The BEST Online Music Production Masterclass Course [2023]

Last Updated on January 19, 2023 by IDS Team

Investing in an online music production “masterclass” course is one of the best decisions you will make this year.

This might seem like a pretty bold statement, specially for those of you who have previously tried free courses or dabble around some youtube videos on production, but it’s the truth: Knowledge is more important than any piece of gear in your studio. Furthermore, enrolling in one of the below courses is nothing like doing a free course or watching youtube videos.

These online music production masterclass courses allow you to follow a tried and tested structure devised by top producers and engineers, plus incentivises you to follow through, as you have money invested.

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Anyways, if you’re looking for a summarized version of this article, check out the below table with our favorite online music production courses, including our very own choice for the best online music production course. And if you are also looking for a music production laptop, we have a comparrison and test article with the top models here.

Note: if you are on a mobile device, scroll left and right in the table to see all the entries, and up and down in the cells to see all the content.

Summarizing Table

Groove3 Online Music Production Course Review – Editor’s Choice

• Music style: All
• Financial Investment: Low
• Duration: Over 20 000 hours of video + over 20 books. 1 077 Courses 17 979 Individual Tutorials.
• Main DAW used: All DAWs available.
• Our Rating: 9.5/10
• Skill Level: Beginner / Intermediate / Advanced
• Certificate upon completion: No

PROS:

1. High quality of content
2. Content available on all formats and platforms: Video, books, Desktop, iOS, Android, Apple TV, Roku.
3. Very affordable on a month-to-month basis
4. High quality instructors
5. Most comprehensive library of learning resources

CONS:

1. Lack of focus
2. Can be overwhelming

We’ll start with our favorite online music production course: Groove3. What an absolute gold mine of music production knowledge.

If you watched all of groove3’s videos back-to-back you’d take over 2 years to finish, probably much more, given that they update the content regularly.

There’s tutorials on all topics you can image, including all DAWs, Plugins, and musical styles. If you search around the forums, it’s often mentioned as a student favorite, along with some of the masterclass courses we’ll review below.

When it comes to price, an all-access pass costs only 89$, with b&hphoto. This represents without a doubt the best value of all courses.

We’ve found this to be a great way to stay focused for idle studio time. Simply browse around their website, find an interesting video, watch it, then apply it to your current project.

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Deadmau5 Masterclass Review

The first course we’ve had a chance to review is Deadmau5’s Masterclass Course.

• Music style: EDM / Electronic
• Financial Investment: Low / Moderate
• Duration: 6 hours of video + assignments
• Main DAW used: Ableton, though teachings can be applied to any DAW.
• Our Rating: 9.3/10
• Skill Level: Beginner
• Certificate upon completion: No

Pros:

1. Very entertaining, huge production value. Very easy to follow through with the teachings.
2. Very well-rounded. All major topics are discussed (mastering, mixing, synths, drums, music business, live performance, and more).
3. Composed of videos, assignments, and discussions.
4. Great community if you’re willing to engage.

Cons:

1. This 6 hour course will set you back 90$. It’s not a cheap course by any means, but we found the cost/quality relation to be quite good.
2. It’s a short course. It could benefit from going more in-depth into certain topics.

Course Structure

The course has 23 lessons, all delivered through video classes. It also has assignments and discussions.

The classes touch upon the following topics:

• The Deadmau5 Production Process
• Building Your Home Studio
• Melodic Structures
• Arrangements
• Synthesized Sounds
• Modular Synths
• Digital Vs. Analog Synths
• Sound Design with Effects And Processing
• Drums / Beats
• Song Structure
• Remixed
• Mixing
• Mastering (includes case study)
• Starting a Career
• Music Business
• On Stage Performance

Our Thoughts

Overall, this is a solid and very well rounded online music production masterclass course. It won’t hold your hand and automatically offer you a career in audio engineering or music production, but if you follow through with all the tips shared, your chances of making it will increase exponentially.

Furthermore, if you take your time to network and reach out to the community, you’ll likely make some useful connections out of this online music production masterclass course.

This is a great course for anyone looking for a well-balanced course on electronic / pop / hip-hop / digital music production, with no specific focus on any are of the music production process, but rather a wholistic approach. It gives you a framework, the one used by deadmau5, to produce a song. It is not a case study, i.e- it won’t show you how deadmau5 produces a song from scratch, but it will show you every single step of the process. We recommend deadmau5’s online music production masterclass course to people that are starting out and want something a bit lighter (shorter) and more fun.

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Hans Zimmer Masterclass Review

Up next is Hans Zimmer’s online music production masterclass course.

• Music style: Film Scoring / Soundtrack / Sound Design
• Financial Investment: Low / Moderate
• Duration: 4.5 hours of video + assignments
• Main DAW used: N/A.
• Our Rating: 8.5/10
• Skill Level: Intermediate

Course Structure

• Themes
• Story
• Directors
• Sound Palettes
• Creating with Synths
• Scoring to Picture
• Scoring Under Dialogue
• Tempo
• Music Diary
• Character
• Case Study: Frost/Nixon
• Working With Musicians
• Feedback & Revisions
• Audience Feedback
• Writing Tips
• Hans’ Journey
• Learning by Listening
• Life of a Composer
• Closing

Our Thoughts

This is a very interesting course. The simple fact that you get to hear Hans Zimmer talk on the first person about stuff that he has never revealed on interviews is worth the cost of the program.

However, we found the structure a bit random.

Unlike deadmau5’s course, this program kind of jumped around topics, with one class being solely about Hans’ career and progression in the industry. To be honest, if we wanted to learn about that, we could just check one of the hundreds of interviews that he’s given.

Having said that, there are loads of golden nuggets there about his process, inspiration, and process. It is packed loads of synthesiser tips as well as general aesthetic in sound design.

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Timbaland Masterclass Review

To finish off our selection of Masterclass courses, we’ll have a look at Timbaland’s online music production course.

• Music style: Hip-Hop / Pop
• Financial Investment: Low / Moderate
• Duration: 3.5 hours of video + assignments
• Main DAW used: Ableton
• Our Rating: 8.5/10
• Skill Level: Beginner / Intermediate

Course Structure:

• Studio Session: Making a Beatbox Beat
• Building Beats: Tim’s Process
• Making a Beat: Getting Warmed Up
• Song Origins: “Dirt Off Your Shoulder”
• Making a Beat: Starting With a Chord Progression
• Making a Beat: Tweaking and Layering Drums
• Song Origins: “Pony”
• Making a Beat: Manipulating Vocal Samples
• Making a Beat: Creating a Breakdown
• Song Origins: “Gossip Folks”
• Making a Beat: Adding a Topline
• Song Origins: “Are You That Somebody?”
• Tim’s Influences
• How to Persevere

Our Thoughts

We found this masterclass to be the least technical of all online muic production masterclass courses reviewed. Perhaps on purpose, as Timbaland’s production process seems to be based a lot around feeling, leaning on his team to fill in the more technical gaps.

We still found it very useful and inspiring, with some pretty straight forward but useful tips such as thinking about drums through beatbox.

His team of “co-producers” also share some gems on drums layering, chord progression and more.

If you’re a hip hop head, you’ll love this course. You’ll learn about how Timba produced hits for Missy Elliot, Jay-z, and others, as well as some inspiring tips on how to succeed in the industry. If you’re not a hip hop nerd, then you might find it not that inspiring. Though we still recommend purchasing it as part of the masterclass bundle of classes.

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Point Blank Music School Online

Point Blank is an well established English music school, which has opened it’s expertise to the online sector. The sheer diversity of courses that they offer, including Music Business courses, is practically unmatched. This Online Music Production Masterclass Course set is both formal and fun.

• Music style: None in Specific
• Financial Investment: Medium-high
• Duration: Depends on the subject of choice.
• Main DAW used: Ableton
• Our Rating: 9.5/10.
• Skill Level: Intermediate-High

The “Online” courses of Point Blank Music School are actual real-time/live lecture by teachers, customised to you as a student. You get to ask questions and interact with your teacher via webcam. Each course thus has it’s own structure.

Our thoughts:

So this is clearly something different. Theere are no pre-recorded sessions, like the others. This would also explain the high price point compared to the others. As a drawback, their online music production courses are not instant, you have to enroll like you would to a school. Only that the school location is your home, if you cannot access the offline schools Point Blank Music School has running in London, L.A., Mumbai, Ibiza and China.

We feel like this product is for the more advanced music production, since asking questions is key here.

If you feel like you have run out of material to study on your own and feel like it’s time to get 1:1 with a teacher who can guide you further then look no further and click the button below to access the Point Blank Music School website.

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Producertech EQ Fundamentals Review

Producertech is a well established music course provider. It was founded in 2009 by Rob Jones. Of all their online music production courses, EQ fundamentals is one of our favourites. Here’s why:

• Music style: None in Specific
• Financial Investment: Low
• Duration: 2.5 hours of video + assignments +
• Main DAW used: Ableton
• Our Rating: 9/10.
• Skill Level: Intermediate

Course Structure:

• Introduction to Frequencies
• EQ Controls 
• EQ in Isolation
• Frequency Demo #3 – Combining the Piano and Sine Wave 
• The Frequency Spectrum Explained
• EQ with respect to other parts
• EQ’ing Drums 
• Common EQ Practices
• EQ’ing Kick and Bass
• EQ on the Master Channel
• EQ In The Mix

Our thoughts:

This course is, in our opinion, a must do for all aspiring producers. Having a solid grasp of EQ can be the difference between an amateur sounding song and a commercial grade end product.

Producertech’s EQ Fundamentals online music production masterclass course will give you the foundation you need to make clean sounding mixed, at a very accessible cost (25$).

It doesn’t have a rock star teacher or cover 10 different topics, but that is, in our opinion, a strength. There is no magic pill that will make you a successful musician. Instead, the path to success is continued investment in small courses on different topics. This laser focused course will give you a very complete foundation on one of the most important skills in the game: EQing.

It also comes with the EXPOSE software, which allows you to “test” your final mix for any potential issues. We were positively surprised by the production quality of the course. Here’s a sample video from the course:

There is a special focus on bass and kick mixing, thus making it slightly more relevant to electronic, hip-hop, and pop producers, though it really suits any kind of music style.

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Berklee Online Review- Electronic Music Production

Berklee is one of the most famous music schools in the world. This institution is a pioneer in online music production courses, having started in 2002! They still are an industry leader and offer the most formal type of education you’ll find in this list.

• Music style: Electronic
• Financial Investment: Moderate
• Duration: Around 6 months (4 hours / week recommended)
• Main DAW used: Ableton, though teachings can be applied to any DAW.
• Our Rating: 9.5/10.
• Skill Level: Beginner / Intermediate
• Certificate upon completion: Yes

Course Structure:

• The Technology of Music Production
• Introduction to Ableton Live
• Creating Sounds for Electronic Music
• The Art of Vocal Production

Our Thoughts:

This is a solid course for students looking for a serious commitment and some degree of credibility. It teaches all the theoretic background + gives you a solid foundation in ableton production and recording / mastering vocals.

If you’re looking for some credibility in the industry, the Beerklee is something to stick in your CV that can also teach you some good theory.

However, there are more advanced and complete courses in this list in terms of knowledge.

Finally, one of the main advantages is that coursera offers financial aid to certain students.

All in all, it is pretty inexpensive, at 39$/month, and if you’re feeling motivated, you can knock it off in a couple of months, getting a “mini” degree for a very affordable price.

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Udemy Music Production Courses review

Next up, we have a couple of udemy courses. We’ll start with probably the most popular music course in the platform, “Music Production in Logic Pro X”.

Udemy has a lot of online music production course programs on it’s website, they mostly have a similar structure to the Logic X one which is our reference.

This course was developed by Digital Music Masters, a well established music school.

• Music style: None in Specific
• Financial Investment: Low
• Duration: 38 hours of video + articles and resources
• Main DAW used: Logic Pro X
• Our Rating: 9/10.
• Skill Level: Beginner / Intermediate

Our Thoughts

This is mostly for those more advanced. What we like is that you can just pay for one “topic” and not buy the whole online music production masterclass course package like with the others. You just get to Udemy, shop for what you want to know and that’s it.

These courses are mostly focused on daw workflows, with some specific items covering hardware gear like the Maschine and others focusing on specific sub-genres like music for games. All in all we think it is good product if you just want to fill some specific empty spaces in your skill arsenal.

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Final Thoughts

We hope that the above suggestions help you kickstart your music production career/hobby.

This article is in constant update as we try new courses, so if you have any recommendations, please post them below in the comments section!