Sound Engineering courses & training

bbk wrote: »

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, mix then and pin point possible problem areas.

Music Business and the Entrepreneur 1st year - Does what it says on the tin. You are taught 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. New teacher doing it since I did the course however.

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.
Essentially you come up with an idea for a musical project then you follow it through to the putting it on a CD stage. You get firm criticism on each stage of the process and praise where praise is due. Very good experience.

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.
On top of that, its related to the area of music tech so it can be interesting as you are given the opportunity to gear it towards areas of your interest, which by second year you will have.

Computer Music Systems 1st year - How to run a digital audio workstation and use the popular programs and the processes needed to do audio editing 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 of thd other way around. 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 and many other things. 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, learn about the equipment you are using, 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. So, you do sound for a set every week. Just there is no audience there

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. All the pressure is there. The TV dept count on you for a good mix. The rock schoolers count on you for good sound on stage and everyone counts on you for a good front of house mix.

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 Production 2nd 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. However 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 and Record
Soundforge
Sony Vegas.

High quality monitoring is standard in all rooms.

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. in the UK.

For me, this course in all respects outdoes all the courses in the republic I 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 IMO.

If you use it as a standalone qualification to get you into work and work your way up or you do it with the intention of then doing the degree its very worth while and rewarding.

If you want a degree I think the experience you get from the course is well worth the extra year or two that you will spend if you do the Bally course first then an Irish degree or if you do the Bally course and enter a British degree course in second or third year of their courses.

I could have just done the Maynooth degree course and been happy but I know that I would never have gotten the experience of BCFE anywhere else.

Finally the teaching staff are brilliant. Simple as.

pixelperfect wrote: »

Thanks lads all this info is great. So Ballyfermot is a good choice? Judging from the last post it seems the way to go, but if anyone has a different opinion I'd love to hear it.

DamagedTrax wrote: »

only thing with ballyfermot, and anyone that went there can correct me if im wrong, but as far as im aware they dont have an analogue desk to train on, digital only?

this to me would be a serious drawback of the course.

DamagedTrax wrote: »

i stand corrected

studiorat wrote: »

New course in Music Production starting in Dundalk Institute of Technology next September. Very much about Music Production as opposed to music and sound industry stuff covered by the C&G courses. Judging by their new facilities opened this year it should be a really good course.