The Recording Engineering and Music Production Program

5 - Weeks • 180 Hours

Designed to prepare tomorrow’s audio professionals, the training starts from square one. No previous experience is required, yet even students with background will find this program challenging and very beneficial. Musicians or non-musicians, younger or older, a wide spectrum of participants can accelerate their careers.

Developed and refined over the years, but always with leading edge freshness, this program provides our students with a powerful combination of lectures and studio experience. And it is in the studio where Recording Workshop students spend the majority of their time. We are unsurpassed at maximizing the amount of hands-on training we provide each student.

The studio classes are taught to small groups of 3 or 6 students, allowing much personal attention. After some preparation in equipment operation, the studio work progresses to recording sessions in just one week. And although recording and mixing music is the main activity, our students also broaden their studio skills in other important areas of audio engineering such as editing, radio spot and sound-for-picture production.The daily lectures in this program are stimulating, informative and presented with great style. The atmosphere is friendly and very open to questions and discussions. Initially, these lectures cover the fundamentals of recording equipment design and operation, but they soon advance to a very broad range of music industry topics.

Our own expert teaching staff delivers the large part of the lecture series. But we also invite outside professionals to discuss specialty topics, such as live sound or studio design. And each session, our students also enjoy hearing the journeys, thoughts and wisdom of a special guest speaker. On occasion these special guests may themselves have name recognition to the general public, but the industry insiders who more frequently make this visit always have fascinating stories to tell from behind the scenes.

Studio Classes

Prep Classes – These classes get our students ramped up for action. On the very first day, our students get familiar with the big concepts of multitrack song production by observing some simple recording and mixing sessions. Basic tracks, overdubs, punch-ins…. it’s all made clear up front. And a studio seminar on the nature of sound and hearing wraps up the first evening. Learning fundamental equipment operation takes place over days two through five. Students get behind the consoles and our instructors guide them down the roadmap of signal flow. And each day we widen the circle of gear we include in the practice drills, adding multitrack recorders, microphones, talkback systems and other key recording tools. Our training methods offer plenty of effective repetition and reinforcement.

Actual session work starts the second week, but our prep classes continue in the form of “dress rehearsals”. With the bands scheduled to record in the evenings, students spend daytime hours expanding their abilities on the equipment. In our Pro Tools Lab, students increase their understanding of signal processing by completing a series of computer-guided tutorials that pairs each of the six stations to a different piece of outboard gear. And to get ready for the mixing sessions that start in the third week, students are coached in prep classes dedicated to mix training.

Recording Sessions – Here’s where the big fun begins. Bands from a wide radius of cities pull their vans full of music gear up to the Recording Workshop loading docks. Our students then launch into action, coordinating instrument and microphone setup, getting sounds dialed-in for basic tracks, bringing up a mix in the control room monitors and the musician’s headphones. The tracks are armed and it’s time to hit that red button.

Throughout the session, our instructors make sure that students are developing good organizational habits, a key factor in smooth production workflow. Also, since our bands are performing original material, students experience the raw edges that are an important “real-world” factor in recording.

Creativity is not a linear process and recording engineers and producers must develop effective people skills to handle awkward situations. Our instructors guide the students through this challenge as well as all things technical. And as these technical skills evolve after multiple sessions, our students move beyond the mechanics of recording and enter a zone where the artistry of recording emerges.

Mixing Sessions – Having had their prep classes and their first few recording sessions, our students are ready to start mixing. Along with the bands that they have recently recorded, students have a huge library of material to choose from, reflecting all styles of popular music. Building up a groove, tweaking the guitar’s EQ, balancing the vocals… mixing is the part of the production process that can allow more time for individual artistic exploration and experimentation. In this area of subjectivity, our instructors monitor the students’ mixing progress with a deft touch, offering advice when asked. But their expert guidance is always at hand to help students make full and best use of all the creative tools in the control room.

As students complete more and more mixing sessions, their collection of CD-R’s will contain a growing number of songs to use in a professional audio portfolio.

Student Projects – In addition to recording outside bands, Recording Workshop students have session work where they can record their own music using bands formed from the student body. Within these ranks, there are always remarkable amounts of songwriting and performance talents waiting to shine. Participation as a musician is totally voluntary, but these classes are as fun as they are instructional. Being savvy to both sides of the glass can make for better engineering.

Sound-for-Picture Projects – Although pure music may be the passion for many students, engineering other types of projects can be equally creative. And sound-for-picture work can be a vital area of the job market for graduates. In these classes, we actually start with a radio spot to get students familiar with commercial project workflow. Having done that, our students sink their teeth into syncing sound and image. Digidesign Pro Tools is used extensively as students deal with voice talent, scripts, dialog and more. And of course, music is also a big part of the video spots that students work on.

Pro Tools Lab – Digidesign Pro Tools is a dominant force in audio production. It is a sledgehammer for its power, and a Swiss Army knife for its versatility. A system supremely capable of recording, signal processing, editing and mixing. This is why we have our students complete a seven part series of projects that develop excellent skills in its use. Step by step, Recording Workshop students learn to navigate the sea of menu selections, toolbars, and graphic windows that create the Pro Tools environment.

Soldering Lab – As a small but practical portion of the curriculum presented in our Maintenance Program, students of the 5-Week Program get the basics needed to check for failed audio cables and make repairs. Safe and proper handling of a soldering iron is taught, as is dressing the cable and reliably attaching a connector. Give an engineer a cable and he’ll record for a day, but teach him to make one and he’ll be wired for life.

Mix Critiques and Skill Tests – During the fifth week of classes, students take part in several studio classes that provide performance scores. But these classes are not just tools for evaluation, but also tools for learning. In the mix critique classes, students play their select mixes for constructive comments. And the skill tests on Pro Tools operation and console/recorder operation provide a preview of expected abilities of audio engineers entering the job market.