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University of Adelaide

Music Technology Foundations

University of Adelaide via edX

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Overview

Want to produce and record your own music?

This course will help you do that by showing you how to apply new technologies to your own creative practice, using freeware and browser based apps.

Music Technology Foundations draws on Adelaide’s world-class pioneering expertise in making electronic music, to provide a great foundation to a career in music and to enable any learner to use technology in creative ways.

In this course, you’ll learn about the core principles of music technology, including sound, audio, MIDI, effects and sequencing.

Syllabus

Week 1: Introduction to sound

  • Understand what Music Technology is and how it’s evolved throughout history
  • Understand how sound waves travel and how sound can be measured and recorded
  • Explore the differences between the perception of sound and the physical properties of sound
  • Apply techniques and processes to record sounds using common digital recording devices.

Week 2: Digital Audio

  • Understand what audio is and the differences between analogue and digital audio
  • Understand the basic elements of digital audio: storage media, file formats, bit depth, sample rates and how they affect audio quality
  • Explore the use of digital audio editing software to clean up and edit digital audio samples.

Week 3: MIDI - The Musical Instrument Digital Interface

  • Understand the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI), its history and how MIDI is still used today
  • Explore how MIDI represents music and the differences between MIDI sequencing and digital audio
  • Learn how to create audio loops from sounds produced by a web-based drum machine.

Week 4: Synthesis

  • Understand what synthesis is and who the pioneers were responsible for its creation
  • Compare and understand the differences of Subtractive, Additive and Modulation Synthesis
  • Develop techniques and processes to create new synthesised sounds using a web-based synthesiser.

Week 5: Effects and processing

  • Understand how effects and processing can be used to change the qualities and attributes of sound
  • Understand how audio effects were inspired by natural sound effects
  • Explore the differences between analogue and digital effects
  • Experiment with some of the built in effects found in digital audio editing software
  • Develop and apply techniques to transform existing sounds into larger segments.

Week 6: Pulling it all together

  • Explore a range of methods and techniques used to create different styles of music
  • Develop skills to perform multi-tracking using digital audio editing software
  • Apply methods and techniques learnt throughout the course to create a 1 – 2 minute audio track.

Taught by

Luke Harrald, Christian Haines and Stephen Whittington

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Reviews

4.5 rating, based on 2 Class Central reviews

4.8 rating at edX based on 6 ratings

Start your review of Music Technology Foundations

  • Profile image for Celine
    Celine
    I mistakenly came into this class thinking it would teach me about mixing and audio postproduction, but what I got was actually extremely valuable and interesting! The class starts with a huge timeline of how music technology has evolved from the ve…
  • Profile image for Sławomir Jasica
    Sławomir Jasica
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