engineering school

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TexRoadkill said:
If you believe that you are gifted than dont worry about making a living with it because your genius will be discovered and all your problems will be solved.
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I never said I believed I was gifted, that's what I'm trying to find out. If I find out I'm mediocre or worse, at least I'll know.

Otherwise plan on cutting soundtracks for lotto commercials and demo's for any jerk who can pay your hourly rate, bitch ;)
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I have no problem with this, I am more practical than you think. I do want to make a living doing something I love. I just want to give myself a fighting chance of not ending up at the bottom of the food chain, Beeeaaaaaaatchhh :)

pAp
 
Here are some companies and types of companies that are good for training and experience. The trick is to only work there for a year or so and not get sucked in. Most of these companies are filled with industry refugees who decided to get a more stable job. The pay is low to begin with but sales and upper mgmt jobs pay fairly well if you like that type of work. These companies have a lot of old timers though so it can take years for that cushy job to finally become available but they also offer a wealth of knowledge and most importantly REAL WORLD EXPERIENCE.

It's important that you realize even after paying big money for engineering school these are the same jobs you will be applying for. Without a kickass demo you have nothing. Your degree is worthless without real experience or proof of your talent. If you do go to school consider it your demo production time. If you can make a better demo spending the money on your own then that is when school is a shitty deal. If you leave school without a KICKASS demo you have wasted your time and money.

To get a job Attitude is everything. You have to convey confidence and ability. You need to know the basics of setting up a sound system and troubleshooting problems. Learn to talk like a pro and use the proper terms. People get finicky about terms for a reason. If you go into a pro studio and keep referring to XLR as a 3pin cable you are going to look like an ass. And the most important rule - LEARN HOW TO PROPERLY COIL A CABLE. All jobs start and end with running cables and that will be YOUR job. If you still grab cables and wrap them around your elbow you are not ready for pro audio work.

If you guys think Sonusman is an asshole wait till you start working with pros. There are many cool people but it is a HIGH STRESS industry and time is money. You are the new guy and no matter what your education you will be viewed as somebody who doesnt know shit, and they are right. Learn to suck up your pride and take your lumps for the sake of experience. You must EARN the respect of your peers.

Starting in the production industry is like going to war. You start out naive and optimistic and after a few months or years you will be the cynical asshole who just wants to get the job done and done right.

Equipment Sales and Rental-
The smaller pro oriented gear shops are great for learning about all the different gear in real life applications. You get first hand experience with the actual reliability of different models and inside info on mfg from the reps. If you want to learn about equipment mfg and repair these are the places to work. You will meet many working pro's when they come to rent or buy gear and if you can impress them they will remember you when they need to hire some help. Sales people can make some serious cash.

Clubs-
Many small clubs are hard up for sound and lighting guys. They cant afford to pay but if you are willing to work for beer or can talk the bands into giving you a small contribution it is a great way to learn your craft and meet other musicians. If you have your own equipment your are guaranteed to get gigs like this. If the bands like what you do they will want to hire you for their bigger gigs. This is also a good way to find clients for your own home studio.

Corporate AV-
This is where the money is, period. No area of showbiz has as much money as corporate trade shows and video production. There are some larger companies like Swank AudioVisual and many medium to small companies. They often have contracts at large resorts and do everthing from HUGE shows with well known artists to multi camera video shoots to small bullshit meetings. The larger companies have the best equipment you can get for live sound and video production. These clients pay big money so having gear that is guaranteed to work is crucial. This is the only job where you have a $200,000 video projector sitting around just in case. This is another job where sales people earn SERIOUS cash with the right company and client.

Resort/Cruise Ships-
I did a stint at ClubMed and my uncle worked cruise ships for a few years. ClubMed is very casual and they are DESPERATE for techs. They hire sound engineers, DJ's and lighting techs. They usually have horrible gear, cheezy shows and you get yelled at by uptight european bosses but you will party like a rock star. This job is recomended if you are young and want to make a few bucks and have a lot of fun. The cruise ships pay better, have better equipment, more professional shows but are much more uptight.

Studios/post production facilities/TV Stations-
These are what you think of when you think of a nice studio. This is the hardest place to get paid to start but if you have a demo that shows some talent and can talk your way through the door they will probably let you intern or work the tape room doing dubs. They have great equipment and sometimes you can use the gear in the off hours.

Small studios-
Has anybody here every asked Sonusman, Harvey, BlueBear or any of the others if they could do an internship? I bet if you offered to clean their houses, wash their cars and buy the beer they would probably be happy to teach you some stuff. This applies to anybody.

Most importantly be respectfull, friendly, helpfull and willing to do ANYTHING and people will respect that and eventually you will get a decent gig.
 
Hey Tex, that whole Cruise ship/ClubMed deal sounds pretty cool, and hey I'm young. think you can get work there without any "real" experience, that is none except endless hours in my own studio?


Laj
 
ClubMed is very easy. The cruise ships are a little tougher. The hardest part about ClubMed is the culture of it. You live at the resort and they are just getting around to the concept of a day off every week or so. You can still take off and visit the surrounding areas occasionally (you usually start in Mexico) but overall it can be a little exhausting. But I was 27 and just looking to have some fun.

Go to their website at www.clubmed.com and check out the requirements. If you want more specific details email me at texroadkill@yahoo.com and I will give you the full scoop.

It's definately one of those experiences that when you are there you can take for granted but looking back now living with an ocean view and new chicks every week all the bullshit doesnt seem that bad.

There is another website called www.cooljobs.com that has some listings for production jobs at resorts, cruise lines and theatres.
 
yea, unfortunately

Babycham said:
Don't go to fullsail, the money you going to pay you could buy a damn studio and learn everything yourself. I heard the students at fullsail only know equipments, but they don't know how to use them. The best thing is to go visit the schools first. You just might end up like a fullsail student and thats not a good thing. lmao
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Just a bunch of rich kids who think it's "COOL" to go to fullsail end up there. (no SAT scores required) Given other people who worked hard and went to class everyday a bad rep. But go figure, it's up the individual to spend the money and learn what they can.


You get an Associate of Science at Full Sail, it was 25 thou when I went. (and the hours are as realistic as you can get for school compared to real world hence the "real world education" title phrase they use)

If you think u can get a better understanding of things at another school that will give u an Associate of Science at the same time (if you want a degree vs. a certificate) at a cheaper price, then go do it!

I spent (am spending) alot of money on my Full Sail edu., but I don't regret it. If I didn't go there I'd be in a 4 year college or community college doing Lord knows what.

It's true, u can spend all that money on a studio instead. Build your own, and find a local studio that will let you linger around and learn some stuff, cool.

It all depends on how serious u are, how much you wanna spend, where are you gonna do it....

Just because I went to Full Sail, doesn't mean i know everything. I didn't even know what a mixer did before I went to that school. I think I've learned some things I wouldn't know now if I decided to go a diffferent route in learning about engineering.
 
full sail is ok, but they are over priced like hell. and the prices are going up this year. i was gonna go to full sail, but i'd rather go to the best school...which i found to be www.SAE.com i have a friend down at full sail, he said its ok, but nothing special. i took the tour/open house down there last summer, they have some nice ass studios. but the school is $34,000...SAE is $14,000(for the nyc and mia campus) i think its b/c full sail isn'tjust a music school...some of the best animators came from full sial and the ppl that make Ea sports games... stuff like that
 
the SAE link

Hey, what is the school called? I tried that link but it takes me to a page with a bunch of advertising links.

Wow, I wish I had known about this school if it is better than Full Sail.
 
Ive found the place to lament finally.
I've been recording exactly two years and I havent gotten that far. i know exactly 2 people who own semi-professional studios in my neighborhood and they both use compeltely different setups from what i have and neither of them has enought time to give me more than 15 mins a week. And in those 15 mins i hear "youre using cakewalk 9? Thatll never work, get Sonar" Gee thanx, is there a Sonar soup kitchen where i can pick one up?
Noone has the timeI dont blame them, theyre bth married, full time jobs and working on their own projects.

I've spent many hours online, in the library, in barnes and nobles reading hundreds of articles on recording,mixing,editing,effects, computers, soundcards, microphones, cables,mixers, cd burning, waves files, mp3,ADATS,monitors,etc.. I've asked hundreds of questions and got hundred of detailed answers (thank you all), i have pages and pages highlighted notes, manuals, recording for dummies, recording for the brain dead, i have tons of cables, wires, adapters,floppy disks,zip disks, cds, and crap filling my room, i pass on summer vacations and new shoes so i can pay off my computer that i use solely for recording and you know what? At the end of the day, i can honestly say that I dont know what the hell I'm doing. And i believe i am fairly intelligent, until i sit down at my computer and yet ANOTHER error message pops up or the soundcard stops working or my midi keyboard plays back the wrong notes. I cant add effects because I dont know how to fine tune them , i cant use envelopes/nodes etc b/c i dont know how they work because i spent the last two monthes trying to figure out how to set up a mixer. I cant program a drum track b/c i dont play drums and wouldnt even know where to start, i cant sequence, loop, or sample because it wuold take me another 6 weeks to figure that out and i have ppl waiting for songs (i sell) and dont have that much time. So basically, all im doing is wasting my time and money on equipment i will never be able to figure out. I got Sonar and it is so friggen foreign to me that i need literally hands on training so that I can semi-understand what its capable of and how i can use the features. There is no way i will EVER be able to make a decent recording even if I would LIVE in Samash. Simply because theres TOO MUCH you have to know. I know a little bit about everything and thats why my recordings suck and im constantly aggravated. So whats the solution? Do i spent another few thousand dollars for school to learn the science of recording and mixing? Buying more equipment is obviously not the answer. The longer i mess around the more shit i break so quiting job and only recording is certainly not the answer. So is there any help for me? I dont want to be discouraging to the newbies out there but im sure there are many ppl out there who feel the same way. When i started recording i was told "Welcome to the world of recording, your wallet will never be the same" That was the least of my problems.
Shana :(
 
Shana,

I feel your pain. But it's much like anything, if it's really worth doing, and you love it, and you have some sort of affinity for it, you kind of roll with it and eventually something comes together. Maybe you would not want to record your own stuff if you could get George Martin to do it but what you do at home can come out pretty decent. If you are fixed on the idea of it but everything about it is alien to you and never makes any sense, maybe, just maybe, it's because you have no affinity for it.

Please don't think I'm trying to discourage you. But I have sometimes crossed paths with people that, for whatever reason, are doing something for a living and are so completely not cut out for what they are doing, it staggers me. For some reason they got stuck relying on something they are not capable of becoming good at, for whatever reasons. We all have areas that we fall apart in. Very few of us can become wizards in multiple fields.

For some reason everybody thinks that to be a musician these days they have to also become recording engineers. It's simply a fallacy and it leads to a lot of stress.

What is it that drives you? Are you a songwriter? A performer? Do you love to play with a group of people or solo? Do you get a kick out of working with digital media? Does learning the psychoacoustics of stereo imaging and how to achieve a certain kind of spaciousness in a recording light you on fire?

Use your passions as a guide to where to put your energies, and trust your feelings. If you really are turned on by recording issues, you'll find the way, trust me, though it's always a struggle learning new things and dealing with all the quirks of the technology. If not, you won't, almost no matter how hard you persist.

For my own sake, I can make recordings of simple stuff that sounds OK to my ears, but I don't for a moment think I can really make a professional recording, and I don't really care to. My focus is on writing music that I can play on my guitar that sounds beautiful to me. I use the recording stuff as a way to capture ideas and help myself grow as a writer and a player. I feel that if I can achieve that the recording stuff does what I need it to for me, and as long as I don't agonize over it, I can stumble through and get the occasional recording that is at least good enough to get the point across.

-AlChuck
 
Shana- You will never know everything. Even seasoned pro's learn something every day if they are open to new ideas. Just stick with it and everyday you will learn something new. Just keep making mistakes and learn how to fix them one by one. There is really only a small base of knowledge that is absolutely necessary to know. The rest is all preferance and opinion.

I am dumbfounded that FullSail costs $25,000. I had no idea they charged that much. You could hire world class session players and a world class studio for several weeks and record an amazing demo or an album you could actually sell. You could also start up a very nice studio for that type of cash and let more experienced engineers work the board until you get up to speed.

I need to start up a school. That's where the money is ;)
 
$25,000 does seem extreme. My colloge will cost me 3,800EUR over 15 months, how long is the Full Sail course ?

I would agree that SAE seems to have a great reputation for producing quility engineers...in Europe anyway.

pAp
 
Damn, I'm tired of reading. What a good post this was.... Anyway I'll drop my cents in for you.............. I could not agree more with every single word Tex said. A formal training environment will yield you dick in the music industry.........Question?

How many people do you know went to college got a degree and don't work in that field?

hmmmmmmmmmm I bet quite a few...........

Producing, engineering all comes down to time behind the boards. Log yourself 1,000 hours and you'll be straight. Additionally, the music business drives on an ever-changing music scene. Recieving formal training will yield you someone elses styles and block some creativity of you being unique, however I do believe the basics must be learned (obiviously) but spending the cake to go to school is really not the most effecient way.

If your really motivated (like I was) you will be a whore in the short term --- work for free or little money---- then become the pimp and start your own company.........

The answer is quite simple....

Do you want to make a living from the music business?


If yes, follow my advice and understand that this is one of the toughest businesses to generate income (not talking millions) day to day living income can be tough. However, once you have success no business pays like the music business....

If no, enjoy music make it a hobby and be happy with what you do................

Everybody wants to be a superstar when it comes to the music industry and we all wanna be successful when we get into it, but when it becomes your primary income - sooner or later the love of music is ruined by I gotta make money this month and thats when its not fun.....Welcome to management, babysitting, therapy, stroking, & pure legal bullshit..............

ok...alright...I think I'm ok now.......whewwwww.... For real though this is a great business to be in, I didn't mean to hold down anyones dreams there, actually I believe too many people get into it- work hard - find out its difficult to make it - then quit........So I guess my advice is make a decision and follow it through all the way
 
a lot of replys. i guess i shouldn't go to school for this crap afterall. And, upon more thorough inspection, I'd rather be a rock star than an engineer. I was considering obtaining a formal education in engineering to fall back on in the event of an unforseen mishap during my rise to fame. Instead, I'll continue to produce subpar tapes of good songs and leave the engineering to the engineers. if i should slip on my way to the top, i'll be a street performing hobo... because engineering just doesn't appeal to me the way music making does.

thanks.
 
Cat-eggs- If you're not into the tech stuff that much then your time and money would be better spent studying music.

When you finally go to a nice studio to record be sure to ask the assistant who's kissing your ass and serving you latte's what recording school he went to ;)
 
The fact is, we live in a world that is still enamored more with degrees than with actual experience and results, or at best they would prefer degrees. That is just life. Sure, you don't need a degree to start a business, but when you are meeting with clients who want to see that degree for the reassurance of it, it makes you money. That's really the bottom line. I would suggest finding out what the market is like in your area for studios and then see if you need a degree to help you compete in it. Then go get one somwhere and use it to make yourself some dough so you can get chicks.
 
OK i am having a better day today. Al, firstly, i do love recording and and I have recorded a buncha songs that to most people sound pretty good. After some thought, (long weekend) I decided that I bit off more than i could chew for now. I started singing, recording, playing, and writing all at the same time and i never had the time to master any of them. So considering the time (exactly 2 yrs since my first post here) and musical education 9or lack-there-of) i am pretty impressed with myself. I think you can be born a gifted singer, or songwriter, but the engineering aspect of it has to be learned/taught. So thats waht im gonna do . i called a few studios here in ny and im gonna try to get some internship or something. Thans for hearing me out:)
Shana
 
If you were smart you'd do this...

Spend 1 to 2 years living dirt poor while working as an intern at the best facilities you can possibly weasel your way into... so you know the kinds of things you need to learn.

Then.... Go to a good university (Penn State, U of Miami, U of Hartford, Stanford, UC Berkeley,...) and get a "real" engineering degree - like Electrical Engineering with heavy emphasis in audio, computer programming, and digital signal processing.

Spend your summers and winter breaks doing more music production internships and spend a good chunck of your student loans ( :D ) on software and equipment to play with when you're not studying.

You will have an unquestionably more solid foundation in the nuts and bolts of modern audio technology than any music production school is going to teach you... The kind of deep technical background that the really big music and movie production facilities need and will need more of in the future.

And, if by chance the music production career doesn't work out, you can step into a $70, 000 starting salary (when the market's good) job designing DSP algorithms for Creative, Turtle Beach or some big telecommunications company - benefits, bonuses, stock options, etc. An "Associate of Science" from a music production school will be worth less and be much harsher on the ass than a roll or toilet paper.

Just my opinion.

barefoot
 
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Barefoot has some great advice. In case this point has been missed, an AUDIO ENGINEERING DEGREE in and of itself is completely worthless. You will still only get an entry level job and nobody in the industry gives a shit about degrees UNLESS they are in an actual engineering or scientific field.

Electrical Engineering degrees are impressive. "We need somebody with real technical knowledge around here. Can you help us rebuild some of the old preamps?"

Audio engineering degree, "That's great kid, go unload that truck and clean all the mud off the 500ft FOH snake."
 
Tex, just one point of clarification so folks don't get confused.

Some universities do offer degree programs in Audio Engineering. These are usually a combo of Acoustics and Electrical Engineering with a focus on audio applicatons. Some actually put EE on your diploma, which I personally think will make it easier to find a job in the long run. But in any case, there is a world of difference between a BS in Audio Engineering from Penn State and an Associates in "audio engineering" from Full Sail...

...and the hiring managers at Abbey Road, Lucasfilms and Dolby Labs definitely know the difference.

barefoot

PS - stick it out for another 1 1/2 to 2 years to get an MS and your chances of getting a real audio engineering job probably go up 10 times.
 
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