Sound Engineering where to start?

dav nagle · 02-10-2008 9:11pm

TowlieMcD wrote: »

Hello everyone, i've been reading through this forum and its been really interesting. I'm 16 and i'm contemplating becoming a sound engineer. It looks to me (from what i've been reading) that its difficult to get a job in this industry. I live been looking at different colleges like Pulse Recordijng College and Sound Training Centre of Ireland. I'm not 100% sure which one of them would be the best. Maybe some of you can enlighten me. it doesn't have to be them either. Whichever college ye feel is up to a high standard. I'm a musician(traditional Irish music) but i'd be more interested into sound engineering in other types of music. Do you need to have certain points from the leaving cert? I have no experience in a recording studio but like music and would love to work in a recording studio or be an audio engineer for video games or something along those lines. Also what is the pay like?:)

I cant advise other than the fact that I have been working from home studio for the last 5 years and in Jan I am going pro so what I'll say is you need to build up experience by getting in touch with venues and asking can you sit in on live gigs and studio sessions. Then get some of your own gear and record people. You would be amazed at how many different things there is to think of especially at first with so many different instruments and expectations. You are a young fella so best go to college and get a degree as back up, you may work in television or radio.

grandslamsmith · 19-01-2010 2:25pm

Ok - that all said - I'll take it a stage further:

I'm 36
Recording all my own material
Thinking about a career change from a solid job paying over 60K a year
Looking at Sound production/engineering
Am I nuts

Ta

Slammer

Seziertisch · 19-01-2010 2:38pm

Yeah.

If you were to get trained and enter the market as a freelance sound engineer there is no guarantee of there being any work for you. The freelance studio/live sound game is real hand to mouth stuff.

If you were to open a studio there would also be nothing guaranteed; you would have to have the cash to keep things afloat at least as long as it took to establish yourself and get some sort of regular clientele, and even then there is no guarantee that you would ever get it up and running and paying for itself. Too many variables to say for sure. How good are your production skills? How good are your people skills? How good is your business sense? What could you offer that isn't already being offered by the many studios in town? etc.

Savman · 19-01-2010 2:44pm

Seziertisch wrote: »

Yeah.

+1

rozwoldo · 19-01-2010 3:00pm

Thought so!

Thanks lads - saved my €4K there!!

Slammer

http://soundcloud.com/grand-slam-smith

PaulBrewer · 19-01-2010 3:11pm

grandslamsmith wrote: »

Ok - that all said - I'll take it a stage further:

I'm 36
Recording all my own material
Thinking about a career change from a solid job paying over 60K a year
Looking at Sound production/engineering
Am I nuts

Ta

Slammer

Depends how attached you are to your lifestyle really . I'd guess the number of engineers earning 60k in Ireland you could count on one hand and maybe half a hand!
If your lifestyle doesn't cost 60k then perhaps youre in a position to fast track yourself by throwing a few grand at a course .
What is a fascinating day in the studio for some guys is hell on earth for others !

If you're very talented you'll do well.

One of the good things about the music biz is it's a meritocracy (mostly!) cream does go to t.... London/LA !

PMI · 19-01-2010 3:18pm

jimi_t wrote: »

Just wanted to bump this again. Anyone?

Hey Jimi........ ME

I did a City & Guilds back in 1991 ish when you had 180 applicants and 10 places in Westminster College and you had to already have a good bit of knowledge going into it but it was to become an engineer... not like today get a title to impress the girls down the pub and be able to be called a producer

I got C&G 182 parts 1,2 & 3 and got into a top london studio and worked with some **** hot producers, writers and engineers but worked my ass off before, during and after the event...

Now I think the colleges are flooded with young guys thinking they can do it, and its gonna be sooooooooo cool...believe me I meet them all the time

I think your right that a city and guilds wouldnt help now at all, but when I was 17-18 and standing in front of the studio managers at interviews for Strongroom, Sarm West and Red Bus it did matter I guess like everything times are a changing

P.S. 400 is expences & drink money....

krd · 19-01-2010 6:56pm

grandslamsmith wrote: »

Ok - that all said - I'll take it a stage further:

I'm 36
Recording all my own material
Thinking about a career change from a solid job paying over 60K a year
Looking at Sound production/engineering
Am I nuts

Ta

Slammer

You are out of your God damn mind.

However - with your resources you should be able to kit yourself out with some nice stuff. And you could probably get private tuition on specifics you need.

I did a short course before - and I learned nothing from it - so I doubled my sum of knowledge.

But there can be a real value in getting someone who knows what they're doing to show you something in a night or few days, that might take you years to stumble on. (It's a real pain in the arse to hit a button with your elbow and realise "Ah, so that's how that's done")

If you're broke - you won't be able afford ****

I would make a brutal engineer. I mess up my own stuff all the time, because I can't hear a simple but crucial mistakes until it's too late.

But if I was earning you're cash - I would hire people to help me. A skilled experienced ear can probably spot and precisely fix something really fast.

PaulBrewer · 19-01-2010 7:02pm

krd wrote: »

You are out of your God damn mind.

However - with your resources you should be able to kit yourself out with some nice stuff. And you could probably get private tuition on specifics you need.

I did a short course before - and I learned nothing from it - so I doubled my sum of knowledge.

But there can be a real value in getting someone who knows what they're doing to show you something in a night or few days, that might take you years to stumble on. (It's a real pain in the arse to hit a button with your elbow and realise "Ah, so that's how that's done")

If you're broke - you won't be able afford ****

I would make a brutal engineer. I mess up my own stuff all the time, because I can't hear a simple but crucial mistakes until it's too late.

But if I was earning you're cash - I would hire people to help me. A skilled experienced ear can probably spot and precisely fix something really fast.

.

krd · 19-01-2010 7:24pm

Seziertisch wrote: »

Yeah.

If you were to get trained and enter the market as a freelance sound engineer there is no guarantee of there being any work for you. The freelance studio/live sound game is real hand to mouth stuff.

If you were to open a studio there would also be nothing guaranteed; you would have to have the cash to keep things afloat at least as long as it took to establish yourself and get some sort of regular clientele, and even then there is no guarantee that you would ever get it up and running and paying for itself. Too many variables to say for sure. How good are your production skills? How good are your people skills? How good is your business sense? What could you offer that isn't already being offered by the many studios in town? etc.

Years ago, I went out with an American audio producer (I was living in the US). But through her I met a whole host of people who were making really good money for doing corporate audio. Voice overs for everything from the AVR for the phone companies, to little bits for corporate training and stuff. But the money was very very good. If you can get in on it - it's a really good living. It's a couple of hundred quid, to a few thousand for producing a few minutes of voice audio. The thing is it's trickier than it sounds. The voice over actors really have to know what they're doing. Voice over is nothing like normal speech - even though it doesn't sound abnormal the specialist voice over actor is doing some tricky things with their voice.

A lot of the people working in Voice over were former music engs and producers. The work just has to be of a high quality. They don't have to worry about having a hit record.

Anyway - At one point they subcontracted to a bigish Dublin company, who have their own studio. The result was atrocious, and the company delivered really late. Noisey hiss through everything and the voice over actors had no idea what they were doing - A serious amateur night production. NO MORE MONEY

There is corporate work out there if you can get in on it. But the original music business really doesn't pay. You'd need a serious hit record before everyone involved could make decent money.

PaulBrewer · 19-01-2010 7:56pm

weedhead wrote: »

I'm 22 working full time and have an ordinary degree in manufacturing engineering but what im doin right now is only on a temporary basis. I have really thought about going back to study, and this course really appeals to me because its something id be really interested in doing. Ive looked at the schools and decided im gion to do the introduction weekend lesson in protools (101) before i make any full time commitment to study. My question is where should i go?

Pulse recording

Poppyhill

Ballyfermot

and another thing. Can i get a grant to easy the pain of college fees for this course? i heard Fas offer one but what would i need to qualify?

so just if i can get a few views to get me in the right direction id really appreciate it. cheers lads !

The nearest one ?!

PT101 is pretty basic and I shouldn't expect the tuition quality is much different at that level.

Best of Luck and have fun!

krd · 19-01-2010 9:29pm

Well, Paul, I seen some amazing stuff.

A guy in the us who had a voice over studio - would occasionally do some music. (More as a favour than anything else)

One of the voice over actors fancied herself as a singer. And he did EP for her.

She came in with a "jazz guitarist" playing a Les Paul for a short session.

They recorded a few takes and left. The girl, although she had a nice voice, couldn't hold a note in a bucket and the guitarist could neither keep time nor keep within any distance of her.

It was recorded through good mikes - through a neve console - through his other stuff - and then he took the files into soundforge - and started clipping away at them - he showed me how he did this, but he did it really fast and couldn't really explain precisely what he was doing. (If you had to do this for the first time, you'd probably take hours/day and be painfully slow. - but he did it incredibly fast). He fixed the tuning problems with soundforge - tweaking the bits like tuning a guitar string - and the timing problems. He also created some kind of midi tempo map in Soundforge.

There was one other step - I think he was splitting the sound files into pieces on a shareware PC sampler - then using a midi track to play them back. And when he put his midi maps together everything would fit. I've no idea how he was doing all of this.

He'd use Protools to finished off.

The three track EP was sold at Starbucks counters across the land and they played it on NPR - American national public radio. He hated it. But he played me the original recordings - showed what he'd done, and she was really, really bad. And so was the guitarist. But the final recording sounded effortless and natural.

And he was doing voice overs - because they paid the bills - really paid well. But music paid nothing by comparison.

I haven't spoken to the guy in years. But if he could show me how he did what he did - a teach me how to do it quickly - it would be one course doing.

eire1 · 22-01-2010 10:53pm

dav nagle wrote: »

+1

This is the truth so help me God

What equipment would you guys suggest? Would a budget of maybe €1000 be enough?

TheBigRedDog · 23-01-2010 10:32pm

Hey guys, I really like this thread! It's very interesting to hear the experienced from both sides!

I'm a 2nd general engineering student and I've been working on a small studio for a good year now. At the moment, I have an 8ch IO(Toneport ux8), a decent computer with Adobe Audition, a good range of ok quality mics and a small treated space. Like a lot of you have encouraged, I've been planning to go on with expanding my gear and experience instead of the academic way. I have a lot of experience from both sides of the spectrum. I'm a gigging drummer/guitarist and I've worked as stage manager and live SE in various (mostly small) events around Dublin. I've mostly used my studio for my band's rehearsal and recordings with the odd singer/songwriter etc. doing a few songs.

I've two questions though,
1. After using my studio until now, would you recommend paying a course or sitting in on other engineers while their working (I don't mind running) for the summer months?
2. Would you recommend spending a lot of money on good gear first, or expand slowly?

James

PaulBrewer · 23-01-2010 11:07pm

TheBigRedDog wrote: »

1. After using my studio until now, would you recommend paying a course or sitting in on other engineers while their working (I don't mind running) for the summer months?
2. Would you recommend spending a lot of money on good gear first, or expand slowly?

The stuff you learn from sitting in with a good engineer is the stuff that ain't in books ....... and in my opinion, the stuff that makes you into an engineer as opposed to a student.

With regard to gear it really depends on your circumstances.

My idea has always been find out what the guys whose work you like and aspire to use and why.
If you're in a position to replicate that, great.

If not then the single most important thing is the ability to hear stuff - and the rooms and monitoring are the first nuts to crack.
The ability to hear what's going on allows you to get the most out of what you have irrespective of it's quality.

TheBigRedDog · 24-01-2010 12:10am

PaulBrewer wrote: »

With regard to gear it really depends on your circumstances.

Well I'm certainly not a rich man! Perhaps I should have phrased the question like so: Would you discourage buying cheaper gear in order to save for the high end?

Eg. I want to buy a preamp now. At the moment, I only have the onboards of the ux8 IO so I was considering upgrading, for example, to either a Presonus Digimax D8 or a Studio Channel?? The D8 having more channels and the St Ch having more knobs

.

PaulBrewer wrote: »

If not then the single most important thing is the ability to hear stuff - and the rooms and monitoring are the first nuts to crack.

I'm working on the acoustics of the rooms at the moment and haven't got studio monitors as of yet. (I've been referencing through a range of sources.) The main problem is the size, which won't be changing anytime soon! I'll start my own thread for the later upgrades but I think some of this is still relevant to the OP and others, it's tough to get it right. I appreciate the help! Cheers for the comments Paul.

i57dwun4yb1pt8 · 24-01-2010 3:37pm

I think before you do anything - look at your goals ;

1/ if you wish to make demos - to use as templates for a true studio / to scratch down ideas for your self or the band / to song write / to teach yourself about studios - dont spend a great deal - you could even stick with headphones to monitor on .
cost you about 1 k or less.

2/ if you wish to create actual recordings that you plan to either release / sell / or use as samples of your songs for publishers - OR use as the basic track to finish working on in a pro studio then I would invest in this strongly - this is your craft and reputation . and id say you are talking approx 5-7 k to get this working at a minimum level.

this means good gear / good room / and a few years hard learning .

oh , and take it from a drummer -stay away from home drum recording
its not worth the time and effort unless you spend a shedload and have 2 years to kill.
best stick with superiour drum templates or by an ekit and SD .
you will learn alot about mixing drums using SD anyway - but miking and recording drums at home is
the ultimate PITA unless you are very very dedicated and have alot of cash to stupidly burn );-).

i dont see a middle ground in this

one good engineering book and the software 'reaper' and its manual will get you a long way to getting a better feel for it.

but quality costs money - no escape from this .

TheBigRedDog · 26-01-2010 1:17am

DaDumTish wrote: »

oh , and take it from a drummer -stay away from home drum recording
its not worth the time and effort unless you spend a shedload and have 2 years to kill.
best stick with superiour drum templates or by an ekit and SD .
you will learn alot about mixing drums using SD anyway - but miking and recording drums at home is
the ultimate PITA unless you are very very dedicated and have alot of cash to stupidly burn );-).

Funny, I'm a drummer too!

I agree with you, I plan on using it for mostly ideas and demo/internet tracks. Between myself, my own band and friends, I'd say we would get quite some use out of it. I've already put about 1k in recording and 2k in instruments etc + whatever anyone else has (incl mics, amps pre's etc). In fairness though, I like the drums I'm getting out of this. I have quite a dead room and 8ch for mics. By no means is it studio stuff but I find it managable to get ok sounds. EQing takes a while! I'm doing some demo's at the moment, I might stick the finished track up for some opinions?
Cheers,
James

Sound Engineering where to start?

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