Electronic Music Production (EMP) Course

 

For intermediate learners who are ready to really take their electronic music production skills to the next level. You will get deep into electronic sound design and make the sounds you can hear in your head from the ground up, and apply them to your style. The course is structured and paced so if you wish, you can put everything you’ve learnt into practice by making a track while doing the course with the guidance of your instructors. A selection of specialists will share their techniques and knowledge of beat making, subtractive, additive, wavetable, granular and frequency modulated synthesis, which can be used across all genres, giving you an all round knowledge of the principles you need to know for your style. We even cover a bit of music theory where you learn how to write chords, riffs and bass-lines in just two hours! 

Full of production tips, tricks and advice on how to get your electronic music moving. If you tend to spend a long time flicking through presets until you’ve got something just similar to what you had in mind, this course is for you. You won’t be using presets again unless you’re after an electric piano! We use Native Instruments and D16 because we’re fans, but you don’t have to own them to do the course. We use Macs with Logic and Ableton, but it’s suitable for all DAW users on Mac or PC. The six week course takes place at the Arthaus, and our warehouse in London, and the price is £449. Do check out the bottom of this page to see what our recent learners thought. You’ll be surprised at some of the names on there!

“Being on tour most of our life means there’s little time to make records let alone read manuals or learn new bits of kit. Dave Garnish gave us a tour of his EMP course and I was blown away with the amazing usable textures you can get out of Kontakt from the most basic of source sounds. The manipulation of the audio is incredible – really inspiring. The EMP course is awesome and a perfect solution for DJs who want to learn how to produce all genres of dance music. The mixing course looks great too.”Anthony Middleton –Audiofly

Irfan Nathoo, Larry Holcombe, Tom Belton, Pete Gleadall, Dave Garnish, Steve Powell, Mark Jenkins and Marc JB are our EMP specialists, and you will work with most of them. Check them out on our instructors page and Google.

If you miss any sessions dues to holidays or illness, we will do our best to engineer it so you can come back on the next cycle to catch up. All courses come with extensive notes put together by our expert course developers.

The courses are designed for optimised learning so you take in the content in a day, recap in between sessions at home, and come back to us a week later for the next session of learning. This makes use of an educational practice called The Spacing Effect. Evening courses run two sessions per week for three hours each.

To enrol, call or send us an email telling us which course you would like to do, when it runs and we’ll organise the rest.

Week 1 – Music, Beats and Pieces

• How to write chords, bass-lines and hooks in 2 hours!
• Programming beats fit for finished records
• When, where and how to use loops to achieve a finished track sound
• The elements you couldn’t pick out but are so important
• Layering to achieve finished record quality beats
• Making beats sound phatt (watch a video HERE)

Week 2 – Subtractive Synthesis and Track Construction

• Introducing subtractive synthesis
• Waveforms, oscillators, filters & LFOs
• Wave manipulation and resampling
• Making a palette of sound: Getting things to work together
• Making waves into hooks
• Envelopes and using them creatively

Week 3 – Huge Sounds Using Wavetable and Additive Synthesis

• Massive (Controls, Exciters and Disturbers)
• Morphing and modulation
• Huge bass lines and Dubstep wobble from scratch (handy to know for all styles)
• Additive synthesis in Razor (watch a video HERE)
• Layering and tuning oscillators to make sounds even bigger
• Using melody and harmony by pitching oscillators

Week 5 – Audio Manipulation, Arranging and Mixing Tips

• FX: side-chaining, FX chaining and signal routing
• Advanced audio manipulation in samplers
• Keeping interest: developing the subtle changes that keep a track interesting
• All about arranging electronic music
• Tips and tricks to make drops have the maximum impact
• Mixing electronic music top tips and tricks

Week 6 – The Finale

• Morning in the Analogue Suite with more analogue synths than you can shake a stick at!
• Afternoon on our modular synthesiser and tablet music production with Mark Jenkins

 

 

 

This course is designed for people who use any DAW.

 

End of year 2011

Date	Time
Saturday 12th November	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 19th November	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 26th November	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 3rd December	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 10th December	11.00 – 18.00
Saturday 17th December	11.00 – 18.00

 

New Year 2012

Date	Time
Monday 2nd January	11.00 – 18.00
Monday 9th January	11.00 – 18.00
Monday 16th January	11.00 – 18.00
Monday 23rd January	11.00 – 18.00
Monday 30th January	11.00 – 18.00
Monday 6th February	11.00 – 18.00

 

Early Spring 2012

Date	Time
Monday 13th February	18:45 – 21:45
Tuesday 14th February	18:45 – 21:45
Monday 20th February	18:45 – 21:45
Tuesday 21st February	18:45 – 21:45
Monday 27th February	18:45 – 21:45
Tuesday 28th February	18:45 – 21:45
Monday 5th March	18:45 – 21:45
Tuesday 6th March	18:45 – 21:45
Monday 12th March	18:45 – 21:45
Tuesday 13th March	18:45 – 21:45
Monday 19th March	18:45 – 21:45
Tuesday 20th March	18:45 – 21:45

 

Late Spring 2012

Date	Time
Tuesday 27th March	11.00 – 18.00
Tuesday 3rd April	11.00 – 18.00
Tuesday 10th April	11.00 – 18.00
Tuesday 17th April	11.00 – 18.00
Tuesday 24th April	11.00 – 18.00
Tuesday 1st May	11.00 – 18.00

 

Early Summer 2012

Date	Time
Sunday 13th May	11.00 – 18.00
Sunday 20th May	11.00 – 18.00
Sunday 27th May	11.00 – 18.00
Sunday 3rd June	11.00 – 18.00
Sunday 10th June	11.00 – 18.00
Sunday 17th June	11.00 – 18.00

 

Midsummer 2012

Date	Time
Tuesday 19th June	18:45 – 21:45
Thursday 21st June	18:45 – 21:45
Tuesday 26th June	18:45 – 21:45
Thursday 28th June	18:45 – 21:45
Tuesday 3rd July	18:45 – 21:45
Thursday 5th July	18:45 – 21:45
Tuesday 10th July	18:45 – 21:45
Thursday 12th July	18:45 – 21:45
Tuesday 17th July	18:45 – 21:45
Thursday 19th July	18:45 – 21:45
Tuesday 24th July	18:45 – 21:45
Thursday 26th July	18:45 – 21:45

 

One week summer school:

August 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 & 11

All 11am – 6pm. Same course, same amount of hours, same price, but can be done in one week. Please see our summer school page for information on accommodation.

 

Book now

 

“I thought the courses were pretty much perfect!” Adam Ficek - Logic and EMP. Read interview

 

“The reason I took the course is because I wanted to get more in-depth with different types of synthesis, electronic sound design and programming beats. I’ve been working on music the whole time on the courses here and at home, putting the tricks and methods i’ve learnt into practice. I’ve found that the way I approach things now is different to how I did before. I find now I work in a kind of optimised way, not only saving so much time when I work on music by getting what I want quickly. I now just know what to do to improve a song with production. There’s so much more scope now, so many more options than I had before I did the EMP course in particular. Great tutors with experience, good teaching techniques, and well structured lessons. I wouldn’t change anything on both courses and next I am going to take your mixing course.” Stefan Olsdal - Logic and EMP. Read interview

 

“I found the course to have excellent content well delivered by great tutors. Everyone is happy to answer any questions you have no matter how silly they seem which is great when learning new material.” Mike Mackeeg – EMP

 

“I did the Logic and the EMP course. It was everything I hoped for and more. I’m not interested in long academic courses and this was exactly the shot in the arm my music production skills needed. I researched courses for a long time before finding Garnish and there’s nothing else out there like it. I’ll be doing the mixing course next after a break to put into practice all what i’ve learnt so far” Russ Jay – Logic and EMP

 

“You’re getting taught by teacher’s how have been in the industry for a very long time and have worked with some amazing people. They are not only showing you how to work the virtual synthesisers, but also giving you tips and amazing advice.” Crysta Healy - EMP and Mixing

 

“Exposure to enthusiastic tutors and other students. Much better than just online training. Incredible 6 weeks of next level music production with enthusiastic and knowledgeable tutors…what more could you want?” Nick Garbutt – EMP

 

Ive been DJing for years now and realise that the only way to progress these days is to produce my own releasable music. As a beginner, I tried out some private tuition from a bloke I found on Gumtree. I wasn’t getting much out of it at all and I even started to question myself. I did the Ableton diploma course at Garnish after a friend recommended it. The course is brilliant, our instructor Irfan was amazing, his enthusiasm when teaching is something else. Also very comforting knowing that he had released a new dance album I was already well aware of. A great mix of people on the course, and per hour, only a third of the price of the private tutor I had in the first place! I’ve just finished my first track, it’s such a wicked feeling  I can’t recommend the course enough! 
Melvo Baptiste – Ableton and EMP

 

“Great wealth of Knowledge and expertise passed on from teachers who are actively working in dance music. A great course that has empowered me to enhance my music and finish quality dance tracks.” Hayden Noel – EMP

 

“Overall, I’ve found the majority of information provided by the course to be of practical value to someone with an intermediate level of skill and knowledge of electronic music production. I also thought the teachers had a good level and range of knowledge, communicated well and were all very approachable.” Well known DJ who’d prefer we didn’t publish his name – EMP

 

“I found the beginners Logic course really inspiring and completely relevant to what I am trying to achieve. In such a small time I have progressed immensely and now can have solutions for what I had been struggling with for so long. I’ve even leant how to record vocals properly too! Online tutorial videos were just bewildering and I wish I had done this course years ago. Next up is EDM (now EMP) and I can’t wait!” Sam Ball – Logic and EMP

 

“I already knew Logic so the EDM (now EMP) course was perfect for me to really get to grips with sound design. Highly recommend this course for any aspiring electronic music producer.” Acid Steve – EMP

 

“The most worth while 6 days off work I have ever taken!” Tom Connell – EMP

 

I’d been reading manuals, learning the tricks from books, magazines, youtube reviews and much more. All of which are great, but the (Mixing) course I did with Dave took all this and put it into context, whilst making it real and usable straight away. The courses cover all angles of production in multiple DAW formats – a really in depth powerhouse of knowledge that only the traditional sound engineers would share amongst themselves is now at my fingertips…. On top of that, this (mixing) course helped me take all the best and most powerful tricks I picked up while studying myself to a whole new level of awesome! Top notch! – Heady Stepper – EMP and Mixing

 

“I did the EDM (now EMP) sound design course. If you thought Ultrabeat was just a drum machine or Sculpture was only good for simulating live instruments, think again! So many tips and tricks I wouldn’t have found in any manuals, books or tutorial videos.

When we get a gap in our schedule, I am going to do the Mixing and Mastering course.” Quintin Schlebusch Live Tech Rebelz - EDM (now EMP)

 

“Teachers are friendly and know whats up in terms of what you need to learn out of a class. Also the structure in terms of progression and segmenting the courses over 6 weeks helps to retain info.” Arsoy Mustafa – Logic and EMP