• Chris Payeur is the instructor
• First semester taught at Riverbend Church
• Now offered at the Parish on 6^th street

Geoffrey has asked the college for $60,000 for lighting and sound equipment for the Northridge campus so that we can teach the class at the Northridge campus in the future. We still wish to occasionally take the students off campus so that they can see how places in the real world do sound and lights. We hope to continue using the Parish or other venues on a limited basis if the funding is received.

• Acoustics Class to be offered beginning Spring 2008
• Students will learn the physics of sound - non-parallel walls, etc.
• Audio Instructor Dan Childers has developed the curriculum
• A Physics Instructor will team-teach the class

• Workshops we have presented in conjunction with at Ray Benson's Bismeaux Studio, instruction by Fred Remmert
  • Nuendo
  • Advanced Nuendo
  • Cubase (May 2007)

CMM offered two "How to Sound Workshops" for church sound systems in conjunction with Fits and Starts out of New Jersey. The first session had a good response, however the second workshop, a year later, did not do well. It may have been in part to the Live Sound classes we have been offering and the other workshops we supported.

The CMM department is severely under funded and unable to buy new state of the art equipment for our students. We applied for and received a $120,000 Perkins Grant for new equipment and were able to buy a new Geoffrey Daking Console with compressors and other needed gear for our studio. Kurtis Machler has been working on this nearly non-stop to have everything functioning for our classes.

We have applied for another $50,000 grant for studio gear. We are also reconfiguring our studio space and will finally have a non-parallel wall. The large storage room (4157) inside of this room (4150) will become control room B. The area of this room behind the new wall will be a hallway and storage area. This will also prevent ensembles from disturbing studio classes and recording projects.

We are committed to moving forward to make the CMM program the best we can. We have students attending our program from all over the world - Germany, Bolivia, Japan, Serbia, Korea, China, South and Central America and all over the US.

Tim Dittmar and Kurtis Machler discussed the new equipment we recently installed:

• A Mackie and some D-88's were here when Tim arrived six years ago and were not dependable.
• A Soundcraft Ghost and Pro Tools upgrade were purchased with a grant in 2002. The Ghost died while we were waiting for the new Daking to arrive this year. (It has been in for repairs since January).
• Fred Remmert had recommended in our last meeting that we get equipment to set us apart from other schools.
• Kurtis and Tim researched and found the Geoffrey Daking Console. It is modeled after the Trident A range.
• Geoffrey Schulman wrote the grant.
• Geoffrey Daking and David Thibodeaux came to ACC and installed the new console and many other Daking add-ons. Extras were purchased for studio B, when the Ghost is resurrected.
• New Pro Tool HD system and 24 IOs

This will be a big draw for our program.

Our instructors have always been a big part of the attraction for students to our program, because of their experience in the industry. Now our equipment will be among the best and students get the best of both worlds.

CMM was able to hire Kurtis Machler as full-time Studio Manager, instead of 19 hours a week. This was a huge help to our students, instructors, and equipment.

David Grissom has some Daking gear in his studio. Discussion of how the Daking is assembled on site.

Geoffrey said that we are expanding the live sound/lights curriculum and asked Richard Cadena for assistance in this area. Richard agreed to be of assistance.

This committee represents the music community in the Austin area. The instructors in our area teach what they do in their professional music industry lives. The CMM department would like this committee to inform us of any community needs we are missing. We want to know how we can reach more kids, especially minorities. We believed that the South Austin campus was going to fulfill that to a certain extent, since it is more assessable to the Cap Metro system than Northridge.

Randy Houston had some ideas. He is a Member of the Recording Academy and the Austin Music Commission and has some experience here. He spoke about the club scene and suggested DJ classes would help to reach the minorities. Tim mentioned that in the MIDI and Synthesis classes are drawing more of those students who want to know how to do that sound. Francis Preve teaches Synthesis and Remixing and does some DJ work. Most of the members got involved at this point. Geoffrey asked for more ways that the CMM department can do out reach to these students.

Mark Sarisky admitted that our location and transportation are huge problems for those who do not have their own automobiles. He also mentioned that about one third of their applicants at UT were looking to become DJ's and that most of them are not minority students. It was mentioned that doing a workshop at the other campuses and/or the Millennium event center in east Austin might attract students to the Northridge campus. Another possibility is the Austin Lyric Opera location near Barton Springs. CMM wishes to partner with others to offer the best learning experience to our students.

Danny Levin asked about making scholarships specifically for minorities. Geoffrey responded that he did not know of any way that we could do that specifically. Many of our students, regardless of race, are working at jobs to pay for ACC and have no other funds provided for them.

The problem of transportation was addressed again; questioning if the school or Cap Metro would do bussing between campuses. Geoffrey said that the school had tried this a few years ago and it did not work. Also, when they did try it, the buses did not come to Northridge. Many CMM classes are studio/technology driven and that prevents us from offering classes at other locations.

Richard Cadena offered to donate DJ turntables and mixers. Geoffrey was thrilled about this offer.

Mark S. brought up that schools like Berklee and LIPA (Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts) are offreing courses about being DJ's now. Geoffrey said that Susan Walker tried to get something set up with LIPA and ACC, but it didn't happen. Commercial Music means something completely different in Europe than is does here in the US.

Danny L. asked about interns in studios. He brought up concerns about interns stepping over boundaries set by the owners. Geoffrey assured him that he screens students for the internships to insure the student is a good fit. Tim assured everyone that due to his position as instructor of Audio I & IV, he has first hand knowledge of these student's abilities. Danny was asking for something in writing about what CMM wants the intern to learn. The students are employees sent out to learn from their internship experience. You have the option, like any employer, to not hire an intern or dismiss them if necessary.

John Kunz mentioned a remote recording truck for record stores presenting in-store performances. Tim said that CMM could probably do something like that, just not as fancy as the truck. Geoffrey asked Tim and John to get together on that subject.

Geoffrey brought up that we are in need of funding for the CMM Summer Workshop for High School students. We had funding for the workshop for two years, but that source went away when we got the scholarships (same source).

The cost is $3,000 for two one-week sessions of ten students each. We thought we had a possible donor, Bantam Electronics, but that fell through. We would like the committee members to help us find a resource to fund the workshop. Geoffrey and Tim told of a donation from Tim's sister for an HD 24 digital recorder.

Russell spoke of the huge demand from our community to take guitar lessons. He talked about a specialized guitar degree, master classes and more classroom space. The CMM department is one of the least funded academic/workforce departments at ACC. We are still operating on a budget from 1998. We, and most ACC departments, experienced a 10% cut four years ago.