<p>It is rare that in a particular year there is a huge standout product or piece of music technology equipment. While everything is always getting better and cheaper, often it is gradual improvements to things like recording software or microphones which make the life of a recording musician and composer easier in some way. However, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>As I write this New Zealand has been plunged into another mini lockdown. Auckland schools are closed for seven days, and the rest of the country is back to gatherings of no more than 100 people. While these lockdowns are frustrating, I believe most New Zealanders are willing to go through these short and sharp [&hellip;]</p>

<p>A lot of teachers in New Zealand and around the world this past week are grappling with how to deliver courses online. At Learning Ideas we have a lot of resources for Songwriting, Music Technology, Ear Training and Music Theory that are &#8216;flipped&#8217; resources, they have videos and workbooks that show your students much of [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Last term our senior musical was &#8220;Parade&#8221; by Jason Robert Brown. This was an exceptionally complex show, so we wanted to make a good recording of it for our archival purposes (we are unable to share the video for copyright reasons). The live sound desk in our theatre is a Midas M32, which enables us [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Music teachers are busy.  I don&#8217;t need to go into all the reasons why&#8230; just take my word for it! So it is a shame that music teachers, who should be engaging with their creative sides as much as possible, are often so caught up with admin and managing a large number of classes and [&hellip;]</p>

<p>As I write this I&#8217;m winging my way to Europe to attend the Apple Distinguished Educators Institute.  One of the workshops I&#8217;ll present while I&#8217;m there is demonstrating how my students have been using three key Apple Apps as part of their creative workshop. Music Memos GarageBand Logic Pro X What I love about what [&hellip;]</p>

<p>At my school, St Andrew&#8217;s College, we&#8217;ve got one of the best Music Technology programmes in New Zealand.  We have a world class studio.  Students are making albums in which they compose, perform and record all their own material.  But the thing is&#8230; I&#8217;ve just had the insight that I&#8217;ve never really had a strategy for [&hellip;]</p>

<p>For New Zealand High School teachers here are the details of some Professional Development workshops I&#8217;m running.  Please register your interest by emailing sales@learningideas.co.nz Tuesday 12 April &#8211; Incorporating Music Technology into your Music Department Cost: free (this day is funded by the Heads of Independent Secondary Schools Trust so is only available to teachers [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Last year I was lucky enough to be granted the Head of Independent Schools Scholarship Trust award. This enabled me to travel to San Francisco and NYC to study how Music Technology is successfully being incorporated into high schools. As a result of this study I have produced a document called The Music Educators Technology [&hellip;]</p>

<p>This week I&#8217;m lucky enough to be attending the Apple Distinguished Educators Institute in Singapore. Yesterday I enjoyed lunch with the Heads of the Development teams for iMovie and Garageband.  They were both very inspirational in their presentation but at the same time kind, down to earth and accessible. I&#8217;ve done recent posts extolling the wonders of [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Late last year I did a post stating that for New Zealand Music Technology teachers one of the best Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to use was Studio One Free from Presonus (along with Garageband and a few other choices).  Pretty much straight after doing that post AVID announced that they were producing a free version of [&hellip;]</p>

<p>At the moment there are many people involved with the #28daysofwriting and I&#8217;m full of admiration for them! I&#8217;m struggling to keep up with one blog post per week. To be fair in my defence in the last week I have just setup a full music block and recording studio after the completion of our [&hellip;]</p>

<p>On workshops I&#8217;m often asked to give an opinion about a certain piece of recording or live PA equipment.  There is so much choice at so many price points that it can be really hard to figure out what is best for your school and your students. If you&#8217;re reasonably comfortable in the world of [&hellip;]</p>

<p>A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post saying why I think Presonus Studio One Free is the best DAW (recording software) for high school teachers and students to use. Well&#8230; such is the ever-changing nature of technology that I&#8217;m having to possibly change my mind. In the last few hours at NAMM Avid [&hellip;]</p>

<p>There are many guides to mixing all over the internet, YouTube, Amazon, etc &#8211; it can all be a little overwhelming if you&#8217;re a high school teacher wanting to do music technology/recording/mixing with your students.  Where do you start? Well, if you have the time, in my opinion the best resource is the book Mixing [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Just so everyone is on the same page&#8230; a DAW (or Digital Audio Workstation) is the software on a computer that you use to record and mix audio and MIDI.  With the dramatic increase in computing power combined with falling costs now anyone can have a fully fledged recording and mixing system on their computer (or [&hellip;]</p>