devices, first you will to configure the Audio MIDI Setup. The Audio MIDI setup is an application located within the Utilities folder (in Applications folder). You can quickly access it in the Apple menu bar: Go >Utilities (or press Command Shift U).
Once in the Utilities folder, open the Application Audio MIDI Setup, and click on the MIDI Devices button. You should see an IAC driver button, a network button and buttons for other MIDI devices connected to your computer. Please note that if you use a multi port MIDI interface with external MIDI devices (Synth, drum machine, etc...), you will need to make the connection manually.
Drivers for Audio Cards
To use a sound card with a computer, the operating system typically requires a specific device driver which you will have installed in the previous steps.
There are a few different driver formats available depending on the computer, the operating system and the sound card itself. Apple mac OS X uses Core Audio This driver for Mac OSX is tightly integrated into the operating system. It works with external sound cards as well as the Mac's integrated sound card (known as built-in). Nowadays, many soundcards support Core Audio out of the box, you simply 'plug & play'.
Set Up Your Audio Card with Logic
Now you have to make sure that Logic communicates with your audio card. In Preferences, select Audio > Devices > Core Audio.
Now you need to select the correct driver for your audio card. Use the drop down menu Device in order to select the appropriate driver.
Common Problems:
What Is Latency? When making music using software, the computer has a huge amount of information to process before being able to output the sound to your speakers.
This means that when you press a key on your MIDI keyboard to trigger a sound from a software synth for example, there will be a delay before you hear the sound. This delay is known as the latency.
As you can imagine, if the latency is too pronounced it will become extremely difficult to play any musical part, which is why it is important to use the best driver you can with your sound card. Furthermore there are certain parameters that you can adjust in order to improve your latency.
Buffer Size
You can reduce the latency by adjusting the audio buffer size. A small buffer size will reduce the latency, where a bigger value will increase the delay time considerably. So why not have the buffer size to the minimum value all the time to make the system more playable? Well, it is not as simple as that.
There are several parameters that directly affect each other. If the buffer size affects the latency, it also affects the processing power available to the software. Software instruments need processing power (CPU), so that the more CPU you have, the more software instruments you can load at one given time. Basically a small buffer size will put more strain on your computer in order to get a smaller latency (delay), thus using more CPU.
If you would like to learn more about Logic view our Logic Courses section on the Pointblank website.
Once you have installed your MIDI keyboard and audio card, you will need to make sure that Logic communicates with them.
For Logic to communicate with external MIDI devices, first you will to configure the Audio MIDI Setup. The Audio MIDI setup is an application located within the Utilities folder (in Applications folder). You can quickly access it in the Apple menu bar: Go >Utilities (or press Command Shift U).
Once in the Utilities folder, open the Application Audio MIDI Setup, and click on the MIDI Devices button. You should see an IAC driver button, a network button and buttons for other MIDI devices connected to your computer. Please note that if you use a multi port MIDI interface with external MIDI devices (Synth, drum machine, etc...), you will need to make the connection manually.
Drivers for Audio Cards
To use a sound card with a computer, the operating system typically requires a specific device driver which you will have installed in the previous steps.
There are a few different driver formats available depending on the computer, the operating system and the sound card itself. Apple mac OS X uses Core Audio This driver for Mac OSX is tightly integrated into the operating system. It works with external sound cards as well as the Mac's integrated sound card (known as built-in). Nowadays, many soundcards support Core Audio out of the box, you simply 'plug & play'.
Set Up Your Audio Card with Logic
Now you have to make sure that Logic communicates with your audio card. In Preferences, select Audio > Devices > Core Audio.
Now you need to select the correct driver for your audio card. Use the drop down menu Device in order to select the appropriate driver.
Common Problems:
What Is Latency? When making music using software, the computer has a huge amount of information to process before being able to output the sound to your speakers.
This means that when you press a key on your MIDI keyboard to trigger a sound from a software synth for example, there will be a delay before you hear the sound. This delay is known as the latency.
As you can imagine, if the latency is too pronounced it will become extremely difficult to play any musical part, which is why it is important to use the best driver you can with your sound card. Furthermore there are certain parameters that you can adjust in order to improve your latency.
Buffer Size
You can reduce the latency by adjusting the audio buffer size. A small buffer size will reduce the latency, where a bigger value will increase the delay time considerably. So why not have the buffer size to the minimum value all the time to make the system more playable? Well, it is not as simple as that.
There are several parameters that directly affect each other. If the buffer size affects the latency, it also affects the processing power available to the software. Software instruments need processing power (CPU), so that the more CPU you have, the more software instruments you can load at one given time. Basically a small buffer size will put more strain on your computer in order to get a smaller latency (delay), thus using more CPU.
If you would like to learn more about Logic view our Logic Courses section on the Pointblank website.
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