Tell us about your current job/career path.

For the past 3 years, I have been working for a company called HYPH (formerly known as XHAIL). HYPH is developing a music creation app with a massive library of stems, created by producers all over the world. These stems then come together in our system creating an incredible number of possible musical arrangements. If the user doesn't like a particular part of the arrangement, say for example the drums, they can swipe for a different one, or choose one from a particular genre/style.

I joined HYPH as an intern shortly after finishing my fourth year in CMP. During this internship, I dipped my toes in almost every department of the company, like stem processing/mixing, playlist curation, research and development, A&R and even marketing. I was lucky to join the company while they were quite small, this gave me the opportunity to explore all of these avenues and I learned an incredible amount while doing so. After my internship, I was offered a full-time position on the music team where I mainly focused on stem processing and playlist curation.

Since then the company has grown quite substantially and the Dublin office was split into multiple departments, I was then promoted to “Music Curation Team Leader”. The Curation team specialises in playlist curation and metadata tagging of stems. I couldn't be happier in my current role and it was all made possible by my time in Creative Music Production.

Did you enjoy your time in CMP?

What I loved about CMP was how it allowed me to explore a range of career paths like mixing, mastering, music business, psychoacoustics and even audio programming and then provided the opportunity to focus slightly more on whatever area I wanted to specialise in. I also struggle with typical classroom-based learning however CMP takes a very hands-on approach to education.

How did it help you with your career?

CMP prepared me for my current job in ways I didn't even realise at the time. Of course, exploring multiple different fields allowed me to be incredibly flexible while starting my professional career. The practical hands-on approach had me confident in my skills with the likes of Pro Tools and Logic Pro X and other audio software but something that I initially overlooked was the fact that I was constantly surrounded by such an eclectic group of people, students and staff. Each person had their own selection of talents which was extremely valuable and everyone was of course interested in all different kinds of music.

CMP, unlike other courses and colleges, suits and attracts all kinds of people from many different backgrounds which are often overlooked but to me ended up being one of the most important aspects of the course.

March/April 2023