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Music Production School

Music Production

Pro Tools

Berkleemusic Student Spotlight - Dr. Trey

		Mixing and Mastering with Pro Tools
		12 weeks (3 Credits)

It’s easy to imagine music students procrastinating on their homework by fantasizing about the day when they are professional musicians, accepting a major award amid a flurry of applause. For Trey Terada, who took nearly a dozen online courses through Berkleemusic, the dream became a reality when he won the Hawaii Music Award’s People’s Choice Award for Rhythm & Blues Album of the Year for his release, JROQ vs. Dr. Trey, which blends hip hop, blues and island music. Terada wrote and recorded much of the album while enrolled in Berklee’s online courses, and he credits Berklee with much of his success. “This album, seriously, if you read the liner notes, it actually says, ‘Without Berkleemusic, this album would not have happened,” he says by phone from his home on Honolulu. “They were the stimulus. They were the inspiration.”

While Terada had previously studied music at Arizona State University and worked as a professional producer and engineer before taking any online courses, he used Berkleemusic to update and expand his skills and learn new software including Pro Tools. He was particularly excited to study at such a respected institution without having to leave the island paradise he calls home, and he also enjoyed the online classroom’s portable nature. He remembers traveling to Japan, where he turned his hotel room into a mini-studio, and completed assignments for class after his clients had left for the day.

Terada also found it rewarding to gain access to a community of talented musicians and producers, including both his Berklee professors and the other students he met in the online chats and forums that supplemented his classes. He drew on these online resources for support and feedback while he was completing his album. “Being in Hawaii, but working on a mainland style project, you don’t have many examples of people you can talk to,” he says. “And it was nice to get feedback from people who could understand the type of concept I had. It was encouraging.”

Well, not always, as Terada admits that he sometimes found it difficult to receive feedback on his work in progress, even when he knew his professors were offering constructive criticism. But he always reminded himself that he had enrolled in a course to receive just such feedback. And he is certain that his music is much stronger today because of the ways in which his courses taught him to incorporate the ideas he was offered by his professors and fellow students. And so, Terada recommends that all students remember to keep an open mind and a positive perspective. “Sometimes, when you get a negative comment, it hurts a little,” he says. “But it has to be looked at as a class, and you have to expect that.”

And Terada can recall receiving advice that he didn’t want to heed, until he saw that he was too close to his own project to always approach it with an unbiased opinion about how it really sounded. Overall, even when Terada found his experience of studying at Berkleemusic to be personally challenging, the lessons he learned culminated in the best reward of all. And that’s not just the award he received, but also the level of professional and creative knowledge he has gained, which keeps him busy with clients and his own musical output. In fact, that might be the only drawback he’s found to taking online courses.