Day 350: DJing for Beginners - Sonic Academy - Review

Continuing our mini series of product reviews we now take a look at an online only resource - Sonic Academy.

I first found out about Sonic Academy whilst doing some youtube searches ages ago, and it instantly caught my attention. Something about the look and feel of it straight away made me feel like this was a course/resource almost directly aimed at me.

Basically Sonic Academy is a subscription based service. They make their own video tutorials covering a host of DJ and Production related topics. Literally everything to do with electronic music is covered, but there is a definite leaning to the club and DJ side of things.

The tutorials I am going to cover today are the specific DJ related ones, as this is the theme of the mini-series.

SA offer two specific DJ courses, one is straight up meat and potatoes Vinyl DJing, and the other is DJing with Ableton. Therefore you have the option of the Vinyl course which is suited to someone just making their first steps into DJing, or the Ableton course maybe for someone who has earned their Vinyl Stripes, and wants to move into the digital world.

Both courses are laid out in a modular fashion, about 9 or 10 separate videos, each tackling a different topic.

In the Vinyl course, all the essentials you might need to get beat matching are covered. All the Sonic Academy courses are given by experienced industry professionals who have made their names as DJs and Producers, so you know you are in safe hands.

The Ableton course is also well laid out. I learnt a fair few neat tricks about general Ableton use as well whilst viewing the course, tips that are useful even beyond the DJ side of things.

Over all, both courses are simple to digest, full of useful tips and information. The vinyl course wont hold much interest for the learning DJ who already knows how, but just can't yet beat match, however is perfect for beginners. And as above the Ableton course is well suited even for users with some experience.

The courses can be bought individually, even on a per module basis (£3.99 each) or you can subscribe to the service annually and have access to every single course they have ever done, that's many many hours of video.

I myself have subscribed, and will certainly be renewing it. The site also has an active online community that is great for getting help and ideas etc.

They are even offering gift subscriptions so ideal for that DJ stocking filler! Below is a sample video from the DJ course, there are more free videos to check out on their web-site.

40/365

p&&l

bang!