New Short Course Launched by the Open Academy.

The Open Academy’s Winter term starts in July at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, with more than thirty courses on offer. We spoke to tutor Jonathan Palmer about the course Sound Recording in the Home Studio that is being offered for the first time.

Jonathan is a recording engineer and producer who has worked in a variety of genres including classical, jazz and popular music. He is a trained musician who has a Masters in Creative Sound Production and a Bachelor of Music Education from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. In 2011 he completed further study in music production and recording at the University of Stavanger in Norway. We asked him about his own experience of recording over the years.

Tell us the highlights of your recording career.

I’ve been lucky throughout my career to be able to record music around the world and work with some amazing musicians. This year I have been working with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, The String Contingent and The Musician Project.

Who do you think this course will appeal to?

It should appeal to musicians and self taught sound engineers who are interested in improving their sound recording skills in a home studio environment.

How does recording in the home studio differ from being in a commercial setting?

It differs a lot. Recording in a commercial studio is a high pressure environment and requires a lot of planning and preparation. In addition, every studio is different and has its own idiosyncrasies which you have to learn and overcome. In the home studio environment, you can take your time in the recording process to get the best possible result with the only expense being your time.

Tell us about the recording approaches to different instruments that you’ll be covering in the course?

We will be covering some of the popular instruments such as Drums, Bass, Guitars (both Acoustic and Electric), Piano and Vocals. Each instrument will have its own dedicated lesson and the techniques demonstrated will be easy to apply outside of the class. For example, during the drums lesson we will cover multiple ways of recording the instrument, from one microphone through to full multi-tracking. In the vocals session, we hope to record the Contemporary Vocal Studio class in their final concert.

What sort of hardware and software do people need at home to enable them to make the most of the material you’ll be demonstrating?

As long as they have a computer at home and a set of headphones, they will be able to use the material and examples demonstrated in class. In addition, it would help if they had access to a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW).