Going To School For Audio Recording

i 2nd this question

I heard Fullsail was kind of a huge ripoff...

But I heard The Los Angeles Recording School was good from one account, so I'm interested in learning more about that place...

see, the LART is one of the only places that has a fantastic rep and isn't a huge ripoff.

it depends a lot on what you're interested in. LART, from what i know, tends to place people deep within an 'industry' setting of LA, which is great and leads to jobs, but isn't necessarily fulfilling.

there are tons of digital media programs and technology in music programs, but those are more on the compositional side of things.

do you want to learn something as a 'job' or learn the same thing but have it be more about your own compositional interests? that seems to be the question.

I'm all about compositional interests; learning how to produce and record my own music.

But I'm trying to be practical too, and killing two birds with one stone would be good if possible.

If that makes sense.

Don't waste your time and money.

Go to school to get a decent job and take the money you make from that job and do music as a hobby.

If you go to school you will have two outcomes:

1. you will learn a bunch of stuff you could have taught yourself in a project studio you actually own with the money you spent on school. You don't actually do anything commercial/lucrative/work related in the studio business because the job sucks and the work is drying up because everybody records at home and nobody buys indie records anymore so nobody has a real recording budget and there is a 20 year old kid who will do your job for nothing.

2. you will learn a bunch of stuff (some rock dude taught you about making rock music) you could have taught yourself in a project studio you actually own with the money you spent on school. You bust your ass and you get a shitty engineering job that doesn't pay and you don't have benefits and you work 14 hours a day and you spend your time dealing with douche bags in rock bands who don't know anything about recording music, but they are really sure that they do, and they want their record to sound "warm" and "punchy" but with a lot of "depth" and "clarity" oh, and they are also fighting about how the record should sound, and one of them has a drug problem and you have to coax a solid rhythm guitar performance out of his nodding junkie ass. You will also maybe do some hip hop sessions, but not many because every serious production company has their own pro-tools HD rig.

Being in the studio business is a REAL JOB and it is a shitty job that is a lot of work, years of dues paying with few benefits and you are going to have to hustle constantly for a piece of an ever-shinking pie. Do not do it if you want to make your own music, because when you spend all day sweating the bakery, the last thing you want to do is whip up a nice german chocolate cake with fly ass sprinkles on your personal time.

If you want to make hip hop, buy a DJ mixer and some tables. Collect a shitload of records and learn them inside and out. The buy an MPC and hook it to the mixer, learn it inside and out before you buy another piece of gear. Don't be in a hurry to load up a studio, because you will have a room full of shit you can't use. Learn the basics of DJ'ing first because hip hop is DJ music. Learn to make the beats second. When you have decent beats get microphones and a multi track recorder. Start recording MC's as much as possible.

There are so many books and internet resources available right now that you should be able to get good chops in a couple years if you work at it daily and read about recording and production techniques on your own.

If you want to be in the business, take music business classes. Learn publishing, licensing, copyright law, and management...

If you want to make a comfortable living and have the time and money to do music on the side, get a career in a solid field.

and remember that 50k a year is a shitload of money if you are single. You could have an insane home studio in a couple years if that's where you put your money from a real job.

As an engineer, you will be broke and working on other people's projects in other people's studios...

WOW.

Thanks man.

If anyone else has any thoughts I'm still all ears.

I second Display Name - a total waste of time. I don't know anyone worth his or her salt who did well going to school to learn to produce / engineer - just a lot of fools. Most of the talented folks I know either worked and figured it out for themselves on the side, or "interned" for free at a studio for a couple of years.

It's a waste of money. If you want it badly enough, there are many better methods of getting there.

I guess I am saying to go grad school and get a career that pays good money and allows you decent facilities and the time to use them vs. hustling on other people's projects for no dough.

The worst part is that you are going to have to deal with people who have some wack ass concepts and you are just going to have to do it their way because that is how they want it and they are paying for the session.

Being an engineer/producer is like being a plumber, it is a skilled craft, there isn't much glamour in it. For every Lee Perry or Phil Spector, there are 2000 work a day dudes that are just trying to keep the rent paid, the gear repaired, and the kids fed. Most likely, you will be one of those dudes, busting ass to get a "rippin" guitar tone for some middle aged asshole in a garage blues band or getting jingle singers to lay parts down for jingle work.

If you work hard enough, long enough you get a rep and you can pick and choose your projects. You just have to hope you have the talent and luck not to have any real financial problems that knock you out of the business before you can get to the point.

I agree that going to school is a waste of time and money.

However, you'll lose a helluva lot more than time and money if you give up on yr dreams 'cause of what some bitter bastards told you about how they're not achievable.

I am not bitter about anything. In order to be bitter you have to have wanted something in the first place.

There is nothing about the life of professional recordists that I envy.

(well, I would love to have the gear, or a point on a huge record, but I wouldn't want to do the work for a living)

lots of good advice here.

one of the biggest problems is that recording schools teach you "the way". which is just a way, and quite often not necessarily the right way.

if you don't have the aptitude for recording, school won't really help you. and if you do, you're better off getting your feet properly wet than bothering with school.

i should say "the right way for a given situation"

I took a two year audio engineering program. Learned a lot. Don't intend to get much use out of it, because everything Display Name said about the state of the business is dead fucking on; I heard it straight from the engineer I was studying under, who'd been in the business 20-plus years, doing jazz and world music records as well as an assload of jingles and karaoke recordings for Japanese clients. (They don't strip the vocals off an existing record, you know; they have to re-record the song instrumentally, making it sound as much as possible like the original - down to production tricks and whatever else - in the process. It's pretty fascinatingly creepy.) Anyway, I went in because I might start a small label at some point putting out weirdo art-metal records, and I want to know what's going on when I'm in the studio. Also, knowing how records are actually made has caused me to hear them differently, which is a good thing when you write about music for a living. But again, I would never want to actually be a full-time audio engineer. It's even more thankless than a career in journalism, which I'm already afflicted with.

Good luck, kid!

So Display Name, you're saying the business of music is the next best thing to actually making it?

My younger cousin she's taking the bsuiness of Music as like her undergrad major at NYU right now - i'm so jealous of her foresight, i had no idea she was interested in music, and i didn't even kno there was such a fucking major.

lol, this thread is oddly depressing/comforting

Ha! Well, I guess see what your cousin says about it, but my job right now is populated almost entirely on the assistant side by music-biz majors, and, my god, they're the dullest people on earth. They certainly like music, at least some of them do, but they're just salesmen in an industry that's becoming less viable everyday. I dunno.

I think that it REALLY DEPENDS on what your interests are... for my part, I'm planning on applying to Mills' grad program in Electronic Music Composition, but mostly because I want to learn the ropes of synthesis in an environment that places just as much emphasis on analog as digital technology. At Mills, the first year is all analog-- reel-to-reel tape, one of the first Moogs ever made, shitloads of other older synths (ElectroComp, etc). The 'digital' year would be a bit easier for a lot of folks-- I mean, anyone with a bit of time and know-how can learn ProTools or MacMSP-- but it still provides fundamentals into different aspects of synthesis and how to properly record one's musical vision. For me, that seems perfect.

MaxMSP, sorry

Mills program is a far cry from those schools for audio recording. It's a composition program with a rich history.

I think a thing to keep in mind is whether you want to make your own music or work with others on their music. After recording other groups on and off for a few years, I realized that I was not really playing enough music and gave up recording other groups as I was not getting much out of the experience anymore.

I'd spend the money on having a good space to make music, putting together a decent home studio setup or maybe some music lessons on the instrument of your choice instead of school, unless you are wanting experience to be able to record orchestras or sound production for films and stuff like that.

So Display Name, you're saying the business of music is the next best thing to actually making it?

No, what I meant was that you should take some music business classes in order to understand the mechanics of the industry. In Austin, our community college offers these courses as part of a music business certificate program, or as an adult continued learning program. I _think_ University of Texas offers these courses as well as adult continued learning.

Even if music is just a part-time thing and you want to make a few deals to get your stuff out there, you should know this stuff. They will help you, even if they don't become to core of your career. A night or two a week for a couple months is different from a full-time vocational program that takes two years. I feel the same way about recording classes, if you want to do a casual night course on side at a local studio for a reasonable price go for it. I know a couple studios in Austin offer this kind of service.

I don't advise trying to work for a major label either. You might as well get a real law degree(it will take as long) and then start interning in entertainment related firms. You can do other kinds of law and work your way into the music end of the industry. Working at a major is just like any other corporation, you just sell audio containers and license intellectual property, which is just like selling microprocessors, or laundry detergent. The difference is that people physically need microprocessors and soap, music is a virtual luxury that you can DL for free. Majors are slashing their staffs like crazy these days.