I don't know what it means the amount of money to educate a person is equal to the amount of money being made in a field, but I'm sure there is some economic word for it. I'm sure this word is synonymous with DISASTER.

Parents, Where Are The Jobs?
Simply put, take a look around in your area and ask yourself “Who will hire my kid?” and “What kind of pay will it bring?”. Off hand, I do know of one guy who graduated recording school and got a job at a live sound installation place. I'm sure the pay isn't great, but at least he is fairly close to what he wants to do and can feed a family. Beyond that, everyone I know who has graduated from recording school does NOTHING involving recording. Why? Because it is REALLY hard to make money at this recording business these days.

Of the recording school graduates I personally know, here is where they work:
Gas station
Unemployed
Serves coffee
Parents appliance business
Live sound installation company

Obviously, this is a very limited sample, but I would expect it to be this way about everywhere. Don't take my word for it. Ask around. Talk to the locals. I'm positive you'll find someone who attended recording school changing your oil.

Is Education Necessary For An Audio Industry Career?
Granted, there are quite a bit of different jobs in the audio industry, so let's start by focusing on the silver tuna. Let's talk about the producer who does multi-platinum records and makes millions of dollars. What are his/her qualifications? Well, he/she has to be able to crank out a hit caliber recordings. There is probably some luck involved. That's it. There are zero rules in regard to college education, knowledge, IQ, common sense, or anything like that. It needs to be said that this isn't much different than attempting to be a rock star. Actually, there are more rock stars than producers, so I'd argue that being a big producer is even harder than being a rock star. There are a lot of starving kids who crawl back home to mom and dad after they fail to reach the big time. Then again, there are a handful that do make it.

Let's talk about engineers. Audio engineers typically don't make that much money. I can hire a big boy engineer for $850 per day. That's pretty damn good money! Unfortunately, these people don't work everyday. It also needs to be said that these types of engineers are the BIG BOYS. They are extremely talented, extremely skilled, and have been lucky enough to make it to the ultra top of the industry. It's much more common for excellent engineers to work for a small fraction of that. What is the education level of these engineers? How many attended recording school? In a huge majority of cases, the bigger engineers are older. Back in the older days, there were no audio recording schools to speak of. So a dominating amount of professional engineers who can actually feed their families did not attend recording school. It needs to be said that this generation of audio engineers got in the “ground floor”. We'll talk about that later on.

There are local and home studio owners out there. This is where I sit. It's a TOUGH place to be. You can read all about that here: http://www.recordingreview.com/blog/downsides-of-the-home-recording-studio-business/. The bottom line is so many people can easily record themselves, it's getting harder and harder for people to dump money into an intangible service when instinct makes it easier to purchase tangible products regardless of the time and skill required to get any great results out of them.

There are tons of industry specific jobs out there. I'm sure that every guitar amp manufacturer employs everyone from marketing people to factory workers to techs to whatever. It may be possible to get a job for Groove Tubes or AKG. I have no idea what the job outlook for that is.

The Market Is Saturated
In every demographic of the recording industry, saturation is occurring. The big boy studios are closing. It appears that there will always be a few robo high end studios out there to serve the people who have the big bucks. However, the current quantity of big boy studios is nothing when compared to say 1995. There are less bands signed to major labels these days. The amount of work for studios and engineers is reduced. At best, we can only hope that the number of signed major label bands stays the same. I would expect it labels to continue to minimize their rosters.

There was a day when a recording engineer wore a lab coat. The process of making a recording was much closer to manufacturing diapers or fuel injection. Back then, people didn't attend recording schools simply because no one really wanted to record bands. These were the days before the glorification of the music industry. The engineers that started in 1970 or so got in when there was relatively little competition. Now that has all changed. Now people are willing to be starving actors just for the shot to say “Up the road and to your left” in the next bad, Nicholas Cage movie.

In the home studio world, every person on the planet either has a standalone recorder box or an audio interface. These people used to pay local studios to record them. Now they do it themselves.

What Do Big Studios Need?
The modern big boy studio is incredibly complex with computers running consoles networked to London, etc. It's crazy! I saw the machine room in Blackbird Studios (top studio in Nashville) and it was INCREDIBLE! The person who ran the network there surely had a phd in computer networking! It's about what I would expect to see in a giant IBM factory.

Electrical engineers are always in demand (both in industry and in big boy recording studios) for a zillion reasons.

Big boy studios probably wouldn't mind having Grammy caliber engineers around either. However, years and years of practice on top of a REAL education provided from an apprenticeship with a Grammy caliber engineer/producer would. This is something you simply aren't going to get at a recording school. I've heard some recording school productions. It usually leaves much to be desired.

What Do Big Studios NOT Need?
Big studios do not have any reason to hire the #436 on the Top 500 Engineers in the city list. Most recording school graduates don't have the type of engineering experience to allow them to take on the $850 / per day robo engineer with platinum records on his walls. (Note: You will NEVER make $850 per day from the studio. That comes from freelance work.) If they aren't qualified to engineer recordings, what does a recording school graduate do? Make coffee? Wrap cables? Yes, if they are lucky (with no pay).

If My Kid Wanted To Attend Recording School....
If my kid wanted to attend recording school, I'd have to tell them that there is simply no way in the world I would pay for it. It's not because I'm a pessimist. It's because I'm convinced that recording school is a dead end. There are ways to get to the top, make huge connections, etc. However, I don't think the recording school route is that way. Recording school is an entertaining experience with money to throw a way. It has little to no connection to actually making money for your kid.

If my kid really wanted to attend recording school, I'd insist that they either:
A) Get educated in a field that will not only put them in high demand in a recording studio, but also give them options for when they decide that actually need to feed a family. As noted before, computer networking and electrical engineering are both excellent fields to go into.

B) Go for a direct internship for a big producer. This would take some charisma and balls. It's a risk proposition, but it's one of the few ways to get “in the door”.

Conclusion
The recording school business is booming but the recording studio business is not. Use your head, parents and help your kids understand that they certainly can realize their dreams, but that things are a little more complicated and a little tougher than they appear in those shiny ads with the giant SSL consoles.

In conventional crafts, the system is setup that a person gets an education to get his/her foot in the door to really learn on the job. The recording industry is different. The people who get the education tend to be on the fast track back home, sleeping until 2pm, and trying to figure out what the hell to do with their lives.

Why aren't you already recording music?

Why haven't you gotten a job, bought a $200 audio interface, a $100 mic, and maybe EZ Drummer?
How will you know if you even like recording music if you aren't already doing it?

Starving Actors and Starving Engineers / Producers
If you haven't recorded music in your own time, you should consider if this is really a “career” you want to go for. Music recording is not like being an accountant or something. I'm sure there are plenty of guys who decide they want to be accountant one day, go to school, and then become a CPA down the road. Music recording requires a HUGE dedication. It's a lot more like being an actor. Ever heard of the phrase “starving actor”?

Starving actor is a well known phrase because there are so many people who are just dying to hop into the lead role on the next Jerry Bruckheimer production that they are willing to starve for the chance of snagging that big role. (I can think of higher movie aspirations, by the way).

Imagine if the world was just crawling with people who dreamed of being garbage men or lawyers and would starve at the chance just to get one of those gigs. (By the way, there is nothing wrong with being a garbage man. If you are a lawyer, I'll probably see you in hell! Ha ha). So, audio recording falls under the “dream job” label.

The High Road
This path is the path to recording major label stars. You MUST make huge contacts somewhere along the line. If you don't have an “in” with someone, you will never succeed in this genre. It requires that you know people. No one cares about the music degree you have or audio engineering phd you may have hanging on the wall of your extremely small apartment! You need to know people AND you need to know what you are doing. I'd argue that the first is more important.

The music industry is all about networking. It's about getting jobs the same way that any other non-yell pages type of business makes their money. Before I switched to producing only, my studio was always overbooked and I never put my # in the phone book. I never saw a point in it. It was all word of mouth. The same is true in big boy land. You get to record Keith Urban when you party with his bass player or whatever. (Of course, you record the bass player's little sister first and if that goes well you move on to bigger and better things).

The high road is what Puffy Daddy and every other big guy did. I said Puff Daddy because someone was watching his life story on TV in the background recently. He was the usual kid from a poor neighborhood, but he took or a bus or something 1 hour into the city so he could volunteer to work for some big producer. He was like 15 or something stupid. (Okay, I didn't pay too much attention to the show!) Anyway, the producer dude told Puff Daddy to wash his car. Puff Daddy did and did a hell of a job. This sort of thing continued for a long time. Somewhere in there one guy called in sick and Puff Daddy was wrapping cables and things of that sort. He worked his way up and before you know it he's good buddies with Mr. Huge Producer and making Notorious BIG and Mary J Blige records. The rest is annoying history.

Is recording school a part of the high road? It depends. Recording school gets you an audition. In other words, you go to recording school and spend $20k on the school and another $5-10k on living expenses while you learn stuff about audio that any big producer would teach you if you could be in the same room. (This is why I highly recommend the Micheal Wagener Workshop for anyone who is really serious about learning the craft of recording.)

I don't mean to undermine how great of an experience recording school can be. In fact, I'd probably put it close to the top of “Funnest ways to waste $25,000”. I'd rather blow $25k on recording school than blow $25k on strippers or on blackjack.

The Flaws of the High Road
The industry is not what it used to be. I recently heard that Capital Records (known for being the “rock” label) cut its roster from 250 bands to 50 bands. (This was like 2 years ago when I heard this). Ouch! As you know, the labels are focusing more and more attention on 2 bands / artists per year. They are promoting 3 songs per year. This means that there is dramatically smaller amounts of major label work to choose from.

There are thousands of recording school graduates from each year (2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and now 2007) who are competing to be involved with the recording of these 50 bands from Capital. You must be willing to go through prison and back to be picked as the guy who gets the coffee

What would you do if a producer wanted you to pick up an 8 ball of cocaine for him @ 1am on a Tuesday night? If you say no, you probably won't be asked to be the coffee maker on the next session. If you say yes, maybe you'll be fine. Maybe you'll get a felony possession. Maybe you'll go down the path to destruction. (There are a lot of burned out engineers out there. It's sickening and sad!)

How long can you go on practically zero dollars, insane hours, and no appreciation with about a 0% chance of making it to superstar land? This is why just about every recording school graduate ends up back in Missouri or Indiana or whatever.

Would you miss your mother's funeral? There's a popular story of a studio owner who needed a coffee maker to work. The coffee maker / recording school graduate had just heard that his mother had died. The studio owner said “I don't give a shit. Get your ass down to the studio, now! I need you to work today”. Of course, the coffee maker / recording school grad didn't go to work. (No one worth a damn would ever ditch their mom's funeral unless she was an abusive piece of garbage or something). Anyway, the coffee maker was immediately fired and a new coffee maker stepped up in his place. It's nothing personal. Of course, this sounds maybe a little more harsh than it really is. I mean, the studio owner probably respected the coffee maker / recording school grad more because he picked his mother over his job. However, the studio owner has a business to run and the recording The Wall or Thriller isn't going to stop just because the coffee maker couldn't show up. Of course, the recording industry needs sickeningly dedicated individuals to cater to the stars. This is just a small part of it.

The Low Road
The low road is the path I've taken. I wonder how my life would have taken at the high road. I'm convinced I would have done well. Would I be happy? How should I know? I'm confident I would have succeeded.

The low road consists of doing everything yourself. I mean EVERYTHING...even making the coffee! I started out by maxing out a loan and 2 credit cards. I bought about $15k worth of recording gear (didn't go as far in 2001 as it does now). I did this all in my bedroom of my mom's house. After I got the hang of it, I went to a few live shows and offered to record a band for free. They jumped on it. I had a little room I could use that was 8' x 12' x 8'. (Look up “boxy” in the audio engineering dictionary and you'll see a picture of this room. Ha ha).

Anyway, Mom got a new house, I bought the old one and used it almost entirely for recording. My old dining room became my control room. My old living room became my live room for drums and stuff. I started recording more and more bands. I got quite active in the local scene. Before I knew it, I was booked solid.

In between recording bands, I'm reading about acoustic principals, the effects of gear, etc. I'm pumping almost all the cash I made right back into my studio and getting experience FAST. It was normal to put in 30 hours in a Saturday or Sunday. We had to get finished because I wouldn't be able to get the band in again for another month.

It continued like this for a long time, but my recording quality was so random. Some albums sounded pretty damn good. Others were terrible! I thought it was me. It turned out it was the bands. So, I started to pickier about the bands that I worked with. I started charging more money. Of course, more bands began to stand me up. Immediately after returning from the Michael Wagener Workshop where I'm meeting my music recording heroes, I come back to Missouri. I'm low on cash and NEED the work. The band doesn't show up.

Something in me clicked. I said I was wasting my time with 90% of all local bands. I wasn't ever going to make enough money for a real career and recording local bands was always done on nights and weekends so I was never going to be much of a dad or whatever. I saw a dead end.

I decided to get into producing. Meaning, I'd take on one or two projects at a time and I'd produce the hell out of them. I'd try to make the best recording I could with the best songs. Of course, my quality shot WAY up and my income shot WAY down.

The idea is to record better and better bands, songs, etc and work my way up the ladder.

The Flaws On The Low Road
You have to do everything. This includes everything from pulling out the Algebra 2 books to design the Helmholtz Resonators to pulling in the clients to squeezing out a great vocal take from a singer.

Typically, the quality of musicians is not nearly as high as you'd get in the High Road. Therefor, you'll be making recordings of bands that simply don't sound good sometimes. Of course, your name is on that project whether you like it or not. You'll lose some business by recording the crappy bands.

As proof by this forum, there are A LOT of people recording at home. Can they compete with a dedicated studio guy? In most cases, the answer is no. Of course, it depends no what “compete” means. If they are only going to print 100 cds for friends and family, what difference does it make? They don't need ultra mega quality. In fact, a lot of home recording people who have no idea what a Helmholtz Resonator is (and barely know what a compressor is) can crank out decent sounding stuff if they are good enough songwriters and musicians.

In a smaller market (like what I live in), the amount of people that aren't willing to pay for decent recording is small. Doctors and rich guys will just pay $60 per hour at a studio that has recorded some bigger regional stuff. Poor people will record as cheaply as possible. You never really know and it's really tough to figure out where you stand. I saw a backlash when I increased my rates.

The pay is usually not that good. This is a given. If you want to make any real money, you need to work your way up the ladder of bands.

The hours suck if you want to be anywhere near “normal”. I didn't see a lot of my friends for like 2 years. Why? Because I was recording every weekend very late. You may be able to setup different hours depending on your clients.

Be Happy
I'd focus on what is going to make you happy. Some people plan on living in New York City, driving a Ferrari, paying $5k a month in rent, never getting married, and will be happy with that life. Some people want a wife, a couple of kids, a $200k house (Missouri land values are WAY lower than California or any other “desirable” place to live), and a 3 year old Honda Civic. Other people would be happy with a $50k house and a 15 year old Ford Escort in LA while they dedicate their life to their art.

All are fine choices. Most of the big boy producers and engineers have been taken to the cleaners multiple times with divorce and aren't always the most happy people. Be aware that the higher you ambitions, the more you are going to have to sacrifice to get there.

There is nothing wrong with just recording for fun. This could mean a HUGE $50k investment that you can never recoup or it may mean getting a $200 audio interface and a $100 microphone. In the end it's the music that matters. So do whatever is going to make you happy.

These days, I've been focusing much more time than ever before on my internet businesses. The idea is to get cash coming in so I can get back to recording full time again without having to worry about money while I record. Of course, I'm still in my control room quite a bit.

Conclusion
There is no easy path here. You can invest $20k in education or you can put $10k in gear. You still have to work really hard to actually get some dollars coming in. The local scene is usually less competitive, but it may be just as difficult to make a name for itself. There is no way easy way out....to quote the incredible Rocky 4 song.

In the end, there is nothing wrong with being a garbage man who records a lot in your free time. Just don't be a lawyer!!!!