So you are trying to figure out what you want to do with your life? Who isn't. Answer: Dead people! That's it. Everyone else is trying to figure out what the hell is going on and where they will end up down the road.

If you are considering a career as an audio engineer or producer, you are making a great choice. Working with music sure beats digging ditches, studying updated laws for this year, or replacing a person's kidney...at least for me anyway.

With that said, professional audio engineering is NOT an easy job. No “fun” job is every easy simply because there are 200 people in line right behind you who will gladly fill you spot in a flash. So guess, what. They work you hard. VERY HARD! If you have any plans for any life outside of your audio engineering job (especially early on), you'll have to compromise.

Great Engineers = Bad Husbands?

When I was down at the Michael Wagener Recording Workshop, I got to meet quite a few HUGE recording guys. There was something they all seamed to have in common. Everyone of them had been taken to the cleaners in at least one divorce (sometimes many more than once). Now, I realize that dishwashers, lawyers, and construction workes get divorced too. So, it's not like you are guaranteed to be divorced if you are a recording guy. However, if you are successful at music, it appears that you probably aren't going to be successful in your marriage.

Wagener told us that that he didn't take a single day off in 4 straight years. In other words, he worked over 1300 days straight without a day off. This includes birthdays, Christmas, and anniversaries. This was at the prime of his career where every album he did was doing multi-platinum. He couldn't stop. This is what they don't tell you in the pretty ads to recording school. The upper echelons of music recording are ROBO COMPETITIVE!. If you stop, you get passed by. I'm not saying that a person won't get a day off here and a day off there. I'm just saying that you can expect for your work schedule to be violent.

I watched “Classic Albums – Metallica – Black Album” last night. While it has quite a few clips from A Year In the Half In the Life Of Metallica most of the footage was shot in modern times with the band at the console listening back to the unmixed tracks. They all agreed that making the Black Album was an extreme amount of work. It took it's toll on everyone in the band. (In hindsight, it makes sense to work that hard to make the Black Album, but what if the record would have been a flop like the third Winger album?).

Bob Rock and Lars Ulrich didn't speak for an entire year after making the record. I believe Lars said something to the effect of “I never want to see him again”. This is making records. Again, in hindsight it looks kind of exciting. Think about the people in your life you never want to see again. I'm talking about girlfriends who cheated on you and that sort of thing. This is exactly how Bob Rock and Lars felt about each other “at work”.

Bob Rock kind of got emotional when listening to a lot of the tracks that either didn't make the album were down so low that they really weren't that audible. You could tell he was proud to make the album and all that jive, but he mentioned the exhaustive amount of time spent on the record multiple times. It was almost as if he had regret as to putting that much time into the record and not putting some of his time into something else.

You Probably Won't Be Recording Any Life Changing Albums Yourself

I don't mean to be a pessimist. In fact, if it's your dream to record a life changing album that had tremendous social significance, I won't get in the way. (I'd like to help if I can). The odds say that you won't ever be a part of a life changing album even if you are tremendously successful as an engineer / producer.

While it sort of makes sense to invest 100% of an entire year of your life to make Metallica's The Black Album (I guess I'm on a Black Album kick these days...feel free to substitute X landmark album) including not getting to see your kids, your wife leaving you, not knowing the dog died, etc. However, what if you put all that work into recording a record that no one gave a damn about?

Are you willing to record night and day working non-stop for years and years just to end up with a few local band cds on your wall? This is where it gets tricky. If you love recording so much that you'd rather do it than anything else, you may have what it takes to make it to the top.

Conclusion

Being a professional audio engineer / producer is not an easy thing. It's not easy becoming a pro in the first place. It's not easy once you get there. You've got to make constant sacrifices along the way. There are probably crappier ways of making a living and I'd rather be locked in a studio for a year making a great record than I would being locking in prison. However, there are similarities between both situations.

Be ready for them. If you still want to record music, go for it! In the meantime, if you need help, hang out on the home recording forum.