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Recording Industry Jobs and Internships

lm183902

lm183902

Aug 19, 2007
539
559
41
Denver, CO
#1
I'm not totally sure if this is the right place for this, but here goes..

I'm currently attending school for audio production and have really been worrying about finding an internship/ job. I've heard lot's of horror stories of people who spent tons of money on school, but never got jobs.

If there's anyone on here who has any experience - do you have any advice? I've been thinking of a few different cities and have started researching studios and getting my resume together. I'm more than willing to start at the bottom - even if it means cleaning toilets for a while. I have a real passion for music and recording, and am willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
#2
It's a tough industry. The horror stories you've heard are rooted in fact. I usually tell people to avoid trade schools entirely and attend a proper 4-year accredited university with a good recording program. As an industry, the recording world is an over-worked, under-paid place, and it's a very good idea to have a broader reaching education than a trade school can provide. Also looks better on a resume, and can be done much more cheaply, for a better education. If you're not at the point of no return, I'd consider jumping ship in this fashion. From your FL location, I take it you're attending FS. The additional problem with FS is they churn out a LOT of unqualified grads, and they have a tendency to devalue your degree within the industry. At my day job (recording related), we view trade school grads with a lot of skepticism as they've historically been dolts.

Enough doom 'n' gloom. In my experience, the money is not in music, unfortunately. It's in advertising, especially voice over production for commercials. In your shoes, I'd be focusing on finding a slot in an advertising agency or in a studio that primarily does voice over recording. The hours tend to be more civilized, and the pay better.

And network like mad. This is not an industry that advertises in the help wanted section, most any job worth having in the recording world will be found via word-of-mouth.

If you want to be recording music, you can make that happen. Most of the folks I know that do this make it work not by finding a job, but by living lean and having their own company with its niche focus: mobile or location recording, old-school analog for purists, destination location, etc.
 
#3
I would say anything in the entertainment industry is hard to get work because so many want in. Then most the companies take advantage of that and pay is low till you make a name for yourself. Then computers have automated so much and now reducing costs to point a lot of bread and butter recording is now done in home studios. Also the internet has made it possible to work practically anywhere for a lot of work.

Now the biggest reality is all that above applies to just about everything these days. I was a musician and audio engineer back in the day and saw computer controlled gear come in and then digital gear change things. So I got into computers, made a good living there for twenty years and now that is drying up for same reasons. Computer can be supported remotely easier and jobs have gone overseas to people willing to work cheap (compared to U.S. salaries.)

The point is get a good broad education that you can go multiple directions with. Learn to learn fast because as i have read and seen the average person changes careers 4-5 times in their life. Industries change, your interests change, the world changes. So get a education, keep your eyes open to trends, and enjoy the challenge of changing directions in life.
 
#5
Thanks for the great replies guys.

Unfortunately, I have reached the point of no return at FS, and have racked up about $60,000 in debt in the process. After about 9 months here, I've encountered many of these dolts you've mentioned. It's quite frustrating, because for every 100 kids that just want to make beats and get famous, there are a few hard workers that are honestly trying to better themselves and get an education. I did attend a normal 4 year university, but left after the 3rd year, because I felt that the program didn't provide nearly enough training to get a job. However, now I'm seeing that FS is similar in this regard. I must say, it's really hard not to think about the debt hanging over my head, not to mention the difficulty of finding a job, but I'm not going to give up any time soon. Thanks again for the replies, I need all the advice I can get at this point.
 
#6
lm183902 said:
Thanks for the great replies guys.

Unfortunately, I have reached the point of no return at FS, and have racked up about $60,000 in debt in the process. After about 9 months here, I've encountered many of these dolts you've mentioned. It's quite frustrating, because for every 100 kids that just want to make beats and get famous, there are a few hard workers that are honestly trying to better themselves and get an education. I did attend a normal 4 year university, but left after the 3rd year, because I felt that the program didn't provide nearly enough training to get a job. However, now I'm seeing that FS is similar in this regard. I must say, it's really hard not to think about the debt hanging over my head, not to mention the difficulty of finding a job, but I'm not going to give up any time soon. Thanks again for the replies, I need all the advice I can get at this point.
Click to expand...
FS has a very bad reputation as I've seen on recording forums. I think the general opinion is that yes, some very talented people come out of FS, but the vast majority are worthless. The other problem is there simply are no jobs available for fresh graduates in the recording world (other than the jobs you make for yourself). The existing jobs are all filled and shrinking every day, major recording studios are closing their doors, internships are a massive joke if your goal is moving towards a paying job (most studios and labels use interns as an endless supply of free labor on a 6 month rotation). Plus, any internship that could possibly be worth anything is going to be in LA or NYC (or less likely in Nashville), and those places are ungodly expensive to live especially when you're devoting 40+ hours a week to an unpaid job.

You're much better off building your own recording setup, preferably a portable one because that just gives you more paying gig opportunities (it's easy to make a few hundred bucks recording live shows or taking your studio "to the band" to record a couple tunes). Build up a portfolio of actual material that you did yourself (it's all the more impressive if you built a studio yourself). Try and move up when you feel you're ready.

And I know you're invested in FS, but that $60,000 could have bought a lot of phatty recording gear.
 
#7
lm183902 said:
Thanks for the great replies guys.

Unfortunately, I have reached the point of no return at FS, and have racked up about $60,000 in debt in the process. After about 9 months here, I've encountered many of these dolts you've mentioned. It's quite frustrating, because for every 100 kids that just want to make beats and get famous, there are a few hard workers that are honestly trying to better themselves and get an education. I did attend a normal 4 year university, but left after the 3rd year, because I felt that the program didn't provide nearly enough training to get a job. However, now I'm seeing that FS is similar in this regard. I must say, it's really hard not to think about the debt hanging over my head, not to mention the difficulty of finding a job, but I'm not going to give up any time soon. Thanks again for the replies, I need all the advice I can get at this point.
Click to expand...

Man. I feel horrible for you. The advice I'd give you would be, in no particular order:

Create your own job. As mentioned, find a leg-up in the geographic area you live in. Might be mobile, might be transfers, might be live PA sound, could be a combination of all. Whatever need isn't being met. I have a friend that records podcasts of executives in their offices, cuts them into corporate presentations. Boring as all get-out, but pretty lucrative.

Focus away from music. It's damn hard to compete with free, and there's a lot of teenagers recording out of their homes for free. Again, the voiceover market seems to be one of the last bastions of stable work in the audio industry. If you can get into film post-production, that's also not a bad way to go.

If you're really wanting to do music, and are a prolific writer, look seriously at composing for media. TV, advertising, corporate stuff, music libraries. If you can break this nut, it's can be a good way to go.

Finish the 4-year degree if you can, specializing in something lucrative to chip away at that debt. $60k is daunting to be sure.

The unfortunate thing, if you decide to get into music production, don't bank on the FS degree. It's already been tainted by the BeatMaker to Serious Student ratio you mentioned. In some instances, especially cold-calling situations, it will do more harm than good, this effect will be more pronounced the closer to Orlando you're looking.

Be wary of broadcast jobs, unless they're union. A friend of mine that works for the ABC owned & operated radio station in san francisco was down on his job (producing talk shows) because he passed an In N Out burger on the way to work that was hiring at $9 an hour. Only $2 less per hour than he was making. Granted this was ~8 years ago, but that ain't a living wage.

Best of luck to you!
 
#8
newfuture said:
Finish the 4-year degree if you can, specializing in something lucrative to chip away at that debt. $60k is daunting to be sure.
Click to expand...
+1. Even if you end up getting some completely unrelated job to pay the bills, a COMPLETED 4 year degree is going to help a lot. Most places don't give a crap what your degree is in. I wouldn't have the job I do now (or be able to afford living in the area I do) without my completely unrelated degree.
 
#9
newfuture said:
Enough doom 'n' gloom. In my experience, the money is not in music, unfortunately. It's in advertising, especially voice over production for commercials. In your shoes, I'd be focusing on finding a slot in an advertising agency or in a studio that primarily does voice over recording. The hours tend to be more civilized, and the pay better.

And network like mad. This is not an industry that advertises in the help wanted section, most any job worth having in the recording world will be found via word-of-mouth.
Click to expand...

+1. My old college roommate at Berklee didn't even finish his degree before someone wanted to hire him to do exactly this kind of work (radio). So he packed up and left to work for a small studio in Pittsburgh, engineering voice over, radio spots.

Was there for a year and got a call from another place in his home state NC doing the same thing. Has been there for the past 10 years or so!

Another buddy of mine went to UF for Mass Comm but also interned for a year or 2 at the local and very busy music studio. Ended up doing same type of work except for 'on hold' messages (the kind you hear when you're on hold with Home Depot or Visa or whatever).

I hung out with him a lot at the studio during his intern days. I can say that the experiences and the people you meet are are somewhat of a consolation to the crappy pay and hours.

Jeff Berlin used to drop by once in a while b\c he was tight with the veteran engineers\players there and he had just opened his music school nearby.

BTW - Regarding degrees. I finished my 4 year at Berklee with a degree in Sound Design. My 'dream job' was to do audio for animated film\TV. Ended up as a software application developer (far cry from doing music and sound FX for "The Simpsons", "Family Guy", etc..)! But have made a good living and can still continue my musical endeavours! :D

So whatever you do, keep on, keepin' on! Good luck!
 
#12
You want to work in a studio? Get your own clients and take them there. Better yet, take them to several different studios. Become known as a freelancer. Go to high schools and colleges and offer to record their orchestras. Get interested in electronics and have some chops at repairing analog gear and setting up pro tools computers that don't crash. Network like crazy. Get a good stereo recording chain of your own. It's very difficult to break in but it can be done. +1e6 on finishing your 4 year degree though, that's an absolute must. For every 100 people in the biz there are a 100 different ways they got there but they all took more time & work than most people want to invest.
 

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