Berklee NYC is the Berklee College of Music’s New York City campus, housed in the historic Power Station recording studio located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan on West 53rd Street.
The Live Music Production and Design master’s degree is crafted for aspiring designers, producers, and collaborators eager to enter the immersive sonic and visual experience industry. This program hones a unique design voice and equips students with foundational skills across set, lighting, and sound disciplines.
Graduates emerge ready to realize their own and others’ visions, effectively collaborate across fields, and adapt to the evolving landscape of immersive experiences. Students gain expertise in lighting, sound, content creation, and set design, with a focus on multimedia storytelling.
Daniel Pembroke, Chair of Live Music Production and Design and Director of Academic Technology has been with Berklee NYC for four years and leads courses in Introduction to Live Sound, Advanced Live Sound, Project Management, and Interactive Experience Design graduate programs. With a background as an architect and design professional and electronic artist, festival organizer, and recording professional, Pembroke brings extensive industry knowledge to Berklee NYC. He has spent the last two decades performing internationally and curating electronic music festivals, like Charivari Detroit, which bring immersive audio experiences to life. His perspective has informed Berklee NYC’s integration of tools to create dynamic, real-world environments for students.
“Our focus is on creating environments where students gain hands-on experience with professional audio interfaces, immersive mixing, and playback systems that they’ll use in the field,” says Pembroke.
Recently Pembroke expanded the school’s Focusrite infrastructure to support the graduate programs. “With Focusrite, we’re ensuring our students learn not only the technical skills but also best practices in latency reduction, signal flow, and digital over-network audio transmission,” he says.
The Focusrite collaboration has resulted in the integration of RedNet audio-over-IP interfaces, Red 16Line interfaces, and PCIeNX cards throughout the campus. These devices enable students to experience and manage low-latency, high-channel-count audio systems, crucial for live sound and recording workflows. From Dante-enabled DiGiCo consoles and Yamaha mixers to Waves plugins and Ableton Live playback systems, students have access to a comprehensive toolkit reflective of the professional music production and live sound industry.
With the recent campus-wide implementation of Dante networks and Focusrite RedNet technology, Berklee NYC now supports fully networked audio across its performance spaces and studios across campus. The setup allows students to seamlessly connect between performance and studio environments, learning how to build playback rigs, integrate analog gear, and manage large-scale, networked audio systems. The Dante infrastructure lets them work with in-ear monitors, front-of-house setups, and live broadcast streaming, all in a streamlined, low-latency environment.
