Home     Blog

Blog

Posted by Jakob W. Goetz, Mar 12 2012

APPLICATION DEADLINE IS MARCH 15TH

In 2012, the deadline to apply for admission to Sonic College will be March 15th.

Info about Sonic College

The education in media and sonic communication – colloquially named Sonic College – is one of Europe's first educational programmes in sound design. The duration of the education is 3 ½ years.

Compared to other similar educations, Sonic College has a unique combination of subjects consisting of:

• Sound in digital productions
• Sound design in communication and marketing
• Interdisciplinary subjects such as project management, economics and communication theory
• Specialization (studio technology, sound design for computer games, media productions and Ambient Assisted Living)
• Six months practical placement
• Bachelor project

The education started in September 2010 with 24 student places per year. With commencement of study in September 2011, March 2011 saw 134 applicants for the 24 places.

As of yet, Sonic College has no lecturers on permanent employment – the teaching is based on the use of highly qualified and specialized professionals both from Denmark and from abroad. At the moment we have associated 58 very committed guest lecturers.

Read more

Posted by Andreas Frostholm Røeboe, Mar 6 2012

Post Sonic Event #2

What a great evening!!

With a very wide variety of impressive concerts in many genres, kamikaze generative VJing on buildings and artists and serious partying into the morning made it a special night and no small feat to execute for the volunteering students.

Check out the pictures below!


Read more

Posted by Andreas Frostholm Røeboe, Mar 3 2012

Live video stream tonight!

 

We're streaming tonights concerts from 
Sonic Event #2 0700 pm to 1200 pm (GMT +1)
 

Read more

Posted by Astrid Lund Østrup, Mar 1 2012

Songwriting process

I will let you in on my working process when writing songs, with focus on the feeling that the combination of the lyrics and melody expresses.

Usually I write the lyrics (or most of it) before writing the melody.
I always carry a small book in my bag, in which I can note the things I hear and read that I find interesting. I write down sentences which trig something in my mind or just single words, if I find the shape and the sound of them interesting and inspiring.

Although every songwriter would like to create something original, I think it is important as well NOT to be afraid of writing something that has been written before. If you keep the focus on what YOU want to say I believe the lyrics will appear more honest and true. The melody and the pronunciation will automatically add more layers to the meaning of the words and allow you to make sentences which have been sung a thousand times before seem personal. 

It is important for me to know exactly what kind of feeling I want to express before I start putting words together.
If I want to write something metaphoric, I occasionally start by writing down concretely what it is I want to describe and then translate the concrete direct language into universal metaphors afterwards.

In order to find the core and purpose of the lyrics I ask myself questions like:

  • Do I want the lyrics to be universal and metaphoric or direct and concrete?
  • Do I want to express a feeling, tell a story or both?
  • Do I want the words to be soft and elegant or sharp and edgy?
  • What kind of language do I want to write in? Formal, relaxed, as outbursts, old fashion, fresh and young?
  • Who should the words come from?
  • What kind of environment is this character placed in?

Answering these questions makes the writing seam much more natural, because all I have to do is describe the pictures I...

Read more

Posted by Jens Moss Thorsen, Feb 12 2012

Mixing drums - The magic of the Drum Bus

In most genres drums almost covers all of the frequency spectrum in a mix. We seem to like drums being both fat and full-bodied, loud and clear, and having the ability to cut through the mix. If you want to achieve all of these things there is one main factor that needs a lot of attention, besides mixing the individual drum tracks nicely: The Drum Bus.


In order to be totally clear from the beginning, this is what I mean when speaking of a drum bus: E.g. I have 8 mono audio tracks containing a bassdrum, a snaredrum, a hihat, 2 toms, 2 overheads – left and right, and an ambience track. The outputs of these tracks will be sent to the input of 1 stereo Aux track being my drum bus. This allows me to process the drums all together and this is where the magic happens.

To start with you'll need the right chain of effects on your drum bus. I will be giving examples from the particular plug-ins I use myself but the principle would go for any other plug-in or hardware equipment. The order of effects in the chain may vary depending on the circumstances but this is how my chain looks like in most cases:
 

 

First of all I'll need something to 'colorize' my sound. For this purpose I will look for a pre-amp, a channel-strip or something similar to add some harmonics to the sound. I like to use both the “Decapitator” from 'Soundtoys' and the “PSP Vintagewarmer” from 'PSP Audioware'. They both have EQ controls and at the same time they'll add 'drive', 'warmth' and 'depth' to the sound. They also both have the potential of making some pretty extreme drive settings (whilst still sounding good) which can be a lot...

Read more