Cracking the alchemy of great sound is an art form. It's also a skill and sound engineer and music producer Will Kinsella, whose successful career in the international music business spans 15 years, has developed the Elevator Program to share his knowledge with budding performers, producers, hobbyists and DJs worldwide.
The Elevator Program, co-founded by Kinsella and sales and marketing executive Alan O’Donovan, is an e-learning platform for music production and technology. It offers a suite of courses covering areas such as mixing and mastering and advanced electronic music production, and all courses are video based and can be completed at the student’s own pace. Also available on application is a personal development/mentorship programme to help students reach their full potential in the music industry.
“Our vision is to become a global leader in teaching music technology and music production online and to build a learning ecosystem that will facilitate and nurture future innovations in the music industry,” Kinsella says. “The pandemic saw a dramatic adaptation to e-learning and in the coming years we intend to be one of the major tech companies facilitating this shift.”
Kinsella first had the idea for Elevator in 2019 and saw it as an opportunity to design the sort of platform that would have helped him when he was starting off. He based it around his personal experience of trying to make his way in the highly competitive international music business and hopes that by sharing his insider knowledge the process will be made easier for those coming behind. “We want to give people the skills and technical knowledge they need but also to provide a way for our best graduates to get their foot on the ladder in the music business,” he says.
The company charges per course and Kinsella says its courses are more affordable than the bricks-and-mortar alternative but more expensive than typical online music courses that don’t offer the same inside track or provide access to a recognised platform where budding artists can showcase their talent.
Lifetime achievement
Kinsella learned his craft as a house engineer at Temple Lane and Grouse Lodge Studios (famously known as the studio where Michael Jackson recorded his last work) and was involved in all genres from jazz and folk, to blues and prog rock. For the last 10 years, he has been teaching electronic music and currently lectures at the SAE Institutes for creative media and entertainment in Berlin and Vienna. Kinsella also taught at TU Dublin, which awarded him a lifetime achievement award for his contribution in 2017.
“Elevator takes a very practical and industry focused approach to preparing artists for success and we also offer our graduates a means to launch their careers through our own record label,” Kinsella says. “Over 3,500 artists have joined Elevator Program since we launched and our growing network reaches from Dublin and Berlin to Detroit, London, New York, Amsterdam, Ibiza and beyond.
“We are focused on developing a totally online learning system, community and social media platform with our own unique software IP using No Code and web3 technology to position ourselves as a market leader in the music industry,” Kinsella adds. “Beyond that, we plan to expand into gaming, art, design, architecture, TV, fashion, creative writing, film, C++ programming for virtual instruments and AI-related creative technologies.”
The Elevator Program employs three people and investment to date has been just more than €100,000 between private equity and support from the Enterprise Ireland Competitive Start Fund and the New Frontiers programme which Kinsella completed at TU Tallaght. Preparations for a funding round of €500,000 to scale the business in Europe are now under way and Kinsella says the aim is to grow Elevator into a technology driven business that supports music-based jobs in Ireland outside the live music industry.
