Recording School??

[vernona]

I know this is a little off topic, but everyone is great at sharing ideas and info here so i thought id try anyways. does anyone here know of anyone who has ever attended any courses over at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood? please let me know if you do, or have any info or opinions on the course/school. thanks

 

[manning1]

i dont know anything about them. i'm in a different country.
my only comment is think very hard about paying lots of money for recording school. right now due to tech change the recording industry is in upheaval
quite a bit, and there are endless stories about people getting trained and spending thousands , but not getting an opportunity at decent pay when they graduate. and often having to get a low paying job to make ends meet.
i would do a lot of net searching. there are a lot of annoyed graduates out there. an alternative if this costs thousands and thousands would be to try and get into a studio and get hands on under a kind engineer.
i would just bang on lots of doors in your area.
a career in this biz is fraught with danger for the unsuspecting. so beware.

 

[wheelema]

Vernona,

Though I have no personal experience with this institution, the first warning flare that went off was when I saw that they offered a Bachelors degree (you don't need to go to school for four years to learn recording!), so I wanted to see if they were accredited. The Council For Higher Education does NOT recognize this school as accredited, so any 'credits' you earned could not be transfered. This alone puts this school out of the running in my book.

If you are looking for a college in LA that teaches sound recording I have heard good things about this program at Citrus College in Glendora.

This is a regular J.C., which does not charge an arm and a leg for tuition but offers a highly regarded program taught by professionals currently working in the Los Angeles area. Good luck.

 

[vernona]

Thanks for the info guys! To my knowledge MI is accredited. Although they do have 4 year programs, I think most are in thier Guitar, Bass, Percussion, and other performing programs. The programs like recording they offer on the technical side of things have shorter 6 month programs to get certified. For recording, I think that getting certified in 6 months is pretty practical.

 

[wheelema]

Certified?? You do appreciate, I hope, that 'certification' carries little (if any) weight in your avowed profession.

I sure hope you don't go into debt too deep. Like, about halfway up your big toe.

 

[Ronan]

For recording, I think that getting certified in 6 months is pretty practical.

There is virtually no situation in the recording industry were a certification from a recording school will carry any weight what so ever. Its all about what you know and who you know.

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

There is virtually no situation in the recording industry were a certification from a recording school will carry any weight what so ever. Its all about what you know and who you know.

Exactly. And the committment to record for no or little pay--anything to keep recording to build your reputation.

 

[The Green Hornet]

Yo Vernon-A:}

I like Wheels idea about taking a course or two at a JC. I started my college career, broke, at a Junior college and they were great. The JC even got me a scholarship to a brand new college in my area as I continued.

The JC where I started, many moons back, offers a couple of courses dealing with electronic music and recording. I'd try something like that.

Yeah, it sure does pay to have an "Uncle Max" somewhere to pull a few strings. But, if you have the desire and choose wisely, you can get to where you want to be.

Green Hornet

 

[pipelineaudio]

I got a recording school for you right here, and you dont even have to pay

Its a little harder than the textbook stuff though, as you will have to get your hands dirty

The only certificate worth jack diddly is one you can get here, and that's your name on an album

 

[bennychico11]

There is virtually no situation in the recording industry were a certification from a recording school will carry any weight what so ever. Its all about what you know and who you know.

ironicaly, ronan...isn't that what your Recording Boot camp is??? a school?? it says so on your website. people pay you to learn...kinda like a school.

and are you guys saying if you owned (or DO own) a studio and a guy who knows nothing about recording and a guy that took a year or 2 of recording classes came up to you and applied for a job...you'd choose the guy who doesn't know anything automatically? or you'd look at the two the same way? you have one guy that doesn't know anything and another one who already at least knows the basics or more...and perhaps even already knows the console you own. and you think he has no weight over the other guy at all?

i think there's a big difference between people showing off the certificate ("Look at me I have an associates", "Well I'm better because I have a masters!", "Well I have a doctoral in recording!") versus people going to school who could care less if they actually get a certificate and just want to learn something they didn't already know. true, the old school way was just to buy the stuff and learn on your own...but now adays we have so many people wanting to get in the recording world and not enough jobs and there has to be some way to still learn it...and learn it correctly. and schools give it to them, and the happen to hand out certificates too.

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

The best school is buying your own recording rig and doing it as much as possible, learning by your mistakes, and learning how to polish turds. When you can start making bad bands sound good you know you are really on to something.

 

[Ronan]

ironicaly, ronan...isn't that what your Recording Boot camp is??? a school?? it says so on your website. people pay you to learn...kinda like a school..

Thanks for checking out the web site. Yeah, we are sort of like a school but we are very up front about the fact that we are not training people for careers in music. We are trying to help people make great records (sometimes for hobbiests, some times for pros) which is oddly enough the opposite of many of the big schools. I know guys that have graduated from some of the big schools and know the automation on an SSL but do not know how to mic a drum set. We actually have some recording school graduates come to Home Recording Boot Camp to learn how to record.

and are you guys saying if you owned (or DO own) a studio and a guy who knows nothing about recording and a guy that took a year or 2 of recording classes came up to you and applied for a job...you'd choose the guy who doesn't know anything automatically? or you'd look at the two the same way? you have one guy that doesn't know anything and another one who already at least knows the basics or more...and perhaps even already knows the console you own. and you think he has no weight over the other guy at all?

I do own a commercial studio.

You are confusing two things: Not having a certificate and knowing nothing are not the same thing. i would not weigh a certificate into the equation at all. I would decide on how much the applicant knew and more importantly the personality of the person. Some one can know a lot about recording with out ever going to school for it. I am self taught as are many of my peers.

Truth is if I found some one that was self motivated and had read every book they could find and was obsessed about learning, I probably would take that person over a recording school graduate that new more because I could easily train them in my way of working.

Years ago when I worked in Boston, many of the studios there would NOT hire some one if they had gone to the Berklee recording program. The general feeling was that recording school graduates felt they knew too much and had the wrong attitued. I am not supporting that position, but it was a very prevalent attitude.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Look at the new MIX mag, there are like 40 pages of schools no joke. The community colleges often do a good job, but the biggest places actually imply that you will be in a lucrative career with their certificate in my opinion. Its scary.

 

[Disposable]

Look at the new MIX mag, there are like 40 pages of schools no joke. The community colleges often do a good job, but the biggest places actually imply that you will be in a lucrative career with their certificate in my opinion. Its scary.

So how does Conservatory in Mesa pan out, in your opinion?
Not that I want to go there or anything, I'm just curious...

P.S. I'm in Phoenix too, and have (on a few occasions)
Picked up your flyer at Zia. I wish I could afford studio time... hehe.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Im pretty poorly biased about the Conservatory/Mixmag/Digidesign unholy trinity, so Im the wrong guy to ask, but pick a studio, any studio.

Call them up asking for a job, tell them you have no experience

Call them up later, say you got a Conservatory degree

compare the results, see if theres any difference

better yet, walk up to an engineer who is actually making albums for a living. Tell him you want to assist and that youve got a conservatory degree


anyhow, when you are in phoenix, stop by

 

[noisedude]

A guy who teaches my music technology course warned me recently, "Don't learn on the internet, there's a lot of wrong sites out there". He also advised me to refer to wide- and narrow-diaphragm microphones, because no-one in the real world knows what a 'large' diaphragm condenser is.

Point is, you learn one way, you work one way. You hang out here and learn loads of ways, and you can work loads of ways. Guys on my course know how to record but don't understand what they're doing - then when they accidentally set up a feedback loop to the hard disk recorder they can't fix it. Natch!

 

[Disposable]

Im pretty poorly biased about the Conservatory/Mixmag/Digidesign unholy trinity, so Im the wrong guy to ask, but pick a studio, any studio.

Call them up asking for a job, tell them you have no experience

Call them up later, say you got a Conservatory degree

compare the results, see if theres any difference

better yet, walk up to an engineer who is actually making albums for a living. Tell him you want to assist and that youve got a conservatory degree


anyhow, when you are in phoenix, stop by

I'm always in Phoenix... This is my home... Hehe.
Actually I'll be down in your vicinity later today,
I have to pick up my drummer at 7th Ave and Camelback.

I'm assuming that you're saying the results would be similar?

 

[usernamebob]

I think you'd be better off to save the money to buy yourself some basic gear. Offer to record some bands for free, read as much as you can about recording and slowly hone your skills

A school can't realy teach you what sounds good and what doesnt, they're not entirley useless, but real experience will teach you alot more, and when you finish you'll have abit of gear

 

[something cool]

I currently am attending a 'recording school,' and most of what everyone's said has been pretty accurate, but...

One thing that a lot of people overlook about these schools is that they're not just about recording music. Like most of the other students, when I first came here I wanted to record bands for a living. You know, be a "producer." Obviously it's not a realistic goal for a thousand kids to have, and my school makes that very clear to its students, especially during the first term. So what they do is make us all take a class explaining this to us and also opening our eyes to all the different audio fields besides record producing. Since then I've been taking a much harder look at post production, and game sound, and live sound, and internet sound, etc. etc.

We've had various guest speakers from the industry come and speak to us, and none -- not ONE -- of them got their job due to skill or knowledge. Basically their speeches all went something like: "Yeah well I happened to know this guy who started this record company and I didn't really know anything at all about recording but he hired me anyway." Our teachers tell us as well, that (sadly) it's more important WHO you know then WHAT you know. Network, network, network.

So yeah, these schools may or may not get you a decent job when you graduate (it's about 50/50 here, probably like 20/80 if you only count GOOD jobs), but they do give you a chance to meet and work with people in the industry (internships are required), and a good amount of experience in the studio that some people just can't get where they live (not every town has a good studio). But what I think is the most important aspect of school for me is that I'm not focused only on being a record producer or recording engineer, I'm looking at other related jobs where there actually are job openings.

If you KNOW you want to record music and that's the ONLY thing you want to do, then I'd probably say pass on going to school. As these guys have said, recording studios don't care if you have a degree, with with that kind of money you could buy a whole truckload of equipment and do it the old school route (i.e. record bands and make your own connections and experience)

Hope this helps, good luck!

P.S. If you dream of working at either Hot Topic or Guitar Center, then recording school is the place for you. Nearly every employee at either of these places is a disgrunted graduate of my school. Something to chew on.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Isnt it ironic that the State the unholy Conservatory/Mix mag/Digidesign trinity has chosen to make its home in has only one fullblown studio to intern at, and theyre booked to the gills of intern waiting lists?

Hucking out all these pretengineers at these amazing speeds has killed any chance these guys will be able to get a job here