Overview
This 4-week short course is for electronic music producers seeking to advance their creative and technical approach to refining and finishing their tracks. We start from the assumption that you're familiar with the production process, but your mixes may lack the depth, clarity or warmth found in a professionally released track.
As a progressive education institute one of our core beliefs is that you need to spend lots of time with your own hands firmly on the gear. We call it learning by doing....and doing...and doing again. Stretch your capabilities, hone your skills in this specialist field or start to create a unique sonic identity of your own.
Develop a deeper understanding of the tools, techniques and thinking behind a well balanced, professional finished product and apply that knowledge in both commercial and home studio environments.
Course structure
Subjects areas
Your course will cover the following subject areas:-
- Mix analysis, preparation and workflow considerations
- Listening skills, mix approaches, styles and philosophies
- Pro Tools operation and workflow
- Balance and position
- EQ (surgical, subtractive and additive)
- Dynamics (surgical, parallel, multiband and combined)
- Space and depth
- Tonal processing
- Routing, patchbays and analogue/digital outboard
- Master bus finalisation
- Mastering philosophy
- Sonic analysis and metering
- Mastering chains, tools and processing
- Mastering standards and formats
- Mixing and mastering environments
- Studio and equipment considerations
Progression
This course is designed for two audiences.
The first audience are those looking for a productive way to spend 4 weeks developing their sound engineering skills to support their own projects and meet like minded people to work with. For this audience the likely progression routes are:-
- Returning to their own project with a new set of skills
- Returning to Catalyst to take one of our other short courses.
The second audience are those students wishing to progress onto one of our longer courses whom require some practical experience to help prepare them for the longer course. The most likely courses they would progress onto are:-
- HE Cert Electronic Music Production & Performance (1 Year)
- BA Hons Bachelor Degree Electronic Music Production & Performance (3 Year)
Our team
Our courses are taught by a team of permanent tutors & visiting international music industry professionals with a genuine passion for passing on their specialist knowledge to others.
Ciarán O'Shea
One of the things that excites Ciaran O’Shea the most in life is the journey. And when it comes to the Irishman’s career as a music producer and mixer, he’s been travelling the worldwide realm of sound for over two decades!
Conor Dalton
Conor Dalton has 10 years of professional mastering experience with his company Glowcast Audio Mastering, working on music from Daft Punk, Jeff Mills, Marcel Dettmann, Ricardo Villalobos, Carl Craig, John Digweed, Maceo Plex, and many more.
Charlie Baldwin
Charlie Baldwin (aka Cocktail Party Effect) is also known as the artist Kasket and specialises in raw recordings, live atmosphere, glitched up vocals and catchy melodies.
His first release entitled Torn Letters was published with DiaMind records. This was followed by a release called 4her on the highly respected label Screwloose Records.
Valerio Massucci
With over 10 years' experience in the industry, as a recording, mixing and mastering engineer, Valerio Massucci has made a name for himself working throughout Europe and the UK.
His numerous productions range from classical and baroque orchestras, to electronic driven post-rock. His credits include Benjamin Power (Fuck Buttons/Blanck Mass), Jorja Smith and the Orchestra Magnifica Parte De Sotto.
Meet up
Catalyst is a thriving creative learning community of tutors and students from more than 55 countries. It's a golden opportunity to meet up and collaborate with like minded peers from around the world. A key part of our approach to learning involves working with others whether as peers, mentors, collaborators, audience or fellow travellers. Passion is always better shared!
Essential information
Entry requirements
The most important prerequisite for attending any course at Catalyst is that you must be passionate about building and developing your skills as a sound engineer and producer.
This course requires some prior knowledge, so please check the content and make sure you’re ready for the ride.
Our short courses are designed to be accessible to anyone so we do not require any level of academic certification to apply. To qualify you should usually be aged 18 or over. If you're coming from outside the EU a holiday/travel visa will usually suffice.
We accept applications up to 14 days before the course start date but places are assigned on a first come, first served basis so we recommend you make an application as soon as possible.
For more information please contact a member of the team. We love to chat! Please reach out to us at admissions@catalyst-berlin.com or call us at +49 30 2900 9052.
Course dates
Date: 19 June to 14 July, 2023
Course length: 4 weeks
Application deadlines: International / EU students - apply by 31 March, 2023* to secure your spot.
* Our final deadline is 15 May 2023, however course spots are granted on a first come, first served basis. If you're course of choice is already full you will be added to a waiting list.
Course fees
Enrolment fee*: €495
Course fee**: €1,500
Total: €1,995
If you decide to enrol in both a short and long course with us, you will receive a discount of 500€ on the total tuition.
* Note- Enrolment fee is non-refundable.
** Tuition fee deadline: June 8th
Open days
Get a feel for our school from the comfort of your home with our Virtual Open Days and skill-focussed Taster Workshops.
Hosted by our team and students, these online events will give you a sense of what it's like to come and study with us in Berlin.
We look forward to meeting you online soon!
Primer workshop - access to Higher Education
Designed for those wishing to join our main programmes, but lacking the formal education requirements to apply through standard entry.
These free workshops run at the same time as your short course programme and cover writing skills, reading, structuring arguments, debate and understanding context.
They utilise task and project based learning methodology to ensure that you’re prepared and ready for our longer HE certificate or degree level programmes.
Listen up
In the end it doesn’t matter how great we think our courses are. What matters is what our students actually do during their time with us. Have a listen, leave some comments and decide for yourselves.
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