Best recording school in the U.S.?

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DrummerRyan

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Hello all,
Does anyone know what some of the best schools for recording are in the US? As of right now I'm seriously considering going to the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences in Tempe, AZ. It seems to be a VERY good school... Is it? Its important to me that I make the right choice... Is anybody here knowledgeable about this subject or know of anybody who is?

Thanks,
Ryan
 
I went to The Recording Workshop in Chillicothe (Massieville), Ohio.
http://www.recordingworkshop.com/
It was a very positive experience for me ... very quick pace, though. Living accomodations weren't the best, but it encouraged you to spend as much time in the studio as possible. They also had/have pretty good studio set ups. Out in the middle of nowhere, though ... more encouragement, I suppose. Probably not the best in the country, but certainly one of the few that get you through the courses very quickly ... although, you won't get an Associates or Bachelor's degree, you'll get a nice certificate of completion that looks great on your basement wall. :D Seriously, they have a placement service, but I could never get anything going in my area ... if you don't mind relocating I bet they could place you somewhere, though.

I would have loved to have gone to Full Sail, though
http://www.fullsail.com
Great teachers, great location (Florida, I think), GREAT facility overall ... Great scott it was expensive!

Money was my main motivator for going with TRW ... and in retrospect, I wouldn't call it cheap considering the time-frames of the courses. But it was effective in my case, anyway.

Good Luck ... I think you'll like studying this stuff ...
 
Thanks!

Thanks BigK! Looks like a great school... have you ever checked out the conservatory? Oh, also, how much does it cost to go to full sail? I couldnt find that on the site (although im not surprised.) The conservatory is about 12,500.

-Ryan
 
Keep away for full sail. One guy he had just finished school there who worked at a studio I do work at from time to time, didn't know what compressor fuctions did what, IE threshold ratio blah. Waste of money if you as me. Mix does a list of schools every year, I think it was Jan or Feb issue. They have a layout of tons of schools around the us
 
Keep away for full sail. One guy he had just finished school there who worked at a studio I do work at from time to time, didn't know what compressor fuctions did what, IE threshold ratio blah. Waste of money if you ask me. Mix does a list of schools every year, I think it was Jan or Feb issue. They have a layout of tons of schools around the us
 
Thanks Wally

damn, i even know that stuff... i'll keep on the lookout for that listing in mix, or i'll see if i can find a copy of one of those issues...

thanks again,
Ryan
 
Hey Ryan.
Check out this site: www.xnewmedia.com
Its an outstanding school (I'm slightly bias as I did put the investor and "the man" together)

Ex'pression center for new media was formed almost 3 years ago. Gary Platt, who was the director of education and one of the founders of full sail, was disolusioned with the education FS provided and the unwillingness of the owners to do more than make money, so he left to start the new place.

They have outstanding equipment, and outstanding hands-on educators.
 
heheh, I should have mentioned that I did the recording school thing about 10 years ago and haven't kept up on the curriculum since. Back then, Full Sail was the shit and there wasn't much competition. I don't remember the exact tuition ... I just remember looking at it and rubbing my eyes because it was way up there. I still say it's worth checking out, but the comments from Wally and sjoko here would be enough to make me hesitate.
 
Looks nice Ryan - did you check out the Xnewmedia facilities?
Like always - education is only as good as the educators themselves. At least at X I know they have teachers that are industry pro's with the track records to prove it.
The other, major, thing to look at is at a school's placement of their graduates. Altough a relatively new school, X's pupils (x - ex pupils?) have really scored and are highly regarded by those who hired them (which is a damn site more than you can say of places like full sail)
 
Thanks sjoko! Yes, i checked out the website you sent me. Looks pretty good... although I still think the conservatory looks like the place for me.

-Ryan
 
BigKahuna,I also went to the RWS.1986, the end of the analog era.Learned tons but couldnt get a position to save my ass cause nobody ever heard of it AND all the studios were recording in digital by then.
Still,it was a GREAT expirience.

How bout those locals huh?
 
the reason why you couldn't remember full sail's tuition is because it takes up way to much memory. i don't really want to attend any school's (just yet) but i was at their site like a month ago and recquested info, and got a pamphlet that said the programs price was like $27,000. you could go to like Harvard for that, right? like a week ago they sent a letter saying it was time to get in now because their tuition was gonna go up, i'm like ya right dude, i'll be right over. TTTAAAHHHH!!!!! i live like 2 hours from orlando where its located and once i got the prices i haven't thought about it since. do those schools really do anything though? do the people that go there already know what theyre doing? or is like for fine tuning and placement?
 
and the cost to FS per student is ----- something in the region of $5K. That's a clean 20 grand plus profit per student.
 
yikes!

sjoko,


I read some of the articles via Xnewmedia's page. It sounds like none of the students there get any sleep. Do you know if they accomodate part-timers?
 
Ron,
If you wanted to become an engineer, and you'd get the chance to do your own projects, at school, on equipment you've always dreamed of ............. would you ever sleep???
 
I'd still sleep

Actually I would, because:

1) my best ideas still come to me when asleep

2) my old body can't pull allnighters like they used to

3) been there, done that...but with a different kind of engineering, and no matter how fun things get, burnout lurks just around the corner
 
I went to Berklee College of Music in
Boston...way back when their "A" studio (aka, only studio) had a MCI 1" 8 track and matching 500 series MCI board with the "state of the art" AKG bx20 spring reverb and Big Red studio monitors, NEW 1176 limiters, etc.... ....and mics to kill for. I think they have about a zillion studios now. But, more importantly, their music curriculum was invaluable, because as an enginner, I think it helps to be able to "know what you are hearing", (potentially) read music, and learn the ropes of arranging, etc. Twiddling knobs...any monkee can do, but to do it with some flair....

However, I might just suggest spending your tuition money by buying your own equipment (can't buy stuff any cheaper than you can now-a-days), and setting up your own fully equipped studio (and decent rooms) and learn from experience...the best teacher. Why pay someone $75/hr to tell you what you can read in the many excellent recording books, or by learning/doing on your own? If you are looking for a gold star on your resume when job searching by having these schools in your credentials, I can't argue that they "might" help, and Berklee certainly did for me when I went looking. But, your "own" credentials will go a lot farther.
 
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