Check out the video below to see how it all works:

We at Point Blank Music School are extremely happy to be able to offer a genre specific course for producing Minimal and Tech House tracks with Ableton Live. As a tool for working with Minimal, Ableton has always been considered top-quality due to its endless ability to be manipulated to the working methods of the user and due to the fact that Ableton is a fantastic DJ tool. The genres of Minimal and Tech House have always welcomed new technology, whereas other artists in other genres may cling to the traditional, purist methods of DJing purely with vinyl, when a Minimal artist plays your more than likely to catch a glimpse of the latest hardware controller or brand new digital DJ software.

So to get back to the course, whats on offer is the ability to Learn how to produce Minimal and Tech House tracks to release quality. Using Ableton Live you will create your own authentic drum sounds, synth patches, textures and effects under the guidance of a pro music producer. Essential tips, tricks and techniques to give your tracks that professional sound. Upload your music each week for expert analysis and feedback on your work.

It’s this final feature, the ability to upload you music and get feedback, that I’m most excited about due to the fact that this is the only online course of its kind in which students receive personal guidance on their work. The way in which this feature works is that each week you upload your Ableton track/project so far and your pro producer tutor will examine and analyse the track in Ableton and produce a video of him going through it advising on what might be improved and how to go about doing so. So what you effectively get is a 1-2-1 personalised video explaining how your individual project can be changed/tweaked/developed in order to achieve the sound that you’re looking for!

In addition to this 1-2-1 personalised video feedback, you also receive a whole host of other course materials, including; Over 50 video tutorials on Ableton Live, Extensive course notes, Over 20 Ableton projects to download, Exclusive samples & audio resources, Weekly web chat with a pro producer and a Student forum to post your questions & discussion topics.

You can check out the full details of the course here. Also take a look at the video below for a taster of what you can expect from the personal video feedback:

There’s not really too much more to say on this other than to check out the video below and see the masters at work:

“Avatar” Sound For Film Profile from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

With this in mind Vestax have created the VCM-600 a USB MIDI Controller with a traditional mixing console lay out and the high quality build that Vestax are known for. The console comes with its own mapping for Ableton, which is pretty convenient, however it is also fully customizable to be suited to the your personal layout and with the vast array of faders, knobs and sliders there’s a lot to get mapping with!

The VCM-600 looks to be a great bit of kit and we can see it functioning at home in the studio or in a club for a performance, the only drawback may be the size as I can’t really see anyone dragging it about to the club and back.

Check out the video below for a bit of a preview on how the VCM-600 can be used:

The software boasts the ability to allow the user to manipulate the pitch, length and timing of individual notes within polyphonic material, thus you have an amazing piano roll style editing of polyphonic audio and extraction of midi chord data. However, the software may also be said to have the ability of isolating vocals and instrument parts from stereo mixes, so that DJs and remixers could have carte blanche to any part of any track they desire. But maybe don’t get your hopes up too high, as there is a definite limit to this use of the DNA software with plenty of applications which you may want and may sound plausible but are in fact unattainable.

You can check out the full article here. But for now check out the video below for a quick guide to how this useful tool can be applied and how it could make your DJing live a lot easier.

Ableton Live has constantly been noted for its extreme versatility and its ability to be manipulated to the user’s way of working, due to this we often find new displays of ways to utilise this software and new techniques within the platform- regular readers may remember a previous post on Ski Beatz using Ableton in a unique way.

This quick video demonstrates how to manually chop samples in Ableton and then assign them to a drum rack, thus giving you a pretty quick way to slice samples and still have control over your sections. There is also another video which demonstrates how to automate chopping and to thus use Ableton to chop samples like and Akai MPC, check out that vid here.

So this video demonstrates how to have more control over your chops before you slice and assign them to the drum rack. So by utilising this technique you’ve got your very own MPC built into Ableton and ready to go loaded up with your samples!

Paul Epworth is one of the most in-demand music producers and remixers around. He has an enviable list of production and remix credits that includes some of the most successful breakthrough artists of the last few years – Florence & The Machine, Friendly Fires, Maximo Park, Simian Mobile Disco, Bloc Party, Babyshambles and Kate Nash to name a few. This year looks to be yet another busy one for Paul – as I mentioned he has aready racked up a Brits nomination for “Producer of the Year”.

Paul spent a good couple of hours talking to the Point Blank students about his career and covered topics including favourite pieces of studio gear, recording techniques, insights into the working methods of favourite artists and some exciting new names to look out for in 2010! In short…an absolutely fascinating insight into the working methods of a successful producer.

There are a range of videos from the talk which you can check out here, but for now take a look at the first one below. This video shows Paul talking about the beginning of the creative process which he undergoes when working with an artist and provides an interesting look at how a top-level producer starts working on a project.

The MIDI Fighter is a DIY MIDI controller that can be built by anyone regardless of their electronics experience. The controller is fully customizable to your taste with custom paint jobs and unique arcade button arrangements, its an extremely fun bit of kit which enables you to control any parameters you wish and fits perfectly alongside your digital DJ set-up.

The video below demonstrates how the controller can be used with Traktor to toggle cue points and effects in an extremely easy to use way, its portable and pretty good value for money. Needless to say the video is an impressive display of what the MIDI Fighter is capable of, so if you get your hands one you can be assured of non-stop customizable fun!

So with this in mind Point Blank Music College have created the Mixing Dance Music Course, which directly addresses these invaluable techniques and provides an excellent guide to creating the perfect mix for your tracks.

The course features over 90 video tutorials on Logic Pro, extensive course notes, over 20 Logic Projects to download, exclusive audio/midi resources, a student forum to post your questions & discussion topics, personalised video feedback on your music and weekly webchats with a pro producer. It is these final two points that we at Point Blank are most proud of due to the fact that this is the only course of its kind which features an industry experienced producer giving you direct 1-2-1 feedback on your productions as you progress.

Our professional producer tutor Danny J Lewis (Enzyme Black) will guide you through the mixing process while providing you with a video of him going through your work, offering advice on how to make improvements and corrections. You will be getting access to an amazing producer listening to tunes and guiding you through how to create the perfect sound your looking for.

Danny has very kindly put together the video below which offers a preview of the immense depth and coverage the course offers, you can also see from the vid the high standard to which the course is taught and the quality of the course materials and feedback on offer.

So if your struggling to get the perfect mix on your tracks and want to learn first hand how pro producers achieve that professional, crisp sound then you may want to check out the course and get enrolling.

The fact is that as DJs or producers, in both a professional as well as an amature setting, we are all subject to a great deal of abuse when it comes to our hearing. Good hearing is undoubtably an essential commodity when it comes to working with music, it is something which you don’t want to lose! With the hours and hours that many of us spend listening to music at high levels, whether while at a club, a gig, when DJing, in the studio, or even on personal music players there is always a chance that your hearing will be damaged, and as we have posted before you cannot underestimate the value of a good set of professional ear plugs.

However, there has never really been an easy way to test your hearing, to check if you have anything to worry about and see whether you have suffered any damage when it comes to the precise hearing that most of us one day had. Now it has never been area to check out your hearing levels and see what frequency range you can hear, you can simply check your hearing using the uHear iPhone app.

In any case suffering hearing damage should definitely involve a medical consultation, but this new little app is great for a music producer as you can check the exact frequencies that you can hear to a good standard. This may prove to be extremely useful when it comes to the final mixdown of a track. Anyway you can check out the full article here.