Description
LEARN MUSIC PRODUCTION WITH ABLETON LIVE 12 – SATURDAY ABLETON MASTERCLASS SESSIONS WITH DAN FREEMAN: September 13 – December 20, 2025. NYC
The Brooklyn Digital Conservatory will present a series of 14 two-hour masterclass sessions with Ableton Certified Trainer and Professor of Electronic Music Production and Performance at Berklee College of Music (Electronic Production and Design), NYU (The Clive Davis Institute) and The Juilliard School, Dan Freeman during the fall of 2025.
These classes on music production and sound design with Ableton Live 12 that will take place at New York City Studios near New York City’s Union Square between 12 PM and 2 PM on Saturdays from September 13 – December 20. They will be small group classes with a minimum of six people that will use Ableton Live as a platform to explore deeper topics in music production. Each class will have a space of 20 – 30 minutes for students to present their work and received a critique on it.
Because of the small size of the class, prospective students are required to submit samples of their work and speak to Dan before signing up in order to be certain that this will be the right class for them. Please reach out to him here.
We will be covering the following topics:
Sept 13: Music Production Concepts
Sept 20: Build Beats with Live’s Drum Rack
Sept 27: Advanced MIDI Sequencing Techniques
October 4: Warping and DJing with Live 12
October 11: Live’s Audio Effect Racks
October 18: Bass Lines with Live’s Analog
October 25: Live’s Instrument Racks
November 1: About Drift and Meld
November 8: Operator and FM Synthesis
November 15: Drums and Subs w/Operator
November 22: Sound Design w/Sampler and Simpler
December 6: Live’s Wavetable
December 13: Recording vocals with Live
December 20: AI Tools, Generative AI and the future of Music Production
We will provide a simple MIDI controller for the students. Students are expected to use their own laptops with a copy of Ableton Live 12.
Students Completing These Sessions Will:
- Gain a deeper knowledge of Ableton Live 12’s workflow
- Gain a deeper knowledge of the sound design tools within Ableton Live 12
- Become better beat builders
- Understand the fundamental concepts of different types of synthesis
- Gain knowledge about using Ableton to record vocals and instruments
- Get a glimpse into some of the tools and concepts coming through the use of AI in music production.
All sessions will take place Dan’s production room in New York City Studios near Union Square, Manhattan. These studios are equipped with full speaker systems, isolation booths, microphones, an analog console and audio effects and hardware synths including a: Juno 106, Sequential Prophet Rev2, Moog Subsequent 37, Oberheim OB-X8
Please contact us through [email protected] for scheduling and availability.
About the Professor:
Dan Freeman is a producer/bassist and music technologist based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a full professor at Berklee College of Music in the Electronic Production and Design Department as well as on the faculty of The Juilliard School and New York University. At all these institutions he oversees the courses and curriculum focusing on the use of laptops using the Ableton Live software for musical production and performance. He’s also been an Ableton Certified Trainer since 2011.
Born in Boston to a family containing generations of musicians in his mother’s native land of Nicaragua, he attended Harvard College, graduating in 1997 with an A.B in history. Immediately after graduation, he moved to New York City and worked for over ten years as a session bassist performing in a myriad of venues ranging from underground Brooklyn loft parties and Broadway pit orchestras to Carnegie Hall. He entered NYC’s electronic music scene in the late 90’s starting at the legendary Squeezebox and Homocore parties at Don Hills and CBGB’s.
In 2005, after a performance at Berlin’s Berghain, he became fascinated with the musical possibilities of laptops, the Ableton Live software and interfaces for performing digital music and spent a decade performing and touring throughout North America, Latin America and Europe working with his own group ‘Comandate Zero’ and various indie electronic acts from Brooklyn’s music scene. In 2011, he opened his first production space in Gowanus, Brooklyn and he currently produces and records from his production space in New York City Studios near Manhattan’s Union Square.
In 2018 his passion for live performance led him to design a prototype instrument for digital live performance known as “Blinky” which combines a sampler, a sequencer, audio effects processing and a grid interface. He is currently finishing a record using this instrument with an amazing cast of jazz musicians including drummer Omar Hakim (Sting, David Bowie and Daft Punk) and pianist Rachel Z (Wayne Shorter, Peter Gabriel and Journey). In March 2024, a video clip of a live performance of this instrument went viral on Instagram and Tik Tok, garnering over 1 million views in little over a week.
Dan has given workshops on electronic music production, technology and performance at festivals, universities and schools worldwide including at: New York Tech Week 2024, SXSW (US), Harvard University (US), TEDxPuraVida (Costa Rica) Berklee College of Music (US) DNA Music (Bogota), Argenlive (Buenos Aires), The Universidad de Santiago (Chile), Teatro Ruben Dario (Nicaragua), Centro Cultural de España (Mexico City) and Sonar (Barcelona, Spain). In 2015, he founded the Brooklyn Digital Conservatory to bring members of NYC’s electronic music community to digital music communities globally. The Brooklyn Digital Conservatory has run courses and workshops in Italy, Denmark, Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Chile, Panama, Guatemala and NYC.
