Short Courses

Live - Create & Destroy With Ableton Live 8

Create, Produce, Perform with the Liveschool team.

4 x 4 hr sessions, $770.00 (plus eligibility for a MASSIVE discount on Ableton Live)
Next Course: 4 x Wednesday, starting on 7th October

Just like the program itself, this course will have you stand out from the crowd by blurring the traditional boundaries between the major disciplines of music: Creating, Producing & Performing. This course covers:

• Writing on-the-fly
• Producing & remixing
• Mash-ups & re-edits
• Building custom drum kits & bass sounds
• Basic music theory & how to fake it
• Essential rules of digital audio production
• Digital recording & sampling with Live
• Dj techniques
• Creating multi-layered mix-cd's
• Performance skills for stage & studio

Course notes and a take-home content DVD are provided for all participants.

Adam Maggs
Adam is SAE's resident Ableton guru. He is an experienced teacher and comes fresh from Liveschool, Australia's first dedicated Ableton school. Adam is also part of Stick Figures, recently playing at Big Day out, Parklife and Field Day, releasing records on Risky Disko, Moonboutique and Future Classic and remixing artists like The Blunt, Deepchild, and T-Rek.

Pro Tools 8

4 x 4 hr sessions, $770.00
Next course 4 x Mondays, starts 12th of October, 6:00pm -10:00pm

Being one of the leading Digital Audio Workstations in the professional audio and broadcast industry today, this course will give you the opportunity to learn how to operate Digidesign’s latest incarnation, ProTools 8. This course covers:

• Discover Pro Tools 8 new layout
• Recording audio and MIDI
• Editing and creative manipulation including Elastic Audio
• Learn to use the new Air Plugins and Instruments
• Mixing and automation
• Compression and EQ
• Routing and ReWire

Dean Belcastro
Pro-tools tech head Dean Belcastro is the original musician turned engineer-producer, buying one of the first Pro Tools systems and being infatuated with it ever since. Working at numerous Sydney studios, he has been recording, mixing, playing drums and producing on hundreds of tracks for the likes of BMG, Warner Bros, Warner Chappell, Quicksilver & Roxy video's, Rob Hirst (Midnight Oil), Richard Clapton, Andy Gill (UK's Gang of Four), and even Beau Young (World Champion longboarder!), to name a few. Dean is also part of Sydney electro/gothic outfit Hyske, who he tours with regularly.

Music Theory 1 for Electronic Musicians

4 x 4 hr sessions, $770.00
Next course 4 x Mondays, starts 9th November, 6:00pm -10:00pm

What does it take to create a great track? Software is an obvious must, some great synths help too, even some good loops are important. However MUSIC is the most important part of an electronic music track. In this course you will learn the basics of music theory as it applies to modern artists. Rather than Beethoven, we will use Daft Punk, rather than Charlie Parker, we will use Eric Prydz.

We cover the basics of harmony, melody, bass, chords & scales, and how they work together. We look at different genres of 'electronic music' and analyze them. In depth ear training. The classes are divided into Lecture and Lab. Focus is on the practical application of music theory; we use what we learn.

If you're interested in creating your own music, or refining that which you already make, this course is for you. Ableton Live is used in your labs. A working knowledge of Ableton is helpful, but not essential.

Dan Biederman
Pianist, Composer, DJ and Producer. He graduated from Arizona State University's Herberger School of Music where he earned his B.A. in Fine Arts, Music; a master's degree is in the works. But most importantly, he has been refining this course for years, creating a one-of-a-kind Music Theory course for the modern musician.