In 1999 the digital world was going to blow and the Millennium was to be ushered in with darkness, candles and an overcoat. That may be a little over the top but the way some people talked about what was to be tagged ‘The Millennium Virus’ did have companies panicking over their software, hardware and everything digital.
The year 2000 came and went and the big bang of computers exploding was never heard, instead pioneers whom were not panicked by the terrible ‘Millennium Virus’ carried on pioneering, developing greater products like Pro Tools and workstations with phenomenal capacity and range.
Sound engineering in the twenty first century has all the wizardry available to it, thanks to developers at Apple and Microsoft plus small inventors tinkering away in their sheds.
Workstations and/or mainframe computers are designed for technical and scientific applications and are used in sound and music studios around the world. The latest technology comes into fruition so quickly that having a digital workstation is the only way to keep up with it.
Apple has developed some of the best software and mainframes for sound engineering courses and at Alchemea College our pupils have the choice of six state of the art Digital Audio Workstations.
When you take sound engineering courses or audio courses you will become very familiar with the kinds of software used in the studio. Indeed it is a fascinating part of the sound engineer’s job piecing together various pieces of recorded sound into one album, jingle, gaming effect or cinematic symphony.
Well-run sound engineering courses produce some of the most talented people working behind the scenes in show business. In addition, the camaraderie between sound engineers and record producers is often second to none.
There are many areas of employment that those with sound engineering courses have gone into, so learning facilities have to be right up-to-date to accommodate all the possibilities which students may encounter later in their careers. This means lectures have to be of the best possible standard, too.
Take cinema dubbing, for instance. Loads of students want to get into film and post-production, in particular. A sound to picture post-production suite or ‘dubbing theatre’ where skills are learnt needs to be air-conditioned and simulate a standard modern motion picture dubbing suite.
This enables students to get the real life experiences when they are doing post production training so that they hit the ground running when they get a job in the industry. A dubbing suite really is a fascinating piece of kit.
Whatever sound or audio engineering courses you choose to do, remember, it should have the latest facilities and a full assortment of more traditional equipment. This way, you’ll get a more rounded education and learn more than just the digital way of producing and recording sound.
Our classes at Alchemea College have small numbers of students, which mean that everyone gets the specialist attention they need to learn. We have a fantastic set up which allows students and lecturers to get their ideas across and take full advantage of our facilities.
The debate rages as to whether Elvis’ ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ was the defining moment in rock and roll. Others seem to think that Bill Haley or Buddy Holly were already smashing down the barriers and creating a whole new movement through their music. Some commentators underline the vital influence of the blues on the new genre. Whatever your opinion is, you have to agree that the Americans had some great artists and took music to a whole new stratosphere in the fifties and sixties.
During the fifties and sixties, artists were reliant on analogue systems. Also when stereo came into being and was heard regularly in discos, people thought the sound very odd as they had always listened to music on small radios. They weren’t used to the sound balancing between two speakers; it was a revolutionary and inspiring breakthrough in modern music.
Today, of course, you can listen to digital recordings, tape recordings, vinyl, stereo - all sorts of acoustics can be accommodated, but during the pioneering years, and those with sound engineering courses were encouraged to experiment. This kind of encouragement can be replicated in seminars and lectures in musical techniques. These give students the space, time, equipment and know-how to grow.
At Alchemea College you’ll get to work with many artists as it is part of our promise to get our students to work with bands and live recordings as much as possible. On our audio courses and sound engineering courses, we give students a feel of what it is like to understand what an artist wants and how to accommodate them through different systems.
Open up the ‘entertainment’ section of any decent newspaper and there are hundreds of different live performances in town on any given day. Whether it is a live theatre production of a play, pantomime or musical or a stand up comedy night, you’ll find many live shows on throughout the week. The remarkable thing is that all of these live events need good quality sound engineers to help pull off the show. That’s where we come in.
At Alchemea we have an excellent reputation for getting our students into the sound industry. In fact over 85% of our diploma graduates from our live sound courses gain employment within 6 months of leaving our tutelage, an enviable hit rate for any organisation.
What makes sound engineering courses fascinating is that whether you take a Diploma in Live Sound Engineering, Studio Engineering or one of the other audio courses, your tutors can help you in any direction you see yourself taking.
Working on live projects is an awesome experience, such as mixing sound in live venues such as the 1700 capacity nightclub and live concert arena ‘The Fridge’ in Brixton. The Fridge has one of best sound systems in the country and students on sound engineering courses get to work with that system during live events.
This kind of experience is invaluable as it really gives you a sense of how to create good quality live sound. Many former students have commented that these types of experiences held them in good stead for other live jobs they got commissioned to do.
Some people say that the most inventive sound engineers use every asset in the studio to create the purest and most tangible music, and have more than likely taken sound engineering courses. Others say that keeping things simple is the best way to go about your business, simply capture the sound in the quickest, rawest form and allow the artist’s expression to transcend itself to the listener. Well, sound engineering is nothing if not a talking shop of opinions and ideas, invention and dedication.
The lecturers here at Alchemea have worked with the best in the business, they understand that what makes one recording fascinating and rewarding makes another over-produced and fussy. Learning to make the right calls in the studio or at a live gig is about knowing what systems work well, and on audio courses or our Studio Assistant Certificate course you’ll find out how to make the best informed decisions.
Reading about some sound engineers - like Joe Meek, for example - you get the impression that eccentricity is major ingredient in the make up of great producers. Counter that example with Brian Eno though, someone who, at times, keeps everything very simple, and you get to understand how opinions and ideas vary.
Fascinating, isn’t it? That sound can have this amazing ability to ignite passion and conjecture within artists and producers alike.
As you learn about systems and how to record sound on sound engineering courses you will become enthused with ideas and various outlooks. Sound engineering is a very practical business too, and you might find the simplest solution is the most inspired choice.
Using the latest equipment in music technology courses is one thing, using the best equipment is another matter. You should look for a college where the studios are fitted with both the best and the latest, and they don’t chuck out recording equipment just because it has a little mileage on it.
Indeed, some of the most accurate and richest recordings have been made on older, analogue mixing desks. Students on sound engineering courses enjoy learning about both analogue and digital sound recording.
Encouraging people to work collaboratively is another important part of sound engineering courses. Working with live bands, very involved in a ‘hands on’ process, allows students to grow and learn rapidly from each other.
Working with other artists means you become familiar with the studio. Working out where best to place microphones for example and which system suits a live recording is a fascinating and rewarding process.
Working with full-time lecturers will give you an excellent grounding on many sound engineering facets. Of course you’ll become more interested in some areas than others and it is this variety which makes taking sound engineering courses such an enthralling prospect.
At Alchemea we have the very latest, state of the art, recording equipment. It is one of the reasons students come to us for sound engineering courses, whether that course is a long course like the Diploma in Live Sound Engineering or one of our short weekend sound engineering courses, they know they are going to be using the best equipment.
There’s been a whole lot of international sport been played over the past few months and it was interesting, from a sound engineering point of view, to listen in and hear match pundits, referees and audience members rely on sound for crucial decisions.
As an example, during a cricket international match a ‘stump microphone’ was used to try and gauge whether a player had feathered a ball because if he had, he would be out and the opposition side would have been in a stronger position.
As it transpired however, the sound engineer forgot to put up the volume and thus, when the incident was sent for a ‘referral’ the third umpire could not hear any sound - ‘not out’ was the verdict. In the studio however the pundits and the viewers could hear without a shadow of doubt that the batsman had indeed ‘nicked’ the ball, thus a crucial decision was given wrongly all because of a mistake made by a sound engineer.
Sound engineering courses will take you into some fascinating areas. It is a job where no two days are the same and where you are at the epicentre of art, commerce, sport and entertainment.
It’s amazing to think that, should you choose to take one the sound engineering courses on offer here at Alchemea, a Diploma in Live Sound Engineering for instance, then you too could be responsible for capturing a crucial moment of sound. Whenever you hear that 1966 commentary on the World Cup for example, you imagine the sound engineer’s joy at grasping a piece of history for the nation’s posterity. This could be your experience, should you decide to take up sound engineering courses.
One of the most fascinating areas of post production training and sound engineering courses is the mastering of tracks. When you take a course at Alchemea you’ll learn many of the techniques involved in mastering when you take one of our sound engineering courses on offer here.
You will have heard the term ‘master tapes’, and all mastering really involves is the transference of all the recorded sound from one area whether it be the Pro Tools digital recording or the recordings done on an analogue mixing desk - both methods of which we teach at Alchemea too, by the way - and using that recording as the master from which all subsequent recordings are taken.
Before digital mastering most master tapes were grooved via a lathe which would ‘cut’ a master disc from which reproductions would be made. It was quite a large operation and those of you with memories or nostalgia for vinyl records will understand how large the manufacturing process must have been.
Studio engineers would record musicians onto tapes and the masters would be sent to the recording company. The recording company would listen to the master and then send it for pressing. Records made out of vinyl were pressed with grooves so that the ‘needle’ could play the recording through a record player.
We’ve come a long way since the original recording of sound, but a lot of the knowledge gained by those early pioneers has been harvested into the digital age and many students on our sound engineering courses on the Diploma or short course appreciate the history behind the recordings of today.
All the tools in the world will not get you great sound if you are on a different wave length to those whom you’re trying to record. Working with talent can be a frustrating as well as a rewarding part of the sound engineering contract.
When you learn at Alchemea College you’ll find that we place great emphasis on practical time, with over 30 hours a week being dedicated to this activity so that you can get to grips with the kind of scenarios which will come up when you’re working as a sound engineer.
Taking sound engineering courses will open up your horizons to new technology and amazing ways of recording sound. What we cannot teach however is how you react to the demands of band members and artists.
What we can do and do indeed replicate is the studio atmosphere because we encourage bands to use our studios (often for free) so that you can get the reality experience of working with artists close up.
On a similar note, students on our live sound courses also get plenty of practical time with live shows, DJs and working at a nightclub. Many of our students think that this ‘hands on’ approach makes our sound engineering courses stand out from the rest of the colleges and of course, we agree.
There’s no substitute for experience, which is an old cliché, but a true one nonetheless and if you want real experiences with artists and on live gigs then grab a place on one of our sound engineering courses.
Watching all the films that are available on demand or anytime on your TV is an arduous task, but when you appreciate the film for more than just the plot and the characters you can become a bit obsessed by seeing how one film stacks up to the other one.
If, for instance, you know about the post production of film and video and how over dubbing works because you have had post production training, you find yourself watching films in a very different way - more appreciatively, perhaps, than you did previously.
At Alchemea College we have fantastic facilities from which many of our students learn take part in post production training as part of our Studio Sound Diploma. The Cinema Dubbing Theatre is based around Digidesign’s amazing ICON D Control work surface which gives you the very latest equipment to work with.
Many students go on to work in post-production on DVDs and films and we’re proud of our record of achievement in helping our students into work. Cinema sound engineering is a very different kettle of fish to live sound or working with bands in the studio, but many students enjoy the results of this particular module, which is why the sound engineering courses are varied.
It is very strange to think that someone who is fairly unsung has such a high value job in the cinema industry. Post-production sound engineering is crucial to how the film will sound in the theatre, which is specifically why we offer post production training and sound engineering courses. Awful sound makes for a bad experience; luckily we have our former students out there getting it right.
