More about SIMA’s Music Production Course

The goals of this course are three-fold:

Helping you understand what production is all about and how to be able to produce for almost any purpose (from talk radio to rap to pop to metal to folk, to dance/EDM, etc).

This is because a versatile “producer” is so much more than just a mere DAW operator. The producer directs the entire process of creating the record (a.k.a. the “product”), i.e. he/she has his fingers in all the pies at least to some extent.

Those “pies” include not merely knowing how to operate the DAW (you could argue that it’s ALMOST the least important aspect of it all), but also how to arrange, structure and mix the song, which recording strategies to use depending on the piece being worked on (solo? band? vocal group? musical genre,etc), quality control including appropriate song flow, vocal and instruments, sound design/tonalities, musical harmonies, progressions, arrangement strategies and choices, etc. Also – which parts should be played by the artist (or the producer) and which ones should be outsourced. The same goes for certain types of arrangements and the mix.

While in many cases the producer is only the final “director” of a project, in most typical cases especially for people who are just starting out, the producer often is not just the overseer but also the musician, the writer, the singer, the mixer, etc, etc – so he needs to know something about all that in order to be effective and good. THAT’s the primary goal of my course. Knowing all these things is particularly useful when working on the producer’s own demo material.

2 – AIMED AT THE INDEPENDENT SONGWRITER-PRODUER

This course is ideal for the indie songwriter-producer, because that’s what most modern-day “producers” are. They tend to be songwriters who want their music to sound good enough to be pitched to labels (or at least good enough to credibly post online). But armed with the knowledge gained here, those producers will also be able to do a credible job producing other artists, including bands and vocal groups.

We also teach our students HOW TO LISTEN to reference music and then how to emulate selected parts within their own productions. We show them production and arrangement shortcuts as well as writing techniques, in order to get the most out of their creations.

We also help them understand how to find outlets for their music and how to understand FAN BASES. This is a critical part of the role of the “traditional” producer, i.e. how all producers used to be: liasons between the artist and the label – and, ultimately, the fans.

Often a PRO producer is the “way in” to a record deal for an artist. Understanding how that works and how it still applies today is critically important for the indie writer/producer.

3 – ANY DAW – OR EVEN NO DAW – WILL DO

This course is not DAW-specific. DAW stands for Digital Audio Workstation. There are so many DAWs in use out there that it’s near impossible to know them all (although the principles are always exactly the same). Of course, we do know how to work the basics of most DAWs (while we specialize in Cubase), but we teach how to very quickly learn whatever functions are needed, whether you use Logic, ProTools, StudioONE, Cakewalk, FL Studio, Abelton, Reason – or whatever, even including such simple DAWs as SoundTrap, Garageband, etc.

If we’re asked to teach someone how to produce on a DAW platform which we’re not intimately familiar with, it only takes a short while for the student to look up whatever functions are needed (say, on YouTube) as the need for that function arises. We will typically demonstrate how the given function works on a DAW we’re more familiar with and then show the student HOW to find and implement a similar function on his or her DAW.

REQUIREMENTS AND OTHER KEY POINTS

NOTE that this is a GROUP course. Each session is 2 hours long, 1x per week.

The reason why this NEEDS TO BE a GROUP course is because of the mutual feedback that the participants will provide to each other.

To take this course, you’ll need:

1. A PC or a Mac with a DAW installed. You should also make sure you have enough storage space for saving your projects and sound files. If need be, buy an external disk.

2. At least one pair of decent quality headphones.

3. Optional (but highly recommended) MIDI input keyboard. You can get a 2-octave controller keyboard for very small money at your local music store, and a full-sized MIDI controller keyboard with a drum pad onboard for not all that much more.

4. Optional (but also recommended) EXTERNAL microphone of a decent quality. If you also have a mixer (see below), then you can get any decent standard mic (either a stage or a studio mic will do). If you don’t plan to have a mixer, then you’ll need to get a USB mic.

5. Optional (but also recommended) EXTERNAL mini-mixer (USB, 4 channels at least).