recording schools

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MCreel

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Man I tried to post this last night and was getting zero coorperation from the server.

What recommendations do you guys have for recording schools? I tried using the search function but it wasn't responding either.

I have recently begun thinking that I might take a few months off from work and do one of those recording schools for fun. I'm wondering what places people here recommend and about how much they tend to cost.

Thanks.
 
You might want to head down to your local bookstore and pick up a copy of Mix magazine. It is usually loaded with ads for schools from whose websites or phone numbers you can get detailed brochures/catalogs of their offerings and costs.

G.
 
Yeah I've got several copies of that and some other magazines, but I'm curious which ones are recognized as being at the top of the heap.
 
Truthfully, your money is MUCH better spent buying decent gear. Recording schools will NOT teach you the "art" of recording. They will teach you theory, some basic electronics stuff, and how to operate some gear, but they do not, and cannot teach you have to make good decisions while tracking/mixing music. THAT comes from experience.

Trust me, you will think you wasted your money after taking these kinds of classes.
 
Are you looking for one of those short-term certificate programs, or are you actually interested looking into a 4 year bachelors degree in audio engineering?
 
it all depends on what you want to do. If you want to try and make a living off of recording and find a job in the business somewhere, any amount of learning whether it be at a school or on your own can't hurt. So I don't think schools will be a "waste of money." Experience is experience...and you can get some of the experience in a classroom or studio working with teachers who have done this stuff before.

So many people in this industry are quick to judge schools and their teaching of students...but they forget that a lot of the teachers in these schools have been recording for years and have a lot to teach. Not to mention a lot of these schools have great facilities with awesome gear. So combining a teacher with years of experience and the equipment to learn on....I don't really see a downside to that. It'd be similar to walking into a studio and interning or assisting right away.

You get out what you put in. If you work your ass off and try and get as much hands on time as possible, you'll learn a lot. But to say you won't get any experience from school because they can't teach it, is ridiculous. You learn from someone else's experience. You learn proper micing techniques that have been used for years, studio ettiquete, the business side of things, how to work with analog tape, patchbay work, electronics, using MIDI, different software programs...some teachers may even go as far as to show you what they would do with a mix or when recording a certain instrument. That sounds like a lot of positive experience to me.


Anyway, I'm off topic. Look in the Mix magazine (and before you ask, yes Full Sail has ads in just about every magazine...and yes they're expensive). Look at your local Junior Colleges. Those are usually the cheapest places to go for short term. Some studios in your town may even offer classes...I know one here does. Do you mind traveling or do you prefer to stay near your city? Where do you live?
 
Well you have Berkley, Fullsail, SAE, there's a conseratory in arizona and LA,etc.

The super-cultural areas of america are worth mentioning. Stereotypically meaning Nashville, Miami, New York, California, Boston, Seattle (although not so much now), Texas (for some things), Nevada (for other things), Chicago (yet for other things)....that's where most of your industry opportunities are going to be. Hence the schools set up that way.

Let's put it this way....there are a lot more schools now than there ever was 20 years ago. So that can be a good and bad thing at the same time (hint).


But out of all honesty, those are full on curriculums and you're looking at a least a year of heavy involvment in the duties and expenses that entail being in college and tech school at the same time. So you would have to be pretty serious about doing it. And as for a part-time job during school, very unlikely considering the 24-hour schedule.

Whether it's worth your time and money I'm not going to mention. You're just going to have to do heavy research.

However, if you're looking for a taste of studio life, then I highly suggest shopping around your local area and trying to see if you can get a tour of its facilities. Meaning privately owned facilities. Corporate facilities aren't usually in the business of "teaching" other than training it's own staff. At best, they may be in cooperation with an accredited school's curriculum. Which means you'd still have to do the AS degree to get in.

If they offer some basic classes, then start with that. The curiosity ends once you start getting into heavy details about studio life and industry life.
 
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I'm in Austin, TX and I know they've got a study course or two down here. I havn't fully looked into them.

I have really been thinking about applying to Berklee to do an enginering degree and a performance degree. But that will take a lot of time and $. Mostly I am interested in getting enough knowledge to where I could start a studio if I wanted to, even though I probably won't. There's also that school in Nashville, I forget the name of it.

Ford Van, I could probably learn to be a pilot by just hopping into a beginners airplane, but I'd rather go get the necessary education before hand and save myself a lot of time and trouble that comes from screwing up and learning how to fix the problem.
 
check out the recording workshop in ohio and grab an internship for a couple months somewheres. there are better four years schools obviously, but i went to the recording workshop and got a great grasp of the basics in 8 weeks. 12 years later - i still appreciate it...it's sensible, it doesn't claim to be what it isn't, and it's cost effective. good people down there.

i completely appreciate the DIY approach and not needing school...and i know people who never did go to school for it and do a great job...however...i know more people who never went to school and run around in cirlces while thinking they're god behind the mic. humble yourself with a teacher of some sort. it can help you a lot.

Mike
 
It doesn't sound like you really want to do this. So I'd say not to waste your time. You're probably better off taking those few classes at your local school. But if you are and I'm misjudging your comments, there are a bunch of 2 year programs around boston that will give you a little bit of experience, and then there are full fledged music programs for a 4 year bachelor's degree. This is what I'm doing at UMass Lowell. The program at this school is one of the oldest in the country, so the staff is well experienced. Unfortunately, it is quite expensive, but nothing beats working with pros in a pro environment with pro equipment.

My advice to you is to really consider it. Sure, tons of people have scored jobs without schooling for this, but think about it. If you walk into an interview with no experience, are they really going to hire you? Starting up a studio is even more difficult. None of the bands know who you are, haven't heard what you can do, so why would they pay their hard earned money on you if they can go to someone else who they know will turn out excellent results?
 
If you're looking at a 4 year degree, it also depends on if you're a musician or not, and how much you want that to be a part of your study. For example the Audio Engineering program that is part of the University of Indiana music school does not require an audition for that degree (or at least it didn't when I was looking at it).

I graduated from DePaul University School of Music (in Chicago), and although I got a Sound Recording Technology degree, I had to audition and be accepted into the music school and study as a regular music student before pursuing the specific degree. If you (or anyone else) is interested in this one, I can tell you more about it. It's a very classical school musically, but the program is small and the professor was a working Chicago engineer for a long time before starting the program at DePaul (among his credits is the Blues Brothers album, just to name drop)

University of Miami was the first audio engineering program in the country. I think their program is one of the best funded in the country, and I worked at a post studio run by a guy who went there in the 80s and liked it (he was a blues engineer for a long time, and worked with Johnny Winter quite a bit, among others)

There is also Columbia College in Chicago, which is an open enrollment type of school, and they have lots of different program focuses within audio engineering.

Anyway, as people have said, there are a lot more. AES is a good resource and I think you can look at their lists without being a member. It might be the same list that MIX publishes, but I'm not exactly sure.
 
Thanks to everyone for their thoughts on this. I appreciate the insight that those of you familiar with different courses are providing.
 
MCreel said:
Ford Van, I could probably learn to be a pilot by just hopping into a beginners airplane, but I'd rather go get the necessary education before hand and save myself a lot of time and trouble that comes from screwing up and learning how to fix the problem.
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I can assure you that recording school is NOT going to teach you a bit about fixing problems you will encounter while tracking/mixing.

If you want your best shot at a job in a recording studio, go to school to be a bench tech! Seriously, every studio can use an in-house electronics guy to troubleshoot and fix stuff.

No matter how much schooling you have in recording, you will still have to start out as an apprentice. As an apprentice, you will never touch the console, except to pick up coke cans and coffee cups, and maybe zero it out after a mix. You will seldom do anything more than move a mic a few millimeters, wrap up cables, fetch drinks for the engineer/artist, be the gofer for lunch/dinner, and have to clean up the puke in the bathroom (if you are lucky) from the lead singer. If you are really lucky, you might get to drive the hookers back to their place! ;)

Seriously, I am not talking out my ass about this. The studio I work at turns down at least 1 request a week for people that want to apprentice for free! We are too small to deal with that crap (we tried...it just doesn't work out so well).

Your best experience in recording will be to buy gear and use it. This isn't rocket science by any means. To learn how to be a good engineer, you simply have to engineer! You WILL NOT engineer much going the school route.

Most of the job of the engineer is making decisions. Decide where in the room to set up this instrument. Decide which mic will achieve the production sound the producer (who might be you!) wants on that instrument. Decide if that instrument sounds the way it needs to so you can achieve the production sound you are after. Decide if little problems in the tracking are going to hurt the production down the road. Decide if a certain preamp/compressor should be used. Decide if something NEEDS eq or not, and which eq, and how to eq it.

On and on and on the decisions go. There are VERY FEW "rules of thumb" in audio, because each band is different, and what you need to do to achieve a great sound for them changes with the artist. ONLY experience will guide you! Simply, you have to mess up a lot of audio before you can start being able to approach a production and get it right in the beginning.

School will teach you NONE of that. I know so many "school trained" engineers that can't get a job because they can't produce results, because they lack real world experience! There is little you will learn in school that will make you a good engineer, and what little they do teach that will help you is easily learned on your own through reading and/or experimentation.

Again, your money will be spent MUCH better buying decent gear than throwing it away at a school.
 
My Life Story

Went to music school, majored in sound recording technology, graduated.

started working with a labor management company (hired body for corporate shows, things like that, pushing around gear, heavy lifting, setting up truss, nothing fun or glamourous). First thing I ever worked was a Toyota show at Comisky.

meanwhile worked as extra crew member for 1200 seat performing arts center mostly as an A2 that kind of thing, got involved with a post studio downtown where he let me "intern" for free, and started working at a private recording studio in the suburbs, while freelance recording on my own.

as time went on, I sort of got offered the assistant position at the post studio, stopped working the corporate crew stuff, and then took over as the house audio engineer at the performing arts center, while continuing to work at the studio.

Now I can say that I've got to work with and run sound for some really big names, assisted some great engineers (and run my own sessions), got an assistant engineer credit on an album on the Billboard Jazz charts, worked a gig for MetroMobile (one of the biggest mobile recording companies), and worked on various nationally run TV/radio commercials, including for the Superbowl.

And coolest of all of course, now I work in Product Development for Shure.

I guess my point is, NONE of that would have happened if I hadn't gone to school.

To be sure, nothing is a replacement for real world hands-on experience, and EVEYRONE should work in live sound for a little bit (great for your troubleshooting chops), but the world is changing a bit, and the days of having to scrub the lead engineers car for a year before he lets you in the studio are over. Plus you can always buy a home recording rig for pretty cheap and start your own studio in your bedroom. :)

Sorry for the gross self-serving rant above, but I believe in education, and wanted to show how it worked for me. That doesn't mean I know more that someone who has been in the business for 30 years and came up the old fasioned way (I definetly don't), but I think doing it the "academic" way is a viable option now.
 
Not to mention there are some people who just respond better to structured education. I'm not one of those myself; 99% of what I've learned in everything from computer programming to audio engineering is self-taught or OTJ training, and I wouldn't have it any other way (I do have some college paper to back that up, but I just took the classes to get the paper; frankly and immodestly, I could have taught half the tech classes I took as a student.)

But not everybody is like that. For every one person like me there are a hundred people out there who if they went out and bought a bunch of gear on their (or their daddy's) credit card, would learn nothing except how to file for Chapter 7. Not because it's an intrinsically bad idea, but because many folks need the guidance, the mentorship, and yes - even sometimes the hand-holding.

And as RAK so rightly put, and as I put it in another thread just a couple of days ago, the days of hanging out at the back door of Sun studios and fetching coffee until one day you're allowed to come in and coil mic cables are fast evaporating. The number of big studios are declining, and many of those left that sponsor apprentiships and entry-level jobs are being snapped up by placement recruiters at the engineering schools.

It's up to the individual. If they seem to learn better in a classroom situation than they do by just diving in to a dicipline alone, or if they are not very good at smooth-talking their foot into the door of where they want to go, then an official schooling may be worth the effort. If, OTOH, one is not cut from that cloth, then self-schooling and social networking would be the better path to take.

G.
 
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Ford Van said:
School will teach you NONE of that. I know so many "school trained" engineers that can't get a job because they can't produce results, because they lack real world experience! There is little you will learn in school that will make you a good engineer, and what little they do teach that will help you is easily learned on your own through reading and/or experimentation.

Again, your money will be spent MUCH better buying decent gear than throwing it away at a school.
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I am one of those "school trained" guys that got a job a month or two right after school. I'm a Full Sail grad. And everyone I know who I went to Full Sail with also has jobs in the recording world.
So many people believe the old "everyone starts out as an unpaid intern fetching coffee," and I guess in some places it does hold true. But not always. Truthfully, people hire you on more because of your personality than your experience...experience is just a bonus. I know many people who don't get jobs anymore or get talked badly about because clients don't get along with them. Doesn't matter how long they've been in the business, your personality comes across more importantly.

If you and someone else are being interviewed for the same job, and you have the same determination, same personality....but YOU have gone to school and learned on the latest SSL console and know Pro Tools like the back of your hand, two things that the studio has...and the other person knows absolutely nothing about recording, who are they going to choose? True, a lot of studios don't have the room for new employees, that's just the business lately....but studios have to hire people at one time or another. One out of 5 studios might be hiring. I lucked out and found the one that did. In fact, the engineer I replaced told my boss that I had the knowledge and everything, just not the experience and my boss said "well, that he can learn as he goes." He figured that if I had enough smarts paired together with what I learned at school, that I could easily learn from situations that I came across on the job. And all of a sudden I became the audio engineer here.

So don't talk this bullshit that it can't happen, because it can. The old school mentality is that the only way to break in the business is to intern or spend lots of money on gear and teach yourself. But many people don't have the money to spend on gear (or don't do very well learning on their own) and would prefer someone who has 20+ years experience in the industry and the gear already there for them...to teach them.

A lot (almost all) of the schools do teach you experience. In fact they can teach you some of your first moments in recording. We were put through troubleshooting scenarios, we had bands come in and we recorded them, we had mixing sessions, we did ADR, foley and created sound effects for movies...we had actual lab tests where the instructors fucked something up on purpose so we could figure out what was wrong. All of this can and does happen in schools, and they still are considered just a trade school where you learn the basics to go out in the real world. I've known guys who've interviewed for jobs where the person interviewing them said "oh, I see you worked with an Amek console at school...we're installing one here next month, would you like to help us install it?" BAM, instant in.

MCreel-
If you do the school thing, and try and find a job out there...there will be these people out there that will snub their noses at you when they've seen you've gone to school. They'll think you're just some know it all punk kid and it'll be up to you to prove them wrong or to find another company who doesn't mind someone with already hands on and technical knowledge. You'll get both in school and I don't see one downside to that.
 
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But not everybody is like that. For every one person like me there are a hundred people out there who if they went out and bought a bunch of gear on their (or their daddy's) credit card, would learn nothing except how to file for Chapter 7. Not because it's an intrinsically bad idea, but because many folks need the guidance, the mentorship, and yes - even sometimes the hand-holding.
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Exactly. Take a look at this forum here. How many 16-17 year olds get their parents to buy them everything under the sun to start recording and they jump on here the first night they get everything and post "I'm confused, can someone explain to me how to hook up everything and record?"
Not to mention in some school settings this stuff is forced into you 5-6 days a week, 9 hours a day. You get much more hands on experience and studying of this stuff than an average hobbyist does on the weekends when he's not at work.

social networking would be the better path to take.
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Which is something you also can get at school. Who are these people you learning from and who are these people sitting next to you in class???.....CONNECTIONS!!!! Lots of the teachers still DO work in the industry and can hook you up with jobs. Lots of your classmates go on to get really good job opportunities and later on down the road might be able to help you out when need be.


Edit--
Sorry if I sound really perturbed by this all (and I mean no offense to Fordvan's opinion)...but it bothers me when people are saying that there's only one way to get into the industry and the way they did it is the only way of doing it. And that going to school is a ridiculous waste of time.
Yes, this industry is very very different than getting a masters in business or your average law degree at another University. And I totally agree in that the actual paper you get at graduation matters little in this industry unlike it does in the rest of the world. But it's okay to go to school for something other than the diploma. The diploma just looks nice in the parent's living room. :)
 
yeah, steer people away from school! :rolleyes: Im curious to how many of these people that tell others to avoid school at all costs actually are degreed themselves??

Couple a college education with hands on experience...unstoppable.

Belmont would be my first choice..FS would be my last.
 
BigRay said:
yeah, steer people away from school! :rolleyes: Im curious to how many of these people that tell others to avoid school at all costs actually are degreed themselves??

Couple a college education with hands on experience...unstoppable.

Belmont would be my first choice..FS would be my last.
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Thats the one I was thinking of. Thanks.

Yeah I figure I've produced and engineered a couple of demos with my band and produced and engineered a couple with other bands, and being a seasoned musician, if I had the schooling to lump in with all that I could be an attractive candidate.
 
BigRay said:
yeah, steer people away from school! :rolleyes:
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Hahaha, very well put, Ray! :D

Yeah, anything that'll keep someone in school these days I'd have a hard time arguing against. :)

G.
 
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