I've just completed the course subject to peer review grading. I must say that this was the WORST online course I've ever taken and I've taken a lot of online courses (including YouTube tutorials by people who were clearly intoxicated when creating their masterpieces).

To begin, the recommended software options for screen movies and presentation are awful choices - not to mention "Prezi" is subscription service. I didn't use it. Try Open Office which has a "PowerPoint" type presentation software if you are looking to save costs. There's also an enormous technical problem with the screen movie makers suggested (at least with the PC versions). You cannot record from your microphone and capture internal sound card information (i.e. sounds produced by your DAW) simultaneously with any of the "suggested" programs I tried. The solution was a virtual sound card (I used Voice Meeter) where I could route the sounds accordingly so you could hear the sound produced by my DAW while I spoke. Considering this is a technology course, you would think this would be addressed. It is not.

There is almost no practical discussion. There's plenty of "what," --- an overwhelming amount of what actually --- but not much "how" or "why."

Others may experience this course differently depending on your goals. If you record vocals and real instruments and want to learn how to do this so everything sounds fantastic, this isn't the course for you. There's a tiny bit of that discussed with microphone placement and the like, but it quickly moves to digital sound creation. If you want to use synths and effects and noise things and such to create EDM music ... well, this isn't the course for you either, but maybe it would be more beneficial to you than most other categories.

So, who is this course for? I can't say I'm sure of the answer to that. If you are wanting to be a sound designer, perhaps you would learn the vocabulary for sound design but not much "how." If you use Logix as your DAW, perhaps you will learn where something is you hadn't seen before (although the videos are hard to follow as some things are happening off screen or aren't the focus of the video).

In the end, this course was very much a "self teaching" course. I didn't learn much from the video lectures provided by Berklee other than application of a few terms in music I'd never considered much with a background in playing instruments rather than playing a digital synth, like "ADSR." I spent more time on other websites and YouTube videos and in my DAW's operation manual as we were often told, "Go to your DAW and figure out how to use an XYZ." Rarely did it include "how and why" to use that XYZ for musicality.

The quizzes were awful as well. There's a lot of "minutia" detail in the lectures that never seems to have any relevance because there's no practical application discussed. Make sure you know this not very relevant information because it will be on the quiz --- like how to determine the word length and bit depth using some formula involving 2 to the power of something.... it still doesn't make since because I don't know why or how it applies.

Also, note that not everything is completely uniform in DAWs with some terms being different in each one. This was extremely confusing because I don't use Logix and the lessons do. I had a terrible time figuring out many things simply because my DAW had another term or button name for it.

I'm glad this is over. I feel like I learned a little bit, but don't feel like it's information I'll retain for long since I have no idea how to use much of the information for my purposes. Maybe on a game of Jeopardy?

Sorry for the length of this, but I hope you find the information helpful in deciding whether you will benefit from this class.

I feel like there's so much content in this course, but I didn't really learn anything...It's a lot of talking, ending with "go to the forums and ask your peers about all these concepts that you need to know but that I won't talk about."

Too much theory and little application. I felt like I heard about a lot of things but did not learn much.

Very difficult to stay motivated during the course.

WOW, Awesome course Loudon! I'm learning lots of stuff I never knew, very much in depth and it takes me to the source of things I already knew but ignored where they generated from. Love it!

The absolute perfect course for beginner producers who want to learn the basics and fundamentals of the tech involved in contemporary productions. Highly highly recommend.

the best, Learned a lot from you guys, despite financial issues I now have my music production specialization certificate from an international organization! Thank you!

Not so practical

When you overpass the barrier and fear of a field is because you have a good teacher behind.

Loudon makes the difference. He is clear and knowledgeable when he explains.

Thanks

I can see how this instructor would be great in a classroom. He has a wealth of technical knowledge and passionately explains concepts in common language.The videos were very lacking in visual content, and the quizzes were not helpful. Honestly, this course would be better if there were NO quizzes, and maybe critical thinking questions that require reasoning. Also, more frequent, smaller projects. Surprised I never had to submit a recording, but since its strictly peer-reviewed that would mean no instructor is actively checking our work.

It´s fantastic. It teaches you a lot of technical stuff that will help you if you´re starting. Loudon also is quite communicative and explains most of the things quite clearly. I really love it.

Learned all the previously daunting technical aspects of music production I wanted to learn and feel much more confident in my ability to record and mix audio. Thanks!

I believe that this was an extremely informative course, but the presenter could have spoken less than he did. I felt he was too verbose.

Mr. Stearns would be very helpful in a classroom; he speaks at length about these concepts, and he would definitely benefit from the in-person aspect of these lessons. However, his lessons often would include him talking at length about these concepts, but never really *saying* anything. I would find myself reading the transcript rather than the video, because there was no visual stimulation or practical examples for these lessons.

If anything, I believe a course like this would much benefit from more real-world examples. Maybe having more examples in a DAW, or plugging in a guitar and showing how each effect changes the instrument's tone rather than just showing a pre-recorded song and saying "This thing does this thing".

Despite all of the negativity I wrote on this review, however, this course really did help me pursue my passion for music. I did learn a lot about audio design, but it took me longer than I expected I did. If I ever came off as rude during this review, please forgive me. It was not my intention.

The whole concept of us teaching each other for this program is a lazy cop out on the professor's part. I shouldn't have to teach my classmates. I enrolled to learn from a pro teacher, instead I got a lazy one.

This is perfectly what I hoped it would be. Experienced musician new to digital music production and songwriting. The lessons answer every question I had struggled with and wasted time blindly experimenting with in three DAW's. I'm confident this will get me to a fully functional place with the confidence that comes with knowing what you're doing and especially, why. I aim for fluency in a workflow so that I may be creative without frustrating technical troubles

Great presentation! Did this having some experience in production already, and it was valuable and generally exceeded expectations. Amazing production quality, good material, well planned, pleasant to go through. Done over a weekend.

Excellent. Reinforced what I already knew and greatly added to my knowledge. Even somethings that I do, I found ways to make my workflow more efficient. I highly recommend this course for producers of all levels!

This course gave me a working knowledge of the many parameters of a DAW. I really have a base knowledge to continue my studies and not get frustrated with mental blocks in navigation of the software.

For what it proposes to be (an introduction) it covers many fundamentals and even goes in depth in some directions which is really cool. Highly recommended especially for the synthesis part.

Hi.

That was a great course. If you want to know about sound engineering, producing music, how to use any DAW to produce music and so on, you can use this course.

Thank you.