A buddy of mine who was an audio engineer once offered me what could easily be every aspiring musician’s dream. My friend stated: ” Why don’t you visit recording studio and let us make a record.” “We’ll tackle on it until you’re happy with it. Take all the studio time you require.” In return, we agreed that after I printed the record, I would give him a part of the sales. This gift was a result of friendship and at the same time a desire for more experience.
For two days at a month each month I spend two hours driving to his studio and spend my evenings there sleeping on his makeshift bed while I record during the day. During the off times in the studio, I spent it writing tracks for the record. While recording I paid attention on how he arranged the microphones and experimented on different things like switching gears when they fail. I watched as he went through the mixing procedure and as he made solutions for problems that come up at random. As he worked with the recording he would describe to me the whole process and patiently answered my queries.
Unfortunately, the record did not fare well in the market. Nonetheless, the lessons I have learned from that experience I was able to use it in my line of work. In those moments when I do not have a sound tech handy, I am no longer completely lost; I can work with the equipment on hand to figure out what I need at the moment. Moreover, the experienced trained my ear to listen to tracks that are not well mixed and at the same time it also helped me gain enough knowledge to handle such mishaps. Rather than just realizing something is wrong with an audio mix, I can hear more distinctly what is incorrect with it.
I’m not a sound engineer, and have no dreams to become one. What is important though is the truth that I mastered both from experience and from mentorship in a recording studio. The reason lies on the facts that in order to learn and comprehend audio engineering you need someone who will show and explain to you the whole process along with practice and experience.
My friend with the recording studio had in fact been to school, and he had learned a lot of methods he probably wouldn’t have picked up on his own. Nevertheless, I find it interesting that even after obtaining that education, my friend was compelled to offer me unlimited free studio time so he could gain experience managing his own studio – even after going to school for it. Despite the advantage he got from his education, my friend still finds it inadequate and he desired more experience.
Whether you gain your education through schooling, through coaching, through practice or through a combination of these, what really matters in this industry is whether you can generate results. That is what I learned from my encounter in the recording studio.