BERKLEEMUSIC.com...REVIEW

[metaverse]

I feel its my DUTY to expose what the real deal with this place is so that you dont get caught up and lose money like I did...Read on and understand how and why...

Ok...

Berkleemusic.com...

"Berklee college of music ONLINE EXTENSION schooL"... Extension school huh...Maybe since I live close to boston I can get some hands on Studio time since its basically Berklee college ONLINE right? --- WRONG !!!

No dice... they're technically just "affiliates" not the College itself. They just hire the professors to design the course structure in web pages then have an email address so they can answer questions and a forum so they can post little things up where the students of the particular class can post too...They also have a private "professor" page that only he can see if you're embarrased to ask in "public"... and you get "chat time" once a week for an hour via a chat box like a chat room...Which during the 24 weeks i was taking 3 seperate classes there I often got different chat times ranging from 9 am. on a monday to 10pm on a Sunday as well as the sometimes "Oh im overloaded with work so chat time will be reschedualed or you'll just have to write me an email and ill get back to you as soon as i can..." Or even when writing emails to the professors I usually got "im sick..." or "I just got back from playing a show in philly sorry about the wait" or "I also teach at the school so i've been doing that work and haven't had time to get to your email"...

One good thing about the classes are the professors dont really take the grading thing super serious ... Its a second job for them since many of them Teach at the actual college hence the name of website...so if you WANT TO SLACK you probably wont get hurt because of it... I would turn in work in 4 week bundles... and still passed. I posted my assignments on the board , literally, 7 weeks AFTER they were due and still got credit. They dont care. Which shows you how worthless their "certificates" really are...more on that below...


I enrolled in their "Masters Certficate of music production" program... They have 3 certificate programs...

Masters (12 classes)
Professional (8-10 classes)
and some other one thats 6-8 classes...

Each class consists of 12 or so lessons broken up into 12 weeks + a week or two after the class has ended to post any work you didn't finish in time...

Lemme first explain a couple of things about their "certificate program".

A "certificate" is not a "degree" they (berkleemusic.COM) are NOT an accredited college or university like the actual Berklee College of Music in Boston.
#2. Even if it were a degree in any field, especially the music field they usually get people to do internships for free and if you're not doing that for free they're only gonna pay you if you have "EXPERIENCE" in a studio...which you dont get with Berkleemusic.com... Neither...
No INTERNSHIPS and NO hands on time in the actual studios of Berklee College. They also do not offer Job PLACEMENT only assistance which consists of a FORUM Board (accessible to anyone regardless if you have NEVER TAKEN A CLASS WITH THEM) where people place listings of stuff they are looking for... Be it some random studio in NY or the Dude on Cape cod looking for a "pro tools" guy to help him out. Again you can access this board without even being a student with them... IE for FREE.

Ok so check this out... The "Masters CERTIFICATE PROGRAM" ... Sounds real Official right? ...

It was gonna be 12 "classes" which are more "read these slightly interactive web pages...try to do this stuff in the programs provided, post your assignments on the board for correction and/or evaluation and if you have questions email the professor or post on the class forum and you might get a response from someone besides the professor." Response time on emails from the professor really depended on the prof. himself but i'd say it was about half and half that you would either get a response the sameday/next day or a couple days later.

Ok... so 12 classes right... Now this is what really ****s me up...

When you enroll in a certificate program as opposed to taking classes individually the classes are roughly 1000 bucks a piece. If you were to write down each class that you can take for the masters certficate program and take each one individually (or simultaneously if you want) they would cost you roughly 600 bucks a piece. Big difference right... You must be thinknig as I did "Wow its almost DOUBLE the price to take the CERTIFICATE program it must really mean alot in the music world..."

But again, the certificate is not a degree and even if it were a degree your employer would favor someone with experience over you. And since they offer no INTERNSHIPS , where do you get this experience?

Stupidly I started looking into this after already enrolling but i've read a hundred times of people going to school and getting a degree in Sound "arts" or sound engineering and not getting a job... Why is that?? Because more often than not they didn't get some type of internship which equals = EXPERIENCE, which is what matters most when getting a job. (after CONNECTIONS of course ;o)

So if you want to go to school for engineering in hopes of running the boards in a studio and want to get hired fresh out of school check out LArecordingschool.com , or something similar because they offer hands on EXPERIENCE and also INTERNSHIPS which , again, equal EXPERIENCE.

If you dont want to get a "job" in a studio and just want to make music on your own and let the chips fall where they may but still need to learn the programs like Reason, Sonar, Ableton Live and Pro Tools you can get that there.

However... The only program they go into super detail about is Pro Tools. And even then they dont explain how to use every single shred of what pro tools has to offer. Now you could take three classes on music production that all use Reason or Sonar or Ableton however they rarely focus on just ONE PROGRAM and have you doing the same projects on one or two programs which is good or bad depending on how you look at it... me personally i'd rather take the Pro Tools courses since they focus soley on Pro Tools.

Now as far as the CLASSES themselves go...They're 12 weeks a piece...Each week is a "lesson" and they'll post days on which certain "sections" of the lesson should be posted for correction and/or evaluation but more often than not I would turn in work late, sometimes literally 7 weeks late and still got full credit for it. The professors are very flexible because its more like a set of classes you take on your own than a SCHOOL where you have deadlines, ect... Its not taken as serious as a school (which they'd like you to believe so they can burn you on the CERTIFICATE programs)

Also like i said up top they are "slightly interactive webpages"... They'll set something up like "listen to these three 5 second clips and tell me which one plays four measures" or something along those lines... You pick the answer and you'll either get a "wrong" noise or a clapping sound for "right"... You then click on the "next page" link and either read some more stuff off the web page and go into the program they're teaching you...which they give you free trial versions of that program "adapted for berklee" (unless its protools which you NEED to buy hardware for)... Or you just read some more and do some more listening practice... Its like playing weak flash games set to the lesson basically. Which is kind of cool and better than JUST reading however for the money , me personally, i'd rather just pick up a book and learn on my own (which is difficult since I seriously lack organization skills.)...and if you look at the class description you can see which books are "required" for the course and just buy those. Which MOST TIMES, what they have you read, is re-stated in the web lesson anyways...

I took three classes...
Intro to desktop music production (using reason 2.5 and Sonar 3)
producing with protools (self explained)
...and music theory

all were decent classes however i only finished the first one (other **** going on in life) which worked with reason and sonar...I started the pro tools class which was good but the professor was almost always late in answering emails which is a ***** if you're the type to get in the zone and wanna just work and get something done as opposed to starting stopping then finishing later, which some people like to do. If thats the case you can fully do that with these classes...some professors are more flexible than others, but on a whole they realize you're taking an online course because you probably have a job and a life outside of school and can't find the time for another alternative which equals flexible deadlines. Sometimes months in length of flexibility.

Final statements...

If you're looking to get a job in a studio straight out of school, much like you would out of a college with a DEGREE (not a certificate lol)...Berkleemusic.com is not good for this compared to LArecordingschool.com or do some research on SAE or Full Sails(which i wasn't impressed with at all...then again i look for most bang for your buck so you do the research). Then again berkleemusic.com offers the flexibility of learning at home as opposed to going to LA to live for 30 or 45 weeks to go to school. Then again you get the studio time experience with it. So it really depends on what you need as well as want...

If you're looking just to learn certain aspects of music(production, engineering, business, ect...) and would rather pay to have someone set up a step by step process to going about it so that you can fully grasp the concept and start doing your own thing , independently trying to make your way into making a living out of what you love (MUSIC) and want to do that from you computer... Then berkleemusic.com is a good way to go about it, "it" being developing a foundation to stand on when venturing into the music world. Just remember that those CERTIFICATE programs are not worth the money...just take each class individually. Trust me on that one and save yourself 400 bucks on each class.

I apologize for it being slightly unorganized but I kind of just threw it together in a couple hours.

~ meta

ps. With the Job listings Board... there might actually be a section or people you can only access if you have got a "certificate" from them but I can't exactly remember...my apologies...

[Skettalee]

Thanks for informing man. Im sure you are helping out alot of people. You should go to my forum and post the exact same thread in the Music Production section :

http://www.damienbenoit.com/forum/in...p?showforum=30

[metaverse]

Thanks for the thanks...

Anyone can copy that thread and post it on their site or put a link to It on their site as long as they give me (metaverse) credit...

just spread the word...

That place is def. making extra money off of other peoples ignorance/lack of research... Which although it isn't quite "wrong" because its my own fault for diving in the water without checking the temp or for SHARKS... I would just hope that they'd have some signs up to give me a clue as to what matters in the music world...

But now YOU know...and "knowings half the battle...G.I. JOE !!!"

~ meta

[aintnosunshine]

Finally, somebody with an inside view of the berkleemusic.com program.

Since this post was made, they've increased tuition for the non credit classes to $899. So much for saving a lot of money from them! They also give you a 10% discount if you pay the full price of a certificate program at once. You'll still end up paying about $1200 more than a non certificate program though.



Anybody else here take classes from berkleemusic.com?

[missmac]

Thank you so much for your insight... I was JUST wondering if it really mattered if it was for credit or not, and when I looked up " reviews", the first listing was for FP (which I'm already a member) ...what I really need is the knowledge, not a peice of useless paper for $100's more! Your post has helped me to use a LOT more caution! Peace! MissMac

[Presto7737]

While I respect this cat's opinion, it's just that, his opinion. I'm currently taking the same master certification program with Berkleemusic. I'm only like three courses away from the certification. While I will say that the courses are kind of expensive, I'm using tuition assistance through the military. But bottom line as with anything, do your research. I find the courses to be chalked full of info, the interactive lessons to follow along perfectly with the subject matter so they hammer the lessons home, and the feedback from the professors and your classmates help alot. The college is accredited and you can have all your credits transfered if you want to persue even higher education. While I can't speak on his trials with studio time with the actual berklee college of music, berkleemusic.com is designed for distance learning, i.e., online. After doing more research, the certifications do carry some weight in the industry, and their a hell of alot better than any joe who just did stuff around the way or in his crib. I've been offered internships and sold some stuff just cause these courses. You get out what you put in, just like your beats and your home studio. The fact you sit in the studio doesn't mean you're banging out fire, you have to immerse yourself and chase perfection.

[Kojak]

If you're looking to get a job in a studio straight out of school, much like you would out of a college with a DEGREE

Studios don't owe you a job just because you got some easy music production degree. I worked in two studios while I was in high school and no one there had any kind of "music production" degree. Mostly if they have a degree it will be in Business or Electrical Engineering, studio production techniques are something anyone can easily learn on their own, which is why it is so hard to find a job in that field, just like art or acting.

[Annonym]

Awesome to see people are being banned for having bad opinion about Berkleemusic.com

It's on several music forums I see this. I believe this will help you to make the right choice.

[shane1980]

Great Reviews, Thank you very much

[zazha808]

Wow thank you for taking your time to write such a thorough review. The price has now gone up to 1000 per course when selected individually. I don't know if I really want to spend that much money if I can get books and study on my own, especially when the professors don't really see these courses as a priority. I want to take courses in song writing and piano. I've already read composition books and I'm buying some on song writing and chord progressions.

For 12 weeks of keyboard lessons with a regular teacher you would only have to pay about 400-700 depending on their level of professionalism. Can anyone tell me if there is a huge difference between a regular piano teacher and the berkleemusic piano course? And are the songwriting courses worth it?