Timothy McGuinnessMUSIC & SOUND DESIGN

I have worked with Tim McGuinness for 8 years. In my previous position as Head of the Sound Design Program at the Vancouver Film School I have observed Tim's comfortable professionalism with the subjects that he taught. I was always impressed by his vast knowledge of music and synthesis. His expertise and undying enthusiasm was a constant inspiration to the students.
In addition, Tim is one of a very small group of individuals that has a professional working knowledge of Kyma. Kyma is a very powerful visual and scripting programming language for sounddesign used by musicians, researchers and sounddesigners.
In my opinion Tim would be a welcome addition to any post sound team or teaching position in the business..

Robert Grieve, Sound Designer, MPSE, MPEG

I was privileged to learn under Timothy McGuinness who was my sound design instructor specializing in Synthesis and Midi. The knowledge that I gained from Tim was immense. The way Tim broke down sound and helped me understand how to reconstruct it using various forms of synthesis laid a very solid foundation for me to build my sound design skills upon. Tim is extremely passionate and enthusiastic about what he does and it shows in his excitement to share his knowledge and discoveries with his students.

The thing that really stood out to me was the fact that despite his immense knowledge in the field, Tim continues to keep abreast with emerging sound technologies and is inherently very eager to figure them out.

Tim was my mentor and his teaching resonates with me almost on a daily basis as I tackle various sound design puzzles at my job. I am truly honored to have been able to learn these valuable skills under Tim.

I've had a Kyma system for over three years and unfortunately, I've just never really gotten along with it. I have several times started, with the book, and attempted to just work through it. To be honest, trying to learn Kyma has made me feel stupid, which is frustrating because I'm not.

I've pondered selling it many times, but never did because I really want to learn it and use it. So I decided I'd give it one last shot, to determine finally whether it stays or goes. I began working, putting in a few hours daily, and hit many of the same frustrations that I've previously experienced.

As a modular synthesizer enthusiast, I'm regularly on the Muff Wiggler forum. I noticed (when reading various general threads), someone with the username timmcg, who frequently referred to Kyma, and quite positively. So I contacted him; turned out to be a guy named Timothy McGuinness in Canada.

He suggested we set up a shared Dropbox folder, where I can post issues, and he can post answers. Besides helping me with issues that I ask about, he has sent me "lessons" that he has built to reinforce the concepts.

I began my "final attempt" to learn Kyma on 6/8/2014. After spending around 4-5 hours daily, on 6/15, utterly frustrated, I made a firm decision to sell it. I began working with Tim on 6/16. By 6/20, he had helped me enough that I could see the light at the end, causing me to reverse my decision, and commit to NOT selling it.

I'm still only barely into the system (given its scope) but I now can actually use Kyma to some degree. I don't want to gush, but I honestly cannot say enough about how Tim (who I've never met) has treated me, helped me, and been so generous with his knowledge and experience. He really is an advocate and evangelist for Kyma.

Scott Loiselle, Assistant Professor, Audio Engineering, Husson University, NESCom

I've had the pleasure to be a student of Tim's and I've got to say that his classes where among the best I've ever had in my education. His knowledge of synthesis is impressive yet never too academic as he also plays various acoustic instruments along with Kyma. From where I'm from, I never met a single person that even knew what that system (Kyma) was and he not only does, but he teaches it with great passion. If you are in Vancouver and you love synthesis, he is your teacher.

Tazio Schoesari, Italy

I had the honour of studying various forms of synthesis and machine synchronization under Timothy McGuinness. I was blown away by the wealth of knowledge Tim had at his disposal. Tim had a strong understanding of how each basic component worked in the above processes. Studying under a mind of this caliber rapidly filled in the gaps in my own knowledge. There wasn't a single encounter with Tim that I didn't leave inspired by the experience. I consider myself very lucky to have had the opportunity to study under him.

Stefan Seslija

During my year at VFS I had the chance to meet and know Tim. In his first classes I appreciated his solid preparation and knowledge of analog synthesis that made the learning experience fun and hard to forget. Tim is incredibly passionate in his unique way to approach to sound design, one of the sources of inspiration that made my year at VFS memorable.

Mattia Cellotto, Sound Designer at Splash Damage

Timothy McGuiness is a very diligent, patient and knowledgeable instructor. He certainly played a significant role in my career development as he taught me technical and practical music and sound facts of great importance and guided me through the best use of them. Kyma, Pro tools HD, Audio/video synchronization (history and implementation), midi, physics of sound, synthesizers (how they work systematically and practically) are just some of the tools and subjects Timothy is very experienced and skilled at. As his student I am very grateful he shared his knowledge with me!

Ricardo Ochoa, Music composer & Sound designer

www.richochoa.com