Our Philosophy

While there is definitely no shortage of audio production "certificate" schools here in the Bay Area, for the vast majority of musicians with home and project studios the programs they provide are somewhat flawed. Aside from being egregiously expensive, certificate schools base their curriculum on preparing students for the Major-label recording industry. Students are taught on high end consoles, microphones, preamps and monitors which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. We think this top-down, ultra-expensive, super-high-end-gear approach is fallacious at its core. The reality is that massive changes in record company revenues mean that the big studio scenario represents a frightenly competitive and quickly shrinking job market. Home and project studios are where new music is being produced. As fun as it might be to learn how to operate a state-of-the-art Studer console, the fact is that with the changing state of the music business, most musicians just aren't likely to apply those skills in any real-world capacity.

Rather, experience has taught us that talent percolates from the ground up, and that the mastery of fundamental concepts is more important to making great sounding music than spending an inheritance on an education. You can make great sounding music with as little as one good microphone (or software synthesizer), a reasonably fast computer, and an affordable audio interface. We see and hear it being done every day, so don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

In keeping with this philosophy, Robotspeak's classes are made for musicians who want to get down to the business of making music. They are taught by real-world professionals and cover the most popular project studio DAWs like Ableton and Logic, audio recording, synthesis, DIY electronics and more. Our classes are limited in size and are designed to quickly empower students with real-world skills so they can start making better music now without going broke doing it.