Higher National Diploma in Music Production

Legend20

Hello, have just applied for this course and am just wondering about current (and past) students opinions of it and exactly what it involves and any advice..

Thanks in advance

high heels

Worked with them during rock days ( rock school would provide bands ) we would do the lights / cameras and they provided sound for us.. They have all new equipment and you get to work with equipment that you will use in the real world..

But any time we worked with them they were good..

flyswatter

What level is a Higher National Diploma?

GTE

Very good course offering a wide range of hands on experience that will equip you for jumping into the deep end in studio work, live sound and sound for visual.

Here are the modules and what you do in them
Contextual Studies 2nd year - Learning about how political and economic conditions influenced music production, as well as social things. Say, how drugs influenced music and in turn recording techniques.

Critical Music Listening 2nd year - Basically, you learn how to listen to a track and pin point its flaws. You also learn about the major instrument groups and techniques on how to record them and things.

Music Business and the Entrepreneur 1st year - Does what it says on the tin. You are tought by someone who has been in the business of producing music and you learn about the legal requirements of doing so.

Music, Health and the Law 1st year - The tin tells all here too. You learn about how to be safe when working with music, volume levels, dealing with the heavy weights etc. Also you learn about copyright law and other laws that knowing about is very useful if you want to run a studio or things that.

Principles of Musical Sound 1st year - This is what Id call the physics of musical sound also. You learn about how sound works in detail, acoustics is a big part of it. This again like the above can be tied into running a studio or live sound space as you know what to look out for and what you have contend with when doing sound treatment.

Project Realisation 2nd year - You do it in second year and you get an idea for a musical project, your own or with the rock school course and you see it to the end. Very very good for learning the full producing process.

Research 2nd year - Equips you with the knowledge needed to do the degree courses. Its handy because you learn about how to do a research paper, im sure its invaluable for degree and masters courses.
EDIT:
On top of that, its related to the area of music tech so its interesting.

Computer Music Systems 1st year - How to run a digital audio workstation and use the popular programs and the processes needed to do sound work with a digital system.

Audio Post-Production 2nd year - This is a big part of second year. You work with the animation students where you are given the brief of doing the sound for about 3 animations. This can be less music and more sound effects. Its a contrast to what you normally do but its great learning experience.

Audio Recording 1st year - Basically everything to do with audio recording in general. You learn about effects and processing. Very good module.

Computer Music Production 1st year - Ties in with the comp music systems. After learning about how to use the system you are asked to compose a song. Lots of fun.

Live Sound System Specification 1st year - You learn about how to run a live sound system and how to set it up, you play with epic stuff.


Live Sound System Operations 1st year - As above you are put in a purpose built live sound hall and you get to play with ridiculously high spec equipment. You work with bands from the rock school every week and you do sound with them and gain experience. You then have to do sound at a number of all day gigs that the rock schoolers have to do for their course. Again, great experience with great equipment.

Modern Composition 2nd year - In a way continues on from the computer music compostion module. You learn more about composing and then after that it ties in with the post production animation projects where music composition can be a huge part.


Sound Creation and Manipulation 2nd year- You learn about synthesis and how to create sounds and instruments using a program called Reason. My explanation cant do it justice but its damn fun.

Studio Production2nd year - Essentially more learning about what goes on in the studio. Less about learning about difference components of a studio and more about doing it!


Overall its a very well balanced and extremely rounded course and it gives you a great basis in many aspects. Many of the modules tie in together, which is why some of my explanations of the modules are better then others.

Its very practical and for me thats the best thing about it. Not only do you learn the hows, whys and whats that go on behind the scenes but you also put what you learn into practice.

The course ties in with the rock school and animation courses like I said. You have weekly studio sessions with rock school bands in first and second year, weekly bands and a few gigs in first year.

EDIT:
Although, like any other course of this nature, there is a lot of learning how to use the specific equipment in the college you also learn the process. What I mean by that is you go into detail about what a certain thing is doing rather then the program you are using it in. Same goes for the synthesis. you aren't being taught how to use the program, which is Reason, but you are learning about all the components which are the same across the board with any kind of synthesiser so what you learn on this program can be transferred to anything.


Facilities that you have to your disposal:

Analogue/digital hybrid studio with very high quality equipment. (1st year)
Digital studio, again some quality equipment in there (2nd year)
Live sound hall with outstanding quality equipment. It also has a Protools recording system so you can record the live sets and mix those. Brilliant!
MIDI booths - these are rooms where students can do project work. Genelec monitors, Mackie and Yamaha mixers and Korg keyboards.
Logic
Abelton
Cubase
Reason
Soundforge
Sony Vegas.


As you may have guessed, I am on the course haha.

The qualification you get can let you go straight into the world of work, and its something that will put you ahead of others given its such a practical course. The BTEC HND has a good reputation internationally.

It also lets you skip a year or two of degree courses.

For me, this course in all respects outdoes all the courses in the republicI have researched in terms of sound engineering/music tech/music production area. It was my first choice after secondary, miles ahead of what Maynooth offers.

If you use it as a standalone qualification to get you into work or you do it with the intention of then doing the degree its very worth while and rewarding. If you want to do it and then go to do the degree I think the pure experience you get from the course is well worth the extra year or two.

The teaching staff are brilliant. Simple as.

flyswatter

Thanks for the detailed description bbk. Considering doing this course and it sounds great judging by your post.

GTE

flyswatter wrote: »

Thanks for the detailed description bbk. Considering doing this course and it sounds great judging by your post.

Not a bodder. But keep in mind Im horribly biast by now haha.

Maybe something else to add while I think of it.

I always wanted to get into teaching so I always had getting a degree in my head. I was interested in Engineering for secondary school as well a love of music and the technical side of that.

Although there are degree courses in Maynooth, Tralee and Limerick (as well as queens up north, Belfast) I always saw Ballyfermot as having a much better course in the Republic. So, I said to myself Id do the 2 year Bally course and then see where I stand and if I want to continue on or go and do the Engineering teaching degree.

Turns out I wanna stick with the sound engineering and Im gonna do the degree course in Belfast (college has a link with there).

The way I see it, Im in a much better position to do the degree course and really take it all in and learn about it now that I have the Bally course under my belt (well, I will in a few months). Point being is that although its an extra year or two in college you will never get the experience of it again. The HND is considered just below a degree but for me what I learn and outweighs the generalised bureaucratic labelling of the qualification.

I will miss the course, the college and the staff. . . and that bloody live sound desk haha.

Best of luck in the interview, any further questions on that gimme a shout.

flyswatter

Any tips for the interview? I'm hoping some mp3s burnt on to a CD will be good enough for the two pieces of recorded music needed.

Do you use Pro Tools only for mixing live sets or for more general recording aswell? I'd like to get to know the industry standard but I'd like to get to know other DAW's too as I only have experience of one.

GTE

flyswatter wrote: »

Any tips for the interview? I'm hoping some mp3s burnt on to a CD will be good enough for the two pieces of recorded music needed.

Do you use Pro Tools only for mixing live sets or for more general recording aswell? I'd like to get to know the industry standard but I'd like to get to know other DAW's too as I only have experience of one.

For the interview you need to produce pieces of audio that have had a lot of care and attention poured over them. If you think about it its an important piece so you need to spend time on it.

Personally what I did was use a program called Audacity (tis how much of a newb I was at the time) and recorded my drums with one mic and then over dubbed guitars. Thats all I had and at the end of the day you are limited to what every you have so if you went or if you were forced to do such a minimal recording you would need to be able to talk about how you positioned the one mic you had available in a certain place and why you did it. Also, you need to know about the process you undertook when mixing the piece.

There is no point chucking a mic in a room and recording some stuff, rough mixing it and handing it up. You need to know what you did and why. For example, how did you get the audio onto the cd? Was it a high quality MP3? Why didnt you use Wav?

If you are lucky enough to have a good mulitrack setup its the same deal. Know what you are on about, be confident in talking about what you recorded and mixed it.

Its not a dead cert if you owned a top recording setup that you would get in. The guy with one Singstar microphone and an old laptop that can hardly take Windows XP could get in before you. Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee


Protools is used to record live sets in the multi purpose hall. All the microphone signals from the stage are split three ways.
1) Front of house desk (Midas Heritage)
2) TV department
3) Protools room

You can book the protools room to mix. It has a lovely dididesign digital console too so you.
http://cdn-viper.demandvideo.com/media/4ffde17e-4dc5-43eb-93ea-329733615e92/jpeg/8cab31b7-517b-416d-bd62-f56cad547fae_7.jpg

You are encouraged to use all the facilities to your disposal, which there are many to choose from.

If you are up for the craic of doing it you can setup a band in the live hall and record them, mess around with the microphones to get room sounds etc.

Btw, mics are amazing too.


The VEC colleges, at least BCFE seem to have a deal with Dell computers so the main software you will work on in class will be Windows based Cubase, Soundforge and reason (thats cross platform anyway). Though, there is a Logic studio and the Protools one and you are taught them and there are brilliant student written how tos on most of them.

flyswatter

What I have recorded is a few electronica tunes, without using mics or anything like that. Basically using FL Studio and a midi controller. Would that be ok? I know a bit about applying effects but feck all about mastering.

GTE

flyswatter wrote: »

What I have recorded is a few electronica tunes, without using mics or anything like that. Basically using FL Studio and a midi controller. Would that be ok? I know a bit about applying effects but feck all about mastering.

Im sure its demonstrates skill and you can talk about how you set it up, how the midi controller works and the processes you did. Mastering is an art in itself so I doubt you should worry about that. I do know last year a few people with a DJ background got in and they talked about FL studio a lot so I can only imagine that they used that for their interview.

Im not an electronica kinda guy nor am I a member of staff so there is only so much I can talk about in relation to what is needed for the interview. I cant give exact specifics but all I can say is that if you go into the interview confident about what you have done, the tracks have had time spent on them and you show a good interest in what you are doing and what you want to learn then thats always a good sign. With one of those usually comes with an other and with that the other.

Its a popular course and only 24 spots so try not to have hopes madly high.

flyswatter

Well I'll try my best in the interview .

Thanks for all the help!

GTE

Not a bother.

Best of luck.

GTE

How did you do in the end?

flyswatter

I got accepted for the course in Ballyfermot but took up the offer of a place in DKIT instead.

I may regret not doing it, I'd probably enjoy it more than the course I'm going to be starting in Dundalk.

I just think job prospects would be better in the area I'm going into. I've been convinced by some other people that this is the case.

Thanks for all the interview advice, I'm still proud that I was accepted. There was around 24 places to go to over 220 applicants or something like that.

I may get to do a taught Music Technology Masters in DKIT after the four years but for now it remains a hobby.

GTE

flyswatter wrote: »

Thanks for all the interview advice, I'm still proud that I was accepted. There was around 24 places to go to over 220 applicants or something like that.

I may get to do a taught Music Technology Masters in DKIT after the four years but for now it remains a hobby.

I think there was nearly double that amount of applicants. I think. Well done anyway, it is a hard course to get into.

What course are you going into in Dundalk?

flyswatter

bbk wrote: »

I think there was nearly double that amount of applicants. I think. Well done anyway, it is a hard course to get into.

What course are you going into in Dundalk?

Double? Wow, didn't know that! Feel kinda proud now .

I'm going into Computing in Dundalk.

What are you doing post-Ballyfermot?

GTE

flyswatter wrote: »

Double? Wow, didn't know that! Feel kinda proud now .

I'm going into Computing in Dundalk.

What are you doing post-Ballyfermot?

Dundalk seems to be the emerging college in the past few years. I hear of loads of people going to it in the last two years, before that I never heard of one over there.

I got into the Queens Uni Belfast Music Tech degree course and start next week. Just two years left until I have to get into this "real world" people keep faffing on about.

flyswatter

bbk wrote: »

Dundalk seems to be the emerging college in the past few years. I hear of loads of people going to it in the last two years, before that I never heard of one over there.

I got into the Queens Uni Belfast Music Tech degree course and start next week. Just two years left until I have to get into this "real world" people keep faffing on about.

Yeah, really looking forward to starting!

Did you have exams at the end of the two years determining which college degree course you could get into?

You must have done well, I've heard Queens is excellent.

GTE

flyswatter wrote: »

Yeah, really looking forward to starting!

Did you have exams at the end of the two years determining which college degree course you could get into?

You must have done well, I've heard Queens is excellent.

Well enjoy it and just make the ruddy most of the course as well as the social stuff.

Not quite. The BCFE course is split into 16 modules. At the end of each module you are given a grade and then other universities look at those grades, some saying they need a specific result in specific modules. Depending on the module you dont really have any exams. All practical work. During my time in the course I had two written exams. Lovely stuff

Queens is fantastic, it goes to show you what level the Bally course is at but I did work hard so you still have to work hard in a good course to get anywhere. Cant take being in a good or even great course for granted.
There wasnt a difficulty in the application. Seamless. Also goes to show you that if you want to straight into any degree chances are there is another route into it. If I wanted to go to Queens from the start I wouldn't have gotten the leaving cert points/results so I could have repeated the leaving.
I never understood this since in a lot of cases you can do a PLC course and get into that way and then have a year or two of relevant education. Im getting into a rant now though, so many of the people I know repeated when they could have done a PLC for a year and done it that way.
:pac: