Dear Max, should I go to recording school?




For the second time in 2 months, I've been asked about recording schools, specifically; Full Sail. Both times from girls, so I thought I'd post my thoughts here, just in case anyone else is trying to decide between culinary school, the military or a lifetime of rock and roll bliss.

First off, remember this is only my take on it, so please go take a lick off your mental salt block. I personally wouldn't go to recording school, but that's not to say that Full Sail grads don't go on to have great careers. They sure make that point in their full page ads, which are very compelling. As a teenager, I dreamed of Full Sail too; a mythical place filled with lovely technology where the "magic" happens and real records are made during class! Hogwarts for audio geeks.

What makes me nervous about recording schools is that it reminds me of when I interviewed to be a modeling agent a long time ago at an agency in chicago. After a little investigation, it became apparent that while the agency had a couple actual clients, the bulk of the income was from convincing young girls to sign up and pay a lot of money, ostensibly for head shots and such. The job of the "agent" was actually a sales pitch, more of a sleazy song and dance about dreams, and for $750 you sold the girl a lottery ticket. I didn't take the job, purely on principal or maybe cause they didn't offer it to me. I'm glad I didn't get it though. I couldn't think of a worse job for someone who gets tongue-tied talking to pretty girls.

Now I'm not saying that recording schools are like that modeling agency, what I am saying is that I'm seeing people buy into recording school, because at the end of that expensive rainbow there's a dream. A dream of rock and roll bliss and an exciting new life, one far away from the same old same old dreary reality.. recording school, take me away!

So let's have a little reality check.

The record business is hard work and very competitive. Think of it as the boston marathon. Anyone is capable of finishing it, but you'd better really like running. I'm not particularly naturally talented, but I was very focused and determined. When I got started in recording, I would work from 8AM till midnight as a second engineer/gofer/indentured servant. I didn't get paid for this, I did it for the privilege of studio time. Starting at midnight I would work by myself in this creepy old converted masonic temple until 4AM, when I would crash on the couch and dream of a haunted studio. At 8 I'd wake up and start all over again. But I loved it. Every minute.

So the important thing is to figure out if you love this first. If you're not sure and you want to go to school, (which I think is in general a good thing) go to a normal school, major in communications and take classes in video, audio, art, photography, music or whatever strikes your fancy. You'll get exposed to a whole range of things. As an additional bonus, when you graduate you'll have a degree that can be used anywhere, should you not start out in recording. I didn't, I got started in video after calls to the 50 studios in the chicagoland area resulted in nothing.. not even an internship. I couldn't work for free. I was a chinese kid trying to get into a sweatshop.

If you think you might like recording, here's what I suggest.

Volunteer at church or at your school. Anywhere there's a board and an opportunity. Intern. Tag along other sound guys. Help with concert load out crews. If you can afford it, put together a small recording rig and record local bands. For about $1300 you can get a really nice little rig based on a mac mini, an mbox 2, a rode nt1a mic and some grado sr60 headphones. If you have a computer already, you can get in for less than $1000. Some digital all in one units are as low as $300. Try to get involved in some way. If you start messing with it and you find that you don't come up for air till 12 hours later, than there's a good chance that you like it. Keep doing that and eventually you'll get better at it. If you're agressive about volunteering, you'll end up somewhere. When I started out, I wasn't in the right place at the right time - I was everywhere, all the time. There was a point when I was volunteering almost 70 hours a week doing everything from video and audio to graphics for free. I loved it. I learned a ton. If you look at my tax returns though, there's almost 5 years where I made less than $5000 a year. I never did it for the money, it was just a nice bonus when it came later.

So will you get a first class education at recording school? It's quite possible you will. But on the other hand, if your goal is to learn recording there's a good chance that you're also quite capable of teaching yourself. Most of the people I know in the business taught themselves and they've worked on records from Johnny Lang, Hilary Duff, India Arie and Relient K to name just a few... This isn't like being a doctor or a lawyer, you don't need a degree. Thankfully, you do need to go to school to do neurosurgery, if you didn't, I think Miss Cleo would have been a surgeon: "looks like there's some bad spirits that need to get out of jah brain mon"

Do I want you to go for your dreams? yes! totally. I just think that like everything else, you should try it in stages and spending a big huge hunk of change to go to recording school is not a baby step. It's like buying a horse because you want to try polo. If you are going to spend all that money going to recording school, at least first spend some time making sure that it's really what you want. Most people change majors in school and going to recording school is pretty much choosing that up front, there's no switching to massage therapy midway. Not unless you want to lose all that tuition and as an asian, I hate to see you lose money. So spend some time learning on your own, you might discover that you learn just fine, all by yourself.

chase your dreams!
max
No disrespect intended to Hogwarts or Full Sail. Just my $0.02
thanks for the edits and support Jess. I think I'm writing the blog for you these days.

Posted: Tue - November 1, 2005 at 01:33 AM          

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