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Hybrid Music Lab

Together with everyday life, today’s artistic creations are becoming more and more hybrid. They make use of many media, sources and perspectives, different interactions between physical and virtual identities and are presented on different platforms. They are breaking down barriers between different disciplines and presentation models.

The Hybrid Music Lab (former Studio für Elektronische Musik) offers the surroundings, infrastructure and educational context for such musical endeavors.


About

Profile, Equipment and History

The field of expertise expertise in electronic music is an integral part of the composition studies studies at the Hochschule für Musik Dresden. With teaching hours and student time expense taken into account, this makes it one of the three most important parts of the curriculum – together with individual lessons and elective choices.

 

The studio offers a a high quality surround monitoring system from Neumann (KH 420 and KH 310) 310) which delivers detailed audio, even for demanding projects. The equipment reflects the constantly changing modern production environment, with regular additions of novel and useful gear.

In 2020 we will be purchasing high-end video and projection gear.

The Lab was founded by Friedbert Wissmann in 1984 as a cooperation between the Hochschule für Musik and the Technische Universität Dresden under the name „Studio für elektronische Klangerzeugung“.

 


Teaching Digital Music

Funded by the Stiftung für Innovation in der Hochschullehre the project "Music Teaching Digital" was set up at the Hybrid Music Lab in 2021. The aim of the project is the development of a modern curriculum for the integration of new technologies in artistic musical teaching.

 


Sound & Fury

Ensembleworkshop

Sound & Fury is a transmedial ensembleworkshop, which takes place every two weeks as a seminar with practical applications, to make music using improvisational strategies.

It‘s designed as a non-hierachical „playground“, enabling composers, performers and singers from all parts of the Hochschule (classic, jazz, pop, rock, opera,...) to come together and make intermedual music, using voice, acoustic or analogue instruments, or selfbuilt digital programs and their hybrid forms.

 

Sound & Fury Soundcloud playlist for summer semester 2020

 


Plattforms

Links to our Online Presence


Profile

Ausbildung

During the first two years of study, 0.75 semester-week-hours (SWS) are used for technical and theoretical basics, in form of lecture or seminars. Apart from that, there is individual support throughout the first 3 years of study with 0.75 SWS one-on-one lessons, which focuses on the practical realisation of your own compositions, furthering the knowledge and understanding of the relevant technical aspects. After the first 3 years of study, work can be resumed in the Lab with subject-specific electives in the fourth year.

The Masters programme then offers the possibility to set the individual focus and related project work for electroacoustic composition and offers the possibility to realise that in the Hybrid Music Lab.

Central to the work in the Lab is the understanding of algorithmic, live-electronic as well as place- and media-specific composition techniques. Parallel to that, a tight connection with the compositorial experience of the students in the field of instrumental music is provided. The live-electronic as well as algorithmic approaches are important from the technical perspective as well as the didactic, thus effecting the work outside of the Hybrid Music Lab as well.

Throughout the course of study, the experience of handling the hardware (microphones, speakers, mixers, controller etc.) connects with the knowledge about digital signal processing and the corresponding software environments, with which the creation of your own algorithms and solutions forms an essential focus point. Working on synthesis and transformation programatically this way builds up a basis for individual experimentation.

Apart from that, the Hybrid Music Lab offers a plethora of regular theme-related projects, supports the exchange with the studios of other music colleges and universities, and offers workshops with reknown composers, programmers and performers from the field of electronic music.

 


Technical Equipment

Audio, Video, Interfaces

Studio Space

Computer

Apple Mac Pro (pre 2013), Intel Xeon 8 Core, Radeon RX 580
Iyama ProLite B2409 HDS 24"
Iyama ProLite B2791 QSU-B1 27“
Allen & Heath SQ5

Speakers

Stereo Neumann KH 420
Surround Neumann KH 310
Triple Meyersound HD-1

Instruments

Yamaha Disclavier
Sonor Force 505 Drumset

 

Project Space

Computer

Apple Mac Pro (pre 2013), Intel Xeon 8 Core, Radeon RX 580
Fireface 800
Apple 30“ Cinema Display

Speakers

Stereo Neumann KH120

 

Full Equipment List

After attending the HML seminar offerings, students can lend out equipment for their own projects.

 


History

The Lab was founded by Friedbert Wissmann in 1984 as a cooperation between the Hochschule für Musik and the Technische Universität Dresden under the name „Studio für elektronische Klangerzeugung“.
Parallel to the training with electronic keyboard instruments and computers, MIDI software was developed for Commodore C64 and Amiga.

From 1993 until 2006 Prof. Dr. Wilfried Jentzsch led the Studio für Elektronische Musik. During this time, it was aesthetically and pedagogically reoriented. Also, the technical possibilities were modernized, notably the change to Protools and Mac-based software.
In the winter semester 2002/03 the Studio was temporarily led by Lothar Voigtländer, and after that from 2006 until 2008 by Michael Flade.
From September 2008 Prof. Franz Martin Olbrisch took the position as head of the studio, until March 2020.

The studio is currently led by Stefan Prins, and renamed „Hybrid Music Lab“.
Dipl. Ing. Christoph Mann is responsible for audio/video/informatics support, tutorials and research.

 


Contact

Artemi Gioti/Foto: Lucija Novak