Our Mission
The Mission of Globe Institute is to provide instruction in Recording Arts and Technology. Through the use of creative technologies, and rigorous academic standards, Globe Institute seeks to challenge students to think, create, and communicate.

Why Globe Institute?
Classes cover advanced skills and techniques required of a professional recording engineer and provide the techniques and experience required to become a Master. Classes are also helpful to simply learn how to make your recordings and mixes sound better. These classes help take you to the next level of expertise.

At Globe, you will be working on the same equipment used by top professionals in the field. Classes are small enough so that each student gets plenty of personal attention and support. Even more importantly, the classes at Globe Institute are Hands-On Intensive. You will get enough hands-on experience to learn how to run any particular type of equipment well and with confidence.

We teach more than just how to be a Recording Engineer. We teach how to be a Producer.
You will learn all that goes into being a Recording Engineer: Physics of Sound, Signal Routing, All Effects and Processing, ProTools, and Mixing. But these days it is really helpful to know how to Produce a group. This not only gives you an edge as an Engineer, it gives you more options for work in the field (not to mention the possibility of getting a hit and making it big).

Globe is one of the few schools in the world that teaches Producing. The classes teach Music Theory so you can create arrangements and beats. They teach Voice and Piano so you can sing or play the music in your head for those you are working for. The classes utilize the book, The Art of Producing, written by instructors, David Gibson and Maestro Curtis.

"The Art of Producing" is the only book in the world that teaches a process for Producing any style of music -- either creating the music or just critiquing all of the music components of someone else's project.

Famous 3D visual system used as a teaching tool for explaining and showing how to create great mixes.
The classes utilize the Virtual Mixer concept to explain recording and mixing theory. The top selling book, The Art of Mixing, written by chief instructor, David Gibson, is the primary text in the classes (The Art of Mixing is now being used in over 30 Colleges of recording all over the world). The visuals provide a framework for understanding all that can be created in a mix. With the visuals you are able to see the different values and traditions that have been developed for recording and mixing different styles of music and songs. Understanding of the complexity of these dynamics is crucial for a recording engineer to be able to consistently create great mixes! Visuals make complex structures of mixes simple.

The use of the Visual Framework for understanding how to mix (in the way we do) is a powerful educational tool
that sets Globe apart from all other schools.

Visual Representations of Imaging
Classes begin by covering all the details of each piece of equipment, so you know what everything does. However, what is most important is the way that all the equipment works together to make things sound good. Once you know what the knobs do, which way do you turn them to make it sound good?
It is mixing that is the most difficult to learn. You can read the manuals and learn what the equipment does, but under-standing how to use the equipment to make it sound good is the tricky part. It is the classic challenge of learning how to create great art with technology.

Visual representations of “imaging” (the apparent placement of sounds between the speakers) provide a tool to show all the different possibilities available to the recording engineer in a mix. Just as music theory was developed as a tool to help explain the dynamics found in music, the visuals are used as a framework for describing the dynamics that occur in a mix.
Using visuals of mixes, we can now see and discuss the artistic values that people use when creating one style of mix or another. When you have a framework for remembering what is being done in mixes -- you then develop your own perspective and values (or maybe your values are already developed and you just need to know how to use the equipment to get what you like). You then have complete control over the mixing process, and you can do whatever you like -- because you know! This is the art of being a great recording engineer.

The Art of Mixing
On a more detailed level, the Art of Mixing is the way that the engineer uses the equipment in the studio to enhance and bring out the magic (whatever that is to you) in the music and song.
A mix can be transparent so that the music or song shines through; or, a mix can be used like another instrument -- to create a musical dynamic. The mix can even be used to create tension in a song. Creating mixes that fit the music or song in a creative way is the artistic challenge of the recording engineer.

First, it is important to get to know the complete array of feelings and emotions (dynamics) in music and songs. Next, you get to know the complete array of feelings and emotions (dynamics) that can be created with the equipment in the studio. You then match the two based on your own feelings -- in a way that creates art.

Besides basing mixes on what feels or sounds good, there are also traditions that have been developed for each style of music. For example, Big Band Music and Classical Music have very strict traditions as to how they are mixed. On the other hand, Rap, Hip Hop, and especially Dance, Electronica and Techno have much less defined traditions. The primary tradition is that the 808 Boom Kick is loud and out front. It is important to understand these traditions because many bands want the mix to sound just like the style of music they do. But also, when you see these limits, you can then push the limits, and help to change the world.

There are two ways that we relate to sound:
1) We feel (and hear) the soundwaves that come out of the speakers and travel throughout the room, and 2) We imagine sounds to be floating between the speakers. The visuals represent the imagined sound image. Sounds are represented as spheres because they best mimic the reality of how much space sounds take up in a mix. Also, the images are transparent because when two sounds are in the same place in a mix, we can normally still hear both of them.

Panning is naturally represented as left to right. Volume is represented as a function of front to back -- because things that are closer to you are normally louder! Pitch is represented as up and down -- because high frequency sounds appear higher between the speakers and low frequencies appear lower (Check it out on your own speakers). This is probably why high frequencies are called highs... and low frequencies are called lows.

Using this precise mapping of Pitch, Panning and Volume as X, Y, and Z axes, we can now map out a mix visually. Various styles and types of mixes (particularly those associated with a particular type of music) become clearly apparent. Different mixing "signatures" can now be dissected as to what the engineer did to create the mix. But most importantly, the problem of "masking," where one sound seems to hide another sound in a mix, becomes visually apparent.

Adding the parameter of time we can also watch a mix in real time as the song plays! (CHECKOUT VISUALS OF MIXES IN REAL TIME)
As you can see, not only are the visuals interesting, but they are an important educational tool for teaching mixing theory and no other school in the world is using this system. Simply having a framework that you can use to understand and remember all that is going on in mixes is helpful. But most importantly, it gives you a theoretical tool for conceptualizing what you want to do in a mix before you start turning the knobs. Then you are in control of the mix, instead of it controlling you.

This gives you an incredible edge when it comes to obtaining a job and becoming a truly great recording engineer, or simply learning how to make your mixes sound better.

The Virtual Mixer
These visuals are now being programmed into a computer so that they can be used as an interface for a mixing board! You can use a mouse, but with a touch sensitive screen you can simply put your finger on the sounds and drag them around on the computer screen controlling Volume, Panning, Equalization, and all Effects (and Effects parameters). But with 3-D glasses the visuals of the sounds float between the speakers right where the sounds are. You can then reach up with a dataglove (like a Nintendo glove) and grab a sound and physically move it around. If you want a sound in the left speaker, grab it and put it there! The computer tells the mixer to make the change so you hear it in real time as you move it -- a much more intuitive way of interacting with the mix. But even if you don’t use this interface, and you are working on an old fashioned console -- you can then imagine sounds floating between the speakers. And you have all the creative possibilities of everything that can be done in a mix in your mind, and at your fingertips. MORE ON THE VIRTUAL MIXER

We're a small Institution and we really care that our students make it.
The Institute is not a large Corporation. The owner (David Gibson) teaches many of the classes. We care, not only because our reputation is at stake (studios wouldn't call to hire students if they aren't happening), but because we sleep better at night when there is a fair exchange of energy -- when you come away feeling you got your money's worth.

But there is a higher ideal at play at our Institute -- We truly see how helping students succeed in obtaining their dreams is simply good karma. It's good for our own hearts and souls when we see someone make it.