# Graduate Programs in Recording/Mixing



## Gerhard Westphalen (Aug 8, 2017)

Does anyone know of any aside from McGill? I'm looking for masters programs based on the Tonmeister training focusing on orchestral/chamber recording. All I've found other than McGill are ones in Germany that require speaking German (mein deutsch ist nicht sehr gut) and the PhD at Surrey which is at least 4 years. All other programs seem to be undergraduate degrees (which I'll have plenty of). I'm looking for backup choices in case I don't make it into McGill. I should have a very solid application but I have no idea how competitive it really is.


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## Desire Inspires (Aug 9, 2017)

Don't do it!

Get a Masters in Business or something more stable. Music is wonderful, but if you don't already have a job lined up for you after you graduate, do not get a Masters degree in Recording/Mixing. 

Your knowledge, hard work, and talent will not be enough if you cannot find suitable work to use your degree. It is nothing personal either. The market is brutal for young people trying to make their way out here in mixing/recording. 

Trust me.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Aug 9, 2017)

I have to disagree. The only thing that's remotely stable is medicine. By the time you graduate from anything that's in demand you won't be able to get a job.

My mom is an engineer with a PhD (and living in the oil capital of North America) and she had to open a knitting shop after years of not being able to get any work. My brother has both math and physics degrees and has now decided to tutor high school students as his career after not being able to get any work other than at Starbucks.

You can't get a job regardless of what you do (aside from medicine) so I'll get the best education that I can in the field I want to work in so that if the opportunity does come up, I'll be prepared for it. No, it's not going to get a job lined up but nothing else will. I might as well spend 2 years practicing my skills and making connections with people in the industry.

Having said that, I'm not willing to get massive student debt for this. The McGill program is less than $15,000.


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## Daniel Petras (Aug 9, 2017)

I think the thing you have to do is weigh the trade off of the financial burden verse making connections at university. 

I was kind of in your position a couple of years ago. I moved from Calgary to Toronto to study at U of T. I had studied at Mount Royal for my first 2 years. Maybe you should consider just moving to a bigger city where there is more opportunity and skip the post secondary altogether? Obviously, you can work with people in any part of the world, but I think just being in a bigger city will open up new possibilities.

Debt can be a crippling thing for some people and I think it's best to avoid it if the benefit is not really there. I spent 2 years paying off mine. I had to live in shared accommodation in many different situations to keep the costs down. Roommates suck and they can be draining. 

Unless your overflowing with extra cash, I don't see why someone with your knowledge should need to spend money like that on a degree that's probably useless, to put it bluntly. If I had to do it again, I would avoid uni like the plague and put the money towards an environment that's comfortable and conducive to success while working the highest paying part time job (I teach/taught music and it's great because it's part time and the pay is pretty high).


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Aug 9, 2017)

Daniel Petras said:


> I think the thing you have to do is weigh the trade off of the financial burden verse making connections at university.
> 
> I was kind of in your position a couple of years ago. I moved from Calgary to Toronto to study at U of T. I had studied at Mount Royal for my first 2 years. Maybe you should consider just moving to a bigger city where there is more opportunity and skip the post secondary altogether? Obviously, you can work with people in any part of the world, but I think just being in a bigger city will open up new possibilities.
> 
> ...



Well for me it also has to do with their facilities and the research being done there. I'm very interested in studying with Richard King even if it wasn't for a McGill program. As an alternative to working in the film music industry (everything but composing) I'd like to work in the area of surround sound research and that doesn't happen outside of universities and companies like Dolby. Both of which generally require higher education. Places like Dolby are more on the technical side so I am also looking at options like continuing my studies in computer science (which I'm currently studying at UofC). I've been to a number of studios where they'll have some sort of surround setup and not care at all about it while it's all that I care about there (who cares about racks of outboard  ).

Lately I've been doing some mastering and have really enjoyed it and these programs seem like a good way to get the technical aspects learned like the ear training and working with technologies like tape. Of course you could just work at a studio like Air but it seems like that's more competitive than getting into one of these schools.


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## Daniel Petras (Aug 10, 2017)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Well for me it also has to do with their facilities and the research being done there


Yeah, that's a good point. I would love to work on good equipment too!


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## karelpsota (Aug 10, 2017)

I know it feels like a safe decision to study highly something you love with all the equipment you can imagine.

However, you should *not* master in recording/mixing.

You can achieve mixing skills on your own. There's so many ear training applications and stems available online. You can also get really good by remaking the songs you like... which you are already doing. (nice job on Test Flight).

As far as recording goes, once you have a solid mixing portfolio, apply for a studio internship. You'll learn the mic profiles and mic placement there. More importantly, You'll also learn the business and social skills you don't learn in school.

Source: I went straight to an internship as an assistant score mixer. Best decision of my life!


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## Daniel Petras (Aug 10, 2017)

karelpsota said:


> I know it feels like a safe decision to study highly something you love with all the equipment you can imagine.
> 
> However, you should *not* master in recording/mixing.
> 
> ...


Hey man, some really nice stuff in your Haunted farm pack. Thanks for that! You should definitely put a price on that.


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## JJP (Aug 10, 2017)

I think perhaps you should consider what you want to do with your degree. Are you planning on going into more academic pursuits like research and/or technical development? In that case, the Masters may serve you well.

If you are looking to become a recording engineer, it sounds like you have a good background and perhaps may be better served by pursuing more work-related opportunities like internships. Perhaps attempting to land an assistant engineer position if your skills and experience already support that would also be a good choice. Building up those soft (not software ) skills through experience may be invaluable.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Aug 10, 2017)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> I have to disagree. The only thing that's remotely stable is medicine. By the time you graduate from anything that's in demand you won't be able to get a job.
> 
> 
> 
> Having said that, I'm not willing to get massive student debt for this. The McGill program is less than $15,000.



That's true for the most part, but there are a lot of stable jobs depending on what sector you're in. I work as a power engineer (in Calgary), which is incredibly stable as long as there are boilers to maintain.

Bottom line tough? Don't let anyone talk you out of the program you are interested in pursuing, period. If the McGill program looks like the one, then do it. Otherwise, you'll always wonder what it would have led to, and you'll have the life sucked out of you by working some job that you hate. I'm assuming you're young (under 30?), in which case that is the ideal time to take such risks. I say go for it. Heck, you could apply your degree anywhere in the world, which is very cool.


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## gsilbers (Aug 10, 2017)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Well for me it also has to do with their facilities and the research being done there. I'm very interested in studying with Richard King even if it wasn't for a McGill program. As an alternative to working in the film music industry (everything but composing) I'd like to work in the area of surround sound research and that doesn't happen outside of universities and companies like Dolby. Both of which generally require higher education. Places like Dolby are more on the technical side so I am also looking at options like continuing my studies in computer science (which I'm currently studying at UofC). I've been to a number of studios where they'll have some sort of surround setup and not care at all about it while it's all that I care about there (who cares about racks of outboard  ).
> 
> Lately I've been doing some mastering and have really enjoyed it and these programs seem like a good way to get the technical aspects learned like the ear training and working with technologies like tape. Of course you could just work at a studio like Air but it seems like that's more competitive than getting into one of these schools.



Thats quite the fork in the road. Mastering vs technical jobs at dolby /audio tech. For mastering you would be a "user" while at dolby you would be creating the systems or any arcilary jobs there. 

I have a friend who did this audio program 
http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/conservatory/recordingarts/degrees.html

then got hired to work in China for a speaker company . which is basically were all those tech jobs are nowadays. Dolby might be the few here or they mostly hire foriengers with very spcialized programming, math, science skills. of course thats generalizing a bit. Its not the same path as yours, but just showing another perspective. in china, product developement happens in weeks, as suppose to years in the US and many months in EU. So there is a lot of oportunities in the tech area. My friend was more like a liason between the US company and the tech ops over there. 

as for mastering engineer, i know there are programs... but mastering engineer is not a job with a strong demand... it might be the other way around... way too many mastering engineers, not to mention Ozone 7 

There is also the tech side of audio revolving around distribution. Companies like deluxe, tecnicolor, disney etc need very expensive equipment and specialized software from companies like digital rapids, amberfin, Clipster etc.
Those companies, like dolby, power the distirbution monster of hollywood but they are not as well known like dolby.
But trying to figure out atoms distribution, embedding surround, transcoding surround formats in cloud based platforms... all interesting stuff.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Aug 10, 2017)

gsilbers said:


> Thats quite the fork in the road. Mastering vs technical jobs at dolby /audio tech. For mastering you would be a "user" while at dolby you would be creating the systems or any arcilary jobs there.
> 
> I have a friend who did this audio program
> http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/conservatory/recordingarts/degrees.html
> ...



I'd like to keep as many doors open as possible in order to end up with something viable. The things that I most like doing are film scoring tech and score mixing so the Dolby sort of tech development is more of a backup thing but I'd be happy to continue my education in that area if I found the right program. 

The problem with that area is that it seems very outside of my reach. I've been studying computer science in university yet know nothing from their posted job requirements (even entry level positions) and I haven't found any computer science related programs that seem like they would give me that skill set. The programs that are heavily based in DSP or electronics need things like an electrical engineering degree. I'm practically done the music part of my degree so this coming year will pretty much be only computer science for me. Hopefully it'll get me a bit closer.

Thanks for sharing that program.


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## Joram (Aug 23, 2017)

I graduaded long time ago from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague (Netherlands). Although I was there a short while ago to tell the newly graduating boys and girls of Art of Sound about real life, I am not sure they have a masters programma. The classes are in English since it is a quite international institute. 

What could be interesting as well are the music programs in Banff, Canada.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Aug 23, 2017)

Joram said:


> What could be interesting as well are the music programs in Banff, Canada.


I saw on the McGill site that graduates have gone to Banff so I always thought it was for people already with higher education.

Having said that, I'm not so sure that there's anything of values left there. I've done a number of programs at the Banff Center and they've had massive cuts to the arts budgets and so many of the programs are simply gone. It seems like it's no longer what it used to be (like having workshops with people like John Cage). There's also very little information on the facilities (everything I've found seems very outdated) and details on the audio programs.


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## JohnG (Aug 23, 2017)

JJP said:


> If you are looking to become a recording engineer, it sounds like you have a good background and perhaps may be better served by pursuing more work-related opportunities like internships. Perhaps attempting to land an assistant engineer position if your skills and experience already support that would also be a good choice



yes, 100% -- work for an established engineer. Since you already know stuff, maybe you can offer to work free for a month and get a foothold that way? I think you'll learn more, faster, and it will cost less. Many engineers dread the ugly task of editing recorded tracks in Protools, so if you know how to do that you can perhaps propose doing it for nothing (once).

The USA has seen a declining demand for engineers who can record an orchestra; honestly I think it's financial suicide to spend money on a master's degree if you're trying to work in the US.


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