A NEW APPROACH

Y2K ISSUE

A NEW APPROACH FOR WEB TRAINING AND STUDY

BY ROBERT DENNIS

Two years running this magazine and posting online training has taught me a lot about you, the cyberspace reader and student. You're more sophisticated and demanding and in many ways better readers and better students. We've made a lot of progress in two years; we have registered over 1800 online readers and students, and probably have the third most popular audio rag on the web. Regardless of this progress you have shown me that we have still been "missing the mark" and I have re-thought and am now changing my approaches.

I got into this activity because I am a writing and teaching addict. I've been writing about recording, production, studio design, electronics and music in large quantities for the last 17 years. Thousands of my written pages of material on these subjects are in use at the Recording Institute Of Detroit including 9 published texts. My goal in writing is my reader and student learning. Up to two years ago I was reaching a couple of hundred new readers a year and had a "following" of a couple thousand. With the marvels of cyberspace I have hundreds of new readers each month. I'm happy enough about this to try and make it really work for you. These are my reasons for the changes.

In addition to myself, I have a string of professional associates that also like to impart their knowledge and expertise. So we have the resources, meaning all we have to do is DO it. How we're going to do it is the subject of this article.

Traditional Education Approaches

Traditional education is structured so you get all of the basics before you get any advanced techniques. In college you spend two years before you get any of your major courses. Once you do get to your specialty, they insist on you finishing course 101 before you go on to course 102. It could literally be three years before you got to the course you came to college for.

Vocational schools, like the Recording Institute Of Detroit, are better at this by cutting prerequisite classes way down and getting the student into specialty courses right away. The approach of "101 before 102 is started" is still in place in vocational schools, but the wait is cut down to months rather than years. RID in particular moves students though courses very quickly.

These approaches have validity for a person training for a career, but the cyberspace student is of a different breed.

The Home Recordist and Cyberspace Student

The recording & music person at home and hooked-up to the web is engaged in a sophisticated hobby or at most a part-time job. The person may eventually turn this activity into a full-time career and make a million dollars, but for right now its still a hobby, and fun (at least) is guaranteed. Very few home recordists count on making enough money to pay the rent or buy the daily bread. If the person is engaged in a part-time job with the activity, it is usually to earn enough money to properly engage in the hobby. The flood of very good and unbelievably inexpensive recording equipment on the market just feeds this home recording frenzy.

The recordist learns how to record by reading manuals, reading web postings, using web message boards and chat rooms and (most importantly) by a lot of trial and error. At some point the recordist usually runs into a problem and realizes that much more information is needed in a specific area to continue forward progress. At this point the recordist wants, and even needs, advanced information in a specific area. The basics may not be completely understood, but they are understood enough to really be able to use some advanced information. But the source of information available (manuals and web postings) aren't really good enough to satisfy the need and the recordist, at best, crawls forward with a lot of frustration.

Let's say Joe buys some recording equipment and begins to record himself and his fiends in the basement. Its a big rush and maybe, just maybe, he'll become a star. Things continue for a few months and one day Joe realizes that his recordings need some big help. If he really knew how to use a compressor (or if he really had a compressor) his recordings would leap ahead in quality. He's willing, and does read a lot of basic information about compressors but these sources only go so far - certainly not far enough for Joe. Taking months or even years of traditional courses is also not the answer. If Joe is persistent enough and willing to put up with frustration, he'll get though it all. But does he have to go though all of this? I say NO.

Bob's Answer is Alexander Magazine

Originally I structured my web education package along traditional educational lines, with different levels of study. I launched a subscription training program that gradually fed information to readers over 36 months. Although these approaches worked for some, they didn't work for Joe, and there's a lot of Joes out there. As a result, I'm scrapping the whole approach. Students who have started these offerings will be allowed to continue or to convert to the new approach.

Instead I'm offering a magazine called Alexander that will provide this in-depth and advanced training. In addition all of our web training postings will be available to Alexander subscribers so that they can get information on the specific topics they need. REQ will continue pretty much as it is now, with weekly tips, quarterly articles and a wealth of articles that are archived. The REQ subscription rate will remain "free."

This issue of REQ (1/00) is actually a demonstration of how the new Alexander Magazine works. On the subject of compression, there is an "all access" article that gives the basics of how compressors work. There are two articles that are available to REQ (no-charge) subscribers. There are three more articles that really go in depth with advanced information and "tricks" that would be available only to Alexander subscribers. There actually are three more Alexander compression articles planned by the official publication date of February 20, 2000. For right now, and through the 2/20/00 publication date, the unregistered REQ reader can access all articles to check out Alexander Magazine.

Although the "theme" of the first Alexander issue is compression, subscribers are not limited to learning compression because of the other text postings they have available. We presently have three major texts posted as well as three interactive study modules and over 100 additional archived articles. A fourth text is planned for posting by the first publication date and we will continue to post what we have as fast as we can. The articles include basic articles, edits from RID student materials and brand new articles on the theme subject. The first issue also has special advanced articles on production, wiring techniques, and mixing techniques as well as in-depth study of terminology.

You may wonder why I'm calling the magazine Alexander. The answer is in the REQ article called ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL - GRANDFATHER OF MODERN RECORDING.

More Information Like Cost & What Is Received

Alexander Magazine is scheduled to be published twice quarterly (about one issue every 6 weeks) or 8 issues a year. Every three months there will be a "major" issue that is about the size of this REQ issue (20 articles or so) and the "off-quarter" issues will be about 60% as full (12 articles or so). Also don't forget the many other major postings that you will have access to. If you are an REQ subscriber you seen a sample of our interactive training modules - just multiply the content by 20. If you haven't subscribed to REQ, do so by going here.

I'd almost like to see this be a "free" magazine but this just isn't practical. I've been racking my brain on how little I can charge and have it be a fair amount for the costs we will incur and the amount of data we are providing. The web training subscription cost of Alexander Magazine is $149.00 for two-years of access. Longer and shorter subscriptions are not available. This works out to $6.21 a month or $9.31 per issue - a real bargain. Subscriptions are payable in one lump or in three monthly payments (with an additional $21 service fee). This rate may have to increase, but this is what it is now. [rate increased to $199 July 1, 2000 and is set to increase to $249 January 1, 2000] To subscribe, go here.

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