Does going to school for Audio engineering make a difference.
I'm mostly self taught/youtube taught as far as beat making goes, it history has shown us you don't really need formal training,goto school to be a producer..but what about audio engineering?
I am also a self taught music producer. I didn't go to school for audio engineering but I learned to engineer thru my internship in college. I was a IT major, and luckily found myself an internship at a music studio. They didn't pay me for the internship, but they taught me how to engineer in exchange for my IT services. I learned thru their training and also thru engineering/mixing tracks for a few of my friends who are also artists. Also thru watching Youtube videos and tutorials and hands on practicing with Pro Tools on my free time.
The first year at that internship was just IT related work, but by the end of the first year I got good enough to run sessions thanks to their training. I graduated college with my bachelors in Computer Information Systems but that studio hired me as a part-time audio engineer after I graduated college, so I stuck with the engineering because it was fun and it was natural to me (didn't feel like work). I was the junior engineer behind the chief engineer. I had to grind it out the 2nd year there cause the pay wasn't good (I could've made way more money with my degree, but I saw the engineering work as a future investment into living a lifestyle I always wanted).
I'd say you can def make it as an audio engineer without school for it, the main engineer at the studio didn't go to school for it either and she had about 9 years experience already. I'm only on my 3rd year. If you do go that route you will need studio internships (mostly unpaid) in order to go up the ranks and get a paid position. If you go to school for it, it helps you get a better chance at landing a internship. Most studio internships are unpaid and they make you clean up the studio, and would occasionally let you shadow an engineer in session.
I gotta get on my producer grind
Use Youtube to your advantage, look up tutorials on how to make beats, mix beats, or how to mix songs. Pick out a DAW that you feel most comfortable with and just practice with it. I didn't get good enough to make money off of beats until my 3rd year of making beats. I'm now 8 years in the game. Engineering, it took me a good year or so to really understand everything. I now have 3 years experience.
I already know how skilled a producer you are so that goes without saying.
1. Roughly how much did it cost to get started?
2. Were you making good money at your previous job?
3. What kind of rules have you set in the studio?
4. Have you run into any problems or bad incidents there? I know studios in Atlanta get shot up and have all kinds of issues with rappers.
5. Why post so little on TheColi
1.) I pay roughly $2,000 a month for the space (control room and booth), as well as other monthly expenses such as internet, plugins, etc. The equipment that I got, I got it for roughly $10,000 in total. The next set of upgrades I want to make will cost me another $25,000.
2.) Since I started out as a beginner engineer at the other job I was only making $15/hr and only when I caught sessions that I engineered. So I basically wasnt making good pay there. Before I quit, they raised my hourly rate to $20/hr and I did catch more sessions, but by then I felt it was time to move on and start my own studio.
3.) I practically let the artists and guests do what they want (smoke, drink), as long as there is no fighting or bad vibes.
4.) At my previous job there was some fukkery that occurred with a Ruff Ryders session. I didn't engineer that session, but apparently one of the Ruff Ryders execs booked a session for one of their newer artists and a feature (I think it was suppose to be a 6 hour session if I remember correctly). All the top execs from the label arrived on time, the main artist that was going to record came an hour late and got into an argument with the artist he was suppose to be working with. The artist was drunk and or high and got into a shouting match with the feature artist (still don't know the reason why), they took it outside and got into a fist fight that got broken up quickly. After the fight both artists left the area with about 5 hours of session still left. They never came back so they didn't even record anything during the session. That artist and the whole Ruff Ryders crew got banned from the studio cause of the altercation. This was back in 2016.
Another time, a artist I frequently worked with got into a fight with the owner of the studio cause she specially requested me to be her engineer for one of her sessions and they didn't tell her that I wasnt going to be available that day. (up to that point I had worked with her for about 10 sessions already). They put the other engineer in her session (the chief engineer), and they were just not getting along at all. The engineer even fukked up the session. They had to give her a free session in order to make things right with that artist again.
At my studio, I was running a session for a group of Bloods from the area and one of the artists pulled out a gun during the session. He went with it in the booth to record that sound a gun makes when you cock it back (pause). Luckily no shots went off, but I was def caught off guard by it cause I wasn't expecting that.
5.) I just be lurking a lot, don't really be posting that much unless its some info that people can benefit from.
Can i pm you and let you listen to some songs I made?
Yeah pm me the links or contact me and I'll send you my email address.
How much do artist make per session?
Have u ever work with anybody famous artist ?
Is the vibe in the studio always abt alcohol , drug and bytches ??
It really depends on the songs they make during the session. If its for a mixtape or a freestyle, they won't make anything off of the songs. But lets say they make a song for EP or Album. They'll get paid on the amount of streams/listens or purchases on each track if they release them on Apple Music, Spotify, etc.
Studio Time is expensive, depending on how good the studio is (Equipment-wise, and Engineering-wise), an artist is looking at paying anywhere between $50/hr-$250/hr
At the other studio I worked with the legendary "Breakbeat Lou" and Carlos "C12" Bess (look them up, they birthed the production style of Wu-Tang. C12 engineered the full Enter the 36 Chambers album).
I also worked with producer "Jimi Kendrix" (producer for Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Ja Rule, 2Pac). I also got a chance to work with Buda (Dave East's producer) from the production duo Buda & Grandz.
Didn't get a chance to work with him, but I did run into Just Blaze in the studio one time, he was in-session with the other engineer.
I also sat in a voice over session for actor David Duchovny (he was recording a voice over for a commercial), and I also sat in for a Chris Rock interview/podcast session.
At my studio, the only famous person I worked with was DNA. He is known for battle rap videos, he's working on a mixtape at my studio.
I can def say the vibe at every studio is always about drugs, alcohol and bytches. More than 95% of the time a artist I work with is either high or drunk, and or has a crew with them or bytches. I feel like most artists need that in order to perform better, I guess it takes away the nerves or helps them get better ideas for lyrics. I know a lot of artists that I work with that can't record a song sober, but the minute they blaze up, they record a hit. Same thing goes for finding a beat. When sober they might not like a beat, but then they get drunk or high, and next you know they want to get in the booth and record to it.
