An audio engineer, who is a buddy of mine made me a proposal that no aspiring musician can say no to.. My friend stated: ” Why don’t you visit recording studio and let us make a record.” “We can work on it up to the point that you find it acceptable. Take all the studio time you need.” In return, we decided that after I printed the record, I’d give him a part of the sales. This gift was a result of friendship and at the same time a desire for more experience.

For 2 days at a month every month I spend two hours driving to his studio and spend my evenings there sleeping on his makeshift bed while I record during the day. In fact, I ended up composing most of the record in the course of off times in the studio. During those recording periods, I’d watch how he set up the microphones, how he would try different things, and switch gears if they didn’t work. I watched as he went through the mixing procedure and as he made remedies for problems that come up at random. My friend would describe what he was doing, and why, and would constantly answer my queries.

The record by itself actually did not go anywhere. Nonetheless, the lessons I have learned from that experience I was able to apply it in my line of work. In those moments when I do not have a sound tech handy, I am no longer completely lost; I can work with the equipment on hand to figure out what I need at the moment. Moreover, the experienced trained my ear to listen to tracks that are not well mixed and at the same time it also helped me gain enough understanding to handle such mishaps. Rather than just realizing something is wrong with an audio mix, I can hear more distinctly what is incorrect with it.

Wanting to be a sound engineer is the last thing on my mind and I have no desire to become one. What is important though is the truth that I mastered both from experience and from mentorship in a recording studio. The reason lies on the facts that in order to learn and comprehend audio engineering you need someone who will show and clarify to you the whole process along with practice and experience.

My friend would have learned it from somebody despite that fact that he went to school and studied the recording studio craft. Nevertheless, I find it interesting that even after obtaining that education, my friend was compelled to offer me unlimited free studio time so he could gain experience running his own studio – even after going to school for it. He benefited from his scholastic experience, but he didn’t trust it enough to carry him after; he wanted more.

Whether you gain your education through schooling, through mentoring, through practice or through a combination of these, what really matters in this industry is whether you can generate results. This is what I realized in the recording studio.