Music Production Education

  • DAW Principles

    Starting at the bottom, let’s look at what digital music making is, what tools you can make it with and some of the ideas involved in using those tools.

    Sequencer Types
    Sample rates / Buffer sizes
    Channel Strips (volume, pan, inserts)
    Track Types
    Plugin Types
    Routing Fundamentals
    Automation
    Gain Staging

    Details

  • Recording / making sound

    Recording your voice with a microphone, a synth or guitar with a cable, and generating sounds inside the computer are the 3 ways you can make and record your music.

    Here we cover recording basics (mic position and level) and have a look at synths and samplers.

    Recording Audio
    Synthesis types
    (subtractive, additive, FM, wavetable, physical modelling)
    Samplers
    Modulations

    Details

  • Altering Sound Level 1

    Once you’ve recorded your voice or instrument, you will probably want to adjust it. Plugins are used in DAWs to change the sound by altering the tone (using EQ), or the volume/dynamics (using compressors). Plugins do a zillion other things too.

    EQs/Filters
    Compressors
    Chorus/Flange/Ensemble
    Phasers
    Reverb
    Distortion
    Pitch/Frequency Shifting

    Details

  • Altering Sound Level 2

    Sound can be manipulated in many other ways and we cover many of them in the next section. These techniques are considered advanced compared to the plugins and methods from Level 1.


    Time stretching / squeezing
    Repitching
    Reversing effects
    Multi-band things
    Vocoders
    Formant adjustment
    Convolution

    Details

  • MIDI Manipulation

    MIDI, at its core, isn’t instantly ‘expressive’. You trigger MIDI notes on your keyboard or in your sequencer, at a certain Velocity, and all the rest of it is wibbly-wobbly controller data.

    All of it can be edited, to make it more or less perfect, or to make something completely different, and that’s what we’ll explore in this section; what can be changed and why.


    Regular MIDI messages
    Controlling with hardware
    MIDI FX
    Articulations
    MPE/MIDI 2.0

    Details

  • Production Tricks and Useful Tips

    It can take a while to ‘stumble upon’ the more unusual, but frequently used, production tricks and techniques, so get a head start by letting me introduce you to these concepts.

    All the Side-Chains
    Parallel Processing
    Virtual Amps
    Selection-Based Processing
    Layering
    Organisational Tips

    Details

  • Basic Instrument Tuition

    For me, music is about humans touching resonant bodies and being able to express their emotions through it. I can introduce you to the instrument and give you some basic techniques, exercises and games to help you discover your instrument.

    Keyboard (piano, synthesiser)
    Guitar (acoustic, electric)
    Bass Guitar
    Drums / Percussion
    Synth Sound Design

    Details

  • General Tuition

    If you get a bit lost starting or finishing songs, we can work on techniques and approaches to your songwriting and help you feel like you’re accomplishing something instead of filling your disks with half finished songs.

    Songwriting
    Instrument selection
    Song structure
    Arrangement
    Top-line writing

    Details

I was 12 when I first taught music to somebody; I just love helping people understand, and get comfortable with, music as a game, or a way to express yourself, or just a place to escape to. I’ve used it for all those reasons and I think other people want to as well.

Pricing will depend on how much you want to understand; everyone’s different, and I get that! Some folks might have been to school or college to learn music production, but it didn’t all stick, so you might just want a refresher of everything, and a few “deep dives” in to things which pique your interest. Other folks know nothing and just want to know how to get started in the right direction, and a vague idea of the principles; I cater to you all.

Starting prices for each section is £250

Or get in touch if you want to specific knowledge and we can work out a bespoke course for you

I offer one-on-one tuition either at a studio, your place, my place or remotely (over video). Ideally we want to be somewhere with a good monitoring system, and quiet! My priority is that you understand whatever you’ve chosen to learn, in whatever depth you want. We’ll work through examples of everything to make sure we cover everything to satisfy your curiosity.