Recording Schools—Pros and Cons

If you’re into all the latest audio tech and gear, and if you’re dreaming of running your own studio someday, perhaps you’re checking out recording schools, looking for the best one to attend.  There is a lot to be said for educating yourself, especially when it comes to the recording industry.  However, recording school might or might not be the best choice for you to learn what you need to learn.  Here are some pros and cons of recording schools.

THE GOOD (pros)

• A college degree from a school adds some prestige. This is true in most professions, although probably less so in recording.  If nothing else, the degree says you finished something.
• Recording schools might be a good approach if you’re academically inclined.  In other words, if you learn best from textbooks, lectures, tests and simulations—if you learn best from traditional methods—this might be the way for you to go.
• In a classroom environment, you’re not the only new kid. You have a group of students with you who are learning right along with you, and you can even collaborate, if need be.

THE BAD (cons)

• Recording schools can be quite costly.  It takes a lot of money to keep up with the latest equipment and maintain a building, and that cost gets passed to you.
• The equipment and techniques might be dated.  This is a rapidly changing field, and sometimes traditional programs can’t keep pace—and if they can keep up, chances are they are even more expensive.
• The dollar value of the education may be greatly reduced.  This means that even with a college-level education, you might be surprised at how little you know about running a real studio when you get finished.  This is because traditional education is based on theory and simulation, when recording is primarily learned by doing.

The reality is that many successful audio engineers never went to recording school.  Instead, they learned the trade by some combination of practice and mentoring.  In other words, they learned by actually doing it—working in real-life environment until they got the hang of things, and picking up techniques as they went.  In some professions, traditional schooling is essential; in recording, not so much.  The important factor that gets you the jobs is not the degree, but your ability to produce results.

One thing to consider is an education program that actually maximizes the way most audio engineers learn to record—through the mentor-apprentice approach. By placing students with working professionals and giving them a guided curriculum to follow, this approach makes sure the student has all the bases covered while giving them hands-on training, at a greatly reduced cost to traditional methods.  So in considering the pros and cons of recording schools, also consider the way the school teaches. The mentor-apprentice approach might be just what you need.