why did you get into engineering?

[pauly]

i decided to start recording recently, maybe 6 years ago. i spent about 10 years or so paying people to record my projects and i was that annoying kid sitting at the desk asking a million questions and hopefully not, but likely being a pest. most of the studio's (not all) i worked at were younger engineers and at some point, i was having to ask the engineer to move a microphone or ask them to stop killing the vocals i hear way too much compression. so i manned up and put the investment in some good recording gear. needless to say my experiences so far is i have much more satisfaction recording than i ever had playing with my bands of the past. i am still creating music for myself and projects i play in, being an engineer has made me a better musician.

so when did or why did anyone else choose to be an engineer? has any of you been in bands and have similar experiences?bthead

[Aski]

Yeah... my interests were similar. I originally got into it to record my own stuff. I started with a presonus firepod and realized that no matter how much I fucked around with the audio it just didn't sound like all those national CD's I knew so well and liked so much... so slowly I discovered that they were recording with really nice (and really expensive) gear... and, of course, that there was an artform to recording and listening with a critical ear... and somewhere in the meeting of those two things is how great sounding records are born.

I also discover that once in a great long fucking while.... someone will pay you to engineer/produce their music... those moments are encouraging as well...

[Sandyrb]

So when did or why did anyone else choose to be an engineer?
I was never a sufficiently competent performer to be in a band. I played most things but was never at a good enough level to "cut it". I was always interested in audio though and used to read the "Studio Sound And Broadcast Engineering" magazines at the local library while my folks took all afternoon deciding what to borrow.

I originally wanted to get into radio for a career. But during the school summer holidays of 1981 I was offered what in those days was called a "Youth Opportunities Programme" placement at a recording studio. I thought it would be similar to radio work and it meant no more school (a definite advantage!)

So on 13th July of that year I walked into a studio - the long-since-defunct Rainbow Sound Studios back in Nottingham UK - and to a large measure never left. :)

Cheers,

[Zachg]

3 years ago, I was at this music camp over the summer and one of our projetcs was to each record a song, then do a few collabs. One week of that and I was hooked. I bought some gear to start learning with, and went from there.

Last year my DAW (tracktion) died and I bought a MBOX 2 mini, the salesman who sold me this told me about this local studio called Pulsworks Audio Arts. A coupl'a months later I went there for the first time, and have basically tried to leave as rarely as possible. :)

It's so cool to able to learn all this at a pro facility, especially for a fledgeling like me. It makes it so much easier to learn and there's definately a lot more opertunities, than if you're learning at home.

Cheers

[velorock]

The process of recording always intrigued me. My first session was doing voice-over for German language tapes at age 8. After becoming a musician in my mid teens and joining local original bands, we were always somehow so fortunate to find ourselves in the studio recording our music. In retrospect, I'm amazed at how fortunate I really was to have those experiences. I never got into the engineering aspect until much later, after buying my first Mackie mixer, a couple of SM58's and an ART SGE Mach II effects processor, and recording direct to cassette. Talk about cheesy!

But after that I was hooked. I never gave much thought to computers, never even touched one til 2006. Then somehow I learned that you could use them as a recorder-whoohoo! I'm still sorting that one out.

I still wouldn't call myself an engineer- I have way too much to learn. But unfortunately I've developed an insatiable case of GAS and I just find it irresistible to tweak knobs on gear and see what it does to sound. But it's a hobby into which I can totally immerse myself, just wish I had started sooner!

[Ken Morgan]

I really prefer doing behind the desk work than any performance oriented work, and truth be known (or would you rather me lie? :) ) its something I've always preferred,

[Benny Grotto]

Cuz I suck at drums and can't write a song to save my life.

Plus, it helps me pay for more recording gear. And I can even tell the IRS it's a business expense. Suckers.

[thenoiseflower]

I had a walkman recorder with me always when I was a kid, we traveled around allot and I recorded everything, I always loved the sound of a moment I remember experiencing, only later.

So I always loved recording things but didn't even think of it being involved with music when I was a little kid.

later my mom died suddenly, but we had this hewlet-packard computer with an answering machine program on it, I sat and listened to those last remaining recordings of my mother for months and months. I am sure that this experience has always influenced my need to capture sound and save it.

She bought me a four track about 2 weeks before she died and I ALWAYS had it running in my basement. recording my bands, my songs, skits, and even trying to make the VHS things my friends would record sound better. started figuring out what studios were, hanging around the one near my town. I was the AV club guy in HS. got into electronics, played more music. but still never thought of being a rock star or anything. I did do lots of theatre tho. So when It came time to go to college I was going to go NYU Tisch for theatre on a reasonable scholarship but the remaining $$$ caused me to flinch, and I withdrew my enrollment at last minute and went to this (then) little 2 yr recording school here in town. for like 100,000$ less than NYU.

I am happy with my choices. :)

[Mixwell]

The sound man, THE sound!

[ShaneOConnor]

when you grow up in the woods, it is just you and a tape machine...

[Eganmedia]

I wanted to record, and I had a rehearsal space for my band and a Tascam 388. That was what allowed me to start. My English degree left me unable to do anything else.

[ShaneOConnor]

oh and the chicks.... and the $$$ MONEY $$$

[blackdirt]

i started out like most musicians, recording myself and friends on a portastudio... moved on to a korg d1600... and got the bug... i'd stay after sessions at our harlem rehearsal-cum-recording space polishing off bottles of booze until 3 am, having to be at work in a few hours, tweaking mixes on the korg, wondering what the mysterious numbers on the mic sim effects meant (besides the 57! i mean 421... that is grimoiresque!) and cursing the impossibility of navigating through the "scenes" interface...

then, about 6 years ago, my mother passed away... she was a single divorced mom, just me and her growing up... she worked as a teacher, then a guidance counselor before retiring. she passed away three years after retirement. she was 58, i was 32. i had been a musician my entire adult life keeping a day job as a book buyer in an indie bookshop in nyc. my wife and i decided that the money from the sale of her house would be best spent out of the confines of the big apple, so we moved upstate... i decided to record full time, because, after the experience of my mom dying so young, there was no reason i could come up with to not do what i wanted to be doing for the rest of my life...

so i built a basement studio, "graduated" to pro tools hd, got some work, had no work, almost quit, got alot more work, realized pt was not where i wanted to be, with some help from mixwell i moved on to radar and i've just finished up the weirdest and hard-to-wrap-my-head-around year so far...

changed platforms, got my first console (ever! unless you count the faders on the porta or the korg :poo:), first time getting work from outside my extended circle, had some work come out on cool labels, had my highest highs, and my lowest lows, dramatically scaled back on playing music to concentrate on my true love...

on a side note... my good friend jack rose passed away this past weekend at 38... although i feel lost right now knowing that i'll never hear him play music ever again, nor get to bask in the enormous glow of his genius, kindness and generosity, his passing will be another well that i will draw strength, inspiration and forward propulsion from...

i've always been in awe of the fact that by recording we are leaving behind little aural memories that will outlast us on this planet... i always tell people when they're recording, that they are creating their legacy, one track at a time...

[ears2thesky]

Played my ass off at a gig one night and got $20 for my effort. The sound guy who did a mediocre job walked with $100. I said right then and there "I could do way better than that dillhole!"
Almost twenty years later I do a brilliant mix for a band that never sounded better. I walk with $80 while the mediocre guitar player leaves with $100 and a liquored-up bimbette and I say "I could do way better than that dillhole!"
I guess I'm just in it for the tinnitus.

[Sandyrb]

(Off topic post for sake of fellow human being)
on a side note... my good friend jack rose passed away this past weekend at 38...

Holy shit man, 38 is no age to go. I'm really sorry to hear of your loss and my thoughts will be with you.

With kind regards,

[Dan]

I tried to record a song for my then-gf-now-wife for Valentine's Day, but had to learn about audio in order to get it done.

Stuck with audio, never finished the song.

-Dan.

[blackdirt]

(Off topic post for sake of fellow human being)


Holy shit man, 38 is no age to go. I'm really sorry to hear of your loss and my thoughts will be with you.

With kind regards,

thanks... heading down to philly for the funeral tomorrow... i expect a whole new wave of emotions being around friends...

[Jacob]

Hey blackdirt your thread was really inspiring man! Thanks for sharing that.

[Midnightsun]

i've always been in awe of the fact that by recording we are leaving behind little aural memories that will outlast us on this planet... i always tell people when they're recording, that they are creating their legacy, one track at a time...

Yep... this is it. When I was a kid recording devices just didn't exist! Large reel to reel tape machines were just made available and it was like magic to be able to actually capture a sound. The transistor was just starting to find its way and was starting to take over where vacuum tubes left off. For Christmas, I begged my parents to buy me a small, personal tape recorder that could run of batteries. From that moment on (half a century ago) I was hooked. I realized that capturing sound was a big deal:
1. Creating a legacy or archive of life
2. Capture pleasing tones
3. Capture music

Being a musician has always been special. I briefly (half heartedly) threw myself into playing music and tried to make a career of it. My existence was hand to mouth and my enjoyment of music became compromised. I discovered that the only way I could stay "in love" with music was to not attempt to make a living from it.

My grandfather was a jazz musician and never recorded anything that I am aware of. It would mean a great deal to me to be able to hear something that he recorded. A record is just that...... a RECORD. A RECORD of life event or creation.

We only know mankind that predates us my the records that were kept. For thousands of years, thank goodness certain people have been obsessed with recording keeping. Keeping records of human creativity is as natural and necessary as breathing.

[Mike Swanson]

Way back after playing the clubs in Western Canada for over two years we were given a free recording session with the end result sucking big time, didn't even sound like us.
I decided that I would not end my carreer on that note and proceeded to build my own.
But I have always loved great tone, way cool drum sounds and writing/creating music.
It's in my DNA, couldn't walk away even if I tried.
More gear please.

[The_Shoe]

I can't remember ever wanting to do anything else. When I was in High School I was in bands and I remember being really into the process of making our records. So I moved to Philadelphia and interned at Sigma Sound for a while and worked under David Ivory. While in Philly I worked at a number of different studios while doing live sound to pay my bills.

For 16 years, live sound ruled my world and I toured all over the world working with any number of famous artists. In 2005 I started mixing FOH for 3x Grammy winning blues artist Keb' Mo'. After a year or two of mixing for him he approached me with the opritunity to start tracking and mixing his records as well as his shows. So I jumped at the chance and find myself yet again balancing my studio time with my touring time. In the last five years I have recorded and mixed some records for top notch acts and I continue to follow them out the doors of the studio into thier live performance world. It's a great marriage and I wouldn't change a thing.

[Rabbit]

I was an AV nerd in highschool and the school had an excellent electronics program which I was in for 4 years. I did all the recording for the school, concerts, musicals etc. and did repairs to the schools tape machines, record players and projectors. Before that I'd saved to buy an Aiwa cassette recorder when they first came out in '67 or '68, borrowed my neighbor's dad's recorder and begin to experiment like crazy. One thing I did that I thought was cool was bypass the erase heads and not having a guitar amp at time was finding I could get a really insane fuzz sound by stuffing the mic inside and acoustic guitar I had and record it to tape and bounce tracks from machine to machine. Ok, I'm walking down memory lane here... anyway, I've always loved music, recording, mixing and producing, I suppose that's the bottom line for me.

Thanks for really great forum.

[Dynna]

My first post here. Noob alert.

I started on the atypical Tascam 4 track and almost immediately just started experimenting with interesting tones & layers, and the acqusition thereof, for the express purpose of just making cool music. Or least trying to make bad songs at least sound interesting. I am mostly a player, but have spent most of the last 15+ years NOT recording, playing regularly, and, most importantly for me, just always working with other people making (mostly live, but the rare recorded as well) musical situations work the best they could ever hope to. I was in a job I hated last year, and happened across an old friend who had opened a lovely little facility. I went in to do some session playing work, and a few months later was offered a position at said facility. A proposition I am most thankful for.

Needless to say, I am thoroughly enjoying making musical situations work for those whom I am involved with, as well as learning heap loads about the technical world I've mostly just read about.

Oh, and, Hi Sandyrb.

[burnthair donethat]

like most of us, i was totally spellbound by a good song at an early age. the first tape i played to death was the one that included billy joel's just the way you are. up till then i had very little experience with listening to recordings because we lived in a commune with no electricity or running water in jungle. it was only much later that i got into the intricacies of the sound aspect of it.

in college i took an elective which involved studio work and because i was always high i'd spend days in the studio which my teacher probably mistook for potential in the field. to make the story short my professor who was also an engineer at my city's big media outlet(tv/radio/print)asked me if i'd like to work there. imagine my suprise. so the next few years found me constantly around anything audio that the outfit had to offer, movie sets, albums, concert recordings, press conferences, and even the occasional celebrity birthday.

i few years on, when the drug taking finally subsided(for what reason, i don't know) i figured i gotta do something with it.

so there. it's been ten years and counting. i plan to upload a couple of stuff i've done for critique in the next few days to see if you guys think i should count another ten years because if not, i've got a real talent for dealing.

[Dylansdad]

My mother says its genetic. Everyone in my fathers family was a musician. All of the Males in her family were into electronics (one uncle was on the team that built the first digital Telephone switch, another was the first Biomedical engineer, and Grandpa ran the Powerplant)
Really I was in a stupid kid band had an accident were I lost feeling in most of my right hand (hard to play guitar when you can't feel either the strings or the pick.
Started playin with the board and then a Teac model 80 bunch of cheap mics and an Akai reel to reel! found I was better at it than playing Guitar.
Was Also Lucky enough that Brian Anderson (Later would become Manager of Smart studios) worked at my local music store.
In collage I would always end up working for the school, spent way more time doing event, shows, and recording than in class. Got hired buy Full Compass as the local guy ended up spending lots of time in the local studios and ended as Retail Manager

[Torea]

I got into about 30 minutes into using my new Macbook. I saw the little guitar, thought "I play guitar! Maybe this will relate to me!" and opened Garageband. An hour later I had made a little MIDI song and was hooked. Luckily for me, my dad was nice enough to invest in a small setup (Presonus FireBox, M-Audio monitors, and MXL 990 mics) that was on sale on Musiciansfriend.com.

But, as recently as 2 months ago I was seriously contemplating giving it up for good and getting a 9-5, reliable paying job. Then I realized I was always unhappy/mad for no reason. So for the hell of it, I went back to Musiciansfriend.com to look at mics. A week later I'd spent probably 4 hours a day looking up recording stuff online like I had in the past and all of a sudden I felt a lot less pissed off =P
Now, I'm awaiting an email from a band to see if I can record their album. It'll (hopefully) be my first paid gig as the guy recording :rolleyes:

[Tomasz]

Now, I'm awaiting an email from a band to see if I can record their album. It'll (hopefully) be my first paid gig as the guy recording :rolleyes:

You mean the first of many paid gigs!!!!:D
Congrats and welcome....

peace..Tomasz