Yes, I know it's exciting to open up the latest issue of your favorite recording magazine. You see smiling engineers who did take the recording school path and are now winning Grammy Awards. This sounds great. Actually, recording school is a great thing. There is nothing wrong with continuing your education and getting better at a craft that can be a lot of fun. You'll certainly get to meet amazingly talented professors and you'll probably make some buddies along the way as well.

However, I do have some bones to pick with recording schools. These recording schools create these ads that make it sound like everyone is going to be engineering Aerosmith when they get out of recording school. This is simply not the case 99.9% of the time. The big studios are closing all over the place. The budgets for most records are going down and there are simply a lot less major label records being made now. When you take a look at the conventional music industry system, it doesn't look good. In fact, I'd guess that a large majority come back from recording school and work at gas stations.

Then again, when you look at recording schools, they are growing like crazy. There are kids who have barely mastered the power chord on their electric guitar and have no recording experience who are going off to recording school. I can't believe that these recording schools would take in people who have absolutely no experience. Don't get me wrong, we all have to start somewhere. I'm guessing that recording school will teach you faster than anything. However, those who have spent anytime recording at all realize that it's not a job for everyone. In fact, very few people can stand it for long at all. I've had two or three ?interns?. They usually last about 1.5 days. That's it. I never hear from them again. I couldn't imagine a guy shelling out $15,000 for something he ends up hating. Let me tell you. This recording thing isn't for everyone. It's long, tedious work. When you are at the bottom of the totem pole it can be frustrating because the talent usually isn't there and the financial rewards certainly aren't there either. Even after recording school, you will be put to the test. You will have to work your way up from nothing in the hopes of someday hitting the big time.

If you have the money to blow and aren't worried about actually finding work after you graduate, jump right into recording school. It will be amazing working with biggest consoles on the planet like SSL and Neve. The lessons learned from these powerhouse instructors should prove to be highly informative. Then again, why are these instructors teaching? Sure, the idea of having a steady job and a family and still getting to record does sound extremely appealing to the 40 year old family man. However, if U2 or Elton John called them up, do you think they would do it? In other words, are they teaching because they want to or because there are not as many engineering gigs as there used to be? More than likely, these guys do have the big boys calling them up. Most of them take the teaching gig because it's steady work and allows them to actually be part of a family and still get to record quite frequently. This is just another example of how engineering isn't for everyone.

The recording schools are marketed as being similar to colleges. Unfortunately, besides recording engineer or live sound engineer, there aren't a whole lot of jobs just begging for recording school graduates. With a 4 year college degree from a decent college (which costs about the same as one year at a recording school) you could have tons of options that will allow you to be more versatile in an economy that isn't too forgiving at the moment.

If you think it will be easy to find a job as a recording engineer, think again. There are skilled engineers all over the place who know way more about engineering than the average recording school grad. Actually, I've seen some of these recording grads. Some are very sharp. Others are totally clueless. That piece of paper doesn't seam to mean much, in my experience. Maybe the average studio owner feels the same way.

In the end, if you really want to attempt to make a living recording music, good luck. It's not easy. I work 3 jobs right now. If you are serious about recording, maybe you should just start doing it right now. I believe that a serious engineer is kind of like a serious band. A serious engineer will record music with or without help from some school. A serious band will find a way to sell records without the help of a label. So if you are driven to record music, start doing it today.

With the money you'd spend on recording school, you can outfit a pretty nice studio built around a PC. That's just another thing to consider. If you are super serious about recording, you could use that money to give your studio a hell of a jump start in terms of gear. Of course, doing it on your own isn't easy and it doesn't pay all that well. So keep that in mind. You have to NEED to record to stick with. Believe me, there are days when I question whether I would have been better off starting this studio or watching football every Sunday.

In the end, recording school is a tremendous education that does not come cheaply with a job outlook that doesn't look good. I'd recommend that anyone interested in the audio engineering profession volunteer a week at the local recording studio to see what how it works first hand. Let me tell you, it's not any different working at a crappy studio in someone's basement than it is working in a million dollar facility. Okay, there are glaring differences, but in terms of the actual work, it's pretty much the same thing. You may decide that you were meant to be a web develop, an electronics engineer, or a pharmacist. The odds are strong that you will make money and have greater security throughout your life with one of these professions. If you do the volunteer work and decide that you really like the recording world, maybe it's time to go for it. Good luck. If you have any questions, feel free to discuss them on the Recordingreview.com forum.