DJ finishing school

Two young Irish music producers have just returned from an international "DJ boot camp" in Toronto. Here, they offer diaries of their experiences at this year's Red Bull Music Academy

"TO BE AMONG 30 PRODIGIOUS MUSIC NUTS WAS TRULY MARVELLOUS"

Connor Dougan  from Belfast

Heading towards Toronto, it was like Christmas morning meets big exam day times 100. I had first heard about the Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) a few months previously, after catching 10 minutes of a TV show about last year's event in Melbourne.

It struck me immediately that it was geared towards people like myself - individual musicians, producers and DJs with eclectic tastes, working in what you could call left-field styles of music.

There seemed to be a strong focus on hip-hop, electronica and vinyl culture, which is right up my street. I had to have a crack at applying.

The RBMA HQ had two fully equipped recording studios with purpose-built live rooms and about half a dozen smaller studio spaces, furnished with brand new Apple Mac workstations, Technics turntables and just about any other shiny new piece of production gadgetry you cared to plunder from the Aladdin's cave of the equipment room.

The difficult part would be finding the time to fully exploit the facilities, as there was a lot going on besides music. For a start we had two lengthy lectures a day from guest speakers. The best guest lecturer of the fortnight was legendary hip-hop producer DJ Premier. He cut an intimidating figure, but in conversation he was warm, open and disarmingly honest. He told some hilarious anecdotes as well - one involving gratuitous public nudity, Notorious BIG and a family-sized bucket of KFC, that I couldn't even begin to do justice to here.

The worst was Prins Thomas. A couple of times I was convinced he was about to fall asleep in the middle of his own interview, such was the look of sheer, stupefied boredom on his face.

Between these lectures and the inevitable partying by night, I didn't spend quite as much time actually producing music as I had anticipated.

Nonetheless, there were some great studio moments. I enjoyed a friendly argument with an Australian dub-step producer over the proposed bassline to a mad, post-rock drone track. I had whirlwind lessons on the MPC sampler from a break-dancing Swedish beat-maker. And I somehow became embroiled in an all-out cosmic jazz jam session with a small army of my fellow participants and Om'mas Keith from Sa-Ra Creative Partners.

The very best thing was getting to know my fellow students. To find yourself among nearly 30 prodigiously talented music nuts was marvellous. To be immersed in that little, utopian bubble of a music-world, if only for two weeks, was truly an experience.

It has emboldened me to finally get my music out of the bedroom and into the public domain in the form of the live shows I'm putting on at the minute.

"THIS HAS FORCED ME TO GET OVER A FEAR OF PERFORMING IN PUBLIC"

Niamh McCartney from Cork/London

I had heard that it would be the best two weeks of my life. I don't quite know how to describe being in a purpose-built studio building for two weeks solid with 30 other music lovers and lecturers. There was clearly a lot of time and thought put into choosing the participants, and the dynamic was really interesting. Each person had their own style and a unique perspective.

Russ Elevado was fascinating. He was the sound engineer for one of my favourite albums of all time, D'Angelo's Voodoo. He was very humble and clearly in love with "sound" and preserving the art of understanding how to capture and balance a true, rich sound, which has been degraded a little by the use of digital. Also, he gave us a secret listening session late at night and I got to hear some live takes of the forthcoming D'Angelo material.

On the other hand, there was a sound analysis lecture that completely went over my head, but the people who knew what he was talking about got a lot out of it.

I was under the illusion that I would be making lots of music but I came to realise that the RBMA isn't really about that. I made around two finished tracks, but I got to see the different processes different people use, listen to different styles and collaborate with people I wouldn't usually work with.

My best experiences were working with Theo Parrish who is a legend in his field, and having the opportunity to sit and talk with Steve Spacek and Mark Pritchard.

This experience has forced me to get over a fear of performing in public. It has inspired me to take my music more seriously and to continue working at it.