Overview
Push sonic boundaries and take control of your own sound design direction on our intensive 4-week short course. You’ll be learning alongside other artists or producers who are already comfortable using a DAW and have a grasp of the fundamentals of electronic music production, as you hone your skills together in a specialist field.
Built on a foundation of learning by doing, this course encourages you to get your hands on our vast toyshop of music and sound gear as much as you can – analogue and digital hardware synthesisers, first-class production studios, digital workstations and more. Progress your craft through play and experimentation.
Combine in-depth practice with expert tuition from industry professionals to expand your sonic palette and sharpen your listening and production skills. Connect technology, tools, approaches and philosophies to enhance your work and help you create engaging, diverse and rich sound productions.
Get ready to nerd out on the principles of sound, level up your synthesiser and percussion skills, understand sample-based sound design and tailor an electronic setup to your needs. You will come out of the four weeks with the momentum to develop a stronger sonic direction.
Course structure
Topics covered
The course content will focus on the following subject areas:
- Synthesis (additive, subtractive, FM, AM, granular, modular).
- Experimental recording with a variety of microphones.
- Custom analogue and digital effects chains.
- Audio manipulation tools and techniques.
- Sound design philosophy.
- Reamping and physical sound processing.
- Advanced DAW operations.
- Using voltage control hardware sequencers.
- Using hardware.
Weekly breakdown
Week 1 – Synthesis concepts
Project: Essential methods and tools within synthesis.
- What is sound? Sound walk with a mobile recorder, sample editing.
- Subtractive synthesis.
- Exploring the EMP Lab: analogue synthesisers.
- Studio listening session and feedback round.
Week 2 – Synthesising drums
Project: Build a drum playback with your own drum sound creations.
- Rhythm theory.
- Recording with microphones (drums and percussion) and distorting samples.
- Additive synthesis and frequency modulation - drumming with synthesisers.
- Electronic percussion, drum machines.
- Studio listening session and feedback round.
Week 3 – Sampling and modular synthesis
Project: Create your own sound universe.
- Sampling culture.
- Sample recording, processing with Ableton’s Sampler.
- Modular synthesis – software.
- Modular synthesis – hardware.
- Studio listening session and feedback round.
Week 4 – External sound processing
Project: Create your own workflow.
- Creative thinking processes.
- Experimental recording techniques and re-amping.
- Granular synthesis.
- External sound processing, stomp boxes.
- Studio listening session and feedback round.
Skills gained
Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:
- Apply in-depth understanding of the principles of sound.
- Work with modular and hardware synthesisers at an advanced level.
- Undertake a variety of recording procedures and synthesis techniques.
- Understand sample-based sound design techniques.
- Synthesise electronic drums and percussion sounds with hardware and software.
- Process sounds with various effects and analogue gear.
- Combine various electronic devices in a functional setup.
- Critically evaluate your work.
Progression
Whether you want to spend four weeks exploring which specific synthesising techniques are the perfect vehicle for your sound and connecting with like-minded individuals, or you’re preparing to advance to one of our longer HE Certificate, BA or MA programmes and need practical experience, this short course will equip you with a broad range of techniques for creating, editing and manipulating sound.
The course will also provide you with workflows for connecting technology, tools, approaches and philosophies, giving you the kind of oversight and creative expression that is in demand in the music industry. You will develop and receive feedback on projects that will help you develop skills for roles including: producer, composer, arranger, sound designer, or sound engineer. You’ll also have the opportunity to work with our Filmmaking – Short Course students in scoring their films.
“Having a solid chunk of lecture time and then also getting a fairly balanced amount of time in the studio... I found that was the key factor that really let all the concepts sink in”
– Advanced Sound Design alumna
Your technological playground
Get hands-on access to cutting-edge facilities and tons of bookable gear.
Tutors
Our tutors are industry-acclaimed experts in their field, with a passion for passing on their knowledge to others. Here are some of the tutors that will be supporting you throughout your learning process.
Essential information
Tuition fees
Enrolment fee*: €495
Course fee: €1,755
Total: €2,250
Early Bird Discount: Enrol in a Summer Short Course before the end of February 2025 and receive a discount of €150 off the tuition fee.
Multi Course Discount: Enrol in both a Summer Short Course and a degree course with us in the same year, and receive a discount of €500 off the total tuition fee.
*Enrolment fee is non-refundable.
Timetable and class size
We can’t provide an exact timetable until we know how many students will attend the course. However, you will have an average of 16 hours per week of workshops. Alongside this, you will have some technical inductions and timetabled opportunities for collaboration with students from other programmes.
Our campus facilities are open for the students to use beyond the timetabled workshop hours. Production suites, mix suites, communal workspaces, digital workstations and equipment from the tech shop are bookable from 10:00 until 19:45 during the Short Course term. Each student has 3 hours per week of bookable time, as well as ad-hoc bookings depending on availability of the facilities.
You can expect to be in a class of 12 to 16 students.
Entry requirements
The most important prerequisite for attending this course is that you must be passionate about building and developing your skills within sound design.
Our Short Courses are designed to be accessible to anyone, so we do not require any level of academic certification to apply. If you’re applying to an intermediate or advanced course, we trust you to make this judgement for yourself. Generally, applicants must be 18 or over when the course begins, although exceptions can occasionally be made by the Admissions Team where parental consent is obtained. If you're coming from outside the EU, a holiday/travel visa will usually suffice.
For more information, please contact a member of the Admissions team. We love to chat! Please reach out to us at admissions@catalyst-berlin.com or call us at +49 30 2900 9052.
Application deadlines
Once a course is full, we will no longer accept more applications, so applying as soon as possible increases your chances of getting a place. The official deadline for applying to a Short Course is Friday 23 May 2025.
Open days, Q&As & taster workshops
Get a feel for Catalyst and our courses at a range of both online and in-person events. Join us at a Virtual Open Day or an Open Day at our campus in Berlin, check out our facilities with a campus tour, join an Admissions Q&A, or try a taster workshop.
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 BA programmes.