AC Blog

It exists and is alive and well, I’ve seen Music Production in London taken place in some of the, NO, the BEST facilities in the country for learning music production.

Whichever way you look at it, music production is something which takes time to learn, it’s as much about the experience as it is being told. Sure you can be told about new techniques, you can be informed about new tricks and tips, but quite honestly nothing compares to locking yourself away in a purpose built studio and tweaking away at your hearts content.

This is where SAE London excels from a user experience perspective, the gear is state of the art, and the students have 24 hour access to literally spend every waking hour sitting in that experiential zone, that important place we all know to be essential for deepened learnt experiences.

You see to really “get-it” you have to have “done-it”, you have to have made mistakes, you have to have come back from a break only to realise your mix stinks, and then when the “penny drops” you put it right, you approach the production with new fresh ears and more clairty – you’ve moved onwards and upwards.

I spend a few hours a month at SAE London and I’m hoping to show you more content over time concerning their Music Production.

I had the pleasure of dropping into SAE New York and meeting up with Udo, the School’s Manager, who kindly gave me a tour of the NYC Music Production School, located on the 9th floor of the Herald Center, 1293 Broadway.

The area is unusually circular in design (in a good way) which gives the spaces a sense of fluidity, and the school’s equipment list which fills the spaces is impressive, (big shiny desks and gear everywhere). It was even better seeing students working in very small groups on musical projects, I even saw one studio with a 2 inch 24 track multi-track recorder doing the business, awesome, that old skool tape sound still alive!

Along with the tour Udo gave good conversation about what they get up to in the vibrant city of New York which I found really interesting to hear, it must be a rush to study in an area with such a buzz around you, both inside and outside.

New York (NYC) is a seriously vibrant place and the phrase “the city never sleeps” is without a doubt true, which I’ve experienced before.

Whilst I’m on the subject of NYC, I’d love to hear what you’ve found in town, including bands, clubs, venues etc, what have you seen?

This is really amusing me, the fact that virtual representations of hardware can not only be created in the form of plug-ins but now also in virtual worlds!

The latest items into the Audiocourses.com Second Life Complex include the Soundcraft GB8 24 channel mixer as seen below:

Soundcraft GB8 in SL OK so the board doesn’t do a great deal as of yet, it just sits there looking cute, though with the possibilities of scripting language we are looking to port this baby to be controllable.

I might also mention to the right of my virtual me you can see some racked compressors and on the far wall we are screening a movie preview.

I’m very excited about the possibilities of Second Life as an educational platform, the potential is enormous, not least in the ability of hightening the scale of the audiocourses.com virtual community.

Come and join us.