Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - "Apprenticeship" compared to "Recording School"?

planet red · 15th August 2002, 07:56 AM

I'm a young guy myself and have my own game plan that seems to be working well for me, consisting of putting together my own little place, building up some clients and tracking in bigger rooms here and there. Im doing pretty well for being 20. I've done about 12 real full length records and a bunch of EP's for various bands. Some of the stuff has sold pretty well (in a certain niche, not commercially). But with the stuff that I've done I'm able to talk to bigger guys about being able to assist them on bigger records. I'm hoping that in 5-10 years I'll be the one recording these records.

I dont really understand going to a recording school. The hard part about engineering/producing is learning how to deal with problems, and keeping a session rolling smoothly. You dont have to pay a ton of money to learn good signal flow, how to align a tape machine, basic maintenance, console automation and all that. Thats the easy part. You can learn all that by hanging out at a studio and working with local bands.

I started running monitor mixes at a big church when I was 12 and working with a PA rental company a year later. I learned so much doing that stuff, and it was free. I cant imagine paying a ton of money for them to teach me basic wiring and how to use a soldering iron. If you need to learn how to use the automation on an SSL it would be much cheaper to rent a room with one for a day and get the assistant to show you.

One thing that most people dont know is how little they actually teach you. A guy I know got back from fullsail a couple months ago and man..... that guy is dumb. He doesnt understand signal flow to save his life, because he's never had wire something completely by himself. His knowledge of PT is ridiculously low. He didnt know how to open a new session, because that was always done by the teacher. So yeah he might have gotten his hands on an SSL and might have memorized a few things on it, but does he understand it? Hell no. He didnt know shit about tweaking reverb patches because "all the presets on the 480 I worked on always sounded good. HE didnt know about basica stuff like predelay, decay rate/density or anything. So yeah, he's worked on a 480, and I've never even seen one, but Id feel way more confident that I could get a good sound out of one if I got to spend an hour with it.

So yeah, I just dont see the point in a school. Id rather take an extensive class in PT, takea few electronics classes (which I have yet to do) and work your ass off, either on your own gear or someone elses (or better off, both).

15th August 2002, 07:56 AM	#14
planet red Lives for gear Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: historic richmond va Posts: 651	I'm a young guy myself and have my own game plan that seems to be working well for me, consisting of putting together my own little place, building up some clients and tracking in bigger rooms here and there. Im doing pretty well for being 20. I've done about 12 real full length records and a bunch of EP's for various bands. Some of the stuff has sold pretty well (in a certain niche, not commercially). But with the stuff that I've done I'm able to talk to bigger guys about being able to assist them on bigger records. I'm hoping that in 5-10 years I'll be the one recording these records. I dont really understand going to a recording school. The hard part about engineering/producing is learning how to deal with problems, and keeping a session rolling smoothly. You dont have to pay a ton of money to learn good signal flow, how to align a tape machine, basic maintenance, console automation and all that. Thats the easy part. You can learn all that by hanging out at a studio and working with local bands. I started running monitor mixes at a big church when I was 12 and working with a PA rental company a year later. I learned so much doing that stuff, and it was free. I cant imagine paying a ton of money for them to teach me basic wiring and how to use a soldering iron. If you need to learn how to use the automation on an SSL it would be much cheaper to rent a room with one for a day and get the assistant to show you. One thing that most people dont know is how little they actually teach you. A guy I know got back from fullsail a couple months ago and man..... that guy is dumb. He doesnt understand signal flow to save his life, because he's never had wire something completely by himself. His knowledge of PT is ridiculously low. He didnt know how to open a new session, because that was always done by the teacher. So yeah he might have gotten his hands on an SSL and might have memorized a few things on it, but does he understand it? Hell no. He didnt know shit about tweaking reverb patches because "all the presets on the 480 I worked on always sounded good. HE didnt know about basica stuff like predelay, decay rate/density or anything. So yeah, he's worked on a 480, and I've never even seen one, but Id feel way more confident that I could get a good sound out of one if I got to spend an hour with it. So yeah, I just dont see the point in a school. Id rather take an extensive class in PT, takea few electronics classes (which I have yet to do) and work your ass off, either on your own gear or someone elses (or better off, both).