Get your music heard by A and R at music management/label:

Antony Meola is the A&R manager at Upper 11, they are a top music management company and record label in London. He’s been in touch with me asking if I could recommend any hot up and coming producers at Garnish School of Sound to collaborate with existing producers on their roster working with artists both on and outside of their company. This could end up with you having a management deal with them so I have decided to offer this opportunity out to all of my supporters. I can’t forward off all emails myself and we can’t have email addresses published, so to get round this and spread the music career furthering love in as much of an automated way as possible, I have set up a Gmail email address which will automatically forward to Antony’s assistant Jess. Please send your  MP3′s, Myspace URL’s etc and contact details to garnish.aandr.forwarding@gmail.com

He is looking for all genres as long as it’s master quality sounding. I think that’s why he wants to hear my students He is looking out for remixers too which is what I think a lot of you dance music producers might be more interested in. I will keep an eye out and give feedback where I can – I’m quite looking forward to it actually!

I’m taking a bit of a risk posting this on all of my social media because I know not all of you have done a course at Garnish School of Sound so PLEASE only send in mixed material you think would pass on a UK club dance floor or on the radio. Antony is looking for good production, If he doesn’t get much of it, he probably wont ask me again or even ask me to stop the forwarding. I’m afraid I don’t have time to listen to all of your masterpieces and only send the quality stuff on to Jess so please take this into consideration, because if you don’t, it could spoil it for others. Of course I do appreciate that one persons idea of master quality is not everyone else’s but Jess knows what to listen out for. This is really an experiment which I hope goes well and i’ll know quickly if it isn’t. I just wanted to offer this opportunity to all of my supporters.

Good luck and please let me know how you get on – I’m really looking forward to hearing the success stories!

Ableton Live 8 music production and DJ courses coming soon!:

I’ve been making some records with Toby Tobias recently which seem be be getting picked up by labels before we’ve even had a chance to mix! I know I can’t complain but he does have this habit of playing very rough demos to labels, then we’re up against it to finish the master because everyone is excited and people want to put the record out. It does say a lot for the A&R guys these days when they can hear the potential from such a rough demo. We are going to be called Badonday, our first tune is called Albondigas and will be out on Flashback after we have mixed the dub and it has been cut!

Toby is THE Ableton man and although I have used Ableton to warp mark mutitrack drums in my time (and very nice it is too), I’ve not made any records using it alone. I have purchased a copy now with a view to rewire it into Logic and use it as a slave. Now it looks like Toby and I are going to be working together a lot, it makes sense to make a system which works for both of us. Next project is immensely exciting btw – same vibe, he’s played it to some labels before we even arranged it – I don’t even think Ableton Live was out of session mode! I previously dismissed Ableton as a bit of a toy, it didn’t sound great and was only good for warp marking drums and fiddling about with loops quickly. But seeing Toby Tobias on the mouse…. no, it’s great, version 8 sounds much better so now i’m going to include it here at Garnish School of Sound!

I’ve persuaded the Tobias to write up some courses with me and I’m aiming to have 6 workshops ready for mid July, and best of all, he has agreed to take at least the first set of workshops!! Amazing Ableton Live news from Garnish School of Sound!

Ableton live 8 Rewired to Logic Pro 9:

I have just returned from an Ableton Live 8 demo for music production courses by a nice chap from Focusrite hooked up by Gavin at Kazbar systems.

I was very impressed by the way you now warp mark the audio transients as opposed to the grid now in Ableton Live 8. Also seeing it work with the Novation lauchpad was awesome. You can buy the Novation lauchpad for £150 and get a cut down version of Ableton thrown in. I will definitely be purchasing and call it a little Xmas present to myself!

I was thinking of rewiring it and using Logic as the master (because Logic will only be the master) doing all the clever audio stuff in Ableton then running it in the background or perhaps print it in Logic when I’m happy. I have an 8 core 2.8 mac pro so I shouldn’t think I’ll have too much trouble with grunt running both DAWs running. I also found out that you can use Live 8 as a master OR slave which would be handy if you wanted to run it as a master and use Reason 5 as a slave. The guy was saying that there is a track limitation in the cut down version and it doesn’t come with all the FX and synths the full version does. That suits me because I can’t see myself using it as my main DAW, and if one day I decided to switch from Logic (yeah right!), I can upgrade it. I’m working with a DJ pal called Toby Tobias and we’re working some some disco house productions. Latest one has just been signed to Flashback. He’s and Ableton Live head and after working with me, he is now learning Logic! I’m not sure if I’m blowing Logic’s trumpet here or mine. Maybe a bit of both but my statement is true! I was thinking of getting the Novation lauchpad because off the back of these productions, I am getting more DJing work again and I’d love to try that system out live. So I guess MY conclusion of Ableton Live 8 is that it’s very creative in session mode, very fast to manipulate audio and get things done quickly but still, a bit of a toy and will no way replace Logic Pro 9. Also, I’m still not convinced the sound is up to scratch. What the hell, toys are fun right? And with Logic Pro 9 still being the meat and potatoes of my system, I get the best of both worlds! I did ask him if I could run Logic Pro 9, Ableton Live 8 AND Reason 5 together but he didn’t know. May download the demo of Live and see. There are some nifty things I like in Reason 5 and it’d be interesting to see.

Last week I went to Putney to see a chap who is fairly new to music production. He needed someone to go to him and set his workstation up, as he had just bought a system but didn’t know how to put it together. Of course it would have been boring for him to come to me for a crash course only to get home and not be able to practice what he had learnt! There’s always a music production tutor floating around in the area so don’t hesitate to get in touch if you would like some one-2-one help.

It was a bit of a shame because he had bought a load of stuff from a branch of a large chain of pro audio suppliers. I would have advised him to buy different equipment and certainly not from this chain. I didn’t rub it in though as I didn’t want to upset him, and what he had was workable, but he could have bought better stuff for his money. I’ve been using Gavin at Kazbar for more years now than I care to remember. I’ll give you an idea of how long. People were not really using email much back then and I was working at Universal publishing as their engineer before they signed me. Universal needed their studio kitted out, well, I insisted they needed a lot more gear than they had at the time! I sent one of these instant email thingys round to around a dozen companies and Gav was one of the only people who came back to me on email! Since then, I have used him and his excellent tech support. You can call him and he knows what he is talking about and doesn’t favor any companies or products because he has a warehouse full of something he needs to get shot of. Another thing is that he’s his own boss and the only sales person so you know that a year down the line, you email or call the same person, you get the same person.

You can get him on gavin@kazbarsystemsinc.com and here’s his webiste.

Enough of my Gav ad; I will let him know he owes me a beer!

Garnish School of Sound press release

The new GARNISH SCHOOL OF SOUND where we teach you what you need to know in the way you learn best.

22/2/11 London

The new music production school, Garnish School of Sound is the only school with six week courses that teach you all you need to know to make great sounding tracks. We use cutting edge, real world equipment in a fantastic new facility in London’s home of music, Camden. With tutors whose clients read like a who’s who of music of the 21st century, this is surely the start of something special. Managing Director, Dave Garnish has nearly twenty years experience in the music industry working in all kinds of creative areas at the highest level, and has brought together a team which represents the best experience and knowledge for music production.

Dave Garnish says: “I don’t believe anyone can learn Ableton or Logic in a weekend, but neither do you have to commit years of your life to learn all you need to know. The feedback from people i’ve worked with over the years has been fantastic. The learners can also look forward to some pretty special masterclasses with some industry legends”.

“This is the school London has been waiting for” – Norman Jay MBE

“Your EDM course look awesome” – Anthony Middleton (Audiofly)

“Dave Garnish’s work and knowledge of music is outstanding” – Mike McCormack Dep. MD Universal Music

Their EDM (Electronic Dance Music Production) course caught our eye;  it includes an introduction to synthesis and track construction as well as sampling & beat making. You are shown how to create massive sounds using Massive and other synthesisers along with specialised synthesis techniques. You learn about groove and rhythm, arrangement, FX and lots more. Other courses feature everything from lyric writing to mixing & mastering. All this on a variety of platforms which all have their own beginners dedicated six week course.

The school offers a grand new central point for encouraging the talent of the world’s producers, musicians and DJ’s. With a philosophy that learning should be informative and exciting, the school offers an experience that leaves good memories, instills a whole new set of skills and gives a bucket load of inspiration. The courses reflect this ethos by providing a balance between how to use the tools of the trade, and how to put these tools into practice.

The class numbers are kept low making sure that during workshop time everyone gets plenty of one to one time from their industry active professional. Using an educational practice known as the Spacing Effect, students learn during the class, rest and recap over the next week and then come back for another session fresh. All courses are over six weeks and cost £399

Your can find out more by visiting their website at www.garnishschool.com or calling 020 7682 1082. Also, they have a great blog with some great articles and free tips, tricks and videos: www.musicproductioncourses.net