Digital mix master training at ANTHS

CREATIVE MINDS: From left, sophomore Zachery Robertson and freshman kelynn Fleischman mix a song using Pro Tools software during training Oct. 9 at Anderson New Technology High School.

The sounds of mixing and creating music will soon be heard in Anderson New Tech's music lab.

The school hosted training for students and teachers of New Tech, and invited other teachers from Redding to participate as well. The entire training took a day and covered multiple programs so as to give the students and staff an idea on how to use Sound Tree and Pro Tools software.

"It creates a new layer of what can be done and what the school can offer to the students," said Steve Main, an English and drama teacher for New Tech. "For kids interested in music, it is huge. Greg (Lockett) is looking at it for his video production class and Valeria (Ayabe) and myself are looking at the system for drama and how the students can create sound tracks for our productions."

The music lab at New Tech features three Korg M50 88 key music workstations, which consist of a full size keyboard, headphones, speakers, and five different types of software including Pro Tools, Sony Acid Pro, MAKEMUSIC Finale 2010, PROPELLERHEAD Reason 4.0, and ACOUSTICA Mixcraft 4.0.

Many of the programs, like Pro Tools, are used at universities and put the students a step ahead of others, not only at a university level, but also a professional level.

"These labs allow the students to pick an instrument and play their own music," said Valeria Ayabe, music teacher for New Tech. "They can mix their own tracks, add or take away vocals. They can burn a CD and download it to the Internet or change the pitch so someone else can sing it. It's really professional stuff that most kids aren't exposed to until college and these kids will be able to take it not only into the music field, but also in a career in technology.

According to Jayson Helgeson, who is a Sound Tree Trainer and part of the company that sold and installed the music labs, the setup New Tech has is perfect for eighth grade to college students.

"The setup here is like a commercial industry recording studio," said Helgeson. "They can print out their own scores, can plug in instruments and sing. All the while, they are learning about the music industry."

Helgeson said that with all the software the school has, he could be there training for several days, but he is showing them how to use it so they can get started and play around with the programs. After the students and staff are more familiar with the programs, they may have another training, but all training for the music labs will be done on an as-needed basis.