Too late to pursue an engineering career?

[greel78]

Hey guys, first post.. apologies if this is in the wrong place; I couldn't find a forum for career advice and all..

I've always loved music, I've always been afraid of being jobless. For that reason I went into science and I've now been accepted into medical school. That's cool and I like health and science, but before diving into that 8+ year committment I'm having misgivings.

My favorite thing to do is go to bookstores and soak up everything their magazines have to say about mixing and mastering. I love songs that just sound aurally amazing. I sit in my room tweaking a kick drum for 4 hours, and never get bored. I have a test to study for now, but all morning I've been looking up compression techniques. Lately I've been making music that is getting really positive reviews about how pro it sounds (no, its not just from my friends :) )

I feel like if you're willing to spend all of your off-time doing something, maybe it's what you should be doing on your on-time. But I've been in science all my life and don't know the first thing about going after such a competitive career, networking, hustling, and moving up the ladder. Part of why pursued medicine was to avoid having to do all of that in business, law, and everything else :)

All I really know is that there are a bunch of 6-month to 1-year courses where you learn a bit. Then you're on your own, and my question is about what that 'on your own' bit is like. Are you hustling every day? Is it hard for even a talented engineer to make a living out of it? I think i looked up the mean annual salary for an audio engineer and it was $14000. I don't need to be rich, but that's a little too little.

I'm in my 20s, and I'm also wondering if it's late to be entering one of those engineering courses, given that I could have joined up right after high school. I wonder if those who started earlier will already be way ahead of me in the networking and skills departments.

I'm not asking anyone to make the decision for me, I know it's all my choice but I would appreciate insight on what it's like starting out as an engineer and whether it's dumb for a kid to give up a guaranteed career to pursue something that he has only experienced as an amateur hobbyist.

[MAzevedo]

Dude, you're in your twenties, it's not too late to do anything.

That said, working in audio means long hours, odd schedules, and almost no reliability or benefits compared to a 'real' job. If you want to make records so bad that you are willing to put up with the downsides, go ahead. Just remember that there is a world of difference between tweaking a kick drum for yourself for the love of doing it, and tweaking a kick drum 50 hours into your work week when you're four days away from your next day off.

[thermos]

I started engineering around 23, and learned myself. I'm no expert, but it now makes up 1/2 of my income (I'm 28). So heck no its not too late. Just obsess about it and you'll be fine.

[jamsmith]

I completed my first studio when I was 29 years old. I didn't really know what the hell I was doing until I build my second studio at 32. I hope in the next year or 2 to build my first mastering room. I am 47. You are never too old.

[matyas]

This thread should probably get moved, but I'll reply anyway.
No, it's not too late. In fact, if I were in your shoes, I'd probably delay it even longer. This isn't the kind of thing you do if there's anything else you can be doing. If there's anything else you can do, do it. In my reply to another thread, I was a little more optimistic about the state of professional audio than some people. That said, I'm extremely lucky to have the job that I do, and it took years of looking, getting experience, and basically just being patient to get it. I'm not making much - in fact, I ran into some car trouble last month and just getting my car fixed nearly bankrupt me - but that's okay with me. If you're not cool with just scraping by, consider something else.
So you got into med school? Go! If you hate it, quit and be an engineer.
Now, having said all that, I've got a few (non-mutually-exclusive) suggestions for you. I think these are kind of cool options, actually.
1. Go into audiology, and specialize in working with musicians and engineers. Lots of musicians and engineers get their ears checked yearly, and many of them are understandably protective of their hearing. If you're into music and recording, you'd have some additional insight into their needs, and maybe work with some cool people.
2. Go into psychoacoustic research. The neuroscience behind hearing and especially behind musical perception is still a pretty open field. You know all those stupid debates people have (digital vs. analog, 44.1 vs. 96, DSD vs. PCM, .mp3 vs. uncompressed)? Go into researching the science behind that stuff. Help come up with better-sounding codecs. And that's only the basics - the stuff that's pretty well-understood, actually. There's way more to psychoacoustics than that, and a lot more research to be done!
3. Make some money at medicine, and build an awesome studio. Save your cash, buy some gear, and gain some experience recording for fun. After you've saved some cash, build a room and be a studio owner. Continue to practice medicine but run the studio as a side business. Hire a full-time engineer to work there and do only the projects you really like.

Hope that helps.

[californiaguy]

Your passion and mind for science will translate well into the world of engineering and music making, and it is not hard to make money off music if you obsessively productive and creative.

Its never too late to go for anything, cause its you who's gonna die when you die, so **** it.

"Doing it for a living" (which is synonomous with "committing") is a wild path. I'm doing it and its been a bitch and its been rad. I've had some lucky breaks and some tough breaks, but its been nothing less than a crazy ride for ten years now, I haven't starved to death, and things are great for the time being. Yeah its feast or famine, whatever, well worth it. Be careful of anyone who says it can't be done, thats like the adults who told my generation back in 88 to quit wasting all their time on commodore 64s cause how will you ever make a living. This business is changing FAST, and if anyone ever complains to you about the way things are changing they are really just complaining that things are not changing in their favor, which means they are not adapting. There are as many opportunities now as ever for resourceful people who think outside the box.

its two choices for you - the 'known' and 'unknown.' BE VERY SUSPICIOUS of the 'known' and the 'safe.' It can be extremely traumatic for people if/when they realize, ten (or 8) years later that there was no safe, no known, only compromise.

There is no feeling in the world like doing what you love, and that could be manifested by the most humble first step in the right direction.

So if you really love medicine, go do it and blow steam off here and there with engineering. But don't kid yourself that you won't need to at some point to face down the spectre of regret if you choose this path. Because if are tempted enough to pursue music that you are writing on public forums for advice, which takes guts and focus, and openly admit that you are pursuing med school cause its "safe", then you will absolutely wonder 'what if' down the line. You'll buy the A+ gear but that may feel like drinking saltwater to quench your thirst. It will never replace what you will feel now if you buy a $250 tascam 8 track, a decent pre, a 57 and get to work tracking all day every day.

If you love music, then commit and see what happens. At least then you'll know.

[greel78]

Hey guys, thanks for all the perspective and advice.. I'm glad that I have until august to decide because it'll be a tough decision, but the more takes I hear, the more I realize what's important to me. Science is a compromise, but it's also a compromise that i'm passionate about and feel can give me greater opportunities. It does get boring, but seems like even engineering can get boring when it's your 9-5 (or 6-8 as it may be).. right now I'm leaning towards staying in science and funding all my audio hobbying with it..

[tonymite]

Directly proportional to how badly you want it - Law of WILL.

[James Meeker]

My advice is to do what you love for a living, no matter what that is.

However....

If you have a chance to go to med school and be a doctor do it if you think you can get through the schooling, board certifying and residency. The world has more need for doctors than another recording engineer.

You ask:

Are you hustling every day?

If you want to work, yeah you hustle every day--especially early on. Right now there are five engineers for every recording nickle floating about.

Is it hard for even a talented engineer to make a living out of it?

Yes. And it isn't necessarily the most talented engineers that get the most work. The job is less about technique/engineering and more about networking and social skills than you'd believe. This job is pretty competitive--to make a living at it you have to be "the best" in many, many areas.

I think i looked up the mean annual salary for an audio engineer and it was $14000. I don't need to be rich, but that's a little too little.

Chances are you'll make less than that for the first five years. Money isn't why most of us do this. If you want to make money this is NOT the field to do it in!

Look at it this way--EVERYONE wants to make a living doing something fun... their hobby. I mean, how many doctors would like to make their living at playing golf (provided it paid as much as being and M.D.)?

But here's the catch: this job is a JOB. It's not "fun" really... not like it was before you did it for money. Yeah it's pretty cool and what I love to do best but it's WORK. It's a lot of work. Sometimes it's not fun at all, sometimes this job is LIVING HELL. Sometimes you wonder why you even do it, because you think back and remember a time when recording was "cool and fun."

I can assure you, this job has zero to do with fiddling with a kick drum sound for hours... you have about five minutes (or less) to get it right and move on to the next thing, because clients only pay people that can work fast, fast, fast that know what they're doing. I don't even know if I've ever tweaked a kick drum for more than twenty minutes... how can you tweak a kick drum for hours? I'm baffled here.... anyways I'm getting off subject.

Be smart. Be a doctor. Do this as a hobby and it will stay fun.

If you really love recording by all means ignore what I said--I just think you need to hear both good and bad perspectives. (Take it from me, I sold my soul for my career). Just approach this biz like you were going to have to be as good at recording as a doctor is at medicine and eventually things will work out for ya.

[James Meeker]

Originally Posted by greel78

Hey guys, thanks for all the perspective and advice.. I'm glad that I have until august to decide because it'll be a tough decision, but the more takes I hear, the more I realize what's important to me. Science is a compromise, but it's also a compromise that i'm passionate about and feel can give me greater opportunities. It does get boring, but seems like even engineering can get boring when it's your 9-5 (or 6-8 as it may be).. right now I'm leaning towards staying in science and funding all my audio hobbying with it..

There's nothing wrong with being a hobbyist. Someone has to do it. You're probably making the right choice, because once something becomes your job a lot of the fun and excitement can drain right out of it.

The only time I have any fun is when I go to the studio late at night and work on something for MYSELF. Then it's fun again. If I'm on the clock, well... let's just say that it's fun sometimes....

[The Byre]

You know the answer yourself, you don't need anybody to tell you which way to go.

Becoming a successful engineer (as opposed to someone who has to work in a music store, or shelf-stack at the local Wallmart, to make ends meet) is no harder than becoming a doctor of medicine. The problem is that there are many that believe the myth that somehow, by attending one of those private schools that churn out thousands of 'graduates' every year, into a market that requires a few dozen at most .

Originally Posted by greel78

Lately I've been making music that is getting really positive reviews about how pro it sounds (no, its not just from my friends :) )

The reality of working as an audio engineer is very different to doodling and noodling in ProTools.

It's one thing to make some great sounds - I hate to say it, but just about anybody can do that - but it is a very different kettle of fish to earn a living, doing those tasks for which they are prepared to pay you. You will certainly need to be able to read and play music and definitely need to be able to read a circuit diagram.

And like the man says, the World needs more doctors and may (IMO) even be a slightly better place if there were fewer audio 'engineers' whose understanding of music technology does not actually involve either music, or technology.

[joelpatterson]

I waited until I turned 30 and had a whole mid-life crisis about WHAT WAS I DOING with my life before I got serious about audio and recording.

You could try that, it worked for me...

[greel78]

Thanks again guys, it's really beneficial hearing opinions from people who've gone down this road. Yeah, the world needs docs but if I turn it down they'll just take someone off the waitlist :) It was hard enough to get this acceptance though, might as well stick with it.

[CDS]

I agree alot with James Meeker,

Besides telling you to GO TO MED SCHOOL AND SECURE A GOOD LIVING,

My perspective,

15 years ago, starting a career as an audio engineer was more clear cut than today. Back then you could easily start as an intern at a studio then (in time) move into taking recording sessions for off peak clients and work the ladder up to the bigger clients. Mixing duties also progressed with time.

I think today's opportunity for an audio career is mostly with mixing. Since the affordable (and powerful) consumer grade DAWs started to hit back in 2000, many people are now just self recording in a personal space and need mixing after. Even though the art of recording will not be found in many of these "self recordings", the work is there for talented mixers capable of working with such material.

I know a major label mixer that also offers services on Craig's List to indie clients and makes very good money from it.

Being a career audio engineer is a very grueling job. You have to be ready to stay up for several days, work fast and as James pointed out, know what you are doing to sustain client trust.

When I started with engineering, I would go to a 10am to 6pm job, go directly to the studio to work from 8pm to 5am and after grabbing 4 hours of sleep and a shower, start all over again. I was in my 20's at the time same as you.

If you really want a career in audio, I would suggest taking it up as a 2nd job until it can provide an adequate living by itself.

While you craft your audio skills, a good start is to find a sales job at your local Sam Ash or Guitar Center in the recording section. Not only will you get a first hand experience with gear but you will meet tons of people that you can start relationships with while you expand on your audio career.

My personal path has led me to inventing new technologies. Without audio engineering, I would have never ended up here, and I should have just went on to MIT back when I was 18 and skipped 15 years of the hard road.

[3rd&4thT]

doctor, Doctor, DOCTOR!!!

The glamor of engineering wears off almost instantaneously, but healing some sick fool will provide satisfaction for your whole life.

When the cylinder was newly invented, Sir Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan) was asked to say a few words into the horn. The year may have been 1877, though I could be wrong about that. Sullivan said something along the lines of "I shudder to think of all the bad music that will be immortalized by this machine." It's now more than a century later, and he was proved right.

If you want to think in terms of "has your life been a net plus or minus?" or "are you leaving this planet a better place than you found it?", a doctor will always win out over a recording engineer.

Unless you specialize in liposuction. Then the recording engineer wins.

3rd&4thT

[narcoman]

my 2 pennies worth:

1. 9-5 or 6-8 ?!!? you gotta be kidding. I start at 10am every day. I never go home before 10pm , and its 6/7 day weeks. Ive ruined two relationships through work

2. Its not too hard to earn money IF YOU"RE ALREADY earning - ie you have a huge contacts list with corporate customers (record companies, porfessional bands, tv, film, video game, ad, voice over). If you donthave a great contacts list then you have NO chance of earning any money - not starting up now and CERTAINLY not starting up in three or four years time

3. Its an experience game - most of the earners (my self included) are 35 years upwards. As t'Byre says - anyone can put together a few tunes that people may like. The real issue is can you hit a deadline, are you prepared to edit 35,000 voice edits until you go mad, are you truly objective and do you knwo how to conduct yourself in the business world..... I left a career in Math research (finished my PhD and was working for the UN with international learning relationships). I jacked it all in (years ago) for music - got a big record deal. I wish Ihadnt. This life sucks big time - and i earn a LOT.


Dont do it bro' - do the medical things or other science based subject and keep this as a hobby. Take it seriously and, if you happen to land a good paying gig or ten (dont give up the day job based on one money pot - everybody gets ONE shot) THEN you can think about a career shift. As mentioned above - you gotta hustle hustle hustle. This isnt a job for the faint hearted. Musical ability and engineering brains are a prerequisite - its the hustling that gets the jobs......

[wilkinswp]

This is an interesting thread. I'm about to finish up my PhD in biochemistry this May and now am having thoughts of throwing it all out the window to pursue engineering. It's crazy, but the recording bug won't go away.

I'm starting to get some paid gigs and have been interning at a studio that has some high-profile session players coming through the door from time to time. The work is long and hard and I do have fears of how I can make ends meet engineering.

Anyway, just wanted to throw in my thoughts for the original poster and to keep this thread going.

[wilkinswp]

Oh yeah. . . and I've done the hour-plus sessions of tweaking kick drums myself.

[ALL*MYTEE]

The world doesn't need doctors who don't want to be doctors. What we need are people who love what they're doing. If you base what you do every day on what you "should" do, you'll end up depressed guaranteed. My advice is to do as much of what you want as possible at all times.

Over on the doctors board they are not discussing how wonderful it is to "heal people" and have huge houses and a new Porche, I can guarantee. They are talking about audiophile grade speakers and $20K turntables--doing everything they can to buy that feeling they had when they were young and loved music. If you think rich (or even noble) people are somehow magically happier than other folks, you probably haven't known many of them. Ask an interning doctor about how 12 hour days in a studio sound-they'll probably say relaxing.

They actually have exercises in depression books to help people get the "shoulds" out of their lives. Nasty things. Should means that you're basing your life on what other people want or think. Not a great way to find happiness, true love, contentment or any of those other things we value so highly.

With that said, Grandma Moses started painting when she was 70 or something like that. The only time it's too late for change is if you want to coast and petrify the rest of your life. (And some folks do--god bless 'em).

I think the more important question is do you love working on your own music or other people's? Being an artist is different than being an engineer--which I think is clear from some of the posts here. If you love working on your own music and go into working on jobs for others, it won't feel the same. And can feel like a huge compromise. Your soul doesn't really care about the numbers--it just wants to do what it wants to do. And it only wants to do what it really wants to do. (Meaning that "being close" doesn't count for as much as you'd think.)

Oh--and by the way--I usually use the exact same words the previous poster used to identify my deepest desires: "it won't go away". Things that won't go away are an integral part of us and repressing them--no matter what else our plans are--is a recipe for illness and unhappiness. In my experience I've found that things I describe this was almost never go away. How we express those things that won't go away is, of course, up to each and every one of us. Hobbies, jobs, side projects, life's work, etc.

What would you do if you couldn't make a mistake?

I dropped a successful graphic design company at around 30 to write a book. I felt much older and stiffer then I do now at 40. The decision plunged me into poverty, uncertainty, doubt and fear--for more than five years--and it was the best thing I've ever done. It also gave me years of free time to figure, contemplate, relax, explore and create. I never starved, never missed a month of rent (though it was late once or twice and I had to sell some killer guitars). Though I certainly thought I was going to. My "successful" graphic design business means almost nothing to me now. I'm glad I did it instead of waiting tables, but it didn't mean anything for me like my book. Even though it made me a lot of money and gave everyone in my life an easy way to understand who I was and "where I was going". I'm much more clear on the truth that "man cannot live by bread alone" these days.

We're not here to survive or pay rent but to live. And no one can give you a job doing that.

[lord_bunny]

I've worked some seriously awful jobs to pay for my gear and personal recordings. I have measured boxes at Purolator (canadian fedex), cleaned dead fish off the floor at pet-smart... I was a short-order cook at a dusty truck-stop.

Recording a producing is fun even when I don't like the project. Culture is just as important as medicine and being paid to be a part of adding to our culture is a wonderful thing.

Everything can seem daunting and tedious if you have that attitude. I've worked very hard and sacrificed a lot to just have the opprotunity to stick a microphone in front of someone talented and it's worth it. To me it doesn't matter if I'm the assistant, the producer or whether it's my own material... engineering is a creative field and I'm brimming with passion for it.

There are days when I'm editing a drum track for three hours, and that isn't so fun, but there are also days when I'm capturing a real virtuoso and sifting through take after take of amazing performance and in that moment I am the luckiest person in the world.

I stopped paying attention in science and math in grade 7 though... i was too busy writing lyrics and working on my bands first cassette, playing around with spring reverb and trying to write a record. I've been dreaming about making records for a living since I was nine and haven't wavered in my pursuit of that.


The point i'm trying to make is that if you love doing something, do it and don't be afraid to dream. The second point is that there are people in this field who obsess about this to such a degree that you need to really be sure your as crazy as they are before you jump into it.

[3rd&4thT]

If there's a common thread to this thread, it seems to be this - if you can imagine yourself doing something else, do the something else. If you can't imagine yourself doing anything else, do this.

Same as for any artistic endeavor. You don't do it unless you have to.

As a wise performer once told me, "My parents wanted me to be an actor. I wanted to be a proctologist. Being an actor turned out OK, because I figure I'd meet about the same number of a**holes either way."

3rd&4thT

[drundall]

Shit, I thought you were going to say you were in your 50's & I was still going to say it's not too late...

Originally Posted by greel78

Hey guys, first post.. apologies if this is in the wrong place; I couldn't find a forum for career advice and all..

I've always loved music, I've always been afraid of being jobless. For that reason I went into science and I've now been accepted into medical school. That's cool and I like health and science, but before diving into that 8+ year committment I'm having misgivings.

My favorite thing to do is go to bookstores and soak up everything their magazines have to say about mixing and mastering. I love songs that just sound aurally amazing. I sit in my room tweaking a kick drum for 4 hours, and never get bored. I have a test to study for now, but all morning I've been looking up compression techniques. Lately I've been making music that is getting really positive reviews about how pro it sounds (no, its not just from my friends :) )

I feel like if you're willing to spend all of your off-time doing something, maybe it's what you should be doing on your on-time. But I've been in science all my life and don't know the first thing about going after such a competitive career, networking, hustling, and moving up the ladder. Part of why pursued medicine was to avoid having to do all of that in business, law, and everything else :)

All I really know is that there are a bunch of 6-month to 1-year courses where you learn a bit. Then you're on your own, and my question is about what that 'on your own' bit is like. Are you hustling every day? Is it hard for even a talented engineer to make a living out of it? I think i looked up the mean annual salary for an audio engineer and it was $14000. I don't need to be rich, but that's a little too little.

I'm in my 20s, and I'm also wondering if it's late to be entering one of those engineering courses, given that I could have joined up right after high school. I wonder if those who started earlier will already be way ahead of me in the networking and skills departments.

I'm not asking anyone to make the decision for me, I know it's all my choice but I would appreciate insight on what it's like starting out as an engineer and whether it's dumb for a kid to give up a guaranteed career to pursue something that he has only experienced as an amateur hobbyist.

[UpstateboiBeats]

yeah, I'm 20 also, and I really started taking my production seriously about a year ago. I keep getting better and better, i'm actually good now.

anyway, I am keeping the production on the back burner...well actually more like a middle burner because I really want it, but I know i need a more stable career until i make it (Management)

[CDS]

Originally Posted by ALL*MYTEE

I dropped a successful graphic design company at around 30 to write a book. I felt much older and stiffer then I do now at 40. The decision plunged me into poverty, uncertainty, doubt and fear--for more than five years--and it was the best thing I've ever done. It also gave me years of free time to figure, contemplate, relax, explore and create. I never starved, never missed a month of rent (though it was late once or twice and I had to sell some killer guitars). Though I certainly thought I was going to. My "successful" graphic design business means almost nothing to me now. I'm glad I did it instead of waiting tables, but it didn't mean anything for me like my book. Even though it made me a lot of money and gave everyone in my life an easy way to understand who I was and "where I was going". I'm much more clear on the truth that "man cannot live by bread alone" these days.

We're not here to survive or pay rent but to live. And no one can give you a job doing that.

God bless you as this passage is also the story of my life as well :)

Very few people are prepared to take 3 steps backwards to take 10 steps forward on life's ladder.

Making these types of decisions are not easy because you will struggle, family and friends will talk about you like a dog and treat you with no respect because they just won't "get it".

If you can survive the years of pure hell that will break the common man, you just may emerge with the life you always wanted.

I remember sitting at my desk at Sam Ash Pro in '99 and a buddy (who used to sell gear on the street level of S.A) came by and said "Look at you, here you are and your life is going nowhere... You sit here everyday and help people who you are more talented than and look at me, I have no money and no job, but I make music everyday and take a break to see a few movies then back to the studio! Im happy with no money and your miserable with a paycheck."

Biggest wakeup call in my path and now I have to say after many years of challanges...

For me also, It has indeed been worth it.

If i could go back to 18 years old, I would have still done it all again but after taking the few years to obtain a law degree lol.

[Mitch97]

I'm soooooooo glad I found this thread. I just turned 28 and had a shocking revelation that I'm not doing what I moved to LA to do 10 years ago, which is work in music. I was thinking it might be too late for me but not after reading this thread.

Since I moved out here I dicked around with school, stupid jobs, valuable internships, not-so-valuable internships, and then decided to play it safe. I went into commercial real estate (horrible except for the one big commission I made which is allowing me to buy gear), then IT and now software sales. All of them BLOW, and I can make great money at IT and I'm good at it. Who cares!!

I'm done playing it safe. I wanna scrape by doing what I love. I'm tired of being around people making a living doing something creative when I'm stuck in a MF'ing cube. I work from 8-5, come home and mix or produce till 2. God am I tired in the morning but I relish in my off-hour work. I wish I could stay up till 5am and fall asleep at my desk if I didn't have to try and sell someone some software they don't need. I'm done. Congrats to everyone on this forum who do what they love. Even my mom is begging me to get a job in music cause she knows that I enjoy it!

[ALL*MYTEE]

Hey CDS,

Yeah, definitely not for the faint of heart, but there also aren't many other paths to being an actual man these days. I have a friends who say things like "I feel just like I did in high school" or wish they were younger for some reason. I don't. And I wouldn't go back a single day. Once you stare down your greatest fears--what your parents think, being alone, worthlessness, whether or not you're going to get laid, etc--there's a whole bunch of fun and freedom. Lightness--a feeling I never experienced really even as a teenager (except possibly when I was drunk or high and that's both fleeting and leads to greater heaviness.)

A lot of times I think "paying dues" is just learning how to believe--to have faith. And then rewards come along magically as soon as the belief is there. It's not that the universe is a test, but that we really want to walk around believing in ourselves (and the rest of the world) no matter what. And there's no other way to feel that without confronting whatever we're afraid of. It's no different for investment bankers.

There's one secret that most of you won't believe but I'll drop it anyway. The days when making music requires a financial sacrifice are coming to an end. And before long the "mass arts" (music, books, movies, etc.) will be the most highly rewarded undertakings on earth. Higher than managing hedge funds, running credit card companies, being Oprah, and all the normal stuff where being afraid in the right way can make you lots of money.

Premium products are dominating pretty much every economic sector these days and budget products are increasingly failing. The future will be radically premium by our standards just like our standard of living is radically premium by our great-grandparents standards. And since things move so much faster now, it will likely only take a few years--maybe ten on the outside.

In music, this means $14 songs and $140 CDs. Music adds much more to people's lives than jeans, but we sell jeans for up to thousands of dollars. So people have to sell jeans (or guitar strings or commercial real estate) to subsidize music. Because that's where the money is. But people don't give a f**k about jeans compared to music and having four hundred jeans they like to choose from means much less to them than having four hundred bands they like would.

We have beautiful iPods and not much new to play on them because the makers of iPods can profit while the makers of songs cannot. That means iPod makers can get loans, start new businesses, relax and dream up new ideas, pay for R&D and in general compete favorably. The makers of music can do none of these things.

Our pricing structure gives people in our society time, money and energy to make better iPods and takes away from the time, money and energy they have to make music. It's obviously simple math.

Even the most famous bands don't make money off of their music, but off of touring, merch and label deals with other artists. All our mass artists work with one hand tied behind their back.

The quality of .99 music is falling because it requires bands to go through so much duress to subsidize a structurally inadequate system. It's like social workers trying to make public housing a beautiful, happy, nurturing place to live. There's just too many structural forces working against them. You could also say that it's like trying to make a communist country competitive with a capitalist democracy--there are just too many barriers in place to get the best produce out of people.

This does two things: one, it makes higher quality music more valuable, and two, offers increasingly greater rewards for those who have the balls to make it and charge what it's really worth. Eventually, these rewards will become so great that someone will do it. Once the path has been pioneered, there will be a gold rush mentality and half the artists out here will be offering "premium" music. Then it will be up to the market to decide who's right and who's full of sh*t. That's the beauty of a market system. It rewards solutions in direct proportion to its problems.

I, for one, would never sell my music for .99 a song. It takes way too much energy and love to make. Just like I would never sell the book I wrote for $14 (it's $120). I don't care what else happens but I'll never have "slave" painted on my face.

Once making music actually makes money, you'll be glad you got in on the ground floor. The more music people steal, the quicker the fixed price model will fail and the quicker people will be forced to deal with how valuable high quality music is to them. (The current numbers are 25 stolen songs for every legit download.)

I'd also never in a million years pay to remix a song--and then give it copyright free to the artist. People tried to get me to do that in design--it was called working on spec. Go find some kid who doesn't believe in the value of their work or has a trust fund to live off for that. If you're doing it for fun, then why give it back? If you're hoping to get seomthing from it, then why play yourself and pay for it? Them saying "they'll contact you" before they exploit it commercially could be satisfied with a text message:

"Dude--releasing your song. Thx".

The idea of a song or a mix being valuable without the artist knowing it doesn't make sense to me. Maybe 25 years ago, but not now. IF you're a decent artist you have to know the answer to the question: "Is what I'm doing valuable?"

[audiovisceral]

Originally Posted by greel78

Hey guys, thanks for all the perspective and advice.. I'm glad that I have until august to decide because it'll be a tough decision, but the more takes I hear, the more I realize what's important to me. Science is a compromise, but it's also a compromise that i'm passionate about and feel can give me greater opportunities. It does get boring, but seems like even engineering can get boring when it's your 9-5 (or 6-8 as it may be).. right now I'm leaning towards staying in science and funding all my audio hobbying with it..

good call. i was the same exactly. now i'm in med school and i still have had plenty of time for music. plus banks give great loans to med students. pm me if you have any specific questions bout it.

and don't go to school for music. christ. that's what gearslutz is for. just read and learn as you go. it's all here.