The Los Angeles Recording School

[RandoRando]

I am going to this school on Saturday to get a tour of it and was pretty excited, until i read some reviews from alumni, some saying the teachers dont know anything, just there for their dollar, many of them bail out halfway through a class, not getting the promised 900 hours of hands on studio time and that it was a waste of $24K. just wondering if anyone here has gone to or wanted to go and what you guys have heard, it was kind of a big let down reading them.

[makemerich]

i went to a school like this called the conservatory in tempe, az. a lot of its bullshit but i learned a lot and i would reccomend it if you are serious about your career. i have classmates who work in post, in mastering facilities, etc. make sure they teach you what you need, if ur big on production of electornic music make sure they cover it, (i wish i had a synthesis class!) a lot of these schools just teach you to be an assistant engineer. if you could handle being a coffee bitch for a minute and are good and dedicated youll be working in no time.

[RandoRando]

Yeah I'm serious about it, this school though got bad reviews. I plan to be some mind of sound engineer though, but also want to learn more about production ,composition songwriting etc. Which is what I read this school doesn't touch on at all.

[Trebek]

I also went to the Conservatory in AZ. They don't teach you anything there about producing your own music, or theory, or songwriting or anything of those sorts. There focus is engineering ONLY, as in recording other artists, post production audio, video game audio, and live sound.

One place I looked at possibly to learn about producing my own was called Icon Collective. I never went through with it, cause sure someone else can teach you what they know. But I'm figuring I can teach myself everything they taught themselves. I'm just going to read up on some music theory so I can kinda figure out what sounds good with what and learn on my own.

[legend4ry]

In the world, theres very few schools what specialize in things like synthesis and what not. A lot of them train you to be an engineer with some general midi/daw teaching and showing importance of things like layering and such! Sure, they're all transferable skills to beat making but myself personally would rather be trained "traditionally" than how to learn beats or whatever...

At least in England - anything music production related has the biggest drop-out rate more than anything other subject, theres a simple reason for this.. Its REALLY difficult to learn at a pace which someone else has set... For myself when I was in production school - it was to slow.. For a few others in my class, it was to fast..



My opinion... Save the money.

Take some piano and theory lessons.

Find a band or something who is going into record soon - ask to sit in on their session.. Get used to a studio environment. AFTER (very important) the session (NEVER DURING) as the engineer about things you wasn't quite sure about, if he is a nice guy he'll help.

If you wanna get into using hardware and mics and stuff - hire some good quality stuff out for a couple of weekends and learn it.

Buy some of those big manuals or specials they have for a couple of DAWS - if you wanna be an engineer Protools is 99% needed.

Buy some books on synthesis - theres loads of PDFs flying around too.

Practice, practice, practice.

Try and get some internship work.

This will cost you around a grand or two, more if you want to buy a protools set up and don't have a mac but only a fraction of the price and you can learn at your own pace.


Afterall - if you spent 24k and came out of it with more knowledge but no prospects you'll be like 90% of people who attend engineering/production school.

[RandoRando]

Great info ledgendary. I will look into about sitting in a recording session. But I honestly am looking into schools more so to land a job. And to my knowledge having a degree from a school looks better than just saying you know the material I taught myself piano guitar and every daw I have ever touched, so from what you guys are telling me, I think it would he tough for me, or think of it as too slow of a pace like you said legendary. But school is the only thing I could think of to land a legit job, don't get me wrong I'm not saying I could learn how to be a engineer and start mastering tracks from watching YouTube videos. I just have mixed feelings as it's 24k to to there.

[makemerich]

Yeah I'm serious about it, this school though got bad reviews. I plan to be some mind of sound engineer though, but also want to learn more about production ,composition songwriting etc. Which is what I read this school doesn't touch on at all.

have you considered berklee?

[legend4ry]

'least in England, no one cares about degrees, they care about portfolio and experience and most importantly - if you're a good person to work with/have work for them.

A degree isn't pointless but its also not essential - people have mixed experiences - people like Depone praise university but myself - its not for me.

It really depends what approached you'd rather take in all honesty.



Seriously though - take some piano lessons if you can afford it a good pianist will make you learn theory too!

[makemerich]

also studios dont care if you are bethoven. they just care if you can make khaki colored coffee(trust me i got fired from 2 of them) it will help you. if i wanted to get an internship tomorrow i could. to have the experience of working on ssls and neves, honestly does help in the industry. even though there are a million other people and studios are shutting down. its only slow at first. once you learn your signal flow and shit you can most likely go in and use portable rigs and record 24/7. thats what i did, it was awesome, im not nockin it, if you know you are good at following directions youll get a job. but i cannot stress enough that you MUST be good at following directions. if you are more of an artist free spirited type, just continue producing at home and get some gear.

[IC0N]

Have you checked out SAE Institude in Hollywood?

[RandoRando]

Have you checked out SAE Institude in Hollywood?

sae?

[xrylex]

Have you checked out SAE Institude in Hollywood?

sae?

i went to SAE and would def recommend it over LA Recording School. (they are down the street from each other so you might want to go take a tour of both just to satisfy your interests) check out: http://www.losangeles.sae.edu/

SAE actually has a program that is focused on electronic music production.

schools like this can be really helpful but it really depends on what you are hoping to do, and what your experience is. The same amount of money could go to online courses at Berklee and gear, and it could get you the same results. tough to say which is better.

[RandoRando]

i just looked at sae website it looks amazing, first off its cheaper than LARS at 20k for the audio engineering course AND the price includes a imac laptop, protools, logic, and NI Komplete 7 yours to keep, and the electronic music production course is only a grand. seems alot more stable when it comes to carreer development once you graduate, im setting up a tour for this one, this looks like the school for me.

[Vast_Grid]

My opinion... Save the money. Take some piano and theory lessons.

yes.... i have a friend who went for a keyboard program, now he regrets it and owes a lot of $
@ musicians institute.

[Sirius]

all up for my degree.... around 12000, & that includes a trip to Australia!

in our 3rd year, we study for 10 weeks @ SAE in Byron bay.

Thats the price for kiwis, for our international students its like 16000 a year!


It all depends what ya wana do, I'm keen for everything... but trying to make my niche... dub mixing live/studio.

!!chea

[RandoRando]

Xrylex. What course did you take and how was job hunting afterwards

[xrylex]

Xrylex. What course did you take and how was job hunting afterwards

i did the audio engineering program. i didnt really do the traditional route of hunting for a job after. i already have a decent career as a dj and went to SAE to get a solid foundation of the fundamentals because up to that point everything i knew was self taught. I always felt like i was missing something and i wanted to learn the process of recording (beyond the electronic music world) to help me make the transition from dj/producer to recording artist.

somewhere along the way i got really interested in music business and ended up as the A&R manager for an electronic-rock record label that specializes in Film/TV licensing. Without having the education from SAE i probably wouldnt have even been interested in a position like this, but oddly enough a ton of the stuff i learned in school (the basics really) are actually super helpful in my day to day stuff and drastically improved my production skills. it also kind of set a fire under my ass after spending 20k on school...

one thing i will say is, if you go in expecting that this school (or any school) is going to give you a career of any kind in music, you are wrong. a huge part of it is luck, timing, and networking. i already had a decade of dj'ing under my belt, had a few releases out, had traveled all over the states as a dj, and had been taking big steps to advance my career for a few years leading up to going to school.

hope that helps

[bigfootspartan]

A degree isn't pointless but its also not essential - people have mixed experiences - people like Depone praise university but myself - its not for me.

This is almost the exact opposite of what I've found in Canada, but I'm more in the science nerd crowd over here. My last lab job could have been done by a 5 year old, but they only considered people who had a B Sc for the position. I always heard it was similar in the sound crowd (although without the 5 year old part).

[legend4ry]

Crazy! I guess having a degree does tell a studio/engineer that you don't have to be taught a lot (if you survive long enough making coffee for them) just the way their studio works and thats always a nice thing to have in the back of your head. From reading tape-op someone asked a question about interning a lot of people in the industry replied with (this is being mainly American studios..) they don't care about teaching someone, if they do exactly what they say and that they'd rather have that than someone who knows a lot and just wants to jump straight in when they intern..

The music industry is f-ed up, spesh in the studio world.

[dj nation]

Xrylex. What course did you take and how was job hunting afterwards

i did the audio engineering program. i didnt really do the traditional route of hunting for a job after. i already have a decent career as a dj and went to SAE to get a solid foundation of the fundamentals because up to that point everything i knew was self taught. I always felt like i was missing something and i wanted to learn the process of recording (beyond the electronic music world) to help me make the transition from dj/producer to recording artist.

somewhere along the way i got really interested in music business and ended up as the A&R manager for an electronic-rock record label that specializes in Film/TV licensing. Without having the education from SAE i probably wouldnt have even been interested in a position like this, but oddly enough a ton of the stuff i learned in school (the basics really) are actually super helpful in my day to day stuff and drastically improved my production skills. it also kind of set a fire under my ass after spending 20k on school...

one thing i will say is, if you go in expecting that this school (or any school) is going to give you a career of any kind in music, you are wrong. a huge part of it is luck, timing, and networking. i already had a decade of dj'ing under my belt, had a few releases out, had traveled all over the states as a dj, and had been taking big steps to advance my career for a few years leading up to going to school.

hope that helps

im doing the audio engineering course at SAE stockholm, from what ive heard at my interview and open days is that you get taught a wider range of things to do with audio and music, so instead of teaching you 'how to' master and mixdown a track, they teach you the functions of all the equipment and effects which give you an understanding on how you would go about mixing down a track.

this is pretty good for me cause i wanna work with other artists n producers in the studio, im also quite interested in live PA techs aswell.

basically i guess what im trying to say is dont expect to become super good after uve finished the course, they kinda lay down the grounds for you then its up to you to take that next step in a more specific area.