Whats your opinion on recording connection

ORIGINAL: yoone


So theres a few companies out there where you can pay for an apprenticeships in studios, I would like a few of the old guys opinions on these paid apprenticeships

Pretty good...for the studio.

yeah recording connection seems somewhat unique considering the costs. you actually get to meet with the studio before you pay a cent. YEah and school is way out of the question, I refuse school and I just dont have the attention span, plus I'm starting to get old. turning 30 this year, so I just making a some subtle career changes in the next year, following a ten year passion of recording music and producing techno music. Little late to the game, but I aint in know hurry because my beats are sick anyway. Plus I'm living in Vegas right now, and truthfully there isnt cr*p. Just a bunch of people carrying about themselves. Most of the studios are pretty amateurs, making my set-up look tight. I'm moving to Seattle in 8 months so I figure then I will take action.

ORIGINAL: yoone



I'm moving to Seattle in 8 months so I figure then I will take action.

yeah, there's lots of great studio's in seattle. if i had done the recording connection thing, i was going to try for bad animals. my old guitar player went to the art institute in seattle and interned at ironwood studios.
seattle's nice, and the weather ain't as bad as everybody says. just bring lots of money for rent if your going to live in king county. i live south in pierce county, and properties aren't as lofty as seattle. and in a day trip you could see the desert, go skiing, hiking, boating, ferry to islands, climb mountains, go to canada, the pacific ocean, oregon, idaho, explore caves, volcanoes, glaciers, and whatever else if you like outdoors. if not, you can always stay home and play with sonar. the northwest is good for that too!

we get a lot of "work experience" kids, and college students studying "music tech" and so on in the studio.
To be honest, most of them only seem to want to be engineers because they think it's a 'cool' job.

To date, none of them has been willing to spend an entire day's long session in the studio, although they usually arrive before the engineer, the producer, and the band, as if to show some kind of hard-working ethos.
Where are they at 2am, after 14 hours behind the desk though?

Also, very, very few are willing to take part in general studio work. I offer them opportunities to assist in setting up mics, where I would gladly show them how I do it, and talk them through the various options, and why I have chosen (personally) to use the given method, but they don't seem interested.
I even offer them to 'take the reigns' for a bit, and run the tracking on RADAR (blindingly simple machine to use). None seem interested.

What they DO want to do is talk, talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk and talk some more. Usually about
"how much did this desk cost?"
"how much did your 1176s cost?"
"how do you know your way around all this stuff, especially the patchfield?"
"ever worked with someone famous, like Green Day?" (dude, we're in fricking WALES! NO, NO, NO! Green day, Mettalica and U2 don't come here!!)
"Have you ever heard (insert a band so obscure even the late, great, John Peel would never in a million years have come across)"
(repeat the above question about various other bands, for 8 hours)
"you don't have to record classical/pop/country stuff if you don't like it though, do you?"
and the ever ubiquitous
"how many buttons are on this desk?"

Which is obviously a bloody nuisance when you're trying to get a sound, or trying to diagnose a hiss or a hum.

We did actually have one guy offer to set up the drum mics, because he'd been micing up drums for PAs for a few years, and he's been doing it in college for three years.
I showed him the mics I generally use, and where we keep all the others, and gave him free reign to use whatever he fancied - even if just to find out what results they give (we had no pressure of time, so we could experiment a bit).
He said
"cool, no problem, you guys have a break, and I'll get this sorted out"

I came back 30 minutes later, and he'd done nothing. finally admiting that he'd never actually miced anything but vocals before.
If only he'd been HONEST, I could have spent time with him TEACHING him stuff.

I'd LOVE it if we got someone in who's interested, but most just seem to want to be famous (go figure!)

A lot of times a studio won't consider hiring until you have an internship under your belt. Even if you have certification from a school, the producer often wants to know that you have had real world experience and know how to work the equipment and more importantly, are able to trubleshoot something when it goes wrong.

sounds like you have some industrious energy

go for it! and good luck

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ooble, thanks for the laughs, that was a stellar diatribe-- and therapeudic I'm guessing
-JD

If you are serious I'd take the $7,000 and move to Wales. and work for Odle. If I weren't older than dirt myself (and have a wife that would shoot me with my own gun) I apprentice in Wales myself. Not staying until 2 am? Man, we use to do that for fun. Just what the hell are those kids doing anyway that is more important than recording?

Just how far north can one go in Wales, anyway before you run into the sea again?

Well with all the talk about SSL boards, that all the interns want to see and work with. No one wants to wrap mic cables, or set up mic stands. They don't want to move the monitors for the musicians and polish drum kit cymbols anymore, (I hated that too) but your learn a thing or two while doeing these thigs. Now it's the fast way they seek without the learning process.


They say: Gimme some loops and ProTools LE and I got a beat. SORRY YOUNGSTER, YOU DON'T HAVE ANYTHING BUT NOISE ON YOUR COMPUTER!

Peace