Article: Things I've been learning while at school

Good post and informative... More or less it's all true, but I can tell it was written by a person that views the trade in a cynical manner... There are many facets to this industry that can be mastered and catered to the distinct sounds. I believe it is in the mind's eye of the person recording. Essentialy, and without prejudice as you wrote, I could record an A+ industry quality fully produced mastered and rendered project for pennies in comparison to the elitist market that is the sound gear world. It's a given that u can't use the cables that came with your first Affinity Squire for recording or you might get undesirable noise... I understand stating the obvious for truly green starters, however recorded music at some point is converted or created in digital form.. The study of sound waves and how to manipulate these waves are the essence of the recording, coupled with mankind's desire to create and express... So I say nay folks! I don't care if you start out with FL Studio and record with a USB mic into your phone... You are still "producing" what you intended to produce. If you follow the teachings of this person you will slave in another person's "sweatshop studio" and never realizing the freedom and education that comes from learning.. Start with music theory and composure.. Learn how to fully understand why notes and melodies that turn into ensembles can change everything prior to plugging in your first DAW, VST, VSTi, et al... I was educated in music and hold a masters. I can tell the true value of education at his institution by merely stumbling over his punctuation, misuse of contractions, improper subject-verb agreements, and nomenclature... Read a book. Stop discouraging those poor souls that are beginning. You just want to limit the number of fish in the job pool.
 
SVsoul said:
Good post and informative... More or less it's all true, but I can tell it was written by a person that views the trade in a cynical manner... There are many facets to this industry that can be mastered and catered to the distinct sounds. I believe it is in the mind's eye of the person recording. Essentialy, and without prejudice as you wrote, I could record an A+ industry quality fully produced mastered and rendered project for pennies in comparison to the elitist market that is the sound gear world. It's a given that u can't use the cables that came with your first Affinity Squire for recording or you might get undesirable noise... I understand stating the obvious for truly green starters, however recorded music at some point is converted or created in digital form.. The study of sound waves and how to manipulate these waves are the essence of the recording, coupled with mankind's desire to create and express... So I say nay folks! I don't care if you start out with FL Studio and record with a USB mic into your phone... You are still "producing" what you intended to produce. If you follow the teachings of this person you will slave in another person's "sweatshop studio" and never realizing the freedom and education that comes from learning.. Start with music theory and composure.. Learn how to fully understand why notes and melodies that turn into ensembles can change everything prior to plugging in your first DAW, VST, VSTi, et al... I was educated in music and hold a masters. I can tell the true value of education at his institution by merely stumbling over his punctuation, misuse of contractions, improper subject-verb agreements, and nomenclature... Read a book. Stop discouraging those poor souls that are beginning. You just want to limit the number of fish in the job pool.
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I hold a bachelors degree from FIU University. I am highly educated. This was intended to be a rant i didn't beed to be grammatically correct. Of course one could learn everything i learned at school without school but there is no way it could be learned by yourself. Some information i learned about the SSL can not be learned by reading a manual. When I referenced that one not being a producer, I meant that one is not a producer until they have album credits. It is very disrespectful to people like Quincy jones to say your a producer if you don't even have credits. The whole industry is based off credits. In fact majority of people on this site who say they are producers are in fact song writers. More often then not the engineer is the producer by default. If you are not in the studio overseeing the performance of the project, record, or single you are not the producer regardless of what the credits say. If you get publishing, which hip hop producers do that means you are a song writer. Producers get points on an album song writers get pub.
 
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Awesome advice I have been takin my audio eng. For ..going on three months congrat.s to u and I love this forum ..peace love and rock n roll

---------- Post added at 11:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:12 AM ----------

Love rule 5 me toooo.. Quincy Jones♡♥♡
 
Man, thanks for sharing that. I didn't go to school for any kind of audio work but always wish I had. Hearing stories about what actually goes on is like being told about hogwarts lol
 
Thx for the info, learned alot, but i need to comment on this one. Its typical for schools like SAE to let you trow away everything you know, make you feel like a pathetic fool, and then accept everything they say. To myself I'm a producer with a home studio, I love to play music and let people dance. Ok my sound is not top notch but someday, I'm sure I will be able to pay other people to do the mixing for me(or have a label do it for me). Ok i don't have the ambition to work in a "elite studio" but I will never pay 10000 $ for a school. If you really want something in life, you will learn how to do it and eventually reach it. I think the most important goal for a music producer/artist, is to create something that is personal and ingenius in its own way, something you love. And this you dont learn in school. So going to this school doesn't automaticly make you a successfull producer, engineer or whatever. It takes more than that. Whats the word again? oh yeah : it takes passion :)
 
There is a lot of valuable insight here. I'm new to the "beat making," game. I am coming from absolutely no formal training. Everything I have learned, I have learned on my own. I will definitely apply what I gathered from this piece.
 
Loved the post man. Helped me to understand some things and keep it up man. Thank you!
 
Some of the advice is OK, but I think the rules of the game have changed. a lot of mics and especially audio interfaces have gotten so much better in the last years , I recommend checking out therecordingrevolution.com , the guy who runs that blog has the exact opposite ideology and he is a professional earning a living recording and mixing other people's music.

In fact he addresses a lot of the subjects mentioned, about how he actually worked at an " elite studio" but didn't enjoy it, he didn't even get paid and he also encourages people to record and produce with the most basic equipment like studio headphones, audio interfaces, midi controllers,etc.

In fact he mentioned Dave Pensado, he actually would agree with the more modern way of thinking, he always talks about how today we have the best music ever because of the democratization of the craft.
 
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