How to Avoid Getting Scammed by a Recording School

We’ve all seen the ads: wide-eyed kids surrounded by gold records and shiny new recording gear looking excited as hell to finally be in a real live recording studio! You get the tour: a massive recording console, references to famous rock stars of the 70s and 80s, and promises about how much you (or your child) will learn – all about the world of recording and the music business too. It looks exciting and hey, you can even get a student loan. That beats community college any day, right? But hold on for a second.

Isn’t the goal of spending thousands and a year or two on community college the prospect of a job doing what you’ve learned at school once it’s all done? At the bare minimum it’s to gain some skills that you need to pursue some kind of career, right? So first, lets look at whether it even makes sense to go to a recording school, some of which charge $40,000 or more for a two-year program.

The state of the music business is pretty dismal these days. It used to be that an entire recording industry floated on the backs of record labels that spent millions on producers, engineers, 2nd engineers, mix engineers, mastering engineers, and all the others involved in making recorded music. Not anymore. While there are more recordings being released than any time in history, studios are closing down, producers are retiring (or opening up recording schools) and countless recording professionals are out of work and looking for new careers.

If you don’t believe me, go to any major city and look for the high-end legendary studios. Chances are, they aren’t in business anymore. Now, that’s not to say there is not still a need for qualified sound engineers and producers, but in a business that’s always been tough to break into, it’s now damn near impossible to get a gig as a recording engineer once completing recording school. So why take the training?

There are a few good reasons. Good training is good training, and you may just want to start your own business as a producer and/or engineer. If you get great training on not just running a piece of recording software, but on the finer points of recording, that would be useful. Also, you will meet some like-minded people to work with. Maybe. Are there other places to get this training? You bet. For the basic gear and software, there are plenty of online training sources that will teach you how to run Pro Tools or Logic Audio.

As for the soft skill basics, most community colleges offer recording classes, and they are significantly cheaper than most of the recording schools. Again, it all depends what you want to get out of your training. If you want to be a full-blown recording engineer, a school might even make sense. However, if you are a fledgling recording artist, there might be better ways to spend your money.

However, lets say you are committed to attending a recording school: here are a few questions to ask before signing up: Gear: Some schools have fantastic vintage and extremely cool gear. It’s assumed that students get to use this gear, but often the students only work with the cheap consumer grade gear.

Question: Do students have access to the good gear at the studio? Recording Time: Schools with too many students might not be able to offer enough recording time for students to really learn what they are doing. Or they get some studio time, but it’s from 2:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m. Also, there might be studio time, but it’s shared with three or four other students.

Question: How much recording time do students get in the” big room”?

Question: How is recording time for students structured in terms of time of day, and how much recording time is allotted to each student? Class Size: If an instructor is teaching details of how to use a piece of gear and he has twenty students crowded around trying to see what he’s talking about, it’s not so good. Simple math: the more students, the less attention per student, the less bang for your buck.

Question: How big are the teaching studios and what is the maximum class size? Drop Out Rate: You can tell a lot about a school based on how many students drop out. If you’re spending the money, you have every right to ask about this.

Question: What is the drop-out rate? Student Placement: There is an implied promise by some schools that once a student completes his or her training, that student will be able to do something with that training. Some schools even offer out-placement for students. Find out how they are doing.

Question: Are any recent students (first year out) currently working in the field? Can we contact them? Accreditation: Schools are required to be accredited in order to access student loan programs. This is a cash cow for some recording schools. If the school is accredited, this allows you to check-up on them. There are government programs that oversee career colleges and vocational schools and you have the right to inspect the school’s standing with these bodies. Before signing up, find out if you school is accredited and which whom. Then, go to the accreditation website and confirm that the school is in good standing. Be sure and look at the suspended/cancelled list. Finally, talk to as many past and current students as possible:

Do they (current students) have a sparkle in their eyes, are they doing something they love? Or are their eyes glazed over?

Question: Are you glad you signed up?

Question: Do you feel you are getting your money's worth?

Question: Are you getting what was promised? Remember, you’re the one whose going to be on the hook, no one else, for a $40,000 student loan years after the excitement of being in a recording studio has worn right off.

Why did I write this? Two reasons. Several years ago I was hired to put together a recording school for some well-known producers. It was an eye-opening experience about how recording schools work, and how some are scams. It also showed me a cynical side of the business that preys on the dreams and excitement of young kids who can be naïve (or at least less cynical than those of us who have been around longer). I want to see creative and talented kids get their chance to learn and shine as much as anyone, but I don’t want them to have to pay a student loan for the next twenty years, especially if they get burned in the process.

The second reason is this: I have created a viable and inexpensive alternative way for young people to learn about and develop careers in music without going on the hook for huge sums of money. It’s an artist development / self-mamangement tool that will be released to the public in the summer of 2013, so stay tuned! This tool will allow young people (and those not-so-young) to to build rock-solid careers. It’s cheap enough that if it doesn’t work you are only out a (very) little, but it’s deep enough that if you really want to roll up your sleeves and build a career, you will have a strong on-going process to follow that you simply can’t find in any recording school. So – I hope this has been useful. If you decide to unroll into a school, do it for the right reasons and give it all you have. If not, drop me a line and I'll put you on an announcement list. You won’t be sorry.

Thanks!
Don Osborn