The Recording Workshop, Ladbroke Grove, London

My name is Daniel Larrotta and I am colombian student living in England. I recently finished a two-year-diploma course at The Recording Workshop (http://recordingworkshopuk.com), a private studio school in West London. I enrolled in the course hoping to have some quality studio time to develop my skills as a music producer so I could arrange, record and mix my own songs, and I am pleased to say that I did get the training and the practice I wanted to have.

What I found great while studying at The Recording Workshop was that, as I went along with the process of learning the basic theory of how the studio worked, I was allowed to follow my own path and use the facilities according to what suited my purposes the best; I am a songwriter so in my case it was very clear that I wanted to record my material and that´s exactly what I was able to do.

The course works in a flexible way depending on who you are and what you do and even though I am more creative than technical, I was surprised to find out how the use of devices such as compressors, noise gates and effect units would affect the mixes of my songs; so if someone is more interested in the technical side of it, they won’t be disappointed since one gets to learn the science behind every device the studio has.

All the elements are there for the students to take advantage of; a 24 channel analog desk, a 16 track reel to reel tape machine, acoustic and electric guitar, amplifier, bass guitar, drums and other percussion instruments, synthesizers, samplers, a wide selection of dynamic and condenser microphones you can experiment with, and computers with updated versions of programs such as Pro-tools, Logic, Cubase and Kontak, containing large libraries of software instruments which you can program. The studio has two main recording rooms; the vocal booth (a completely sound proof room which is great for vocals and practically any acoustic instrument) and the live room in which the drums are set up along with the electric guitar amplifier.

Apart from all the physical possibilities the Recording Workshop offered me, it´s worthwhile mentioning that the whole experience for me was very interactive and cooperative since I had the chance to engineer sessions for other students in the same way I always had someone else to engineer my sessions as well, and I even got to collaborate with my classmates in some pieces of music. When it came to mixing, not only did I mix my songs but I was also faced with the task of mixing other people’s music, which helped me train my ears in order to be effective when dealing with various music styles.

I highly recommend this course for anybody who thinks of studio time as precious and golden. It will allow musicians, singers, producers, DJs or anyone interested in the field of sound recording and production, to develop skills and put them into practice for the sake of their own work.

Daniel Larrotta.

London, England. 2011

I totally recommend this course, its hands on way of teaching in small groups really gives you the opportunity to get full access to the equipment and experiment yourself with it.
You will get to know all aspects about sound and music production and also will get the experience working in real recordings sessions.
So, either If you are looking to start off in sound or if you have the knowledge and want to get into the industry, this course suits in all senses.

Good lessons, but could improve! There's a lot of work upfront!

i really recommend this course to anyone especially because there are no more than 4/5 a class and it is in a working professional studio,unlike if you went to a collage or university with would be 1 teacher to 20 or 30 students.also because of this there is plenty of recording time to make your own recording and have gained the skills to record other students projects.

I would recommend studying at TRW to anyone interested in music production or sound engineerining. The experience of learning hands on with such good facilities has provided me with opportunity to learn things that can't be learned otherwise. Im sure that if I took the course a second time, I would learn just as much.

I really enjoyed studying at TRW and I got lots out of it too. For people who prefer a more informal and intimate approach to learning, this should be right up their street. Small classes, more hands-on time, good facilities, and some live experience to boot. It was a great spring-board into the world of music production for me...

I totally recommend this course. The small size of the classes has allowed me to approach the material from my own point of view, yet I've gained knowledge and skills at all aspects of recording. The mode of teaching has given me a solid theoretical basis for understanding the relationship between sound and technology, and most importantly, has given me a heightened ability to use the recording engineer's greatest tool---the ears.