Over the past few years at panel meetings, bars, in sessions and in email, I’ve been asked whether I teach or give lessons in audio production and new media techniques locally. In fact I’ve do things like this all the time, at least seminar-like events at Midpoint Music Festival and other AES events. I’ve developed courses and taught audio production (University of Cincinnati/CCM Electronic Media program) and audio design (my alma mater UC/DAAP’s Digital Design program) part time since 1998. But unfortunately, both classes are perennially over-booked, and virtually unavailable to non-majors. My former Ultrasuede partner, John Curley and I have been talking about doing it on our own for years – we’ve worked with many interns, and realized there’s often a gap between expectations and experience on both ends of those relationships. We felt a workshop might resolve this, and provide a baseline of experience in real-world production techniques. A recent thread on CincyMusic, occurred at the same time I received a phone call and an email asking the familiar question that started this paragraph. John called me around then, and we talked. The time had clearly come to act!
To kick things off, I put up a survey on another part of this site, to clarify my questions for the various interested parties. We quickly got enough responses to draw some conclusions and make some proposals on going forward with workshops. A recap for your collective perusal (with my conclusions below):
- All respondents said they’re willing to do homework, and use online-based forums for review and communication. (we will use these heavily to generate ideas, feedback and experience. Thus some sort of recording/mixing rig will be needed at home to participate.)
- Most of you have taken no formal training, or hands on audio workshops.
- Most people want a broad curriculum in recording, with a bit more focus on tracking and mixing. (these are areas where outside/extra teachers can really contribute and provide broader perspective)
- Most of you consider yourselves intermediate level, based mostly on experience I presume. (we will be able to skip some interconnect basics, but must kill some common myths, and build a common vocabulary early on in the course).
- There was an even split between weekday evenings and weekend days, but almost no one wants to work in the week-daytime. (we’ll meet at either of those times, depending on individual schedules).
- Small preference for half day over shorter sessions (as a teacher and engineer, I find longer sessions are often counter-productive, in spite of the small preference here).
- Most folks strongly prefer small groups to large (4-8), and demonstrations over critique.
- The LEAST preferred format: 6 2-3 hour workshops with >12 people for $100. The MOST preferred format: 10 2-3 hour workshops with <10 people for $200 or 8 workshops with <10 for $150. Content mattered more to most people than teachers or price. (it looks like either format would work, so we’ll need to discuss this more. The day-long and 6 meeting approach are out.).
That last one was interesting, and the reason I mentioned more price points than the initial $100 from earlier in the thread. Had I stuck to that number, the workshop clearly wouldn’t have met the preferences of our potential group on a couple levels. Most important being content: jamming it all into the cheapest package means leaving things out, especially feedback opportunity.
So where does this leave things? Well, hopefully ready to float a proposal! Now that I know what I’m asking for, I’ll nail down some venues and teachers and get all of that together. In the meantime, please feel free to comment on and discuss my conclusions above, especially if you DIDN’T take the survey or feel very strongly about the way I’m leaning.
To summarize my leanings:
A group of no more than 10 folks would meet once a week for at least 8 2-3 hour sessions, primarily meeting on weekday evenings in professional recording studios. The meetings will be primarily demonstration and hands-on work, featuring myself and some invited guest lecturers (so far John Curley and Brian Niesz have graciously offered their services to this effort – I’m still working details out on whose doing what) In between participants would work on specific assignments, and post work to an online discussion area for comment. The topics will broadly cover the recording process, with special emphasis on mics/mic’ing and mix techniques/editing. While most folks say they’re intermediate, we’ll start with foundations, in particular developing a common language to talk about what we hear, and later, what we do.
Beyond that, this will evolve over in the workshop area, and drop off the blog. But still, we thought this was important enough to announce here in the main content part of the site. Exciting stuff!
Dave Davis • Media Designer
Sound Images Inc • ScreamingBob.com
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