Do You Have To Go To School To Be An Audio Engineer?

This is the second of a two part series from a good, long-time friend and colleague of mine, Rene Coronado. I love they way Rene answers the question I am often asked; "Do you have to go to school to be an audio engineer?"


Where you went to school is 100% irrelevant in this field. What you're capable of is all that matters. When people with real money go looking for someone to do their creative audio work they never ever ever look for a degree. What they're looking for (if they don't already have a personal relationship) is a reel and or a recognizable credit list.

With that said, there is a fair amount of good that can come from school, but it doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg.

I went to a 2 year school in West Texas and got my AAS in sound technology on a free scholarship ride, but if I had paid for it out of my own pocket it would have been chump change compared to what places like the Art Institute charges. Literally a few hundred bucks a semester - and we had our own building filled with all kinds of great rooms, mics and boards to work with. It was a little old-school (we were cutting to 2 inch tape and learning calibration), but the formal teaching of fundamentals and troubleshooting were essential to my career.

My advice is to find a place (be it school or otherwise) that will teach you the following:

• electronics theory
• signal flow
• troubleshooting
• acoustics theory
• writing and communication
• microphone and compressor theory
• file management
• business fundamentals like accounting and bill collection

Once you've found your spot the next step is to put it out of your head that you'll learn what you need to know in school. Theory is an important part of the equation, but it only sets up the most important step - practice.

Start finding projects as early and as often as you can. Work for free if you have to, but get paid when you can. Work on your own stuff and work on other people's stuff. Find a mentor if you can, otherwise engage online.

By taking on projects early and often you'll develop your skill set at a rate of speed that will allow you to keep up with the thousands of other kids sitting in their rooms dreaming up cooler sounding stuff than you are. You'll also start building a reel that you can use to either drum up work as a freelancer or look for a staff position somewhere.

Most importantly though, you'll be building relationships with other people that need audio services. To them, it doesn't matter that there's some kid downtown that can make cooler sounds than you because they don't know that kid downtown. Therefore they can't like that kid. But they like you because you do good work and you get it to them on time.

If it were architecture or medicine I'd say get the best degree you can. But its not. Its audio, so instead you'll need to get the best skillset you can and do it as fast as you can.

About Rene Coronado:

Rene Coronado joined DAPG in 1999 as an Audio Engineer and became Lead Sound Designer soon thereafter.

In his role as lead sound designer his responsibilities include creating custom sound effects and foley for a large array of websites, TV shows, films and live events. From the beginning Rene has worked closely with the Dallas Stars and the Texas Rangers on both broadcast and in-game presentations. In addition to several others, he was the lead sound designer in the film El Descubrimiento (The Finding), which won the Juried Award at the Short Shorts Film Festival in Mexico City in 2009.

Rene has also been an ADR recordist for Fox TV, Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures, and he was audio team lead for voice recording on video games such as Brothers in Arms-Earned in Blood, Dragonball Z: Budokai 3 and Spikeout Battlestreet.

Rene graduated with an AAS in Sound Technology from South Plains College in 1999. As part of the team here at DAPG, René continues to expand his knowledge in all aspects of audio production. He currently writes articles about audio for video on BrightHub.com.

What Do You Say When Clients Ask For More?

This is the first of a two part series from a good, long-time friend and colleague of mine, Rene Coronado. Rene has always been very progressive in his thinking when comes to working within the audio field as well as very willing to share his knowledge. I am very pleased to be sharing some of his valuable words with you.

What Do You Say When Clients Ask For More?

The best way to deal with this situation is to do what you can to avoid it entirely, though that really comes with experience.
Here's how to avoid the situation:

Do your homework on the project

Always discuss deliverables before starting work on something. If you get question marks over heads when the topic comes up, then you need to be prepared for the amount of work in front of you, and make plans and decisions accordingly. Its fairly common for an inexperienced video producer to be in need of audio education even though he's already halfway through his project, and its your job as an audio guy to be as honest and straightforward as possible with what you are wiling/able to do given the price and what his project will require in order to ever make any money.

Even experienced video producers and filmmakers can be sometimes shockingly uneducated with regards to the amount and type of sound work required to make their projects marketable. They don't all have to be works of perfection, but you'll know as well as anyone what can pass muster and what can't, and what kind of effort it will take to get from A to B.
If you can anticipate any compromises that will need to be made in order to deliver the project on budget and on time you'll be able to set expectations and minimized the compromise effect accordingly.

All of this comes from the courting process though, and the red flags that people throw up will become more apparent with experience.

Write a contract

I know, people hate signing contracts, but they also hate paying for audio work so you have to protect yourself. Contracts can be flexible by the way. You can specify a package rate for x deliverables and x hours, with an ability to continue work for a studio rate after those hours and deliverables are fulfilled. This way everyone knows what to expect, and it allows for a new entry point into the money conversation if new requirements appear as the project moves along.

Contracts don't have to be all legalese and complex, in fact, the more straightforward and readable the better. Your goal with a contract is not to litigate it if your client wants other stuff - its to use it as a mutually agreed upon framework for the working relationship.

You don't need a signed contract for every job, but you should start considering it when the work looks like it will span more than a few days. Each situation is different so react accordingly.

Also, a wise man once said that you should only have two prices - free and full pop. Anything in between devalues your work without diminishing expectations.

Communicate immediately when surprises occur

When you initially take assets - if you expect one thing and find another, then stop down for a moment and reassess. Then talk to your client before moving forward. If you see a problem and begin work anyway, then you will miss the opportunity to head off trouble before it can multiply.

About Rene Coronado:

Rene Coronado joined DAPG in 1999 as an Audio Engineer and became Lead Sound Designer soon thereafter.

In his role as lead sound designer his responsibilities include creating custom sound effects and foley for a large array of websites, TV shows, films and live events. From the beginning Rene has worked closely with the Dallas Stars and the Texas Rangers on both broadcast and in-game presentations. In addition to several others, he was the lead sound designer in the film El Descubrimiento (The Finding), which won the Juried Award at the Short Shorts Film Festival in Mexico City in 2009.

Rene has also been an ADR recordist for Fox TV, Warner Brothers and Sony Pictures, and he was audio team lead for voice recording on video games such as Brothers in Arms-Earned in Blood, Dragonball Z: Budokai 3 and Spikeout Battlestreet.

Rene graduated with an AAS in Sound Technology from South Plains College in 1999. As part of the team here at DAPG, René continues to expand his knowledge in all aspects of audio production. He currently writes articles about audio for video on BrightHub.com.

Three Things I Couldn't Live Without In Pro Tools

I’ve worked in Pro Tools for years in one capacity or another. Something I’m always surprised about is when I discover a tool that I somehow missed, and not just any tool…It’s almost always a golden tool, one that I feel like I can’t live without once I find it. I wanted to share with you three of these tools. Maybe you use these all of the time, but if not, you’ll be happy you are reading this.

Strip Silence

This is especially handy for VO editing, but is also invaluable for editing snare or kick drums. Open strip silence by pressing ⌘ - U (Mac) Control – U (PC), from there, it’s pretty easy to play around with. Set you threshold to the dB level that you want it to start engaging set the minimum length of file you want created and tell it how much time you want at the beginning and end of the cuts that will be created. Once you hit strip, it tears away the silence and you are left with a neatly cut file.







Tap for Tempos

I have to admit, I feel pretty silly about this one. I remember sitting in a session trying to do some overdubs and setting up a click track. I was having an impossible time getting the tempo right when my assistant engineer said “Dude, just open up tempo and tap the ‘t’!” It really is that simple, open up the tempo window, press play, tap “t”, and viola!

Consolidate Region

This is one that I knew had to exist and went looking for it; it was not hard to find either. I wanted to make one file out of all of precise editing that I was working on so I didn’t inadvertently loose the front or back of the file from moving it around. Highlight all of the audio you want to consolidate and on a Mac; Shift+Option +3 and on a PC; Alt+Shift+3 will do the trick.





Simple but effective, I hope these help you out as much as they have helped me! Please fell free to share some of your favorite tools within Pro Tools below.

Vocal EQ Tips

One of the most common areas I address with those new to recording is equalization. It’s not surprising that this is a roadblock for many aspiring engineers simply due to the fact that with all of the controls and adjustments that are available, it’s easy to feel like you need to make use of EVERYTHING. This is not the case, the numerous options that are available are simply there to provide flexibility to compensate for the recording source, the engineers preference and any other of the innumerable issues that can arise in a recorded track. In this installment, I’m going to continue to focus on the usage of this tool on vocals.

Not to break tradition, I want to start with the disclaimer that, as with just about everything in a studio, equalization is very subjective. At the end of the day, what sounds good to your ears is correct. I have spent a lot of time studying and practicing learned EQ techniques, and I can tell you, the best education that I have received is spending time critically listening to the music that matches the style I’m working on and working to emulate that sound. In most cases, we are not trying to reinvent the wheel, just trying to attain a good sounding vocal that rides in the correct place in the mix. What I will share with you here are some of my most common practices as I am mixing vocals. I’m also writing this from the perspective of the current trend in vocal presentation, which is a crisp vocal from the top down with a much less obvious bottom (especially true with female vocals).

Depending on the style of music, one of the first things I’m working on is cleaning up the bottom end frequencies of the mix. Knowing that there is a lot of room for “mud” between kick drums, toms, bass, guitar and vocal sibilance, I work to make the vocal track stand above those instruments. Generally speaking, I begin with a high-pass filter on a vocal initiating a gentle roll off between 250 & 125 Hz (Know that if you are going for the “big” male vocal, this may have to be adjusted). With many microphones mid-range frequencies are accentuated, the next place that I’m looking is at these frequencies. Generally, these are the frequencies that will “argue” with my guitar tracks. Typically providing a gentle cut in the mid-rage will remedy this. Finally, to get the “crisp” sound, I work with my higher frequencies. I will usually slightly boost 8-ll kHz, which adds the breathy crispness. Use caution doing this, as it is very easy to make your vocal track too “brittle”. I spend the bulk of my EQing time on the high-mid frequencies with the desired end result of making the vocal ride perfectly on the top edge of the mix. While the above is greatly over-simplified, it is a good point of reference.

The more time you spend working with your equalizers the more comfortable you will become making the right adjustments. It’s just like anything; practice makes perfect. Find what you like, listen to as many reference mixes as you can and work to make your mixes sound similar.

I love to get your input and tips as well, feel free to share. As always, I’m happy to answer questions or provide my opinion.

Recording Tips: The (very) Basics Pt. II

I have received a lot of positive feedback on my blog post: Recording Tips: The (very) Basics, and have been asked by several people to expand on it so that it might encompass what an entire project style studio would need to be to achieve a more complete set-up. I will preface this by saying, if you’re like me, you will never have enough “toys in your toy box” and that a “complete” studio is a very subjective thing. Here I will provide, in my opinion what a good starting point is for a more complete set-up.

In the first installment of this blog I discussed the three most critical facets of the studio, the microphone, the preamp and the room. Assuming you have those three figured out and are happy with that, let’s round it out.

First, you have to have something to record to, either a computer with software for recording or a standalone device for recording. I prefer the computer method, as most do these days, so I’ll focus on that style. First, don’t skimp on your computer, you will be asking this machine to do a lot and to do it without creating latency. Don’t expect an old machine with slow processors and very little RAM to do the job without creating tons of frustration. Get a computer that can handle the workload, Rain Recording is a great place to check out for quality machines. The software is also very subjective and there are tons of choices like Pro Tools, Cubase, Nuendo, Logic and Sonar (just to name a few). Find what works best for you and learn it inside out. Know what you will need to properly run the software; you will likely need an external piece of hardware as well.

Next, you will want to be able to hear what you are recording. You will likely need headphones to do this. Look into multi-channel headphone amps and good, comfortable headphones. The number of channels that you will need for your headphone amp will be dependant on how many simultaneous tracks you intend on recording. You will probably not need an eight-channel amp if you only have two inputs available to record to. Also, if you don’t need many headphone outputs, be sure to check on your external piece of recording hardware (if one is needed for your software), many of these have 1-2 outputs preinstalled. Speaking of hearing what you are recording, you will also likely need a decent pair of studio monitors. There are many choices for studio monitors and again, it is subjective, but be sure to get something that provides a very clear and uncolored sound. Studio monitors are crucial to the mixing process and need to be worked with to get the mixes you like. You will likely have to do some work “tuning” your room to get the best possible sound.

If your audio source is being recorded in another room, you will also want to consider a talkback mic, which enables the engineer to communicate to those being recorded through the headphones. A good, inexpensive place to start is with either the Mackie Big Knob or the Presonus Monitor Station. Both of these will also provide many different ways to configure your monitoring system.

After you get all of the above, a few things that are often forgotten about are, microphone stands, pop filters, good cabling and a music stand. Don’t forget to budget these things into your mix. They do add a considerable amount of cost and are hard to do without if you forget.

This is a very over simplified list, and there are certainly MANY other things that you can add, but as a starting point you have a nicely thought out studio set-up. Studio set-ups can be as simple or as complex as you can make them. The most important thing is that you capture good quality sound and have the ability to take that captured sound and mix it into something pleasing to the ear.

Audio Engineers (Unsexy) Checklist

I hate that feeling right after I get all settled in somewhere and then I suddenly realize that I forgot something. Inevitably, right I after I go retrieve my missing artifact, get settled back in…I realize that I did it again. The good news is, if it’s a task that you do regularly, these occurrences get less and less, but until you get the habit built, nothing beats an old fashioned list!

There are a few things that I make sure to have on hand or prepared prior to starting a recording session. This is exceedingly important if you are working with clients since your time is their money. I think that my clients have to think that I am half crazy when I first talk to them before a session because I ask so many questions. The reason is, you can’t prepare for what you don’t know about and nothing is EVER as simple as it sounds. What I’m going to share with you right now are the basic things I make sure are close by when I’m recording and some tools that I suggest you have available to make your life easier during sessions. We can call this the underground checklist, because most of this is the ‘unsexy’ side of being a recording engineer.

Here’s my list:

Pen & Paper – Make LOTS of notes while you are recording! Note the areas that might need to be ‘punched in’, document exceptional passages, write down EQ thoughts, write down areas that might need more compression and don’t forget to write down some creative thoughts to share with your client. All of these things will help you while mixing and let your client know that you are paying attention to their project.

Scripts or Lyric Sheets – These are invaluable for keeping track of where you are in the recording, catching errors and making production notes. I use a pencil on these since I may change my production notes depending on the take.

At Least One More Microphone Option – Be prepared to swap mics, and don’t be too lazy to do it. If your not immediately happy with the sound you are getting, or it’s different than you had first envisioned, it just takes a few seconds to swap a mic and it can make a world of difference.

Extra Mic Cables – Why? Because they do wear out and fail. You don’t want a basic component like that to stop a session dead in it’s tracks! You would be surprised how many times I’ve seen people with only one cable available.

Extra Headphones – Again, these fail. They are high use, (unfortunately) high abuse items and can and will go out without warning.

Bottle of Water (or other beverage) – You will be talking back to your client during the session and you don’t want to have to stop what your doing to go get a drink.

It’s a simple list and not often considered, but can make a world of difference. Assuming you have prepared the rest of you equipment correctly, this should minimize session stopping issues.

Recording Tips: Limiters

If you have spent any amount of time recording and mixing, you have likely tried to keep a sound from clipping or tried to boost the overall volume of a recorded sound only to have it clip because of a small section or a single sound that tends to be much louder. We’ve already covered two types of compression, basic and side-chain, now I’d like to discuss limiters, which will help with the above issues.

A limiter is a compressor that is typically set to a higher ratio and faster attack (see compressor basics). The goal of a limiter is to “limit” a sound to a specific top volume. Limiting effectively reduces the dynamic range of a sound, this means that if set correctly, it will turn down the louder sections to bring their volume closer to the softer sections. Limiters are used frequently in live sound applications to prevent sounds that are too loud from damaging speakers. In a studio setting limiters are often used as a tool to reduce louder sounds so that the volume of the track as a whole can be increased without clipping or distorting. We will focus here on the studio usage only.

A compressor begins limiting once the ratio is set above 5:1 although it is usually a higher ratio setting, closer to 10:1. Also, attack times are generally much faster. To set up a limiter, start by setting your threshold (or ceiling) to the dB level that you want the sound to start to being effected. An example of this would be if you had a sound recorded where the majority of the sound was below -10 dB, with some areas that were around -2 dB and you wanted the volumes of those sections to be closer to the rest of the mix, you would set your threshold somewhere below -2 dB, but probably not more than -10 dB. Next, adjust your ratio to the desired amount of effect you want to use; 10:1 is a good starting point. Now you will use a fairly quick attack setting (this will be a “to taste” adjustment) to tell the limiter how quickly you want the effect to be executed on the sound. Finally, you can use a make-up gain to increase the overall sound of the newly limited track, which should provide for an overall higher volume without clipping. If you limit too much and use an attack time that is too fast, the result will likely be undesirable.

Limiting is a great way to protect speakers, smooth out performances and increase volume. Remember there is no standard setting for any two sounds, so spend some time tweaking the parameters to get the best effect possible. Try not to use more limiting than is necessary as the goal is to improve the overall mix without being overly obvious. The untrained ear should have no idea that it is there at all (unless that’s desired goal).