Recording Engineers - jobs

The number of recording engineers enginee being trained is ever increasing as the number of posts remains similar or even falls. What should a young trainee consider when training? What experience sticks after ten years in a recording studio?

1. That working in the music business is 95% pen-pushing or manipulating of computer programmes.

2. That being a recording studio engineer is hugely different from creating your own music. Even your production work may not be entirely your own and joint projects are always difficult to lay a claim to.

3. That loving music is not enough, you have to love enterprise and be flexible enough to drop a project which is unproductive in favour of one which is less inspiring but more remunerative.

If you are intending to work for a recording studio, you have, in addition, to bear in mind that your relationship with customers will come under scrutiny if you appear to be "poaching", or lining yourself up to work directly with them in the future. Recording studios guard their clientele very jealously as the competition between studios itself is very intense, and most studio managers are also annoyed by not doing enough music themselves! Therefore it is not a good idea to consider a studio as a career development ground where you can line your nest for the future, by making good friends with future potential clients and lining them up against the evil manipulative studio owner! Better to work objectively at tasks offered with the idea that working for an employer will give you a good reference at the end of the day should things not work out!

If you wish to be self-employed (always more attractive) remember that you will be your own boss, and will have to drive yourself hard to meet deadlines and complete all the admin and paperwork required, as well as market yourself on the internet or by other means.

All in all, don't assume a career in music means you will spend any more time creating your own music than you did before you became a "musician" - you'll still have to "make time" for your own work just like when you were at school!!

Jane Lane
www.beehouse.co.uk

Technical Page - Cubase

Let's kick off our technical page with some comments about Cubase, from a practical point of view.

Using Cubase professionally on a regular basis, we have gradually got used to the little idiosyncrasies of the system. We find there are often crashes, even on the most stable system with plenty of memory - so obviously regualr and judicious saving of the stages of your work under a sequence of file names such as "project1.cpr", " project2.cpr" etc is a good idea even f0r quite small changes.

One thing we have never completely come to terms with, though, is the matter of recording timing problems. We will often record a line on a synthesised midi instrument, only to find it has jumped a short way forward or backwards of the beat and the whole thing has to be shifted manually to align it with the other instrument tracks. We have got used to this now. I did work out how to adjust it around twelve months ago, but have since forgotten the process, so if anyone out there knows the magical setting that keeps the recording time correct and how to zero this, please let me know!

Despite these matters Cubase makes our life at the recording studio much more varied, and it's great for classical arrangements or classical style backings as well as a variety of different pop styles.

Jane
www.thebeehouse.co.uk

Recording Studio Work - Engineers Available and Vacancies Sought

Hi Everyone. This blog is designed for studio engineer exchanges comments, CVs and other items. If you would like to put up your details and advertise your skills we would be very happy to post them here. Just click on the POST A COMMENT after this blog. And don't forget a link to your personal web page if you have one! You can include this with your comments.