Point Blank is one of the UK’s leading music colleges, boasting veteran music industry tutors who aim to explain modern technology to students who want to focus on music, not maintenance. The college recently became an Apple Authorised Training Centre for Education (AATCe) and offers a range of courses in music engineering, production, DJing, radio and studio work.

In just ten years, Point Blank has become one of the UK’s leading music colleges. It has locations in London and Sheffield and has won DJ Magazine’s award for ‘Best Music Production & DJ Course’ for four consecutive years. It recently became an AATCe, meaning its Logic Pro students now leave with a certificate proving they have the skills they need for their dream jobs.

Point Blank offers a state-of-the-art recording / mixing studio equipped with eight Power Mac G5s running Logic Pro and a host of third-party audio applications. This studio is used for the bulk of the more advanced Logic courses, as well as the Introduction to Production course on Logic. “We teach our most advanced courses in this studio because it’s based on industry-standard Macs”, explains marketing manager David Reid. “All the producers I know make music on Macs”.

Each of the other five studios also contain at least one Power Mac G5. The college does train some students on PCs — “we don’t want to exclude people who don’t have a Mac at home” — but for its higher-level courses, the college ramps its students up to Macs. “The students rightly regard the Mac as more professional, and they like its ease of use”, says Reid. “It’s especially important that students considering a career in music production and sound engineering are Mac literate because the Mac is the industry platform”.

It’s especially important that students considering a career in music production and sound engineering are Mac literate because the Mac is the industry platform.

— David Reid, Marketing Manager, Point Blank

“We try to make sure all the skills are transferable, so they understand mixing with hardware and software and see the bigger picture — the principles behind what they are doing”, Reid adds.

Staffed by seasoned producers and sound engineers with extensive experience, Point Blank enrols up to a hundred students from across the world in its modular courses every three months. A week includes one day’s tuition and at least ten hours working on projects in studios. “We believe students must practice skills to learn them”, says Reid. Students also learn about the music industry from visiting speakers, who have included DJ Anne Savage and Felix Buxton from Basement Jaxx.

Point Blank’s Logic courses are taught by senior tutor and Apple-accredited trainer, JC Concato. A Mac user since 1989, Music runs in his family — he first went on tour at five years old — and he’s a veteran engineer who has worked with Bjork, Depeche Mode, Massive Attack, Portishead and many more.

“I was always taught that Macs were the machines to use”, says JC. “When you’re working for money as a studio engineer, you don’t want your equipment falling over. Macs won’t let you down. They don’t require as much maintenance as PCs”.

JC doesn’t need the problem of the college’s PCs suffering from sudden technical faults and compatibility problems when shifting projects between machines. “Technology should be as transparent as possible”, he says. “I don’t want to have to worry about software drivers and compatibility. I just want to make music”. He notes that students with a PC background take to the Mac quickly. “They get used to the Mac very quickly. As soon as you show them Logic and the instruments inside it, they love it”.

JC sees the music market growing, not shrinking: “I’m seeing more people commuting and listening to music than ever before”, he says. “I’m seeing people of fifty or more listening to their iPods — I never saw that ten years ago”.