In-person workshops
Electronic music production workshops in Portugal
Two days, six hours, and you walk out with a track of your own, exported. Not notes, not an unfinished project: an audio file you built from nothing, with kick, drums, bass, chords, arrangement, mix and master. Built for people who have never opened a DAW, or opened one and gave up.
What you leave with
- A two to three minute track, exported as a WAV with a master on it
- The Ableton Live session behind it, so you can keep going at home
- A kick you designed yourself, as a file, ready to use in other tracks
- The academy's starter pack, already loaded into your session
- A one-page map of the 20 free tools and what each one is for
- 15% off the full online course, valid for 30 days
The program
Every concept lands first in one of the academy's browser tools, where you hear a single parameter change in seconds, and only then moves to Ableton Live. It is the fastest way to understand what something does without spending half an hour hunting for the right menu.
Day 1, Saturday: from nothing to a loop
By the end of the day you have eight bars playing, in the genre you picked in the first half hour.
Pick your genre
Three excerpts, three genres, and the question that runs through the whole weekend: what changed between this one and the last one. You leave this block with the genre you will work in for two days.
Setup
Live open, pack downloaded, sound coming out of everyone's headphones. Half a dozen technical problems solved now, rather than halfway through Sunday.
Break
Rhythm and kick
You program the beat in the drum machine, design your own kick in the Kick Designer, and carry both into a drum rack in Live, with the kick on its own track.
Harmony and bass
You choose a progression in the chord visualizer and write the bass line in the melodic sequencer, which exports straight into Live.
The loop, and listening as a room
You assemble the parts, save the session, and we play three loops out loud. Questions until 6:30 pm for anyone who wants to stay.
Day 2, Sunday: from a loop to a track people can hear
By the end of the day the track is exported and in your headphones on the way home.
Picking it back up
Open yesterday's session and listen to it with a day of distance, which is half a lesson on its own.
From loop to arrangement
The problem beginners have is not making a loop, it is getting out of one. You draw the map of the track in the structure map and move it into the arrangement view: intro, build, drop, breakdown, outro.
Room for every sound
Why does this sound like mud. You watch the kick and the bass fight over the same range in the spectrum analyzer, and fix it with EQ. The one rule worth memorizing all weekend lives here.
Break
Dynamics and glue
Threshold, ratio, attack and release seen working in the compressor visualizer before you touch a plugin, then sidechain opening space for the kick.
Width, depth and the master
Panning, a short reverb, a delay in time, and the master with a limiter and LUFS. This block moves fast on purpose: nobody learns mastering in 25 minutes, and saying so is better than pretending otherwise.
Export
Everyone exports their own track and listens to it. This is the moment of the weekend: the file exists.
Final listen, and what comes next
We play two or three tracks in the room. Questions until 6:30 pm.
Who it is for
It is for you if
- You have never produced, or opened a DAW and closed it half an hour later
- You make loops and have never finished anything
- You learn better with someone next to you than from tutorials
- You listen to house, techno, organic house or afro house and want to make that
It is not for you if
- You already mix and master your own tracks regularly
- You are looking for serious mastering, or advanced sound design
- You want to learn a DAW other than Ableton Live
- You cannot attend both days: Sunday continues Saturday
What to bring
- A laptop, with the Ableton Live 12 Trial installed and opened once before Saturday. The trial is free, lasts 30 days and lets you save and export. We send instructions by email five days before.
- Wired headphones. Bluetooth will not do, the latency makes it impossible to play in time.
- Your charger, and a mouse if you are used to one.
- A small MIDI keyboard if you have one. Not required.
The tools you will use
The academy runs 20 free interactive tools, each built to teach one concept at a time: synthesis, envelopes, rhythm, chords, EQ, compression, sidechain, structure, limiting. You use eleven of them hands-on during the workshop and watch another nine at work. They all stay free and open afterwards, with no sign-up, at ohxalarecords.com/tools.
They are the same tools embedded in the course and in the articles on the blog. If you want to know what you are signing up for, open the drum machine now and build a beat: that is literally the first exercise on Saturday.
Who teaches
Luís Marques and Isabel Ferreira, both members of Ohxala and both certified trainers under the Portuguese CCP scheme. Two instructors for ten people, which is what you notice on Sunday: nobody spends twenty minutes waiting for help on the day it matters most. Both teach the workshop in English.
OHXALA RECORDS is a record label and an electronic music production academy. Alongside the label's catalog, the academy runs the course Electronic Music Production for Beginners, 20 free interactive tools and more than 25 technical articles, all built on the same principle: understand the sound before memorizing the menu.
Next edition · in Portuguese
Viseu, November 7 and 8
- When
- Saturday and Sunday3:00 pm to 6:00 pm, room open until 6:30
- Where
- Carmo 81Viseu, Portugal
- Seats
- 10minimum of 5 to run
- Price
- €50per person, both days
This edition is taught in Portuguese. If you understand spoken Portuguese well enough to follow, you are welcome, and the tools and the course exist in English so nothing is lost afterwards. Write to ohxalarecords@gmail.com and we will talk it through before you pay.
In English · Lisbon
An edition in English, when there are eight of you
Same two days, same program, same deliverable, taught in English in Lisbon by the same two instructors. There is no date yet, and there will not be one until there are enough people to fill a room. Eight names is the number that makes it happen, and we announce the date to this list before anywhere else.
Putting your name down costs nothing and commits you to nothing. It is how we find out whether this should exist.
Do not want to wait?
The full course, Electronic Music Production for Beginners, is in English and available today. Ten chapters, the same 20 tools embedded in the lessons, quizzes, assignments with feedback, a certificate, and lifetime access for €97. It covers everything in this workshop and a good deal more, at your own pace.
The workshop is the shortcut with a room and a person in it. The course is the long way round, and the long way round is where the real learning happens.
Questions
Do I need to know music theory?
No. You do not need to read notation or play an instrument. Scales and progressions come ready in the tools, and the theory that matters shows up when it is needed, not before.
Do I need to own Ableton Live?
No. The 30-day trial is free, includes everything, and lets you save and export. We send installation instructions by email five days before, and it is worth not installing it weeks in advance so you do not burn the 30 days before the workshop.
How likely is an English edition, really?
It depends entirely on the list. Eight people in the Lisbon area is the point at which a date gets set. We would rather tell you that than invent a date and cancel it.
What if I can only make one of the two days?
Sunday continues Saturday, so the two days count as one thing. If you already know you cannot do both, wait for the next edition.
Can I bring my own gear?
Headphones and a small MIDI keyboard, yes. Larger controllers and studio equipment are better left at home: there is neither the space nor the time to set them up.