July 2016 was packed with exciting developments here at PB HQ. As always, we were busy sharing videos, production tutorials and exclusive free content with you to help you take your music-making to the next level. What’s more, we launched a brand new Facebook Live series and hit the road, presenting a series of masterclasses at this year’s Sónar Festival. Check out our monthly round-up below as we recap some of the highlights. To see each post in detail, click the corresponding title to be taken through to the page. And for those not already in the know, make sure you’re subscribed to our YouTube channel and following us on Facebook and Twitter so you never miss out on our cutting edge content.
New Order – Blue Monday Ableton Live Deconstruction @ Sónar+D 2016
In 1983, New Order created a timeless classic that’s celebrated as one of the most influential tracks of all time. The Manchester band are still going strong some three decades on, stepping up to headline Barcelona’s Sónar Festival in July. Indeed, when we were asked to take part in Sónar+D – the educational arm of the famous festival – it was a no-brainer that we’d honour them by giving the iconic ‘Blue Monday’ our world-famous deconstruction treatment.
New Series: Plugin of the Week
As part of our brand new series of Facebook Live streams, we’re taking a short and snappy look at some of the best plugins on the market to keep your inspiration flowing. In this broadcast, recorded live out of our buzzing Hub at Orsman Road, we spotlight AudioThing’s Valve Filter VF-1 – a simple, affordable and affective filter plugin. To watch Plugin of the Week live make sure you follow us on Facebook.
Composing for Film & TV (Part 2): Live & Sampled Strings
Back in November 2015 we teamed up with the highly respected Morley College to bring you two exclusive workshops focusing on composing, scoring and recording for film. In the second of these sessions filmed at our new studio complex, sound designer Adam JB (Eric Prydz, Channel 4) takes the recorded strings from the previous workshop and explores some production techniques to enhance the sound with recorded sound libraries.
Check Out These 10 Tips to Better Drums in Your Tracks
Your drum sound can make or break your track. Get them wrong and the rest of your song will suffer. With so many tones, textures and types, ranging in pitch, sound and size, there are thousands of variables – and decisions – that go into choosing, recording, sampling and mixing your drums. Of course, our London courses involve getting stuck into a huge range of concepts for recording and programming powerful, dominating drums so we thought we’d cherry-pick ten of our favourites to get you started towards better beats.
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When you register with pointblank, you access an array of free sounds, plugins, online course samples, access to our social network Plugged In and much more! Simply register below and visit our Free Stuff page to get your hands on a range of exclusive music-making tools and tutorials provided by the team. Fill your boots!
