Sound Recording proffesionally

[Icculus]

I am an 18 year old musician who is interested in Sound Recording/Engineering, and would like some advise from the older and wiser. I have been playing music for 6 years, and messing around with recording for about a year. I have been getting basics down via a TASCAM PORTASTUDIO M/424 MKIII, some Shure SM57's, ACID 3.0 software, and a CD burner. I have a couple guitars, a bass, some keyboards, 2 drumsets, a lot of percussion and a whole bunch of other instruments (A lot to record with.) I will be attending an art school (majoring in Sound Recording) after I graduate high school in 2 weeks, and just wanted to know what steps I should take next to prepare for my future. I have been reading books to get some of the technical terminology down, and my goal is to start working/training at a local Chicago studio, and then after I get my Bachelor in Recording, moving somewhere to pursue a proffesional career out of this. Does anyone have any advise/people I could talk to regarding a similar path? Thanks for reading this post, and I sorry for not including any helpful gear reviews or technical-recording humor... maybe some day. Peace. Mularz1@juno.com

[brian beattie]

sounds like you're doing it already. You're at a big advantage, having and playing those instruments. One secret behind a good recording is always a good musical arrangement, so it sounds like you are training your ears to hear and understand those instrument's roles in music, and their place in music you like. so just keep recording, and cross referencing your recordings with recordings you like. then do it again and agin, bla bla bla. Keep being intuitive about what how sounds and music effect you emotionally. If you practice and keep learning about sounds and arrangements and use your emotional antennae when you hear music, you can't go wrong.
hope that all's not too elementary sounding. It's the first thing I thought of.
brian

[eeldip]

and browse this board. tons of info here.

also homerecording.org is decent.

my general advice: dont buy anything. dont think of recording as a big shopping spree.

get someone who knows a little more than you do to come over and show you how they work. you will learn a ton from that.

[Professor]

Well you are definitely in a good position so far and I think if you stay on course you should do alright. Since I work as the recording engineer for a School of Music, and have been both a music performance major and a recording grad student, I hope you'll take this advice to heart.
1. Study as much music as recording. Hopefully your school will require you to take some music theory, counterpoint, music history, arranging, etc. If they don't require it, take it anyway. If they don't offer it, find someplace that does. You should explore the world of electronics music, composition and multi-media because they will all help you develop your musical sensibility and give you the musical vocabulary to be a great engineer.
2. Join the Audio Engineering Society and start attending conventions and conferences and reading the journals. The articles may be over your head when you first start but eventually they will fall into place. This year's AES journal article is next year's great new piece of gear. If you haven't found it already, visit www.aes.org and read some of the links in the education page. They also have a listing of every recording program in the world so you can see how they stack up against each other.
3. Experience is 1000 times more important than any degree you might receive. The degree opens the door for you but the experience you carry in with you is what wins the job. You are already recording on your own and you own some gear - most seniors at recording colleges haven't made it that far. They do maybe two recordings over their 4-year stay and have no respect for the school's equipment. You want to get involved right away when you get to school. Find the hot shot older engineers and ask to sit in as an observer or assistant on their sessions. As soon as you can start booking studio time, start bringing in folks to record - but don't go straight for the big rock bands, use the time to study. I once spent several recording sessions recording just solo piano with about ten different microphone arrangements just to learn their sonic differences - and when I handed in the project for a grade and the teacher wanted to hold on to it so other folks could study the recordings. Oh, and the AES has a recording competition for student engineers at every convention and they recently started awarding prizes like microphones, speakers, headphones, etc. - and not cheap crap, JBL, Neumann, & Sennheiser donate the prizes for different catagories.
4. Experience is 2000 times more important than any thing else. Get out and experience other aspects of audio. Visit lots of studios in Chicago, and not just the rock and roll ones. Check out the TV studios, the radio stations, the big 'broadway' type theaters, the voice over commercial studios, the big and little clubs that run live sound, the hi-fi stereo shops, everything that is audio related. Try to work for a little bit in the campus radio station, or run live sound for bar bands a few times. I was lucky enough to create a few soundtracks for short student films at school as well as sound and music scores for multi-media performance art pieces. I also worked as a radio DJ and did a bit of theater sound design for a couple of plays. All of this stuff helps out when you start working as a professional engineer.

I guess I can sum it up by saying don't limit yourself before you even start your career. You may well end up being a rock and roll recording engineer at a major studio, but that is a tough gig to land, especially if that is all you know. But if you are equally comfortable designing sound effects for theater, film or video games, recording live classical concerts or rock and roll studio albums, running sound for small jazz combos or huge rock concerts, or recording whatever odd ball instrument might come through the door you suddenly become a very marketable and in-demand product and you will hit the ground running.

Oh and don't hesitate to ask questions, that is how we learn answers.

-Jeremy