Producing Minimal In Logic With Enzyme Black

[PBLondon]

I think they deserve the criticism for nurturing expectations that the courses cant fulfill. The tricks they can teach, everybody can get from the net. What they cant teach is creativity and style! But they make people think that after finishing some course they will make tracks that are creative and have a certain style, which is indicated by the references to Villalobos or Hawtin. Poor way of making money from wrong expectations.

Sorry to be a little attacking, but you haven't actually taken a course with us so how would you know 'what we teach'?

We do not nuture expectations that we cannot fulfill...On this issue i would point you in the direction of our student feedback page:

http://www.pointblankonline.net/about-p ... onials.php

On there you can see that our students expectations are most definitely fulfilled! I'm sorry to get defensive, but I do genuinely feel that we deliver an extremely high-quality service and never let a student down. If someone did a course with us and felt they did not get their money's worth then I'd love to hear from them so we can make the necessary improvements.

We are not offering to teach people 'style' or 'creativity', what we aim to do is to arm you with all the techniques, tools and skills to make the most of your creativity in order to efficiently create your unique tracks with your own style. We want you to use the skills you learn with us to harness your creativity the best way possible in order to ensure you make the best tracks possible.

Sorry again for the defensiveness! It is still good to get as much of your opinions as possible, whether they are negative or positive.

Luke (Point Blank)

[PBLondon]

what i can't get my head around is you don't actually go to the college. i need that human contact and to be away from my computer.

What I would say with regard to this is that we do have a London studio where students can come and study, however it is not always the case that everyone can make it to London.

We designed the online courses to be as close as possible to the experience of doing a course at the London College. So although yes it's true that you do not get the same level of face-to-face interaction with your tutor, we do offer a weekly webchat with your tutor and classmates to extensively discuss any issues/techniwques/problems etc. You also have access to a student/teacher forum which acts in a similar way to the webchat, but obviously is not instant.

You also recieve personalised one-to-one feedback on your work from you tutor, you'll upload your project and your tutor will create a video response of them going through your work and advising on what and how to change any aspects to improve your track(s).

So the fact is that not everyone can physically come to the college, so we aim to deliver an online version which although inevitably is not identical is as close an experience as possible.

One last thing: we've now updated the course video preview to be a bit more of a recent example, please take a look and let me know what you think:

http://www.youtube.com/pointblankonline ... dEnjPZUZ6w

It is an example of a pretty much completed track, so obviously the feedback doesn't need to be as indepth as at an earlier point in the course.

Thanks for reading, hope that wasn't too much of a ramble! And hopefully sheds a little further light on what we aim to do.

Cheers again

Luke (Point Blank)

[pafufta816]

as a consumer of music production software of all varities and flavors, i have to say this is the last thing i'm interested in. the idea of minimal is simple, less is more. it's a damn adjective, joy division, liquid liquid, early talking heads, philip glass, that is minimal music. hawtin, villalobos, and a few dozen-hundred other people riding on their coattails, produce a music which is inspired more by germany, windsor, detroit and argentina than by steve reich.

no artists of them have a common factor, which you can pinpoint, and then say "well the similarities between these artists constitutes MINIMAL." it's not the drums, the synths, the guitars, the symphonies, it's how you use them. how someone uses instrumentation is the very essence of a producers style. can you teach essence, fluent command, detailed knowledge, elaborate feats of conceptual engineering....

you wan't to produce minimal? here's a crash course;
1) use less
2) be sparse
3) simplify

[New Guy]

OMG, seriously people get over this whole minimal thing. You are arguing about words here, to be exact about one word here.
They are offering techniques, skills for which there is a demand and if you are not part of that segment then just move along.

Ill come out and say that I completed a 1 year course with PB in the London studio and it was an experience that I very much appreciate. I learned a lot. It helped me to get things going, plus the Tutors I had there were very experienced and shared a lot of valuable stories about the industry and music related topics.

It all comes down to what you can make with the information you get anyway.

[PBLondon]

OMG, seriously people get over this whole minimal thing. You are arguing about words here, to be exact about one word here.
They are offering techniques, skills for which there is a demand and if you are not part of that segment then just move along.

Ill come out and say that I completed a 1 year course with PB in the London studio and it was an experience that I very much appreciate. I learned a lot. It helped me to get things going, plus the Tutors I had there were very experienced and shared a lot of valuable stories about the industry and music related topics.

It all comes down to what you can make with the information you get anyway.

Exactly! Minimal is simply a word...It is only a word to describe the kind of sound featured on the course.

Perhaps you guys would prefer Techno? Tech House? They are merely labels and do not dictate a constriction on what is taught or not taught, they just provide a reference point for anyone looking at enrolling on the course.

I'm glad you enjoyed your course 'New Guy', please keep in touch with what you're up to. If you've got any releases or gigs etc just let us know, we're always looking to feature past students' successes on our site.

If you want to continue with any other courses let me know, and thanks for the support; it's good for some of the more negative forum users to hear the verdict straight from a student!

Many Thanks,

Luke (Point Blank)

[KrisM]

What's the most amusing of all, is that no matter your feelings are about the course or the company, Point Blank is getting free publicity.

Granted, this isn't the most heavily visited music forum around, but if they even get one customer it's probably worth it.

[bradevery]

I would have to say that I actually did this course! now you can start to kill me on this, but I think that this gave me a great overview on the process and sound creation for minimal.

I have been DJing techno, house, electro, progressive for a number of years, and have always played around with Reason from time to time, but never really progressed very far past creating loops.

Personally the acquirement of knowledge should be encouraged, from which ever source, either it be from peers or a course. Essentially how would a doctor or an engineer be those if they didn't learn it from someone. But I do agree that knowledge, can be self taught, and part of the journey can be learning as well.

People have different methods of learning, for myself i like to be instructed on something, and then from that I can be creative in the knowledge of knowing the elements of that back to back.

I'm very serious on learning and understanding, so much so I'm also doing a Bachelor of Audio Production.

http://soundcloud.com/bradevery/motor

***awaiting the slamming!***

[patrick bateman]

^^^^^^ I see no problem with it, what ever works for each person...