Engineering

[Jay Reynolds]

1. Make sure the piece in question is plugged in and lift all the grounds in the room.
2. Connect the appropriate cabling to one of the balanced inputs.
3. Take your shoes and socks off.
4. Touch your toe to the nearset piece of exposed metal plumbing (important: it has to be metal).
5. Touch the open end of the cable to your tongue.
6. Flip God the bird.

I hate to be picky, but I believe you need to reverse the order of #5 and #6.

I'm just sayin that the gear might be, like 20% on and needs that extra little push over the cliff.

[rwc]

Thanks, I know it will be hard but I figure there is 100x the amount of studios in NYC then where I am from. I got to be able to show someone I have the talent to keep clients coming back. Maybe???

The only work is the work you make for yourself.

99.999% of the legitimate studios here are freelance. Meaning, you're not going to get hired by a studio for anything but

a) maintenance, which you'd better have been doing for 10-30 years in order to get paid enough to live.

chances are if you want to record music you'll become a bitter prick doing this for any amount of pay. chances are, just by virtue of the job, you'll become a prick. few full time studio techs are happy. some exist.. but few.

b) assistant.. again, $8-$9/hr != livable. I would rather get shot in the face than be an assistant for ten seconds at a typical frat house sound hotel. it's the opposite of everything I want in a work environment.

Even A is freelanced out in most places now.

The answer is to find people who want to record, and book time in a studio. Charge enough to make real money while still paying the studio. How do you do this? That's the rub. If you are good(which I'll assume you are since you mentioned the 5 years of experience.. 5 years ago I was a freshman in high school), this will be hard, but doable.

I'm in a unique situation. The place I work at has all sorts of weird shit going on... rehearsal, classes, 30+ rooms of monthly real estate, crazy people who think they can leave clothes here & live in the hallways.. so even when there's no sessions there's shit for me to do and get paid for. But few places are like the unique, and fucked up company I work for.

being a "regular freelancer" at a studio is a great way to get even more work thrown your way. people like genuinely good people who make them money without hassles I got $50/hr to do a live gig a few weeks ago just because I was the only one who gave a fuck to set this one rehearsal up decently. I was 10 years younger than anyone else I was working with, and 20-30 years younger than the band members. at least 7 years younger than anyone in crew other than sound.

no degree, no real credentials or resume. no asstarded interview with a bunch of questions intended to judge my "attention to detail" or "ethics", just a phone call and an address. but it went well.

You can knock down doors all day and get nowhere, but if you do a good job for people, they will open doors for you when the opportunity arises. I rely on this, because I have no real resume, credentials, or degree, and at my age no one is going to take me seriously for any job unless they know damn well I can do it from a recommendation from someone already established. this is key.

[cjac9]

I really think learning more about electronics would be good for me. This school offers recording courses and electronics.
Which one do I take??

http://www3.austincc.edu/schedule/s209s/elec209sf.htm

[MoreSpaceEcho]

PTAC 2314 Principles of Quality

the rest all sound kind of boring. but "principals of quality"? you can't go wrong.

[JGriffin]

It's something you'll be able to do on the side, but not a career unless you move to New York or Los Angeles where there are thousands of recording engineers and even more bands.

Don't mind Jeff, he's a little cranky sometimes. I've been doing it as a career in Chicago (iow NOT New York or Los Angeles) for over fifteen years now.

[RefD]

It's something you'll be able to do on the side, but not a career unless you move to New York or Los Angeles where there are thousands of recording engineers and even more bands.

Don't mind Jeff, he's a little cranky sometimes. I've been doing it as a career in Chicago (iow NOT New York or Los Angeles) for over fifteen years now.

and i personally know a couple of ppl who've been doing it as a career in Dallas, of all places, since the late 70s.

[bickle]

I think these last couple of points are great, and it's important to consider approaching this from a different perspective. I know people who make a living engineering in smaller towns, and they can do this because they live in small towns where the cost of living is low. It can be a great attraction for bands form cities who want to get away, too. You won't have as much constant business, but it might be a lot easier to pay the bills and actually make a living.

[signorMars]

Linear Integrated Circuits would be applicable to audio... call them and see if they have an intro to electronics, basic circuits class first though... you'll want to know the fundamentals pretty solidly or else a lot of the stuff will go right over your head.

[Electricide]

i learned in the first year of interning, 75 hours a week, what I would have learned in school. Maybe, if you're lucky, the studio that actually accepts your unpaid internship will have the same mixing board as the one your school had. but most likely you'll be learning how everything at THAT particular place works from the ground up anyway.

I had to be a bit sheepish when i didn't know about things I would have learned in school, like the difference between full/half normalled, or active/passive monitors. But I read all the gear manuals while manning the front desk or duping cd's. Learned how engineers liked their sessions set up, asked questions when, if I didn't know the answer, something bad might happen, but didn't shoot the shit or ask irrelevant things in the middle of a session. After 6 months, I became a paid ass. engineer, which is really only $650 a MONTH in Chicago (circa 2002).

A year after that, losing a girlfriend in the process, going broke having to move into my own studio apt, and getting burned out working 80 hours a week and not seeing friends, I quit...about one month before I would have been a full engineer. which, still was only about $1200 a month maybe?

So you can do it. But you need a support system, like cheap transportation, cheap living arrangements, and no other time commitments, to get started.

Oh and good health.

[joelpatterson]

you forgot the grindstone. and the nose.

[RefD]

you forgot the grindstone. and the nose.

and the unbreakable ringpiece.

[rwc]

]After 6 months, I became a paid ass. engineer, which is really only $650 a MONTH in Chicago (circa 2002).

A year after that, losing a girlfriend in the process, going broke having to move into my own studio apt, and getting burned out working 80 hours a week and not seeing friends, I quit...about one month before I would have been a full engineer. which, still was only about $1200 a month maybe?

So you can do it. But you need a support system, like cheap transportation, cheap living arrangements, and no other time commitments, to get started.

Oh and good health.

this is key

the most frequent reason I get when I ask a new intern "why are you here/why do you want to do this" is "because I want to love my job, and I can't see doing anything else."

The question is, how much do you identify with your job, and is having a job you like worth more than the life you want? I.E., is having a good job worth it at the expense of everything else?

Something to think about.

[joelpatterson]

you forgot the grindstone. and the nose.

and the unbreakable ringpiece.

And loose shoes, and someone to shine them.

[RefD]

you forgot the grindstone. and the nose.

and the unbreakable ringpiece.

And loose shoes, and someone to shine them.

don't forget the mirrors for attaching to the shoes.

several pairs of good quality wool socks would help with comfort.

[cgarges]

I've been doing it as a career in Chicago (iow NOT New York or Los Angeles) for over fifteen years now.

It's my 11th year getting paid to do it here in Charlotte. Been a full-time freelancer since early 2002 with five years of studio staff jobs before that.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC