While I still have a lot to learn, all my engineering skills came from school....but in a different way than most people. I'm an English major in college, but I had been involved with the school radio station and was doing a basic show spinning records. In 2001, I was asked to join the crew of a show called Live From the Fallout Shelter, which has bands, live-on air, each and every week.

So, having only about an hour to get a band set up, miced, and mixed for an on-air show is like the most extreme crash course in SRT/Audio Engineering/whatever you want to call it.

I went into it with no knowledge of audio, but I guess the bug bit me and I started to gather mics, gear, and knowledge like a mad man soon after.

I think it gave me a good and interesting perspective. When you only have an hour to get a band to sound reasonably good for radio, there isn't a lot of time for experimenting. Things have to be somewhat standard. So when I started recording outside of the radio field, when I did have more time to try different things, I would specifically think, "How can I do this in a different way than we do it on-air?"

Why you ask??

It's simply the music. I want to be able to make my contribution to the music by making it sound as good as it possibly can. I want to experiment and come up with new ways of making music kick ass. There's also something completely compelling with having a bunch of knobs and faders to play with.

want to be an engineer because I love music, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing something I don't like. I just recently finished training at "The Recording Workshop"

You can do many other things "because you love music". Its more along the lines of do you love the Sound of Music. Its about aesthetics of the sound. You should of purchased a tape machine and small console with the money you spent at "The Recording Workshop". The best way to learn is by doing.

brianbiv wrote:

want to be an engineer because I love music, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life doing something I don't like. I just recently finished training at "The Recording Workshop"

You can do many other things "because you love music". Its more along the lines of do you love the Sound of Music. Its about aesthetics of the sound. You should of purchased a tape machine and small console with the money you spent at "The Recording Workshop". The best way to learn is by doing.

There's nothing worse than a fuckload of assholes doing without knowing. There is nothing wrong with going to a school to learn about audio technology. It may not teach you how to make a great sounding record, but that's not the point anyhow. That, obviously, should come with experience.

Yes, there are a lot of other things one could "because they love music". So what? Recording's one of them.

mike

brianbiv wrote:You can do many other things "because you love music". Its more along the lines of do you love the Sound of Music.

I can't stand the Sound of Music. The most god awful musical composition from the last century. I had no idea it had anything to do with wanting to be an engineer.

can't stand the Sound of Music. The most god awful musical composition from the last century. I had no idea it had anything to do with wanting to be an engineer.

You know what I mean.
I went to Columbia College and learned a ton about theory. Theory this theory that. But practical experience, nada. The theory though is what will advance you as an engineer. Then you will be more than just a button pusher.

this thread seems long dead, but since i just read it now i really have to comment on something brianbiv said here in the last post.

I went to Columbia College and learned a ton about theory. Theory this theory that. But practical experience, nada.

that blows my mind. that's nothing like my experience there. sure, there was plenty of theory stuff. which is great. but NO practical experience? NADA? WHUH?

to get my degree, taking the classes i took, "hands-on" type stuff i had to do:

cut and splice tape

edit and mix audio with voiceover

record lots of live acoustical performances using stereo mic'ing configurations

learn to use a TEF analyzer, and create a project in which i put that skill to use. (got a kinda low grade in that one since my project consisted of measuring realtive frequency response curves for the three pickups in one of my guitars. didn't use the TEF for its intended purpose, nor to its full potential. but that's what i wanted to do with it.)

generate 10 minutes worth of post-production sound for a movie, *everything*, from music bed to sfx to foley to voice. we started with just a picture, and using an analog 24-track, an analog 2-track, a couple video machines, a synch system, and some mics, produce a finished product. with very little involvement from the teacher, unless we really needed help... just a "how-to" of working the machines. after that, we had to do everything on our own.

mic live instruments (like piano for example) for live sound reproduction, get a natural tone, no feedback etc.

so i don't know what the hell classes you took over there. but my experience with columbia was nothing like you describe. there was a ton of practical, hands-on type experience. that's part of what makes that school so great and, i think, its graduates so successful.

anyways, yeah, what the hell classes did you take that you didn't have to do all the stuff i did? no Sound Reinforcement? no Live Sound Recording? no Audio for Visual Medium? no Advanced Acoustical Design? no Production I?!?! even the non-sound classes still offered a venue for practical use of your skills. i took a humanities class about Einstein, and my final project was a totally fucked-up song about him that i wrote and recorded. same thing with Forensic Science, wrote and recorded a song for the final project. i dunno, i can't really imagine coming out of that school without a shitload of practical experience. it's pretty much at the core of their philosophy... getting real-world experience in your field, learning from guys who have at least a decade of proven success in that field, as working professionals and not just "professors".

sorry to be such a spaz and all, but i don't like the thought of someone reading this thread and thinking columbia is a waste of time. it's quite the opposite.

I go to Fanshawe college, we have a program called Music Industry Arts (funny how the title sounds like an oxymoron)
Know what you want out of a program before you take it. When they told me that there would be lots of stuff about MIDI and business I thought "oh well, there will still be lots of time for the studio." But I've been very bogged down with extra school work that I don't really need. Not that I'm ignorant to the information they've given us; it's just that I already read most of it out of self-interest in high school.
The other problem I have is that alot of my fellow classmates don't know shit about music and what could've been a good year in musical theory has turned into a debate over why orchestras have Bb, Eb, and F instruments as opposed to having everyone play in C. This one guy still doesn't get the concept of transposing for these sections after 3 WEEKS of discussion. I even gave him the analogy of a guitar detuned a step or two... "the E major shape stays the same but it's a different chord, dig?"
I did get lots of hands on experience in this program, however, I feel that if I had bought the required text books and then bought a modest recording rig and also spent time interning I would have progressed a lot faster and with more real world experience. Fortunately I didn't have to go into to debt to take this program, but I know a lot of people who did and I feel bad for them.
Really do your research. Don't go to college just because your parents tell you to do something with your life and they happen to have saved enough money for you to go. If you have enough motivation, you'll do all the things you do in college under your own steam. Not everyone is that dedicated, but like I said, I was reading about this stuff for fun in high school. I don't know anybody else that bought Guitar World in order to read the tech-y stuff in the back pages but I used to eat it up.

faucet wrote:girls!

ha! over the past 5 years our male to female ratio here at michigan tech has gone from 6:1 to 4:1. let the good times roll.