Been using Traktor/Traktor 2 for some time now and playing paid gigs on a somewhat regular basis. Just starting to learn abelton but looking to really tear it apart. In my search for online tutorials, I keep coming across these awesome videos for Dubspot DJ school in NY. After reading the descriptions and watching their videos it looks totally awesome. The only problem is the price…
$12,600 seems like an awful lot of money for an online certificate program… I guess what I’m asking is, has anyone taken any of their classes, online or in person, and what did you think? Was it worth the money? Did you learn a lot and would you recommend it to a friend? Or… do you think these courses are unnecessary? Is it possible to learn all of these things without paying a lot of money and if so, what do you think is the best way?
I’m not knocking or promoting the insitution in any way. Just looking for the best way to learn more about the digital DJing and production stuff that we all love so much!
Thanks in advance for sharing your opinions and experiences,
Uncle DJ
personally id say the price is ridiculous. there are lots of uni’s in the uk that do awesome degree’s in music production. that being said they have some of the worlds best dh’s and producers as tutors so if ur mega flush go for it
I took some classes in person a year or two ago (I didn’t pay for it…). I took the DJ/producer package so DJ plus 3 levels of ableton. In person it was excellent and I learned a ton. You could learn it on your own but it takes patience and what I really got out of it was the experience and people I met. I used to hang out a dubspot and just practice mixing, work on production, or just screw around.
I met some really great and talented people, famous djs, and producers (John Selway taught me ableton). It was excellent and worth it for the networking. If you are really into it and get to know them you can start to hang out with them and go to their gigs, you can get small gigs with the dubspot crew, radio slots, they will introduce you to promoters and you will get to know the scene. I got some experience doing small gigs with the guy who ran the DJ class and he would bring along a few of the motivated students and give them slots. It was a ton of fun and a great experience. That said I wouldn’t do it online because the real value was the face to face work and the people i met and hung around with outside of classes, but it might be worth it to you.
Definitely worth it if you have cash to burn and do it in NY. I did it before the online school so I couldn’t tell you. I’m sure you will learn a lot but I can’t imagine it being the same and you miss out on the human element and networking opportunities which is way more valuable to me. If you do it in NY and get involved with the instructors it is easy to get some chances to gig out and meet a lot of people. If you get into production and do it in person there a good portion of the staff are successful producers with lots of contacts. You might get a little bit of that online but you don’t have the social element and studio environment of interacting with everyone at dubspot.
Before the online thing I was friends with a guy a couple summers ago who actually moved to NY and stayed in NYU housing to take a bunch of the classes there. He got connected at dubspot and I’m pretty sure has since moved to NY for good and makes a living as a DJ and working at dubspot. That wouldn’t have happened online.
That said the production stuff is a lot more expensive than the dj stuff. It is also definitely catered towards people who have money to spend on something interesting to them that they’ve wanted to try- I don’t think most people go there treating it like an education where they realistically expect to earn that money back. I’m sure some do though.
To be fair if you did the whole thing in person I’m confident you would be magnitudes more equipped to produce music than if you got a degree from most technical colleges. The curriculum is extremely thorough.
I’ve taken a few of their one-off seminars - a couple weekends on Ableton and such. All in person and all great … and not so ridiculously overpriced (like 200-300 per weekend, none of this five figure stuff). Personally I wouldn’t spend that kind of money on online classes but if you did I’m pretty sure you would learn a lot.
why dont you try SAE Institute? I just finished their diploma (and now about to do the degree) and i find it was absolutely worth the money, they teach you starting from the basics (analog consoles, signal flows, decibels and fundamentals of audio etc) up until electronic music production, mastering, band recording etc
and you get to operate many world class equipment and consoles like the SSL (not serato scratch live - solid state logic which is pretty much a $100,000 mixer) and you are free to book studio sessions to make use of their studio equipment during the course of your studies
im not feelin this whole online course thing, you can learn a lot online for almost next to nothing but $12000 for it? better just put a little extra and do the live courses (as you mentioned $14000 something?), at least when you ask questions (and you will do - a lot!) you get an instant response and when you make a mistake they can immediately correct you or criticize you - the whole interaction aspect is, in my opinion, very important in audio engineering courses
there are some ridiculously dodgy SAE’s though. Signed up in Brisbane (oz). studio was pretty rubbish, macs were maintained poorly, with plenty not available, classes were oversubscribed so you struggled to even get a Mac or studio time, and the particular course lecturer i had was a 19 year old who wasn’t very clear or concise. Waste of time
wow , surprised to hear that! over here in Singapore we have really awesome lecturers, they have so much knowledge that they are like the equivalent of jedi masters (lol) well they are pretty old so thats probably why they have heaps more experience than the 19 year old you mentioned
studio time can be tough during the finals but for the most part are pretty easy to get, plenty of full-stocked mac pros (the 4 core+ones) to be used as there are plenty of them, all loaded with goodies (reason,logic, protools and the lot) so some of the students who dont have a mac pretty much stays in the school 24/7
perhaps different countries have different management so it could be different, the TS can perhaps suss out the local branches and speak to the lecturers etc and check out what equipment they got