I’ve been following the Education & Bass community for some time, now, and have been a big fan of the 60-second tips series that Nomine has been putting out. Nomine aka Outrage (Tempa, Metalheadz, Rinse FM) has been a seminal figure in the drum & bass and dubstep circuits for as long as I’ve been making music.
I like to think of Nomine as the ‘Bruce Lee’ of music production — honorably humble, but a master at his craft and with the wisdom to back it up. So naturally, when I found out he had built an online music production dojo, my interest piqued.
Up until now, I had not come across a full-featured music production course that focused on particular techniques within these niches of underground bass culture, so I had to check it out.
- Access to over 600 videos spanning all the main dance music genres
- Opportunities to have your music played in clubs by top DJs around the world
- Have your music played on the radio
- Send our A&R team your demos and we’ll give you constructive feedback on your music
- Opportunities to release your music on vinyl and digital
- Knowledge you won’t find in a textbook
- Greatly improve your music and chances of success
- The best bass music tuition
- Entry into amazing competitions with prizes that money can’t buy!
They do promise a lot, essentially making it much more than just your run-of-the-mill ‘production course’.
For me personally, the prospect of having your demos sent to an A&R team for feedback is definitely an attractive option.
I made the decision to opt for a month of the ‘VIP Club’ and check out the program. It was only 9 quid, and came with a ‘no-strings-attached’ option to exit the subscription plan if I didn’t enjoy it.
The website also offers a selection of free courses upfront, which is a great opportunity to check out the quality of the content before committing to a paid plan.
While many other courses offer techniques for ‘mainstream’ genres, E&B does one thing really well and that is sharing their extensive knowledge of bass music production secrets and techniques. They also assist with getting your music heard, and their "E&B Sounds" feature adds a ton of value.
- Teachers are all successful producers
- Insane amount of courses
Education & Bass Online VIP Club Review
Variety Of Courses: 9/10
As an online music production course that is relatively new, the selection of courses is impressive. While it’s not the largest course selection out there, you’re given access to over 65 courses that range from:
- Dubstep, DnB and Jungle bass tutorials
- Midrange synthesis
- Dub-techno production techniques
- Recording tutorials
- Garage and house production tutorials
- Granular synthesis
- Hip-hop production techniques
- Uprisers and sound design tutorials
- Jungle drum programming and chopping techniques
- …And heaps more
The content seems to be updated regularly — since I’ve joined there are already a fair few new courses that have been uploaded.
The course content is best-suited for the modern bass music producer, as a large portion of the course content is geared towards bass music principles. The lecturers are also delivered by some of the most prominent figures in the scene, such as Nomine/Outrage, Leon Switch, Nurve (Macabre Unit), Occult, LSN and DubApe to name a few.
The course content is a good balance of exploring native plugins (geared mostly towards Ableton, Logic & Cubase), but there are also a handful of courses that explore some popular, paid VSTs such as Omnisphere, Massive and Serum.
Quality Of Content: 9/10
Each lecturer/instructor has their own unique way of delivering the content, but it’s safe to say that the quality is consistently solid throughout.
The content is edited well, and all instructors deliver the course material in a clear and concise way that stays engaging, even for the longer, more in-depth tutorials.
Spending only just a week digesting the content of the course, I uncovered little nuggets of wisdom that made me go from “how did I never discover that feature before?” to “I have to try this right now”. There were moments where I had to pause the videos, just to open up Ableton and try out the techniques myself.
Highlights of the course content for me included:
- Learning how Leon Switch creates beautifully textured synth-leads in Ableton’s Analog
- Learning how to program Nurve’s signature mid-bass growls in Serum
- Being blown away by Cocktail Party Effect’s ‘no-input mixer hardware technique’
The VIP club also gives you access to a few courses that encourage deeper learning and more abstract, philosophical principles.
While this may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I personally thought it was a welcome addition and makes the course feel more holistic overall.
X=X’s little video essays are a prime example, where he deep dives into prolific figures such as John Cage and Mary Ann Hobbes that encourage you to think differently about how to approach music making.
It would have been nice to see X=X’s video essays have a bit more flair in terms of the video content, as it is just him speaking into a webcam. This does not detract from the quality of the information he is presenting though, as they do an amazing job simply as audio podcasts.
The Platform: 8.5/10
The platform is well architectured and has most functions required for a friendly user-experience. It’s great that you can sort the plethora of courses ‘by tag’, and also nice that it tells you the skill level of each course. It would be nice if in the future you could sort courses by ‘producer’.
Summing Up
Overall, Education & Bass Online have done a stellar job in carving out a name for themselves in the online music production course world. While many of the other online course companies might offer a wider array of techniques for more ‘mainstream’ genres, Education & Bass Online does one thing really well and that is sharing their extensive knowledge of bass music production secrets and techniques.
There’s something for everyone in this course, regardless of whether you’re a newbie or a seasoned veteran.
The tutors are comprised of some of the best names in the business, and you’re essentially paying 9 quid a month to learn secrets that would otherwise take you a lifetime to learn by yourself. Value-wise, it is a very, very good deal.
A lot of the membership value also lies in the extras, which I’ll also be checking out down the line.
It’s also worth mentioning how personal the relationship feels between you and the crew. In the second week alone I received an email from Nomine, who offered paid members the opportunity to have their track played out.
It’s evident that Education & Bass want to look after their community, and it’s bonuses like these that make the overall experience much, much more than just your standard online production course.
Above all, I definitely suggest you go give them a try while they have a large number of free courses up there, as I presume they will trim those down in the future. Happy learning!
While many other courses offer techniques for ‘mainstream’ genres, E&B does one thing really well and that is sharing their extensive knowledge of bass music production secrets and techniques. They also assist with getting your music heard, and their "E&B Sounds" feature adds a ton of value.
- Teachers are all successful producers
- Insane amount of courses