I know what I want to do, but don't know how to get there.

December 3, 2008 8:02 PM

What major should I pursue and what college should I attend if I want to get into live sound/sound recording?

I have always had a great love for live/recorded sound. I have done a good bit of work with it just through my church. For the past few years I have really felt led to a career involving media arts/sound. However, I haven't really been able to find much information on what type of education is best for this.

Right now I'm accepted with close to a full ride to Texas A&M. My declared major is Mechanical Engineering. I like physics, calculus, etc. but my ultimate goal in life isn't to be an engineer. It is to run a recording studio or be over sound/video production for live concerts at a large venue.

Is an mech e degree at TAMU a good fit? Or should I be looking elsewhere. Affordable is good, I'm a National Merit Semi-Finalist if that helps.

Thanks for any insight you may have.

posted by nokry56 to education (18 comments total)

I went to the University of Michigan and knew some kids who majored in Performing Arts Technology at the School of Music who were interested in live and recorded sound. One of them transferred from engineering after his freshman year.

It's not exactly affordable for an out of state student, although if you're a National Merit Semi-Finalist, you'd probably be admitted.
posted by prozach1576 at 8:10 PM on December 3, 2008

I know that Drexel has a very good music industry program. They are the only college with their own record label and I believe they have their own recording studio as well. It might be worth checking out.
posted by god particle at 9:13 PM on December 3, 2008

Electrical engineering will give you an excellent technical grounding. I guess try to leaven it with some music theory and business courses, if you can.
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 10:00 PM on December 3, 2008

If you could switch over to EE it might make perfect sense to stay with A&M. Getting free financial aid these days is hard to come by. The EE I took in conjunction with my CS&E degree was perfectly useful for general electrical issues.

The closest I've been to Texas is New Orleans but I see that College Station is pretty close to Austin, which I gather is the live music capital of the region.

Having a full ride means you will have more money/time to devote to learning the craft. Search for engineering gigs at the campus radio station and feel free to take other classes offered by A&M that correlate with your career interests, like accounting etc.

Technology is changing pretty fast so who knows what will be industry practice 5 years from now . . . focusing on fundamentals for now is my advice.
posted by troy at 10:02 PM on December 3, 2008

These programs are often housed in music programs, such as the music industry program at the University of Memphis*. There are some in communication programs, such as the audio production program at my undergrad alma mater, Webster University or at Emerson College.

Quick googling turns up that the University of Colorado at Denver's College of Arts and Media also has a student-run record label (like Drexel) so there may be others.

The key do doing this work is that you need a program with lots of hands-on practical instruction in actual recording, which I would not guess is what you will get in your current degree program. Unfortunately I can't really think of any programs in Texas like this off the top of my head. The RTF program at UT Austin is much more focused on film.

* I currently work at the University of Memphis, but in another department. Memail me if you're at all interested in Webster.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 10:05 PM on December 3, 2008

Sorry to disagree with people, but I know people who are professional live sound/recording engineers, and I can't for the life of me see how an electrical engineering degree would be at all useful. In a good recording program you will learn some basic theory about psychoacoustics and circuit flow logic, but I don't think they teach mic placement and recording techniques, music mixing, audio editing, or how to properly wrap mic cables in EE programs (but please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Those skills are critical if you intend to pursue a career as a recording engineer.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 10:14 PM on December 3, 2008

You should consider physics if you're smart enough.

A strong EE or ME program won't leave you many free electives, but physics will usually give you plenty for business, music, and EE courses, and physics lets you really learn more about sound, optics, electricity, etc. A physics major also gets more "oh, he's smart" respect than an EE or ME assuming you're grades can back it up (and far more than any business or music major even without the grades).

A physics major doesn't guarantee prospective employers that you're dedicated to their field. You must prove that yourself by knowing the industry and having good grades in music theory. I'm sure they'll hire a physics major with good grades an electives in music theory, (hard) accounting, and EE before any specialized music industry program major.

But you must learn to enjoy calculous. :)
posted by jeffburdges at 11:35 PM on December 3, 2008

and I can't for the life of me see how an electrical engineering degree would be at all useful

not useful for the practice of being a recording engineer, but for the development of being a capable and intelligent person who understands the physics of electronics.

Sorta give a man a fish or teach a man to fish thing.

My point was that if you have a full ride or close to it, that's awesome because it opens up time & money to pursue recording engineering on the side.

Another way to look at it is comparing student wages ($8/hr) and one's financial assistance ($8000/yr or more, right?). 1000 hrs a year is 20 hours a week opened up to this interest.

So the question becomes what can the poster study at A&M. IMO EE has a strong math and physics component which is universally useful, plus also a physical design element which is also directly applicable to the electronics of sound recording. EE majors know what caps and resistors and amps are at a very useful level.
posted by troy at 12:04 AM on December 4, 2008

While not required, engineering and circuit design are fantastic skills for any sound engineer, especially when things break. I know a couple recording guys who've gone on to study EE.

Room acoustics are great to learn about but besides a few handy do's and don'ts it becomes a bit esoteric. I find myself thinking more and more about the mechanics of the instruments, mics, and front-end gear. Psycho-acoustics is fascinating, but isn't always concerned with what sounds good.

You may want to consider the school's fine arts programs. Working with faculty and other students on several different types of productions (movies, performance, radio, etc.) will be the most enriching experiences you will have. Media is a social business.

I did the sound recording program at the DePaul School of Music. It's well funded so you get your hands on some hot gear. It's also very small which means lots of one on one time with your professors. Also you are surrounded by musicians and digital media students who don't know much about sound. Entrance requires a musical audition and you didn't specify if you play so it may not fit your situation.
posted by dagosto at 1:11 AM on December 4, 2008

Electrical engineering will give you an excellent technical grounding.

And it will steal most of your time and quite possibly suck some of your soul out. Engineering degrees are often demanding not only intellectually, but in the sheer number of credits they require. It is not uncommon for people to take five years on an engineering degree alone. This isn't to say you couldn't do it, you sound like you like the basic things involved in engineering, and some people have the drive to double major in engineering and something else. Just appreciate the challenge before you plan this route.

If you're going to pick a technical/sciences degree, I'd second physics as a choice. It's equally intellectually challenging (some might say more so), but the degree is probably a shorter course of study, and also still very relevant -- possibly more so, given that you'd get acoustics as well as basic circuits. My personal point of view is also that physics coursework is a little less of a grind, and there's a little more poetry to the discipline.

Checking out the music program course listings at A&M seems to reveal they've got classes titled Music and Technology, Sound Recording, Electronic Composition, and Music and Sound for Media. That's not a bad list, and you might be well served by a music major with those classes (or a minor plus those classes, with something like physics as a major). However, it's also a shorter list than you might find at some universities with programs more focused on this -- the school I went to had a three course sequence terminating in repeating practicum for sound recording alone, plus two audio electronics classes and the relevant composition, media, and songwriting classes.

I think, though, that while music and electronics and physics will give you a good grounding, it's hard to overemphasize that doing sound or recording is probably more of an art than a science. The science can really help -- and so can really understanding music thoroughly -- but to get good, you need to do what most good artists do, and that's practice for hundreds and thousands of hours.

Think about why people will eventually be paying your studio: to make their music sound good. Not just good, but better than they can make it sound themselves with increasingly affordable and usable home technology (and, as good as the other studios around, but more affordably). That's what you need to start practicing.

This means you either need use of someone else's gear you can practice with (possibly A&M's if they let you schedule time, or maybe a friend, or a local studio you might work out an agreement with) or you need to buy some modest gear and maybe get a little space and start doing recording/production with anybody who's interested. Do it for free until you produce work that's noticably better than what average skilled Garage Band user could be doing at home. Then start charging a bit (but start low). If you can sustain demand for your services at a price that works for you, then congratulations. You own a recording studio.

I've seen a guy from Pleasant Grove Utah take that path and ride it to the point where he's doing stuff for Nelly Furtado, Seal, and Justin Timberlake. I don't know what he studied in college. I do know he's put thousands of hours into recording his own projects and those of a lot of locals since the mid 90s. I don't think anyone cares about his degree. His work is good.

This is why I'd recommend against a time-intensive major. You'll need to really be putting time into practicing this stuff. If you're not sure about that and you really would like an educational program that integrates this and reinforces it, you might want to look at a school that has a real focus on this, especially ones with repeating practicum coursework (I know another guy from Utah Valley who took the premium route here and went to USC and it's worked pretty well for him). Or perhaps some of the vocational programs (something like maybe Arizona's Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences?).
posted by weston at 1:33 AM on December 4, 2008

I am scratching my head as to why nobody has mention specific sound or audio engineering degrees. This is the route taken by friends, here in the UK, pursuing this career. The Audio Engineering Society has a directory of courses.
posted by tallus at 3:24 AM on December 4, 2008

middle tennessee state university has one of the best recording industry majors in the country (access to the studios in nashville, etc etc). belmont university, also in nashville, also has a good music business program.
posted by thinkingwoman at 4:32 AM on December 4, 2008

I have no recommendations on degrees, but my ex has done live sound for Disney and Universal Studios, touring Broadway shows, NYC based Broadway shows and the Public Theater without a degree at all. He got started by working with the theater department on his college campus the one semester he attended college. So regardless of what you major in, make sure you're spending time and making connections in the theater department as well as the radio station, as suggested above.
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 6:30 AM on December 4, 2008

I received a two-year degree in audio/visual engineering from Ferris State University in Michigan and learned quite a bit regarding acoustics, outboard gear, etc. I also seem to recall a school specifically for audio engineering in California, but google is showing me nothing. Though, this was in the eighties.
posted by peewinkle at 6:58 AM on December 4, 2008

You need to look at the Texas A&M course catalog for various degrees, noting the offered electives and interesting classes.

Texas A&M's BA in Physics offers about 1 full year of free-ish electives, almost surely more than any other serious degree, and most required math & physics courses seem relevant (not sure about quantum mechanics, but you'd enjoy that one).

p.s. Math often has more structure in the electives, like requiring they be "technical" electives, but you might read the math major rules too.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:46 AM on December 4, 2008

Congratulations on your scholarship! I can't necessarily give you input in terms of your choice of program, but what I would suggest is getting as much hands-on experience in as many settings as possible. I started off doing live sound in a situation that was largely volunteer, and absolutely loved it. When I began working in a situation where people's reputations and money were at stake, I loved it a whole lot less.

You say that you've been doing sound through church...are you prepared to do sound for someone who might be drunk and belligerent? (I'm assuming that no one is drunk and belligerent at your church.) Who might berate you from the stage? Many musicians value the skill and knowledge of a good engineer; there are some who will treat you as little more than their personal audio chimp. Plenty of engineers are unfazed by the chimp treatment, as you may be.

I say this not to scare you away from a career in audio engineering. Trust me--I understand how getting the mix right can take your breath away--but before you put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, you might consider spending time getting as much hands-on experience as you can.

All the best of luck to you. Feel free to PM me.
posted by corey flood at 10:16 AM on December 4, 2008

Full Sail University (prev. Full Sail Real World Education) has supposedly "real world" type programs in recording and the industry.
posted by those are my balloons at 3:38 PM on December 4, 2008

Thanks to all for your advice and help. I'm going to be taking it all into consideration!
posted by nokry56 at 4:55 PM on December 7, 2008