[Thomas W. Bethe]

Today much of what a professional audio engineer use to do can be done by anyone. or at least many people think so. I had a client recently that told me "I can do the work myself but I don't have all the fancy equipment you have so I guess I will have to pay you to do the work". This from a man who consistently clips all of his recordings and pans everything into the center.

It is not only the internet that has devalued the work we do it is the media and the salesmen at places like GC and the magazines devoted to the recording world with articles on how you can do your own mastering, post production, sound effect creation, etc. I was recently in our local GC. The salesmen was trying to sell a young gentlemen some software and hardware so he could start doing his own mastering and not have to "pay someone else to do it" He sold the gentlemen a dbx 1/3 octave equalizer, a Behinger compressor, and Sound Forge. I was standing next to the salesman and his prey and the salesman was telling the intended victim how in a couple of days "you can be better than Bob Ludwig" The salesman got some commission and the young person got a lot of stuff that is not suited to doing what he wants to do and will take it home, never crack the manual, and attempt to do the impossible but....it is his money and he will hopefully learn his lesson.

The other problem right now is that there are sooooooooooo many "recording schools" turning out thousands of graduates for non existent jobs. My email in box is full of resumes from hopeful candidates for jobs that do not exist here. I read them all and find it interesting that the only real jobs a lot of these people have had is working in a restaurant or retail sales yet when you talk to them they want to know about their benefit package, how many weeks vacation they get and how much over $40,000 a year they will be making being an audio engineer. When you try and enlighten them they get upset. "Well in school they told us that there were lots of good jobs that they were preparing us for and I could have my pick and that I should wait for someone to offer me a really good job before I agree to work for them". <I would like to know what fantasy world these schools are preparing their graduates for and how long the "professors" have been away from the audio/video/movie business that they don't have a clue as to what is currently going on in the profession????>

And your experience is ?????? and you have worked for ?????? doing ????? for how many years??????

I try and level with the people that come to interview an tell them that mixing your senior project is very nice and I am glad you got the opportunity to do it. Unfortunately it is not a real world project and that you were hung over the day you did it makes me doubt your professionalism. Thanks for sharing that you were hung over and that is why it does not sound as good as it could. Maybe you should have passed on the end of term party???the night before????

How it sounds is very important. What you can do for me is also important and how you handle not only a LARGE audio console but how you relate to clients is also important to me. Telling me that you want to do feature films is GREAT to hear, telling me that you think you can do this in a year makes me wonder what you smoked before the interview.

We are a mastering and post production studio and we don't have an SSL or NEVE console and we don't do multitrack recordings with Pro Tools. I want to hear your thoughts on what you did and why you did it but telling me that the mixer cost over a half million dollars or that you used a rack full of equipment that was worth over 100K is really not all that informative and we don't have that level of equipment here and most studios you are applying to will not have that level of equipment. This is reality not the fantasy world of the recording schools.

I just had a job opening for a Creative Director/Videographer. I had a lot of applicants but they were very short on demo reels and very long on "well my professor said my senior project in black and white with a Cinéma vérité approach to telling the story of a young man in love was very well done" OK so show me the beef. "Well I had a copy of it and something happened to it and now it won't play and there are no other copies" (safeties - backups????) or the one person who took a look at our equipment and said "gee I have never seen any of this equipment before, what does it all do?" at the same time asking me about our benefit package. These must be the people that answer the ads on Craigslist looking for someone to do a video shoot for $25.00 or editing a feature length video docu drama for $200.

When you start telling the young person that they may have to work some overtime and the job involves weekend work they start sweating and say "well I just assumed that I would be working "normal hours" (say 10 am to 4 pm M-TH) and that my nights and weekends would be free" or "gee I can't work weekends because I have a band and we rehearse all weekend long and that is the most important thing in my life right now". Well I hope you and your band mates do well in your chosen avocation and hope that the real world of working for a living doesn't interfere too much with the rehearsals for your band which is as you say "is the most important thing in the world". If you want to be an employee of a company you have to remember that the company has to make money before YOU can make money and if you are NOT there well maybe the company won't be making any money and you will be laid off and maybe then you can rehearse full time with your band.

It is a strange world out there. There is still lots of unemployment and lots of people are seeking jobs that are non existent or require the young person to actually work (amazing concept). I guess if they can't find the job they are looking for or if they can't find a job at all they will simply go back to the family home and live with mommy and daddy until things improve.

FWIW and YMMV