East Beats: Music Production

This was a unique opportunity to learn how to make your own tracks or to freshen up your skills on logic, under the watchful eye of tutors Sam Johnson and Jason McDowell.

We spoke to some of the students who took part in the course to find out how they got on.

Daniel Murphy heard about our course through an invitation via email. He didn’t have much experience before this course apart from using Cubase at a friend’s house but had never used logic. During the 10 weeks he has learned how to use logic on the mac and how to put a song together. His favorite discoveries on logic are the Effects units and making sounds on the synths.

“This course is excellent and a must for all people wanting to start out in music production. Thank you for this opportunity.”

Sapna Rocha had no experience of making music but throughout the ten weeks she has gone from knowing nothing to getting a grasp of using the key tools to making a track. She has enjoyed everything and learning everything, especially when after 4 weeks of frustration it all just clicked. She would like to learn more of everything and says learning is ever on going.

“It was great learning a new thing and that it wouldn't have been as entertaining and fun if I didn't have such a good teacher like Sam. Don't mean to sound soppy, but for anyone who can teach someone how to express their creativity, and to teach it well, is quite a remarkable thing to me.”


Eyesha Mingo had started to record ideas on garage band two years ago and was also studying music at University but the learning was mostly based on classical music and theory. In her last year she was accepted onto the music technology module and had to complete an independent project, but did not have a lot of one-on-one time with the course tutor. Eyesha taught herself how to use Logic 8 in the university’s studio, by exploring it, reading reference books, music production blogs and watching YouTube tutorials. Through out the ten weeks she has learned how to add dynamics and dimensions to a song/instrumental and how to use several effects/plugins to enhance a track. She has also learned different song structures, vocal recording techniques, and the importance of panning and live sequencing. Eyesha’s favorite discoveries are the possibilities of Ultrabeat, pedalboard and live sequencing.

"Enticing, inspiring and enlightening!"

Leo Belchetz found out about the production course through Million Music Marketing blog. He had very little experience of making music; he had messed about with eJay Acid 10 years ago, and had some very basic editing experience. Over the ten-week term he had an introduction to the Logic interface, basic functionality, its standard plugin-ins and using it to arrange a track. Leo also learned some basic music theory where he says he learned more in one 20 minute session on chords on this course, than he did in his entire school music education, including piano lessons to grade 2.
His favorite discoveries are the functionality of logic, he felt it was overwhelming at first glance but just finding out some of the best techniques has opened the program up for informed investigation. He also felt liberated from random pressing keys, by learning the relationship between certain chords.
He would like to learn more about recording vocals and live instrumentation, ripping and arranging samples, and also how to build his own drum kit rather than sticking with the ones from within in the same logic default kits.

"A valuable toe-dip for anyone considering a plunge into the deep waters of music production!"

CM has been awarded a Transformers grant, funded by The National Lottery, through the Olympic Lottery Distributor, and managed by East London Business Alliance.