Author Topic: Producing through School or Bedroom? (Read 14150 times)

Zundara · « **on:** February 14, 2016, 08:33:55 pm »

How would you say you been more inspired to do this?

Do you think it'd be better if you'd gone to a university or are going to one?

Do you think you'd have or have the same opportunity to learn as much as the one in school or viceversa or maybe even more as a bedroom producer?

Which do you think is better?

Bertie South · « **Reply #1 on:** February 14, 2016, 09:28:38 pm »

I did a music production course and I thought it was pretty wack in the end, so I'm biased against them. But if your goal is to get better at making your own music I'd almost definitely go the bedroom route - it seems pretty unlikely to me that a production course is gonna teach you exactly what you need for that.

Marrow Machines · « **Reply #2 on:** February 14, 2016, 10:03:58 pm »

Don't be afraid to take a course or two, or take lessons from some one. But consider what you ultimately want.

I am going to school for mechanical engineering, and i still took some music classes.

It depends on your resources and what you're willing to do. You get out of it as much as you put in, those classes won't give you any thing that you shouldn't have to work for and earn.

But it's a bit of both to be honest. either way, you'll eventually be learning on your own. But if you start at that route, it might be rough. Where the school will give you some tendencies and ideas to fall back on. You can also, like i said, go get lessons if you do so happen to start on the bed room route.

vinceasot · « **Reply #3 on:** February 15, 2016, 01:57:03 am »

its very hard to learn production on your own, you need someone with experience and knows more than you, with the technical aspects like synthesis, and chord progressions etc and 'has been there and done it'

so i think its better to look at the online courses, and tutorials and the works of your producers you admired and study them completely

if you can find a mentor, that will be even better because its the habits of a producer that you want to learn from

you should be a sponge and soak in all proper knowledge you can

Lydian · « **Reply #4 on:** February 15, 2016, 04:59:49 am »

Quote from: KAB on February 14, 2016, 08:33:55 pm

How would you say you been more inspired to do this?

Do you think it'd be better if you'd gone to a university or are going to one?

Do you think you'd have or have the same opportunity to learn as much as the one in school or viceversa or maybe even more as a bedroom producer?

Which do you think is better?

I've been more inspired to do it the bedroom way due to not having enough income to afford a university education in music.

I'd say if you were in a university it would save you from having to find all the information yourself. However, most music and audio engineering techniques/theory are widely available on the internet. If you understand how to use the internet then the bedroom route is cheaper and much more practical IMO.

Not only that but forums are literally like asking questions to your professors. When you don't understand something you can always ask on a forum and more knowledgable people are usually happy to help,

Overall, it's really hard to get good at audio engineering by reading a book or taking a course. Even if you have a technical understanding of music theory and audio engineering being able to hear music in numbers and hear all the details of a mix takes time.

Miles Dominic · « **Reply #5 on:** February 15, 2016, 02:10:51 pm »

Quote from: vinceasot on February 15, 2016, 01:57:03 am

its very hard to learn production on your own, you need someone with experience and knows more than you, with the technical aspects like synthesis, and chord progressions etc and 'has been there and done it'

so i think its better to look at the online courses, and tutorials and the works of your producers you admired and study them completely

if you can find a mentor, that will be even better because its the habits of a producer that you want to learn from

you should be a sponge and soak in all proper knowledge you can

Production courses are overhyped crap. Everything there is to learn, is learnable from the internet, by practicing, reading, talking to other producers and watching vids.

oxbloodoxblood · « **Reply #6 on:** February 15, 2016, 08:01:00 pm »

I've taken some music courses at about every level of education including electronic music courses and audio engineering. I still think the most useful information I mostly figured out by myself through trial-and-error at home, and by reading manuals and watching youtube tutorials. For producing you just need to put the effort in, though it is helpful to go to a school, not necessarily a music school, but somewhere you can network with teenagers and people in their twenties who are most likely to seek out new music to listen to.

Final Kindgom · « **Reply #7 on:** February 17, 2016, 05:49:07 am »

I wish I went to school for music production. I like to think I would have been inspired about the same either way, but I feel like I would be inspired more often because I'd be around more like-minded/creative individuals. However, I'm glad that it's not something you need to go to school for. Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing this. The only reason I could see someone going to school for music production would be for a job in audio engineering and the like. It would be easier to put your foot in the door due to internships being available and professors being in the field (this is all just assumption though).

Kinetiik · « **Reply #8 on:** February 23, 2016, 11:50:38 pm »

Music production is 100% something you can learn "in your bedroom." I myself studied Audio Engineering at school which I would highly recommend to anyone wanting to get into making music. I think the most important part of music production is being able to write actual music. People like Deadmau5 and porter robinson never studied music a day in their lives and yet they can write beautiful music. Once you can put some good melodies and chord progressions together, the sound design part of things just comes with time.

Marrow Machines · « **Reply #9 on:** February 24, 2016, 12:48:04 am »

Quote from: KLANG on February 23, 2016, 11:50:38 pm

Music production is 100% something you can learn "in your bedroom." I myself studied Audio Engineering at school which I would highly recommend to anyone wanting to get into making music. I think the most important part of music production is being able to write actual music. People like Deadmau5 and porter robinson never studied music a day in their lives and yet they can write beautiful music. Once you can put some good melodies and chord progressions together, the sound design part of things just comes with time.

deadmau5 worked in a studio and sold jingles to commercials and stuff. He said this in one of his video streams.

So he may not have went to school, but he definitely dedicated the time on several aspects to get to where he is now.

And i bet with in that time frame, he had professional help as well.

School just speeds up the process just because of the time restraints that are placed on the student and the school. If you want to take classes, make sure you're a serious student. I can't tell you how many times i want to throw up when ever i heard a music major complaining about practice, and i am sitting there getting my balls punched in by physics and calculus problems. Like for real dude and or dudette?

Either way you're gonna have to hustle. You can't half ass life and you can't half ass yourself, other wise you'll end up dealing with some of the more unpleasant aspects of decisions, both physically and psychological.

greatwhitegravity · « **Reply #10 on:** February 24, 2016, 02:09:21 pm »

Is it true that all of the information is available to you but there are a good number of benefits to schooling. For starters, all of that information is streamlined for you.. you also have professor feedback and it puts you in a group with other kids who are interested in electronic music as well. Also the pressures of being in a schooling environment can help light a fire under your butt and push you to move forward.

Nadav · « **Reply #11 on:** February 24, 2016, 10:09:26 pm »

Quote from: Miles Dominic on February 15, 2016, 02:10:51 pm

Quote from: vinceasot on February 15, 2016, 01:57:03 am
its very hard to learn production on your own, you need someone with experience and knows more than you, with the technical aspects like synthesis, and chord progressions etc and 'has been there and done it'

so i think its better to look at the online courses, and tutorials and the works of your producers you admired and study them completely

if you can find a mentor, that will be even better because its the habits of a producer that you want to learn from

you should be a sponge and soak in all proper knowledge you can

Production courses are overhyped crap. Everything there is to learn, is learnable from the internet, by practicing, reading, talking to other producers and watching vids.

+1,000.

This isn't true for everything, but it's DEFINITELY true for producing.

Though I'd tweak it a bit and say instead of "Everything there is to learn", "Everything you need to get started, and 95% of what there is to learn". And then once you're really off your feet, then the other 5% you should learn by finding a good mentor.

Whatever you do, don't spend money to go to school to learn how to make the music they play in clubs for people who are drunk. That's just stupid.

Kenny Troy · « **Reply #12 on:** February 25, 2016, 12:23:55 am »

Would it help to go to a production school? Absolutely. Is it necessary? No.

In my opinion there is so much information available on YouTube and other websites to learn from that it really isn't necessary to go to a music production school. When I think about everything I have learned about music theory, sound design, sound engineering, composition, etc etc... it really baffles me. This stuff is no doubt very very complex, but if you want to truly study and learn all you can there is the information out there for you without music school.

Personally what I envy about people who have gone to music production school is that they get to constantly discuss music. What do I mean by that? Well simply put, they are surround by music and peers who share a similar love for music and have a thirst for musical knowledge. You cannot teach yourself everything online or by yourself for that matter. How do you learn all this other stuff that you may otherwise miss? By speaking and interacting with other producers about techniques, plugins, whatever it may be.

I watched an interview with Martin Garrix once and he spoke about how at his music production school he would constantly be discussing with his friends the newest plugins, how to use them, all these production techniques - rather than talking about you know.. sports or whatever general population stuff. I suppose that's what I envy the most, as none of my friends at college produce music so they have no clue about any of this.

*Note* I try to take advantage of everything my college offers that I believe will benefit me in terms of setting up a successful music career, even though I am an Economics major.

Courses I'm taking that may help:

Professional Writing and Technical Communication - yes, you must communicate with major record companies

Creating a Professional Web Presence - exactly as the course title states. your web presence is very very important.

Digital Marketing - this.

Electronic Music Production - I have not met the requirements to take this course as it is an upper division music course, however I wrote to the department chair person to by-pass the prerequisites, seeing as well yeah I produce electronic music.

Nadav · « **Reply #13 on:** February 25, 2016, 01:06:39 am »

Quote from: Kenny Troy on February 25, 2016, 12:23:55 am

Personally what I envy about people who have gone to music production school is that they get to constantly discuss music. What do I mean by that? Well simply put, they are surround by music and peers who share a similar love for music and have a thirst for musical knowledge. You cannot teach yourself everything online or by yourself for that matter. How do you learn all this other stuff that you may otherwise miss? By speaking and interacting with other producers about techniques, plugins, whatever it may be.

This reminds me of my experience in film school, where everyone talked constantly about movies, only movies, all the time. They had posters of movies on their walls in their apartments. They were always going to the movies. And then the movies they made were stupid, because they had no idea what reality--the world outside of movies--was like. They could think only in movie cliches.

So, in my opinion you've provided yet another reason NOT to go to school for production. The real benefits you named--interacting and talking shop with other producers--are not things you should have to pay thousands of dollars for. For example, you can do that for free on this forum.

BTW, this is before even getting into the ugly, cynical ways most vocational schools/colleges operate. They really just want your money, and once you fork it over it's theirs. But the value you get in return, they don't even guarantee they'll deliver it, let alone that you'll get it.

Mussar · « **Reply #14 on:** February 27, 2016, 04:54:18 pm »

Once again, just ignore half of what Nadav says - Don't feed the troll.

I'm actually going to an art school for music - just not for EDM stuff. The program I'm enrolled in focuses mostly on production and composition for film and TV, and lets you choose scoring or engineering and sound design. It's an incredible program and the school has a ton of resources for students, but if you just wanna make beats or get signed to Spinnin' I'd consider this overkill.

Outside of having the accelerated learning curve from going through a guided course and associating with other musicians, the big benefit to attending a music program is the ability to network: with teachers (who work in the industry), people who come visit the school, and other students who might become successful during or after their time at school. That's the real dirty secret, honestly. A bunch of kids don't even graduate, because they get hired or get enough contacts to strike out on their own. A Bachelor's of Fine Arts is mostly useless as a degree.

No amount of schooling is going to turn you from a shitty artist to a good one - it's a matter of how much work you put in and how many contacts you make that can help you out. If you can manage all of that without going to a school, I'd consider that preferable. Schools like these are dangerous even when they're legitimate, because they make promises about what you'll achieve without informing you of what you'll realistically have to do to achieve it. So I'd look at one of those shorter programs or individual classes. I've heard good things about the ICON collective, and you could check out Point Blank London or Dubspot. You'll be getting the kind of specialized education you want without blowing tens of thousands of dollars to get a degree you won't even need.

Author Topic: Producing through School or Bedroom? (Read 14150 times)

Zundara

Producing through School or Bedroom?

Bertie South

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Marrow Machines

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vinceasot

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Lydian

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Miles Dominic

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oxbloodoxblood

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Final Kindgom

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Kinetiik

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Marrow Machines

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greatwhitegravity

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Nadav

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Kenny Troy

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Nadav

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Mussar

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