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Hi Shawn
Your problem is shared by many who want to enter this field. On the rare occasions that studio personnel will give you the time of day, they will tell you to avoid audio schools like the plague. The answer, according to them, is to get a tea-boy gig at a studio, sweep floors, clean toilets for a few years, then, if they're lucky, actually graduate to doing some work in the studio/control room.

But if you say, that's great - when do I start? - they tend to back off and start mumbling things like 'ahh .. we have no time to train you at the moment', 'actually, we prefer someone with SOME basic knowledge', etc etc. It's a monster Catch 22 - you need the underpinning knowledge that a good audio school can provide, AND you need the workplace environment provided by an internship in a supportive studio.

You say that no-one seems to want to train you - but why should they? What's in it for them? Studios are run as a BUSINESS - not just for the love of music. It costs a studio money and time to take on a trainee, and they want to know that at the end of the day you will bring in more than you cost them. Brutal, but true. Forget emails to studios - call them & tell them you want to see them for 10 minutes with a business proposition. Negotiate with them - but don't forget the cardinal rule of negotiation: "If you give me X, I will give you Y". You already know that you want X, but what are you offering as "Y"? You need to offer them something!

First, they will want to see you in the flesh - are you keen enough to sell yourself to them? Are you presentable enough not to scare off the clients? Are you 'music industry' enough to evoke those necessary feelings of empathy?

Second, have you made an effort to learn at least some of what goes on in studios? This could be through reading texts and magazines, trawling the net for info, attending an audio school - anything that works. If you say to them that you can't afford to attend a school, or buy texts etc - they may think that you believe it's too risky to invest in your own future - so why would they invest in yours?

Third, don't forget what their business is about. Going to a studio with a unilateral request for a job is tantamount to begging. Going to a studio with a deal such as bringing in work in return for an internship is sound business practice. Start networking, building up a list of potential clients, and making contacts who have access to resources. When you are confident that you can deliver clients to your target studio on a regular basis, you will be negotiating from a position of strength rather than one of weakness.

Best of luck
VK

Hi Tesha
Audio courses and classes exist simply because the field of audio recording and studio operation is complex and multidisciplinary. It may be possible to learn how to set up a studio without the help of a course - if you know exactly what sort of studio you want to set up. It may be possible for you to learn how to manage a studio, or become an adequate sound recording engineer, or even a producer if you have access to a working studio and experienced personnel with the time, patience and inclination to teach you.

Studio operation at the professional level is not a pastime. It is a vocation practiced by talented professionals who are highly skilled at what they do and have spent a great deal of time and money getting to where they are now.

There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of audio schools all over the world - you will need a good directory for audio & music technology education facilities to find something in your area. That's if you decide that learning about recording equipment, signal processing, mixing consoles, digital & analogue technology, microphone selection and placement, the physics of musical instruments, recording techniques for different styles of music, architectural acoustics, music industry business principles and practice, and a thousand other things is more easily achieved in a training program devised by industry professionals than by yourself! :)

Having got that off my chest, all I can do is hope to point you in the right direction to get the information you seek. Libraries are generally way out of date with published material. See if you can get hold of a copy of a quality magazine such as Mix Magazine - a USA publication. Although it is intended for professional users, it may help to show you where the industry is heading, and what education and training trends are at the moment. Mix is also available on-line - see our links pages. Search the net directly for info: one way is to use a good, current search engine to find pages of audio links.

Best of luck
VK

Hello Ed,
What you're asking for is basically what many audio schools cover in a typical full-time one year course. Nevertheless ... all I can do is hope to point you in the right direction.

Major trend for production nowadays is towards digital equipment, specifically non-linear systems such as digital audio workstations (DAWs). Compared to linear recordings, such as those on tape where all of the sounds follow each other from start to finish, audio is digitised (i.e. waveforms are represented as numbers) and stored non-linearly on a hard disk - just like computer info. Processing the audio then becomes just a matter of crunching the numbers (i.e. digital signal processing). Any part of the recording can be reached and processed instantly without having to wait as you would for a tape. Jobs get done much faster and with more flexibility. If your son is intending to work in a studio, digital knowledge is fundamental.

Re training, it makes sense to check out audio schools in your local area. Also, don't forget to talk to the STUDIOS themselves - they are the ones that will ultimately employ (or not employ!) your son, so ask them what they want. Expecting an audio school to be objective about your career prospects is like asking Arnold Schwartzenegger whether working out is good.

Entry to the recording industry is a matter of luck, aptitude and being in the right place at the right time. People are still able to make a start in this industry without having done any courses at all. The difficulty is in finding a place that will take you on without experience or knowledge. Many of those that will take you on believe that they are doing you a favour by getting you 'into the industry', so they don't expect to pay you more than token wages at first. The trouble is, this token wage sometimes doesn't change for years. And if you complain, they quickly find someone else to take your place.

Gaining experience through courses and industry work experience can help, as long as there is actually work to be found at the end of it. The recording industry is notoriously volatile, and goes through periodic downswings. When music production is in a down phase, music studios tend not to hire staff, nor take on trainees. Whatever audio course you take, make sure that the provider is accredited and offers lots of supervised PRACTICAL experience, preferably in industry facilities, not just 'training studios'. After all, that's where you will be actually working eventually. There are some good courses around - and some bad ones - so the best thing to do is check with local recording studios and post-production facilities to see what they think. Call at least 5 or 6 to make sure you get views which are representative of industry thinking.

If your son is still at school - he shouldn't even THINK of leaving school early. While most accredited audio schools might be theoretically able to take him before high school graduation, he would be just destroying his options for the future. Audio is one of the fastest-changing technologies around, so he will have no choice but to eventually do some additional training during his first 5 years in the industry. Practically all future training will have prerequisite educational standards, so why take the risk? Courses offered in the audio field change all of the time, so keep in touch with trends by talking to your local educational board to see what is accredited and what isn't.

And don't lose sight of the fact that this is one of the toughest industries in which to get (and keep) a job, it can take years to get established and there is often almost zero job security. If I haven't discouraged him by now, he is probably suited to this industry!

Best of luck
VK

Hello Megan
I know how difficult it is - no-one seems to want to give you an opportunity. But there is a reason for this. For example, at my own studio, the work we do for clients is generally on a 'lock-out' basis - i.e. only the musicians themselves, their producers and record company people are allowed in the session. Creative people prefer to work - undisturbed - with fully qualified technical personnel, because it is too easy to get distracted when outsiders are in the studio.

The recording sessions themselves also are scheduled for the convenience of the clients. They often start late in the afternoon and run through till 3am, or can be scheduled on weekends. It's not a 9-5 business, and so tends not to suit timetabling requirement of school students anyway. Even daytime recording jobs will frequently be ad campaigns for big companies - jingles and voice-overs which may not go to air for a month or so, and so are 'commercial-in-confidence' and therefore closed to non-essential, unauthorized personnel.

Since most big studios work like this, I suggest that you look to alternative recording facilities, rather than commercial facilities for your work experience. If you choose a music recording studio, expect typical waiting lists to range from 6 to 18 months - and many studios, like ours, will not offer work experience at all. On the rare occasions that they do, your job will be to make coffee, run errands, clean the toilets and generally do things that do not involve any contact with the highly specialised sound production area. You wouldn't have much luck getting work experience in an operating theatre, or a Formula 1 racing team either for the same reasons - they're just too highly specialised.

It is a good idea not to limit yourself to 'conventional' recording studios, as these represent just the tip of the audio iceberg. Look seriously at radio stations (all of which have production or recording facilities), television audio departments, film sound production houses, audio-visual materials producers and theatres which stage concerts, plays and musicals. All of these places employ sound engineers, and if they can not accommodate you, are generally helpful in suggesting alternatives.

Finally, remember that many larger corporations, most large tertiary colleges and many government departments have in-house production facilities that may make training tapes and videos. You may have a chance there.

I know it's tough, but persevere. Good luck with your music interests and your search for work experience.
VK

Hi Ben
You have a few possibilities, none of them easy. You have a rough demo now, the main purpose of which is to allow the musicians (that you intend to use for the final recording) get to know the songs and rehearse them for studio recording. If you intend to use your roughs to play to a record company - don't. Not unless the songs and performance are brilliant as they are now, anyway. The record company A&R person ("Artists & Repertoire" - the one who listens to your stuff and decides whether the record company is interested) will be looking for evidence of commercial potential, and needs to listen to demos that are as close as possible to the sound and feel of the finished product. Rough demos may be OK for some record companies, but not many.

If you want a record company to release you as an artist, here are some pointers:
First you need to find a record company that is willing to listen to demo submissions from unknown artists. If you send an unsolicited tape to many companies , it generally goes in the trash. Remember they may get 50-60 new tapes a week, and many will consider only 2 or 3 every YEAR for possible release.

Then, IF you get a flicker of interest, they will ask you questions such as: Do you have a band together that is currently playing? How many gigs a week are you doing? How many people come to your gigs? What do you look like when on stage? Is there something about your band, or you as a performer, that is attention-grabbing, different, incredibly talented, shocking ... or anything else that will set you apart from all the other performers around? Are you willing to tour to support your record? Do you have a definable STYLE, so that when people hear you, they know immediately that it's you, and not just someone else with adequate talent?

Realise that record companies are looking for a PRODUCT to market - the whole image, look and feel of the band - not just the music. And if the answer to all those questions is YES, you may have a chance. Then you may be asked to sign a recording contract. In most cases this will give the record company control over what you record and how you record it. You will end up paying for your studio time, hire of arrangers, session musos, producers, manufacture of CDs, artwork and printing of covers, distribution to all shops, marketing and promotion expenses etc etc out of YOUR artist royalties (about 5-15% of the CD price) that you earn from sales. And if you don't earn enough from royalties because sales are only average, you will OWE the record company the balance - anything up to $50,000 in some cases. In smaller markets - countries with a population of say only 19 million or so - the average single becomes a hit when it sells about 2,000 - 3,000 units. You do the sums. How much will you earn; how much will you owe?

OK, still with me? Not surprisingly, many recording artists today choose to go with the alternative option - do it yourself. You get a band together to rehearse your material, hire a studio and engineer and pay the costs (say $2,500 for 4 days recording/mixing for a typical EP or extended single), master the finished mixdown (say $400), organise manufacture (say $1,500 for 500 copies) and prepare artwork neg separations for the cover (say $300), talk an independent distributor into taking your record on (about 27.5% of selling price for each unit), take a break for 5 minutes and then go flat out promoting and advertising the record at your gigs, in the street press etc so that customers know that they are actually in the shops. Of course, about 50-100 of your records will need to be reserved as free gifts to record reviewers and radio stations so that you at least get some airplay ... but at least you get to keep whatever money is left over from sales after you've paid all your bills!

Take a deep breath ... You see what I mean when I say that it's not as easy as it seems? Don't ever lose sight of the fact that this is a BUSINESS, and it's never really only about the quality of your music, although obviously that comes into it. It's more about capturing the attention and interest of consumers for long enough for them to spend money on your records. (Think about it - how many CDs have you bought in the last year, and what was it that made you buy them?)

The road to success is as tough as hell, and if you survive it, you will have, as they say, "paid your dues". But it won't happen overnight. The question is now, are you tough enough, determined enough, focussed enough and talented enough to break into one of the toughest industries on earth? Because you will need to be to succeed.

I look forward to seeing your name around the traps before too long. Best of luck, although luck has almost nothing to do with it. In fact, as they say in all the best cliches, the harder you work at this, the luckier you will get.

Cheers
VK

Hello Glenn
Your question is a little like 'I need to know what is the best car to buy ...'

There are thousands of combinations of computer/ hardware/ software/ peripherals that can record audio. Before you even start looking, you need a clear idea of what it is you want to DO. Write music? Record yourself? Work with MIDI only? Record real sounds - voice, guitar etc? What type of music will you be working with - techno, mainstream, guitar based, keyboard? What quality is required - demo, hobby, project studio level, pro audio level, mastering stage? What price do you want to pay - hobby/home, mid-level, professional level?

Then look around for the best sequencer/sound module/keyboard/sound card/peripherals that will do your job for you. Having done that, choose the computer platform and speed - Mac or PC - that will run your chosen hardware combination and option it up with the RAM, sound cards, accelerator cards, effects cards etc. that are needed to run the applications.

Finally, make sure that you understand the principles of recording, mixing, effects use, mic use, mastering etc - because the gear you buy is just a set of tools which you have to learn to use before anything you record will sound even remotely good.

The stuff doesn't record for you, you USE it to record.

Lurk in the newsgroups such as news:rec.audio.pro (high level audio discussions) or news:alt.music.4-track (home recording discussions) where questions such as yours are discussed often and in considerable depth. Check out our links pages for audio links related to your interests.

Hope I haven't been too hard on you, but that's what you need to do if you're serious about recording. I wish you all the best in this mad whirlpool of an industry and applaud you for asking people for help - it's one of the best ways to learn, apart from actually DOING IT!

Go for it!
VK