Dubspot online training/ courses - good or bad?

[scamo]

Hi,

Being a beginner, I am looking for good ways to learn the DJ profession and I know going to school, seminars, etc. or even getting a mentor is the fastest way to learn. My problem, I live in the boonies in Germany and finding such things is well, near impossible.

Dubspot has online courses that look interesting, but you don't get any feel for what they are really offering on their web site and if they really can help for the price. (they aren't cheap).

Has anyone of you taken one of their online courses, whether it be for DJing or production? How was it? How was the experience?

scamo

[theory28]

just look up ellaskins and briansredd on youtube. read the articles here, and come back to the forum for any questions

[Garygary1]

just look up ellaskins and briansredd on youtube. read the articles here, and come back to the forum for any questions

This

Most djs don't go to a school, they either pick it up from other djs, or they buy their own gear and learn from youtube tutorials. If your out in the boonies, I would highly suggest the latter if you are that serious about it.

[wrong chris]

the production courses look cool. expensive but cool.

from what i read it not only shows you the ropes of the software, music theory and production techniques but it's setup in such a way that by the end of it you'll have a releasable EP created under the guidance of the instructors.

if it is as good as it sounds, could be worth it if you have the time and money to invest in it. look into the instructors and see what kind of work they've put out to get a feel for what you'll be able to learn from them.

[Coldfuzion]

the production courses look cool. expensive but cool.

from what i read it not only shows you the ropes of the software, music theory and production techniques but it's setup in such a way that by the end of it you'll have a releasable EP created under the guidance of the instructors.

if it is as good as it sounds, could be worth it if you have the time and money to invest in it. look into the instructors and see what kind of work they've put out to get a feel for what you'll be able to learn from them.

For the full Ableton course you better be able to do all of that since you're dropping $10,000 on the course and getting Ableton certified. However, from what i've heard and read and gathered from the interwebs is the that you don't really need a school like this with all the tutorials available for free (or for much much much much cheaper than from Dubspot). And it's not where or whom you're learning from - it's the amount of hard work and time you put in.

I personally - even if I could afford it - would not pay for Dubspots training. I'd stick with what the others suggested. Honestly the DJTT forum is also a great place to come to when you get stuck if you're learning by yourself simply via YouTube. We have a wealth of knowledge on the forums and if you poke and prod at the right people they will have a plethora of wealth (knowledge wise) to throw your way. You just have to do your own research, and ask the right questions.

Happy hunting!

[djproben]

No question at all you will learn a ton from these courses, and the organization and overall sense of purpose will beat what you can find for free on youtube. But the price is insane for online instruction basically through videos. It's only a minor savings over the in-person sessions, which will offer you far more opportunity to interact with instructors. (It's not even clear to me whether you can interact with the instructors at all or not in the online version; if you can't, it's definitely not worth it, I'm guessing you get at least limited email contact). The Dubspot people really know their shit, esp as regards Ableton (I've been to a couple of their sessions in LA), but if I'm going to pay that much for instruction I'm going to want something of a live instructor experience, even if it's online.

So I agree with others here - check out what you can on youtube, and use forums like this one to ask your questions and move forward. If you find you want a much more structured experience, and you can afford it, then maybe think about spending money on classes like these. I'm a huge advocate of structured educational experiences in general but I think the price on this one (at least for the online courses) is a bit high.

[wrong chris]

i've been into producing for a long time, longer than online tutorials have been available - investing time and money into a program like dubspot's isn't for me either.

but that's me - some people are better than others at teaching themselves skills, not everyone can get a proper education from just trial and error, checking out online tutorials and lurking on forums.

but i think a program like dubspot's could be very beneficial for the right student depending on what experience they have and how they learn.

[mostapha]

I haven't been impressed with what I've seen of dubspot's free stuff. If their paid stuff is the same level of instructors and knowledge, it's a complete rip off.

Most of that, though, is based on DJ Endo, who seems like a complete hack. Though if what you want is to learn the most technically efficient way of clipping your sound card outputs with Traktor or Ableton while being told Mixed in Key's marketing copy as a class in harmonic mixing…he's the freaking man.

IHNFC how their production tutorials are because everything I've seen of theirs is worthless, especially compared to DJTT and the Traktor Bible for Traktor or from a few specific people here and on the aldj forums for Live.

EDM has always been a "figure it out yourself" kind of thing beyond the most basic ideas of "kicks go here; snares tend go here, here, or sometimes here; phrases are 8 bars; and, the amen break is kinda cool" and that sort of stuff. The idea of paying that much for a worse version of reading the software manuals seems pointless if not counterproductive. Though, I admit that especially in production just having structure to work within could be a benefit to a lot of people.

[wrong chris]

I haven't been impressed with what I've seen of dubspot's free stuff. If their paid stuff is the same level of instructors and knowledge, it's a complete rip off.

their free articles are hit and miss. i've seen a few really great ones and a few really well, not so great ones haha.
the last one i saw was about using vocal samples to create melodies and well, that was pretty much a waste of time.

there's a local guy, vespers who puts out really amazing tutorials on producing for free that anyone who's interested should definitely checkout. just youtube search "vespers".

[BennyJ]

Ellaskinz has taught me ALOT of what i know on youtube. I love that guy.