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To any audio engineers or sound techs out there.
 

So it's me, Hydroid again and this time I have a request out to the SC2 community. Right now I'm in a strange situation in my real life. To put it bluntly I didn't make it into university this year thanks to complications from writing the SAT test instead of the HSC at the end of my schooling. (YAY for changing continents a couple years before finishing your schooling right?) But to put that to the side, that has thrown me completely out of orbit on what this year was going to look like. Obviously I looked for work and managed to get some back in the summer job I'd held for 4 years (Window Cleaning), but that has pretty much dried up again as my boss is struggling to get enough work in to just keep the company afloat as it is. Bottom line, I'm back to looking for work and would like to utilize some of my skills more fully than Window Cleaning.

I understand that without any presentable "qualifications" it's a little hard for me to prove what I can so I am looking at doing work experience with the hopes that I can follow that up into a job. I have a couple of years experience in running PA/Music Reinforcement systems at my parent's church. A little while back they upgraded their system to all new hardware that cost well over $100k. While I've only had a primary role for about 4 years I've always been around sound equipment since I was young. My uncle played in a band and had a lot of his own equipment that he let me help setup from time to time from as young as 6 years old I've been running cables and plugging them in. And more recently I've taken a greater interest in the potential pursuit of Audio Engineering as a career. This has rolled into putting in extra time of my own to learn and take my mixing skills to the next level.

Basically I'm wondering if I could get lucky and there's someone from the SC2 community who also works in audio engineering who could help me get work experience or someone who knows someone that I could contact. From what I've found so far it seems to be extremely word of mouth based to get work in this line so I thought I'd reach out to the community and see if someone could help me. I'm prepared to put in the effort to prove myself as a trustworthy and capable person for employment.

Re: Help appreciated.
 

You could ask joshy - aka FaDeDeadalus - he studies that kind of stuff and MAY know someone
might be a good idea to change topic to indicate you want audio engineers to check out this here blog

Re: Help appreciated.
 

Bad luck on university mate. There are some really silly requirements for admission sometimes. Have you investigated some of the lesser-known universities such as UWS. I'm pretty sure they used to accept people into quite a few courses without even having a HSC. You just needed to do some sort of basic skills test and if you proved you were literate and could add and subtract then they pretty much let you in. Transferring is always quite easy once you're in. Not sure if this applies to the courses you're interested in but it may be worth investigating if you feel like heading back to uni.

Sorry I have no experience or contacts in Audio but I think it's really cool you took the chance to write up this post here best of luck getting some contacts man!

Re: Help appreciated.
 

Thanks, I'll do that.

I was actually applying for UWS, but I put all my preferences down in engineering (Electrical, Systems, Mechanical etc) and even though my SAT score equated to a good enough ATAR to make it I didn't get any offers and so my only guess is that either they were wary of the SAT or else my actual score didn't make it to them. Either way the courses filled up on the first round offers and so they weren't looking around for more people. I'm planning on applying again next year unless I can break into the audio industry and follow that around into a career.

Re: To any audio engineers or sound techs out there.
 

Become a dj ;P I'll hook you up with by friend David Guetta,
On a serious note: I hope you find some work Have you tried after school care work or like childcare, that could be a temporary option because these days males are scarce at these kind of places.......

Re: To any audio engineers or sound techs out there.
 

Becoming a DJ is actually viable and not hard :P

Also yeah apply for other institutions like PiG suggested. There are ways to go from TAFE to uni too, presuming VIC is similar to NWS...

Re: To any audio engineers or sound techs out there.
 

This is pretty much all anecdotal based on engineering Melbourne. So it could be different elsewhere, but it's my experience so it might help you in some way.

I've been doing audio engineering for about 6 years now (started at school), it's not easy to get paid (aka, people love you to work for free, I'm not really for that). I went to uni and left halfway through for many reasons, but one of the big ones was the lack of jobs.

Getting into a studio is really damn hard. Now, I was training as a recording and mixing engineer at uni, which is a lot more competitive than say a roadie. You could probably get into a studio and try and work your way up, but I'd say your better off looking at festivals and venues, as studios are few and far between.

From my experience it is incredibly word of mouth to get a job, so keep asking everyone you know.

My experience of studying AE at uni, is conflicting. I already knew a lot going into the course, so I didn't find much value out of it - and the newbies in the course where in way over their heads. I honestly think it's something you are better to learn on the job. If you know how a condenser mic works compared to a dynamic mic, and you know your way around a desk you'll be fine for most of the role. Everything else you can pretty much learn on the job. So while a course in it can be good, I don't think it's that necessary.

If you understand the basic physics, of sound, how we capture it, and how we reproduce it, everything builds from there.

There's heaps on info on the net and youtube to learn from, and its similar to uni. If you want to get into a studio either recording, mixing or mastering, it's hard without a piece of paper - but it's hard with the paper anyway. SO I'd say, go for live music. Venues or festivals or whatever.

Make sure you know how to roll cables, I've heard a few sorry stories about people who couldn't roll cables, and therefore couldn't keep a job. They were utterly woeful at it though.

Based on your experience you'll probably be able to get something somewhere.

Last thing I'd say is that, while audio engineering is definitely still a skilful profession, it's becoming less of a profession and more of just a skill. Many artists record themselves, and many engineers do other things as well. For example, I've moved more into broadcasting and so on.

I hope that made some sense. I don't want to be too specific, because I didn't really like the uni I went to (cost way to much, and learnt very little), and barely anyone from my course has jobs in the industry that weren't lined up beforehand.

TL;DR: It's a tough industry to get into, but live music is probably the best area to look in. Uni is probably not really worth it, especially if you have experience with gear. Studios are basically impossible to get a job in, live music, or corperate is the best bet.

Re: To any audio engineers or sound techs out there.
 

Thanks for your awesome response man, that gives me a good amount to think about. And atleast I know that I'm fine not seeking out going through uni for Audio Engineering atleast. I guess I'll keep my eyes open for any opportunity.

Re: To any audio engineers or sound techs out there.
 

I was actually applying for UWS, but I put all my preferences down in engineering (Electrical, Systems, Mechanical etc) and even though my SAT score equated to a good enough ATAR to make it I didn't get any offers and so my only guess is that either they were wary of the SAT or else my actual score didn't make it to them.

Just a suggestion if you revisit the idea of going back to uni... don't leave it at a guess. Write back to them or phone or something to find out why exactly you were not successful. If it was a grades thing, find out what you need to sort out. Then, if you want to fix your grades, you can set up a strategy to do this. Maybe your application was poor or maybe there were amazing other applications that put you out of the picture. If this was the problem, again, you can then focus your energy on fixing the real problem rather than randomly guessing and maybe wasting time on the wrong thing.

Re: To any audio engineers or sound techs out there.
 

Your welcome.

You can also do a tafe course (I did it VET in HS) call Audio Engineering (Production), which gives you a really solid ground of the basics. I'd probably recommended that over uni, as it sets you up to learn audio engineering in general.