Digidesign and UTS Pro School Help Young People Ride the Music Technology Wave
By Stephen Bruel

Known for its sun, surf and sand, Bondi Beach is an Australian icon. But for the past 20 years, the "Bondi Wave" has seen hundreds of young people swap their surfboards for keyboards during Australia´s winter months.

Festival coordinator, Kerry Digby, says the Bondi Wave is a contemporary music festival that targets 12 to 28-year-olds who are passionate about learning music performance, song writing, recording and production.

"Our main aim is to create independence for young musicians within the mainstream industry," explains Kerry. "As long as they have a passion and interest for music we will take them on board for our seminars and workshops."

Kerry says in recent years she has seen a growing interest in music technology – particularly home based recording – with this year´s festival recording a 50/50 split between participants interested in traditional acoustic music and those interested in computer generated music.

"The music technology has started to really take off," she says.

"It´s great to have UTS Pro School and Digidesign on board, as, being a community arts project, we don´t have the equipment or facilities to run a workshop. It´s been the first year that we´ve actually been able to run a decent class on home recording."

Kerry teamed up with James Hurley, who runs the UTS Pro School, and they contacted David Corazza of Digidesign Australia, who was quick to provide the course reference books. Together they developed an eight hour course, run over four weeks, that offers a fast-track introduction to Pro Tools.

During the course, students receive a "condensed version of Pro Tools 101", says James, a Digidesign-certified instructor with 12 years´ experience using Pro Tools in a wide range of music, film and media projects. "I show them the difference between LE and TDM systems and what Pro Tools can do."

James also discusses basic sound principles and digital recording techniques as he takes students through the course handbook, Producing in the Home Studio with Pro Tools by David Franz (Berklee Press), which Digidesign Australia donated to the Festival.

"As part of the course each student receives a copy of the Pro Tools handbook, which is a well-regarded industry resource," explains David Corazza.

"The book covers Pro Tools 6 as well as all the current Digidesign home studio hardware including Digi 002 and Mbox," he says.

"Supporting the Bondi Wave is one way that Digidesign can give young people hands-on experience with Pro Tools, show how them how easy and accessible the gear is and help them to fulfill their music industry aspirations."

After the four week course, students walk away with their own recordings and, adds James, "a thirst to learn more". They are also well placed to continue onto Pro Tools 101 in the Pro School´s Digidesign Training & Education Program.

A thirst to learn more, combined with a desire to be independent, is what motivated 19-year-old rap musician John Blois to sign up for the Bondi Wave Pro Tools course.

"Basically I´m into music," says John who works for a music publisher. "I work in music but I´m not that strong on the recording part so I´m here to learn some recording and production techniques."

John´s long-term vision is to set up his own studio and produce a demo. An audio engineer mate has recorded a few of John´s rap songs but ultimately John wants to do the recordings himself. "I´d like to be able to make it on my own without relying on anyone else," he says.

John´s vision is music to Kerry Digby´s ears, who reiterates that the Bondi Wave is about giving young people a chance to record music themselves.

"It´s about keeping music alive and keeping them up to date with what´s out there – particularly the technology," she says.

"We show young people that you get just as good a result doing recordings at home using Pro Tools and that you don´t need a state-of-the-art million dollar studio."

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