Berklee college online anyone

[djmichael.london]

Has any1 attended these online classes? Just wondering. I might attend theses in Jan or perhaps a class here in Austin. I am just tryin to see if it is worth it?

[Slim Shady]

I didn't attend any PT certification classes, but I did get my BA at Berklee. I also actually went to the physical school as opposed to doing online classes, and I think the fact that the computer labs there are so nice made a big difference. They're always up-to-date, state-of-the-art type rigs (they have deals with Digi and most other Pro-Audio companies that gets gear refreshed regularly) and there's also a tech on hand to fix things and answer questions.

In general I really don't see the need for PT certification, I've never been asked for it, or about it, on any job I've ever worked or applied for. I don't know how well that's received, but I know lots of other PT guys in LA and none of them have ever done the certification thing, but maybe it's more of a requirement in parts of the country where audio work is more scarce?

That being said, I did learn the basics (and more) of PT while attending Berklee, which I'm sure relates somewhat in curriculum to the certification courses, and while I do make most of my living working with PT, what probably has aided me more was all the non-PT classes I took on things like signal flow, time based vs. dynamic effects, acoustics, digital audio, outboard gear, sampling, synthesis, compression codecs - stuff like that. Knowing the basics of how digital audio, computer workstations and audio engineering in general made it much much easier to learn and work in/with PT than if I had just solely taken classes on learning PT and that's it.

So there's my 2 cents. FWIW the faculty at Berklee was excellent when I was there 10 years ago, not sure how many are still on staff, nor do I know who teaches (if anyone) the online classes, but if it were me, I'd skip the certification thing and look at learning more about the general engineering/audio world as a whole before doing the certification classes. You can learn all you need to about PT from the reference manual - although there is something to be said for watching someone else use it a little bit too. I still pick up tips and keystrokes on occasion when watching someone else in the chair, and I realized a lot of my habits/workflow came from watching the way my teacher did things, but eventually you see that there are often many ways to achieve the same thing.