Music/Audio related jobs, how to get involved??

[parents]

I studied music technology and acoustics but I was never so much at recording and mixing. I was mostly specialized on audio-visual programming. Done lots of MaxMSP and VVVV. After university I went to Athens , did an internship at a research insitute for six months and then I worked as an external partner for the institute doing programming of audiovisual installations but also audio applications for other things, most weird was when I and a friend of mine programmed an application at VVVV to isolate and capture the knock of the tennis ball hitting a racket for statistics...whatever.. Never really managed to make a living with these things in Athens and it was the good era (before crisis). So I packed my balls and went back to my parents where I worked for almost 2 years at a company that does PA. I really learned so many things there that I never being tought in university. But still the money was shit and I couldn't make a living so did many other jobs just for living. Finally I learned audiology and got involved in the hearing aid buisines for 2 years.
After all these years I can say that my degree helped me only in few ocations and in Greece there is only work at PAs and I still know so mauch more regarding MaxMSP than recording and mixing haha. I m glad to read that other guys here work at studios but as they also mentioned before you need a lot of running and patience. Also Alume made a very good point so if you read this please double check Alume's reply to you.
But.... non the less you can worj in this busines by doing all these that the guys above wrote and a degree is not really a must. You only need to believe in yourself and really wanna do it (or just be a failed musician, that also help haha). Whatever you choose I wish you the best.

[borg]

I fall into the 'failed musician' category, I guess...

Got into 'rock' guitar in my teens, no formal education. Made lots of progress during my university years (economy/trade) and really wanted to study jazz, not a good idea according to my parents. Anyway, first a proper degree, then maybe the music education (at that moment, the musical landscape in Belgium was amateurish and non profitable, apart from some crooners). So I continued the economical studies, but after buying my first sampler for the industrial band, I shifted more and more to electronic music, and by the end of my education I had lost interest in guitar music and the jazz education.
In the meantime, I worked a few days a month as a stagehand for a local club, hauling PA and backline, got to know the PA guys and started doing monitors for them when they were short of personnel. Too bad they were shifting from PA to a studio they had set up (unfortunately no opportunity there).
So, after school, I worked at a major container terminal beta testing software for container traffic for a year, a few years for a building contractor and landscape architect, making little to no music in that period.
Then a mate who was working as a stagehand for musicals, said they were short of one person for a new production. Nothing special: apart from the questionable commercial character of the show, it was also nothing more than curtains, props, change overs and a bit of pyro. Got to know the light engineer, and before I knew it I was monitor engineer for another, proper, theatre company, and have worked in theatre since, with an emphasis on sound, but light and video or stage as well, even did some music for a contemporary dance company. All without formal education.
I wouldn't call myself an audio engineer at all, though, far from it! I work in a fairly big theatre now (comparable to something like the Barbican on Belgian scale), with three proper sound engineers, and I'm fourth in line, best of the rest so to speak. Good enough to operate our PA systems and gear and do 'smaller' productions (our bigger shows include names like Willem Dafoe, Robert Wilson, Ivo Van Hove, Pina Bausch,...). Lots of room for progress, picking up stuff from the real engineers, reading books,...

In short: No training, rolled into theatre, which might be another path not mentioned in this thread before. It's not a path to riches and fame (although I ended up on stage as an actor/puppeteer/musician on a children production), but it has been a rewarding one.

[Lost to the Void]

Theatre is great as you get variety of stuff. I did engineering for our company at the Mermaid theater when I was doing live sound engineering, large theaters are just fascinating buildings anyway. Anyway, I loved working there. I could easily slip back in to that type of work again, it`s a nice environment. I wouldn`t say you are failed anything mate, that`s a great job.

[borg]

Theatre is great

It certainly beats wiping piss, puke and stale beer from your multicable after a festival, at two in the morning.

[Lost to the Void]

One of my worst PA stories ever.

Was doing the soundsystem for Raindance in The Drome, London Bridge (later called SE One, and The Bridge, now purely a corporate venue). Massive venue, old bonded vaults in the arches under London bridge railway. 9,000 capacity event, 7 rooms, we were supplying all the sound.
We had a monstrous rig in the main room, all turbo sound, had to use forklifts to get the tops on the stacks.
We put 100K in a room that held about 1000 people, the bass pressure meant there was a few meters in front of the rig where you got full eyeball vibration. Vaulted arches hold all the sound in...... 80K in the drum and bass room... It was great, Richard Raindance always ensured big sound...

Anyway, They had a big fuck off lazer for the main room. 2 or 3 colour, forgot the name of the company that supplied it now... Phil something ran the company, well known in the biz..
It was old style, water cooled. The laser sat on the stage (the stage was behind the stack, the stage was about 12 feet high roughly), and they had a big plastic dustbin full of water down on the ground, behind our rig, with the piping running up to the lazer.
All the power was got from 64amp 3 phase sockets at the side of the room, and we ran our own distribs to 32 etc, so there was 64 amp, and 32 amp cabling all over the floor behind the rig, as well as a ton of our amp racks etc.
Anyway, about halfway through the night I left my room (the drum and bass room, with my assistant to keep an eye on the rig) to go see Gal, my partner in crime (literally), for a chat and a laugh, grab some beers or whatever. So I was behind the main stack with Gal, we were chatting, smoking (cos you could then), banter etc. When Gal said, "fuck me, the sweat in this place, look at the floor". And the floor was wet, soaking wet!! we very quickly realise that water was everywhere behind the stack, looked over to the water cooling bin, and one of the pipes for the lazer had poppped a gasket and was pumping water all over the floor, and there we were surrounded by ridiculous amounts of ampage running through cabling, standing in a half inch of water. I literally saw my life flash in front of me, I lept up the stage stairs and tried the shut off the lazer pump, the guys running it thought I had gone mental and we started wrestling on the floor behind the decks, then Gal came up and the kerfuffle increased.
We sorted it all out in the end, shut everything down for 5 mins, no one got injured, thank fuck. But literally one of the most fearful moments in PA work I ever had.
After that I never complained about reeling in mud, piss, shit covered cables etc ever again.
The lazer guys bought me and Gal a bottle of champaign each too, which was nice, and richard gave us a danger money cash bonus at the end of the night, haha, and for our hard work, he only ever came to us for sound hire since. I think Gal still does their sound now.

[jordanneke]

One of my worst PA stories ever.....

Shut the fuck up.

Write a book already and take my money.

[Lost to the Void]

One of my worst PA stories ever.....

Shut the fuck up.

Write a book already and take my money.

I got back in touch with Gal end of last year. I basically, tactfully, slowly moved him out of my life years ago, as he was a genuine bonafide psychopath with a bit of a death wish, a total liability, and basically after years of basically being with him every day, rather than me (initially in our friendship it was this way) calming him down providing him with a trustworthy and reliable friend (he hadn`t had a stable life), his behavior started to rub off on me, and by the time I walked away from him I was a liability myself, I would go off immediately at the drop of a hat (made worse as I was doing doors at that time) and we were taking stupider and stupider and more brazen risks in putting on raves......
Anyway, we got back in touch, he`s basically lost contact rights with his kid, and has gone through anger management and stuff, the business we had, that I left, he has grown now, and he has one of the largest Void acoustics sound hire companies in the country. The new Incubus he has is SICK (If anyone wants to hire an amazing amazing soundsystem with a good engineer, let me know)... He`s basically a better person, and we are slowly rekindling our friendship. One of the things we both are talking about now is writing a book. He keeps reminding me of stuff I have clearly forgotten, in some cases on purpose, of things we got up too. I always thought I remained relatively level headed throughout all the madness and chaos, but he has reminded me of a few stories where I clearly went uncharacteristically wrong ( I had for instance, completely forgotten that every summer we would put on the only outdoor illegal raves in London, that never got busted, underneath the canning town flyover).. Anyway, when we have enough time to properly sit down together, a book is going to happen, Gal is only semi literate so we have to do it together anyway.

Pendulum Soundystem: From United Systems to Chaos and Carnage - A story of the post criminal justice act illegal rave and squat party scene of late millennial London.