Creating your own sounds is crucial to define your own characteristic style and identity as an artist. How do you put the sounds you have in your head into your DAW? What choices are important to get your desired signature sound? During these lessons you’ll be searching for answers to these questions.

In the practical lessons, you’ll be working with software synths like Serum as well as vintage or modern hardware synthesizers. Additionally you will receive lessons from multiple guest teachers. All of them are recognized for their knowledge in synthesis and the recognizable sounds in their music. In short, the Full Course Advanced is everything you need to broaden your horizon in sound design with the only limit being your own imagination.

It’s relatively easy to create a few decent loops. Creating a dynamic track and holding the listeners attention with this loop is a much bigger challenge. In this part of the course you’ll get practical lessons about creating a song while giving a lot more attention to harmonics, writing compositions and creating/recording/editing vocals.

You and your classmates will apply these techniques in the studio with a vocalist.  You’ll learn how to correctly utilise hooks, basslines and more creative techniques to your music to give it the crucial structure it needs. With these lesson you’ll be strengthening your foundation to get your track to the next level.

Just like synthesis, sampling is a subject which producers can fully immersive themselves in. In these lessons you will learn advanced sampling techniques, while also discovering some new applications. You’re going to work with both software and hardware samplers. Meanwhile, you’ll also start building your own sample library. These lessons will help you make the right decisions for your music when selecting samples.

A specialized guest teacher will take you on a trip to the world of advanced sampling. The subject matter will consist of granular synthesis, re-sampling, processing, layering and other approaches that will reinforce your sound by selecting your samples securely.

Precision, efficiency and a fast workflow. That’s what you’ll learn during the Vocals and Recording section of this course. As a professional producer and recording engineer it’s important to record vocals the right way and to give them the right space in the mix. When you put these skills into practice you usually have to work with a deadline which makes the recording and mixing process very challenging. To put this into practice you’ll be working with a vocalist and within three hours you’ll need to have finished the project. After this assignment you’ll have a feedback session. This way you’ll learn to be more efficient in the studio while also getting some valuable experience as a mixing and recording engineer. 

Furthermore, you will get more lessons in mixing vocals. With special attention towards, creative vocal processing, vocal chops, vocal synths, vocoders (also with chords) and many more techniques that will be valuable for finding your own style of vocal processing. With personal guidance, all the knowledge you’ve gained about these subjects shall be discussed with your teacher. The teacher puts your personal style choices in mixing central. This way we can work towards your personal sound.

We can’t stress this enough: don’t underestimate acoustics. While mixing and performing with your music you got to adequately keep the acoustics into account. During these lessons you’ll get practical tips about the characteristics of sound isolation and the best way to apply acoustic material and placing it in your room. You’ll also learn to make the right calculations for reflections and standing waves. That way you can let the acoustics work in your favor in the studio or on the podium.

Sharpening your knowledge about microphone techniques when recording will make a huge difference in the end result of your studio recordings. With the knowledge you already possess about microphone usage we are stepping up your game with practical assignments about stereo micing. Also, you’ll get a theory test about this subject where you’ll listen to a lot of audio fragments; you will be the judge.

When you’re creating compositions for visuals you’ll need to apply lots of techniques for these challenging projects. Making a soundtrack or a score offers a professional producer the opportunity to generate a lot of income in the audio-visual branche. The guest teacher that is specialised in this area will share his past experiences, they’ll show you, on the spot, how they work on their projects in music for film, advertisements and games. Afterwards you’ll get a practical assignment about the skills you gained during this part of the course and the lessons about Harmony and Songwriting to realise a fitting soundtrack.

A good mix, in whatever genre, can make the difference between a disappointing amount of plays or being signed by a record label. That’s why you’ll be jumping in the world of advanced compression techniques, the usage of noise gates en reverb, group mixing, the advanced appliance of EQ’s to fully prepare you as a professional mixing engineer.

In these lessons, the teacher will be doing a mix on the spot and your practical assignment will be to make a creative mix of a project. After analyzing all of the student projects, you’ll be taking all of these skills to the lessons about mastering.

Of course you want your released tracks to jump out next to the tracks of other producers. Most of the time the secret to this is the right mastering. With the practical subject matter of a specialised guest teacher you’ll be able to train your hearing, master EQ, (multi-band) compression, limiting, mid/side compression and much more. Furthermore as an assignment you will be mastering a track of one of your fellow students. We want to make sure you can give your own tracks as well as the tracks of others the right ‘edge’ when you are mastering.

While you’ll go deeper in the art of your genre, the possibilities in shaping your performances keep growing. In this phase of the Course you’ll discuss with your teachers how to innovatively build your performances from scratch to become a dynamic live set with thoroughly thought out hardware. You will also be finding inspiration when you have to research other live performers.

A good live show has a lot of added value for an artist. By diving deeper in the innovative world of live sets, you’ll be able to have a deeper connection with your audience, realise more successful bookings and get your act to the right podia.

Presenting yourself as an artist in the beginning of your career is invaluable. How do you present yourself in the club? How do you profile your act online? What are the “do’s & don’ts” during networking? The DJ’s and producers that have build an international brand share their tips and experiences on this subject. They’ll explain in their presentation how this has helped their careers.

As an assignment you’ll be researching a, by you, respected artist and you’ll analyse how this act has made the right (or wrong!) choices to get where they are now. The guest teachers will also spend time on tips for radio and media presentation. These experts will help you with advice about collaborating with other musicians during studio sessions and on the stage.

This section of the course will help you to profile yourself on all the relevant platforms for musicians. We will teach you how to present the perfect pitch to labels, and how you can schedule your releases. The emphasis will be on the unique selling points of your brand, this will make sure that you will stand out in your respective niche. With this knowledge you can start building a foundation that will help you to make the right decisions as a professional artist, so your act can grow to its full potential and build a community around your act. 

Music law will also be discussed. How do you handle royalties and percentages? What are some legal pitfalls? What are the rights of producers, authors and other artists? Besides the answers to these questions we spend a lot of attention to record labels, music publishers, BUMA/STEMRA, SENA and you’ll get advice about how to best protect your artist name and which method work best for negotiating contracts.

In the last phase of the Full Course Advanced the skills and knowledge you’ve gained over the past year are the main focal point. You’ll choose a project that has been entirely produced, arranged, mixed and mastered by you. You’ll have to make a plan for the release of this project. So you can use the knowledge you’ve gained during the lessons of artist development and music marketing to pitch your song to the right labels and online platforms and finally realize the idea of releasing your own tracks.

We’ll judge the quality of your track, the way you applied the theory you’ve learned in the lessons and the effort you’ve put into the project to grade the final assignment. Not only will this lead to your certificate for the Full Course year 2, it will also be an important step into the growth of your career as a professional artist.