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[jfrigo]

Bob Olhsson wrote on Thu, 18 November 2004 12:35

I know highly respected recording engineers who have gone out of their way to keep their engineering degrees from becoming common knowledge.

That's just as sad as the other extreme - coming out of your 9 month certificate program thinking you deserve a seat in the big chair.

How did it become "uncool" to study one's craft? How has being knowledgable become seen as a liability? That's crazy. Sure, some hide lack of creative talent behind big technical words, but that's a different story.

Like musicianship, once you have the technical chops under hand as second nature, you can stop thinking about it and just concentrate on the creativity. What your mind conceives, your hands can create. In production and engineering, if you have the technical chops, you can create what you hear in your head without interrupting your creative flow to try to figure out a way to half-ass your way through the idea.

There are guys who survive on half the skill, but having both the creative and technical is best.

[midiman123]

If you hire a studio with a professional engineer, you expect the guy:

- to be able to handle, and know all the technical stuff regarding that studios equipment.
-You also expect him to be skilled in micing(drums, percc, piano etc.)

-And to come up with technical solutions that benefit the project..
and so on, and so on....

Now, this needs to be a pretty skilled person, And my experience(its not that  much:-) is that when dealing with engineers that have some form of engineer school degree as the prime background, they often don't have "it".
They tend to tell you" you cant do that cos the freq 20- to..."etc
And things go pretty slow

But when working with souls that have a broad practical background, and have figured things out for them self, well.....they work fast, and urge you to try new things out etc etc...

My point being is that people with the right drive, i guess whether they have gone to engineer school or not, gets to "know the secrets" of being a professional engineer cos they are consumed by it...

A diploma might impress some people, but you need engineers that can deliver..

Having said that, I know a guy I studied with in L.A in the early 90 s, who DID study to become an engineer.
He has mixed & engineered with some big artists, and this summer he mixed a number one, hit record across the globe, with a new U.S band.

Oh, but he also worked his ass off in "The Village" in L.A eight days a week besides going to school....

KK

[BrettB]

Sultan Sushkin wrote on Wed, 17 November 2004 06:06

I'm a student (2nd year) Producer at the conservatory of Ghent (Belgium) It's a 5 year course and only 15 students are alowed every year. We get everything you can possibly imagine: Recordingtechniques in our own fully professional studio, solfege, harmony, history, MIDI, even close harmony singing. So we get the musical and the technical background. I had musical education before this and this is a very hard course, at a very high level. The only remark: you are a producer or not, nobody can fully teach you that art. Different is S.E;  you just have know how a studio works.

Sultan, I finished that course this year!
Good luck with  your studies!

[BrettB]

PookyNMR wrote on Wed, 17 November 2004 16:11

Sultan Sushkin wrote on Tue, 16 November 2004 23:06 The only remark: you are a producer or not, nobody can fully teach you that art. In my opinion a producer needs to be educated in: -musical arranging and composition -communication skills (and the ability to use proper musical and technical terminology) -basic understanding of the recording process My experience has been that if any of those elements are missing it can get real difficult really fast for everyone involved. Nathan

these parts are all integrated in that producers course;)

Being a producer is also that comes with experience, and in a small place like Belgium it isn't easy to get much opportunities, so you have to fight for every little job you can take when you're starting of.

I often wonder that things are different in the UK and the US.  After all, the music that is recorded there always has a bigger audience.  Not only theier own population is bigger, the international music market is still mostly taken by products of the English speaking countries.

[Harland]

This is a great discussion. From my perspective, nothing needs to be done as far as establishing a standard for audio engineering. It's just become the term for the guy who does the recording and who knows how to use the gear to a greater or lesser extent.  I imagine that early audio engineers were electrical engineers first, with or without degrees, cause somebody had to come up with all this gear we love to play with. But the game is Art, and you don't have to know the inner workings of your tools in order to produce art with them. That being said, more knowledge is better than less in practically every case, so don't eschew it. I just feel that art flowers in freedom and innovation and won't be served by more bureaucracy and officialdom.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

The producer and artists don't need to know how the gear works.. but the engineer does.. that's what he's paid for -- making sure everything works, is aligned right, and if something breaks he should be able to work around it -- and also have good ears.  A recording engineer should be able to read both a score and a schematic.

Rail

[ted nightshade]

Harland wrote on Tue, 23 November 2004 16:34

I just feel that art flowers in freedom and innovation and won't be served by more bureaucracy and officialdom.

Nice. I agree.

Plus, you can prove that it sounds good on paper, but that don't make it so.

[jfrigo]

midiman123 wrote on Tue, 23 November 2004 11:27

My point being is that people with the right drive, i guess whether they have gone to engineer school or not, gets to "know the secrets" of being a professional engineer cos they are consumed by it... A diploma might impress some people, but you need engineers that can deliver..

I need an engineer that understands gain staging, impedance mismatches, grounding and other things because the resulting noise, hum, buzz, and distortion (unintentionally added) will adversely affect my recording. Whether he/she learned these things in school or as an intern I don't much care. I'd prefer somebody with all the practical knowledge you speak of, made all the more potent with a healthy understanding of the relevant technical issues.

School alone won't do it by a longshot, but it's a good foundation on which to build the vitally important practical experience. And what, you've never seen somebody who went to school be consumed with passion for their field? I surely have. The guys with the passion and drive rise to the top and schooling doesn't breed it out of them. It just gives them more tools to work with. It's the duds who sink, no matter how much time they've spent in school, or assisting for great engineers. A dud is a dud is a dud. The best assistants I've worked with have both bases covered.

[midiman123]

jfrigo wrote on Wed, 24 November 2004 06:50

midiman123 wrote on Tue, 23 November 2004 11:27 My point being is that people with the right drive, i guess whether they have gone to engineer school or not, gets to "know the secrets" of being a professional engineer cos they are consumed by it... A diploma might impress some people, but you need engineers that can deliver.. I need an engineer that understands gain staging, impedance mismatches, grounding and other things because the resulting noise, hum, buzz, and distortion (unintentionally added) will adversely affect my recording. Whether he/she learned these things in school or as an intern I don't much care. I'd prefer somebody with all the practical knowledge you speak of, made all the more potent with a healthy understanding of the relevant technical issues. School alone won't do it by a longshot, but it's a good foundation on which to build the vitally important practical experience. And what, you've never seen somebody who went to school be consumed with passion for their field? I surely have. The guys with the passion and drive rise to the top and schooling doesn't breed it out of them. It just gives them more tools to work with. It's the duds who sink, no matter how much time they've spent in school, or assisting for great engineers. A dud is a dud is a dud. The best assistants I've worked with have both bases covered.

I completely agree with you...
KK

[Ryan A. Mills]

Why not follow the simple rule of hiring people who do a job well to do the job you need done, regardless of where or how they learned how to do it.

[recorderman]