Point Blank Featured in Music Tech Magazine

We were hounored to be one of the schools featured in the 'Education Explained' feature in the March 2011 issue of Music Tech Magazine (click on the image below for a larger version). Go grab a copy to read the full article or if you are a student, pop into the office where you can browse our selection of all the major music industry mags.

Secrets of House Music Course - This Weekend!!

Calling all house music producers! You still have time to enrol on our 'Secrets of House Music' course in association with Sample Magic.

The intensive weekend course which is taking place on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th of July will be led by expert music producers Bruce Aisher and Sharooz, all at the Point Blank studios in London.

Plus, every participant will leave with an exclusive goodie bag worth over £300 including a copy of Sample Magic's 'Secrets of House Music Production' book, sample packs and a Point Blank T shirt.

Find out the full course breakdown and booking information here: music production course

Get in touch with a course advisor on 0207 729 4884 or luke@pointblanklondon.com to book your place.

Music Industry Careers: Island Records' A&R Tells All

5 Years ago Ben Scarr was just like thousands of other people his age, determined to carve out a career for himself in the music industry but not sure of his exact calling.

In 2004 he enrolled on the Music Production Merit Course here at Point Blank in the knowledge that the techniques he would learn and the contacts that he would make could help him realise his dreams. 5 years on and he has worked his way up to the enviable position of A&R Man at Island records where it is now his job to find the music stars of the future.

Kind enough to re-visit Point Blank to as a guest lecturer this is an overview of his story and the advice he gave to the on-looking students packed into studio 8:

How did he work his way up the industry ladder?

• Whilst studying at Point Blank, Ben approached his favourite club nights to offer to help with the flyer distribution and earned a 6 month part time internship at a professional studio in Brixton. Standing in the rain outside clubs at 2 am and going on endless coffee runs was by no means glamorous, lucrative or much fun but it is so important to be proactive in gaining additional experience and contacts at that early stage, as well as demonstrating your desire to succeed.

• Once he finished the Merit Course he earned some extra cash as a DJ and Production tutor for the Point Blank community projects, and at the same time he had progressed to head up the street team that handled flyer distribution.

• He decided it was time to try and get a job at a label so sent off lots of applications, but with little success.

• However his networking paid off as one of his contacts, who he worked with for Hip Hop night 'Jump-Off', gave him a phone number for a record executive at Mercury Records. Having nervously enquired, Ben was delighted to be offered 1 month's work experience in the marketing department.

• Realising he needed to seize this opportunity, he showed real dedication, dropping all his other commitments, arriving early and leaving late every day. It worked and they extended his work experience to 3 months.

• Unfortunately when this came to an end there were no jobs at Mercury but they were so impressed that they helped him land a role in marketing at Island Records.

• Once there he made an impression on the A&R department by arranging for his music producer contacts to do some remixes on spec. (ie if the label don't use them then there is no fee).

• In passing, he also mentioned to his boss the idea of Girls Aloud and Sugababes covering the Aerosmith vs. Run DMC classic 'Walk This Way' for Comic Relief. Having assumed they hadn't liked the idea he was surprised but delighted to open a box full of new 'Walk This Way' promo singles a month later.

• He was offered the role as assistant in A&R where he patiently watched and learned for 6 months.

• His next major break came when he introduced his colleagues to a young unknown synth-pop artist named Frankmusik (now signed to Island and with over a million hits on his Myspace). This put his name on the map within Island records and he began to get more acknowledgement for his ideas.

• His tip-off that Wiley’s tune ‘Rolex Sweep’ was set to be a smash hit was snubbed by his boss.

• With egg on his face after it reached number 2 in the charts on another label, the boss realised Ben's talent for urban music and sent him out to unearth some other unsigned gems. He quickly hooked up with Tinchy Stryder and has been the driving force behind his success – his second single 'Take Me Back' charted at number 3 in the UK after Ben shrewdly drafted in Taio Cruz for the vocals.

• Most recently he signed the hit tune 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes' which became a viral sensation via Youtube.

Questions from the floor:

• What does your typical day consist of?

"It is very varied. I spend a lot of time listening to new music that I am sent. We might meet about a potential new artist and talk about which sonic direction they should go. Much time is spent sourcing producers and writers who will suit our artist's style... Often I will visit the studio to give my thoughts on the artist's work in progress, The producer and artist can be in the eye of the storm when they have been listening to the same thing all day so it helps for someone to come and give their thoughts from a fresh perspective at the end of a session."

• What is your advice for aspiring producers and musicians from an A&R man's perspective?

"Don't hold back on sending your music to labels, get as much feedback as possible; you don’t want to spend years on an album only to be told that the sound doesn't work"

"Target the labels that suit your sound and try to develop some kind of relationship with them. It's a good idea to find a contact name to address your mail to otherwise it is likely not to get opened. You will always find an A&R contact in an artist's album sleeve so look at an artist with a similar style to your own."

"On your demos send in no more than 2 tracks... include a short note about your act and make sure you write your contact details on the actual CD."

"Talk to people and tell them what you are aiming for. You may get laughed off by some but one time you will meet someone who can help you"

"Work on your look. Style is a crucial factor when labels are considering an artist"

• What are some of the hotspots for getting spotted by A&R people?

"In London: Hoxton Bar & Grill, Yo Yos, Troubadour, Camden Barfly, Water Rats. Depending on the style of music there are different ways of getting spotted... bands tend to be discovered at gigs whereas urban acts tend to make their name on the underground scene and virally through sites like Youtube"

• Do you deal with publishing deals?

"No, publishing deals are separate to record deals but every artist will have one. They are important as alternate forms of income to pure record sales... Your publisher will try to get your music on television programmes and commercials or in computer games... and if your tune is ever sampled on a hit record you will be in for a big pay day if you own the publishing rights of that sample."

Thanks to Ben for sparing his time and providing inspiration and insight for the Point Blank students who attended. Look out for more masterclasses, free for all students, coming in the near future.

Ableton Courses - A New Way of Making Music

If you are into music technology and already making music at home using a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) then I am sure this scenario will be familiar. You sit down to start making some music but faced with a blank timeline, inspiration deserts you and you are left feeling creatively uninspired. Music software packages such as Cubase, Logic or Sonar have all evolved along similar lines and operate in a similar way. Unfortunately they offer only one approach to the music making process which doesn’t necessarily encourage experimentation and spontaneity.

The good news is that Ableton Live has been designed to offer a genuine alternative way to work and is growing in popularity amongst those of us who are bored of working in the traditional way. Interestingly Live takes a similar approach to the old hardware sequencers that were popular with live electronic acts such as Orbital and Underworld. These sequencers used looped sections of a track (see Ableton Courses info for more detail) which would be triggered by the acts on stage and manipulated via FX and EQ to provide the audience with a live, spontaneous remix of tracks they already know and love.

Ableton Live has two modes or “views” in which to compose your music. The arrangement view will be familiar to anyone who has used some of the traditional sequencer packages mentioned above. But where Live really comes into its own is the Session View. The Session is used to organize and trigger sets of sounds, called clips. Think of it as a kind of musical sketch pad where you can experiment with audio loops, samples and MIDI sequences before arranging them into a track.

Another unique feature in Live is its ability to manipulate audio as if it was elastic. Live's Time Warp feature can be used to either correct or adjust the timing of any piece of audio from a sample to an entire track. This means that tempo becomes completely fluid and you can fit any audio sample to the tempo that you are working at. “Warp Markers” allow you to push and pull individual beats to correct (or destroy) the timing and create unique effects. You can choose from several Warp Modes depending upon materials you work with.

Ableton Live also features an array of built–in instruments and effects:

Impulse is a basic drum sequencer instrument Simpler is a relatively easy to use sampling instrument.

There are a number of additional instruments which can be purchased separately or as part of the Ableton Suite package:

Sampler is an enhanced sampler
Operator is an FM synthesizer.
Electric is an electric piano instrument.
Tension is a string physical modelling synthesiser.
Analog simulates an analog synthesizer.
Drum Machines is a collection of emulators for classic drum machines.
Session Drums is a collection of sampled drum and percussion instruments.
Essential Instruments Collection is a large collection of acoustic and electric instrument samples. Orchestral Instrument Collection is a collection of four different orchestral libraries, which can be purchased individually or as a bundle.

Audio effects included in the package include:
Auto Filter
Auto Pan
Beat Repeat
Chorus Compressor I
Compressor II
Dynamic Tube
EQ Eight
EQ Three
Erosion Filter
Delay Flanger
Gate Grain Delay
Phaser
Ping Pong Delay
Saturator
Simple Delay
Redux Resonators
Reverb Utility

Additionally there are a handful of MIDI-only effects including arpeggiator, chord, pitch, random, scale, and velocity. Live is also compatible with VST and AU plug-ins so you can utilise additional software instruments and effects.

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.

Making Music with Logic Pro. Beginners Guide Part 1

Making Music with Logic Pro. Beginners Guide Part 1
Logic Pro is a powerful digital audio workstation (or DAW) which allows you to record and edit both MIDI and audio to a professional standard. Whatever style of music you wish to create, Logic has the tools for the job. Included with Logic Studio is a range of instruments and effects including a drum machine (Ultrabeat), a powerful sampler (EXS24) and an impressive range of synthesizers. You will also find emulations of classic instruments such as the Hammond B3 and Fender Rhodes pianos. To complete your track you can call upon a wide range of audio effects including reverbs, delays, distortion effects, compressors and much more. All in all, Logic Pro represents a complete music production package for your Mac.

What else do I need?
Well as you can see, Logic is a pretty comprehensive package, but to get the most from it you are most likely going to need a couple of additional pieces of kit. Firstly a sound card or audio interface. Most computers come with a built-in sound card to listen to your mp3s, watch DVDs, play video games, etc... This sound card, if equipped with audio inputs & outputs, can also be used (if compatible) with your software. However, if you plan to do a lot of recording and mixing, you really should invest in a dedicated sound card.

Secondly a MIDI keyboard. This will enable you to “play” all of the instruments within Logic. Again this is not an expensive purchase. But it will be invaluable in terms of creating musical ideas – even if you don’t play piano. Otherwise you will have to resort to programming in each individual note or sound step by step which is not only laborious but also creatively stifling. Remember the great thing about software like Logic is that you can go in and edit what you’ve played at any time so you don’t need to be a great keyboard player to start making music.

In our next lesson we will cover midi keyboards, audio cards, latency and buffer size. In the meantime there's plenty more useful information to be had in our our free lesson excerpts in Point Blank's logic courses.

How To Make a Track in Cubase

OK - so let's take a look at some of these DAW's that we were talking about in yesterdays post.

Here's an insight into how a track is put together in CUBASE. Acclaimed producer and Point Blank Tutor Danny J Lewis demonstrates how the various elements in a tune work together and how they are arranged within Cubase.

You'll notice that Danny has used software synths (or VST's as they are sometimes called) along with audio tracks and various effects.





If you like the sound of this then the track is called "I Can See The Light". It's by Enzyme Black and is available to download here:
http://www.traxsource.com/index.php?act=show&fc=tpage&cr=titles&cv=20587

If you would like to learn more about making music with Cubase then head for:
Cubase Courses