This is the first part of reviewing one of the MasterClass’s best and most practical courses- Armin van Buuren Teaches Dance Music. This class is a superefficient, educative dive into Armin’s knowledge. Read our (part one) review.

Uptade: Part II of the review is ready. Read it here!

This post contains affiliate links meaning Y.M.Cinema Magazine earns a small commission if you sign up to MasterClass. However, it should be noted that this review represents our sole opinion after carefully and comprehensively examining this MasterClass specifically.

The power to create music for movies

As you already know, Y.M.Cinema Magazine focuses on filmmaking and cinematography technologies and disciplines. However, music is a huge part of the definition of cinema. The ability to develop and engineering sounds and music and to stitch them to visuals is a major privilege. Licensing music is a sensitive and complicated process that costs money…sometimes a lot of money. Therefore, there is nothing about designing the soundtrack by yourself. Although this concept is pertinent for independent content creators and filmmakers, the skill of creating a soundtrack, or in that case, dance music is beyond being a banal privilege, but it’s truly an elevation of your professionalism. It’s a process you should attack in order to understand it and apply it to your film production.

The skill of creating a soundtrack, or in that case, dance music is beyond being a banal privilege, but it’s truly an elevation of your professionalism. It’s a process you should attack in order to understand it and apply it to your film production

Armin van Buuren Teaches Dance Music by MasterClass

Everybody can learn how to edit. Moreover, anyone can learn how to operate a cinema camera. It’s not that complicated. However, music is another whole ball game. Music is much vaguer and thus constitutes an ultra-challenging creation process. Knowing DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) is harder than study how to use NLEs (Non-Linear Editors) and the base knowledge needed is extended. Fortunately, we’ve got Armin combined with the MasterClass platform to get us covered. We watched the whole course second after second. It’s pure gold.

Knowing DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) is harder than study how to use NLEs (Non-Linear Editors) and the base knowledge needed is extended

The educator: Armin van Buurren

Armin van Buuren is a dance music DJ, record producer, remixer, and label owner from the Netherlands. Throughout his career, Armin has won 12 DJ Awards, 27 International Dance Music Awards, and has been named the number one DJ by DJ Mag five times. You will get to know Armin during the course through the live process of making a piece of music from scratch.

You will get to know Armin during the course through the live process of making a piece of music from scratch

The MasterClass structure

The course contains 33 modules (sections) as follows: Melodic inspiration, building a home studio, templates, and organization in Logic Pro, leads, pads, creating a groove, bass, The Big Payoff, Mixing and Mastering, final mixing, case study, arranging, percussions, drops and reviewing, lyrics and vocals, tracking, comping, editing and more mixing, singles, and club mixes, approaching DI set, mashups, decks, radio, and business tips. As you can see, the MasterClass circulates around all the methodology of music production that can be easily adapted to filmmaking.

Topics we covered

As explained, this is the first part of the review. The second part will be published in the next days since we want to take the whole course thoroughly so we’ll deliver the most accurate review for our audience. This review deals with the initial sections of the course (from introduction to mixing and mastering).

The tools you need

Everything you need to get in on the action is a professional DAW. Well, you can download Apple Logic Pro X which is the same DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) Armin uses. Logic is a great tool that offers you endless possibilities. Moreover, it’s a super affordable professional piece of software since Apple allows three months of free trial! Nevertheless, as Armin mentions: “It’s about the Chef, not the kitchen”. Thus you need to understand the process and the sense behind it. We can confidently say that Armin van Buuren Teaches Dance Music is one of the best Logic Pro resources out there. It’s a comprehensive course about how to utilize Logic Pro as the most effective way to create music.

A pure practical MasterClass

We’ve reviewed a couple of MasterClasses related to filmmaking, directing and cinematography. For instance, read our in-depth reviews of Ron Howard and Martin Scorsese MasterClasses about filmmaking). However, Armin van Buuren Teaches Dance Music is the most practical MasterClass so far. With less talking and more practicing, this useful and smart approach will allow you to ingest the knowledge properly and effectively. Furthermore, we can surely confirm that this MasterClass will teach you beyond the sounds and will grant you the toolbox to understand how music works in general, and dance music in particular. MasterClass should implement this approach in other courses as well. The theory is nice, but the practicum is essential.

With less talking and more practicing, this useful and smart approach will allow you to ingest the knowledge properly and effectively

Building a track from scratch

The main advantage of this MasterClass is that Armin shows you how to create and built a track from scratch without any masks, telling you all the secrets involved, which makes the process awe-inspiring and extremely educating. Armin reveals everything, from how to design a layer, manipulate it and dressing it on the track to create a bokeh of sounds. Beyond that, this Masterclass is a pleasure to watch and listen because it’s full of great music so you can’t get bored. Furthermore, it’s fascinating and more importantly, educating. In fact, it’s so cool to learn how to produce music when Armin is your teacher.

Prices

The course costs $90. However, MasterClass offers 2 passes (with access to all courses) for $180 for a limited time. So you get two annual memberships for the price of one. Click here for more details.

To be continued

As stated above, we can definitely say that Armin van Buuren Teaches Dance Music is one of the most effective courses on the MasterClass platform. It’s a truly educating and inspiring piece of high-quality online education. In the next part of our article, we’ll review the second half of the course dealing with vocals, more music production skills that are being taught, and the parts that are related to DJing and career. Stay tuned.

Uptade: Part II of the review is ready. Read it here!