DEEP BLUE SOUND, PLYMOUTH - SOUND, AUDIO AND MUSIC TECHNOLOGY COURSES
BTEC NATIONAL DIPLOMA IN MUSIC TECHNOLOGY
If you have a passion for music but don’t yet know which field you want to go into, or you want to enhance some skills you already have, then this is the course for you. It is a broad based course covering all aspects of sound engineering and music technology: recording, remixing, film sound, live sound, TV, theatre and radio.
This modular, 2 year, course is based at the studio complex in the centre of Plymouth. It runs for 2 days a week or 2 evenings and 1 day. Successful students will achieve a BTEC Diploma in Music Technology (equivalent to 3 'A' levels) AND a BTEC First Certificate in Music Practice. Key skills are also embedded in the two-year programme.
The facilities at dBs are without equal. In Year 1, you will mainly spend your time between the Mac Suite, the Blue Room Studios and the Pod Studios. In the Mac Suite you will complete projects on a music, IT, workstation mainly using Logic and Reason. In the Blue Room Studios you will work in a fully equipped recording studio with a maximum of 3 other students. In the Pod Studios you will work alone with your own 24-track studio setup so you can really get to grips with the equipment and learn at your own pace.
In Year 2, you will mainly spend your time between the Mac Suites, the Pro Tools Training Facility and the dBs HD Studios. In the Mac Suite you will work with Logic and Pro Tools. Each of the 5 dBS HD studios is equipped differently, to allow students extensive experience of different environments; from a large scale Neve mixing desk with a Studer A800 2" 24-track through to an expanded HD3 Pro Tools rig with D-Command desk. If these things mean nothing to you, please don’t worry we start from scratch, to ensure you learn in the right way.
We are extremely proud of the facilities but what is more important to your learning is the support you will receive from the tutors and technicians to ensure you achieve according to your own capabilities.
Course Information
FDA IN AUDIO AND MUSIC PRODUCTION
If your aim is to be a producer/engineer rather than an artist, working either freelance or in employment but generally, spending your working days within a recording studio environment, then this is the course for you.
We cover advanced use of the gear so that you can achieve the productions that you can hear in your head. We also analyse production techniques to help inform your own work.
As such, this is a subject that requires a large amount of hands-on time; don't let anyone tell you any differently. Any institution that fills their music tech and sound related courses full of lecture and theory probably haven't invested enough in their facility.
At dBs, we recognise the need for developing the important skills associated with critical analysis but think it paramount that you have the opportunity to develop your practical skills in the subject area. The most important analysis skills, in a subject area like this, involve the intense use of your ears. As a result, at dBs you will have access to a large amount of bookable studio time in a wide variety of studio environments.
As a taster of the equipment we have...
Main Studios
Neve 51 Series 72 channel analogue desk
Studer A800 MkII 2" 24- Track
All 5 studios equipped with Pro Tools HD3 on the latest Macs
1 studio with Digidesign D- Command console
2 studios with Digidesign C24
We also have a dedicated Pro-Tools Training Facility with large live space attached in which you will learn and achieve the official Pro-Tools certificates. We have kindly embedded these into your qualification. Look elsewhere, these usually cost a fortune!
For a full list of the equipment please see our website, or better still, come and have a look.
Course Information
FdA in Sound & Music Technology
If the more artistic aspects of your work are what fire your imagination, then this is the course for you. It is extremely creative and demands that you address the way in which you work. You will spend all of your time at the dBs facility. The highly experienced tutor team will help to develop and encourage your own sound and music production skills. A wide range of subjects is studied including recording, sampling, synthesis, music production technique, working with video, film and
Multi-media.
Course Modules
The course modules are designed to promote exemplary production practice in your own work. You will be encouraged to explore a multi-faceted approach to solving production problems, and to develop new areas of work. Occasional sleep will be permitted!
This programme also includes a work-based placement. You will have the opportunity to put into practice the skills acquired in an academic context. The placement provides the opportunity to network within the music technology field and gain the all important real world experience.
As with all other courses, the facilities are exemplary, as a taster....
Main Studios
Neve 51 Series 72 channel analogue desk
Studer A800 mkIII 2" 24 Track
All 5 studios equipped with Pro Tools HD3 on Mac G5
1 studio with Digidesign D Command console
2 studios with Digidesign C24
Please see the website for a full gear list.
If you are unaware, Pro-Tools is extremely important pro-level software. We take this seriously and feel it is important that you are armed with the skills necessary to excel with this software before you leave. Pro-Tools Certificates are embedded. A bit of research will show you that this alone is usually extremely expensive!
Course Information
FdA in Live Sound
Live sound is one of the fastest growing areas in the field of music technology and sound engineering. This exciting, two year, course is very hands-on, with a focus on what it takes to be a success in the field of live sound and PA.
You will be housed, for the most part, in our own venue, the 500-capacity Hippo in the centre of
Plymouth. This is a working venue with acts such as, Stiff Little Fingers; Cage the Elephant and Newton Faulkner playing there in the last few months alone. Existing students, on the Live Sound
Course; have assisted on each of these gigs, thus gaining the real world experience that is so vital. It is expected that you will partake in a number of commercial gigs throughout this course under the supervision of a qualified sound engineer. This can be at The Hippo or, as has been the case this year, at Plymouth’s Volksfest festival, for which dBs provided the sound. We would also encourage you to get additional experience wherever possible.
You will also be using the best equipment available such as the Digidesign Venue desk, a variety of Midas desks and Martin Audio speakers. This will give you good experience of both the digital and analogue gear that you will come across in the professional world.
You will also be using facilities at dBs and at various venues throughout Plymouth when relevant. At the dBs facility itself there are 15 professional recording studios, 2 live rooms, a surround sound lecture theatre and 3 highly specified Suites.
The course is taught by industry specialists with years of experience engineering the biggest gigs around (see Tutor Profiles). Entry onto this course will mean that you are eligible for all of the financial packages available to other HE students.
It is an intense, 2-year course that runs for 20 hours a week with some of that time being spent on self-led marked projects.
General Information
Contact Details
Call 01752 210801
www.deepbluesound.co.uk
Please call and ask as many questions as you like, even if you have no idea what you want to do, or know very little, or nothing, about the equipment we use. We start from scratch for those that need it.
If we are doing our job well, you will soon be using the studios confidently, on your own, to record great bands, or our PAs to give great live sound at gigs.
Please have a look at our website for loads more information and then give us a call to arrange to come and have a look around and talk to a human!
