Music Production 101
Designed for anyone interested in producing music on their computer, regardless of style, this course provides an overview of the wide range of tools available to the modern electronic musician. Through hands-on exercises and projects, you’ll experience the process of producing a piece of music with your computer, from developing the original musical idea through distributing a final mix. This course will teach you not only how to design and configure an electronic music studio that supports your creative goals, but also how to understand and utilize the most popular tools and techniques employed by electronic musicians. You’ll learn how to set up audio interfaces, microphones, MIDI sequencers, synthesizers, drum machines, and more to effectively create and produce your music ideas.
Note: Music Production 101 is a revised version of two former Berklee Online courses: Desktop Music Production for Mac and Desktop Music Production for PC. If you have already taken Desktop Music Production for Mac or Desktop Music Production for PC, please note that you will encounter similar or repeated lesson content should you choose to enroll in Music Production 101.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Configure a personal production workspace and use software instruments and audio recordings to produce a piece of music
- Understand the properties of sound and how they are represented in the analog and digital domain
- Understand basic audio specifications used in product descriptions and use them to choose audio tools that will best match your creative needs and budget
- Create a composite version of a performance using multiple takes understand how the MIDI protocol represents musical performances
- Create and effectively use audio loops in a music production
- Recognize how audio signals move within a mixer
- Use common mixing and mastering techniques to create a stereo master audio file
- Use cloud services for distribution and collaboration
Syllabus
Lesson 1 Setting Up an Electronic Music Studio
Lesson 2 Sound and Signals
Lesson 3 MIDI Sequencing
Lesson 4 MIDI Editing
Lesson 5 Working with Synthesizers
Lesson 6 Working with Time, and Tempo, and Rhythm: Drum Machines, Pattern Devices, and Loops
Lesson 7 Audio Recording
Lesson 8 Digital Audio Production Techniques
Lesson 9 Audio Editing and Processing
Lesson 10 Mixing and Audio Effects 1
Lesson 11 Mixing and Audio Effects 2
Lesson 12 Mastering, Music Distribution and Course Wrap-up
Requirements
Prerequisites and Course-Specific Requirements
Students should have a basic, working knowledge of rudimentary music theory and have some basic keyboard skills.
Required Textbook(s)
- None required
Software Requirements
- Free audio-editing software Audacity
- Reason 11 or higher (full version)
Hardware Requirements
- MIDI keyboard controller
- Microphone (XLR connection recommended if using audio interface)
- USB audio interface (recommended)
Instructors
Author
For Michael Bierylo, teaching Music Synthesis at Berklee is just one component of an eclectic and highly creative career. From his Virtual Planet studio, he’s completed film, video, and multimedia scores for clients like Hasbro Interactive, Nintendo, MSNBC, Nickelodeon, VH1, Martha Stewart Living, and Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure. He’s also a guitarist, composer, programmer and sound designer for the uncategorizable new music avatars Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. His solo album Life Line earned four and a half stars from the All Music Guide, and he’s a voting member of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences.
Author
Author of nine books and a recognized expert on music technology, David Mash is Vice President for Information Technology at Berklee College of Music. One of Berklee’s true innovators, he founded the nation’s first music synthesis department, developed the Center for Technology in Music Instruction, and assisted in the design of the country’s largest networked music learning facility, the Berklee Learning Center. He has also scored award-winning digital films, and appeared on such programs as Newton’s Apple, CBS Evening News, 3-2-1 Contact, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.
Instructor
Peter Bell, Electronic Music and Production faculty at Berklee College of Music, is a producer, composer, and guitarist. His compositions and productions include the themes to This Old House, New Yankee Workshop, Victory Garden, the ABC After School Special, the award- winning film Radio Cape Cod, as well as countless jingles and production tracks. Peter has produced tracks featuring many world-class musicians, including Bonnie Raitt, Tracey Bonham, Livingston Taylor, Kate Taylor, Alex Taylor, Layla Hathaway, John Poussette-Dart, The New Kids On The Block, Rebecca Parris, Mick Goodrick, Mike Metheny, Mark Sandman of Morphine, Alan Estes, Patty Grifin, and others.
He has recorded with Bonnie Raitt on Warner Brothers and the James Montgomery Band on Capricorn and Island Records, among many others. His awards include two Emmys, seven NEBA awards, and six ASCAP awards. Peter holds a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Composition and Arranging from Berklee College of Music and a BA in Government from Harvard University.
Instructor
Tony Schultz has been an audio engineer, music producer and composer for more than 28 years as owner & operator of Big T Productions in Boston. He is an assistant professor at The New England Institute of Art, where he has taught since 1997, specializing in MIDI and Audio Technology. He has been teaching for Berklee Online since 2016.
Tony has a bachelor’s of music degree in Music Production & Engineering from the Berklee College of Music and a master’s in Music Technology from the University of Newcastle in Callaghan, Australia. He has served three consecutive two-year terms as the chair of the Boston Section of the Audio Engineering Society and is currently serving his second two-year term as the AES VP of the Eastern Region of the US/Canada. He is also the current chair of Regions & Sections, overseeing all Pro and Student AES Sections Worldwide.
Past clients include RCA Records, Mercury Records, Virgin Records, WFNX, Filene’s, Home Inc., EF Education, Schneider & Associates, Softskull Press Inc., Brand X Filmworks, Dudnyk Healthcare, Teatro de Marionettas de Venezuela, and the NAHB Production Group.
Tony has presented at a number of colleges including Berklee College of Music, Harvard University and the Royal College of Music in London.
He is a member of the Society of Professional Recording Services (SPARS), National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS), and the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP).
Instructor
Mike Hamilton has been producing, writing, recording, and performing music for over twenty years. He was a member of the late night band for the BET television show Live from LA, where he wrote and produced hip-hop pieces for guest artists such as Dr. Dre, Snoop Dog, Warren G, Method Man, P. Diddy, and Mystical. He has produced recordings for Interscope, Island Def Jam, and BGP Records. His recordings include Heart and Soul with the Winans, Thus Spoke Z with CTI, and the solo albums Natural Attraction and Here Together. While the saxophone is his principal instrument, he also plays keyboards, bass, and drums.
Hamilton has appeared and toured with multi-platinum recording artists such as James Brown, Tyrese, Savage Garden, Coolio, Joe, Ronny Jordan, Jonathan Butler, and Phil Perry. He has performed at the BBC London, the NFL World Bowl IX Halftime Show, the Turn Ben Stein On TV show, and the Today show. He has been featured at the Boston Globe Jazz Festival and the Santa Barbara Jazz Festival. He received his bachelor of music degree from Berklee College of Music, where he is now an assistant professor in the Contemporary Writing and Production department.
Instructor
Michael Moss is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Music Production and Engineering at Berklee College of Music. His diverse resume includes three Grammy nominations for audio books, a prestigious Audie Award from the Audio Publishers Association, a long history as a saxophonist touring with the Cab Calloway Orchestra, extensive performances in the studio and on stage with artists such as Aretha Franklin, Gil Evans, the Four Tops, Frankie Valli, and Bo Diddley, and a Master of Music degree from the New England Conservatory.
Moss has been working with MIDI since its inception, and it is an inextricable part of his scoring work as founder and owner of Soundscape Productions, an in-demand project studio situated in 5,700 square feet of loft space in Boston. Soundscape Productions provides superior production and sound services for education, industry, and advertising, including big-budget clients such as Gillette, Coca-Cola, and Warner Brothers. In 1996 Soundscape produced the Grammy-nominated book-on-tape Jumanji, which was read by Robin Williams, star of the movie version of the book. In 2000, Soundscape received two more Grammy nominations, for The Polar Express read by Liam Neeson and scored by Moss, and The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey, read by James Earl Jones. In addition, Soundscape has hosted notable authors such as Philip Roth, John Updike, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, poet Allen Ginsberg, and comedy performer Adam Sandler. Soundscape’s expertise and popularity in the field of spoken word recordings was recently heralded in a feature story by Mix Magazine.
Michael Moss’ music has appeared in well over one hundred commercial audio book releases, including The Polar Express, the Christmas classic by Chris Van Allsburg. He typically starts with a MIDI score, which serves as the seed for a full orchestral recording. His current MIDI rig is comprised of fifteen hardware synthesizers and numerous software synthesizers. His distinguished career as a composer includes clients such as National Public Radio, Simon and Schuster, Gillette, and many others.
Another facet of Soundscape is the company CreateSound. CreateSound markets the Michael Moss invention Aud-eMail, an innovative Web application that allows a user to record their voice and add a library of entertaining media soundbites to create audio e-mail messages. CreateSound’s clients include Paramount Pictures, Miramax films, and Twentieth Century Fox. Moss uses Reason as the software basis of work he is doing in sound installation art, as part of a collaboration with visual artist Claudia Ravaschiere. His audio work resides in the permanent collection of the Boston Children’s Museum, and their latest collaboration, Precious, was the subject of an NPR story.
Instructor
Carla Hassett is a Los Angeles based singer, songwriter, producer, recording artist, session singer, and music educator. Born in São Paulo Brazil, Carla was raised in Chicago and schooled in the city’s great recording studios where she learned to be a studio rat and jingle singer. Soon after moving to Los Angeles, Carla began touring with bands like Curiosity Killed the Cat, REO Speedwagon, and artists like Billy Idol, Sergio Mendes, Christopher Cross, Cristan Castro, and actor/musician Gary Sinise. Carla has backed up soul legend Solmon Burke, and performed with Brazilian artists Flora Purim and Airto Moreira, and Faith No More’s lead singer, Mike Patton. She sang on numerous albums for artists like Gino Vannelli, Spanish rock artist Enrique Bunbury, Brazilian country music superstar Paula Fernandes, Michael Bublé, and Mike Patton. At the Latin Grammy Person of the Year Show honoring treasured Brazilian artist Caetano Veloso, Carla sang for Veloso and other artists like Natalie Cole, Nelly Furtado, Seu Jorge, Lila Downs and other Latin music superstars.
Carla has performed on TV shows like The Tonight Show, Dante Night Show, The Grammy Awards, and Pee Wee’s Playhouse. More recently, Carla was featured soloist in the Sonorama project for Pacific Standard Time LA/LA at the Getty, The LA Tribute to Luiz Melodia, the Film Composer Collective concert at the Theatricum Botanicum for film composer Matthew Ferraro, and the rock opera Feast of Friends at the Rio Threatre in Santa Cruz. Carla sang on several feature films, including the Oscar nominated (for best original song) RIO for composers Sergio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown, and John Powell, and RIO 2 with Janelle Monae and her band. In Brazil, the song “Teu Olhar,” which Carla produced and co-wrote, became the lover’s theme song for the popular telenovela Amor e Ódio. Back in the states, Carla sang and contracted vocal sessions for numerous Disney recordings in Portuguese and Spanish, and on countless commercial jingles. Carla sang on the pilot for the Amazon original Mozart In the Jungle, and on the Netflix original film, Like Father.
Inspired by her work with Caetano Veloso, Carla explored tropicália and jazz for her self-produced 2016 album, +Blue (whose title, “More Blue” was inspired by Veloso’s song “A Little More Blue”). On +Blue, Carla explored the meaning of “home” and the complexities of growing up between two countries and cultures: her birthplace, Brazil, and her adopted country, the U.S. NPR featured +Blue and interviewed Carla on Weekend Edition with Linda Wertheimer.
In 2019, Carla released a vinyl single, Adriana, on the Burlacticus Recording Company label. Adriana, written by the great bossa nova guitarist and composer Roberto Menescal, was chosen by the label especially for Carla and her band for its exquisite groove in 5/4 meter, and intimate vocal style. During the recording session for Adriana, Carla tracked and produced an additional two songs of her own, Three Kings and Sempre Odara, which went on to win the John Lennon Songwriting Contest grand prize in jazz.
Carla graduated Summa Cum Laude with a degree in Music Production from Berklee Online and is currently a professor of commercial music at California State University, Los Angeles. She is on the songwriting team for the children’s web series, Outta The Books, and continues to perform, write, and produce music both in-house and remotely from her studio in Los Angeles.
What’s Next?
When taken for credit, Music Production 101 can be applied towards these associated programs:
Associated Certificate Programs
- General Music Studies Professional Certificate
- General Music Studies Advanced Professional Certificate
- Sampling and Sound Design for Electronic Music Professional Certificate
- Electronic Music Production and Sound Design Advanced Professional Certificate
Associated Degree Majors
- Bachelor’s Degree in Music Production
- Bachelor’s Degree in Music Business
- Bachelor’s Degree in Music Composition for Film, TV, and Games
- Bachelor’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Music Studies (Create Your Own Major)
- Bachelor’s Degree in Electronic Music Production and Sound Design
- (Pre-Degree) Undeclared Option
- Bachelor’s Degree in Songwriting
- Bachelor’s Degree in Guitar
- Bachelor’s Degree in Songwriting and Producing Music
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