It is hard to believe that it was only 130 years ago when the music recording industry began. In 1878 Thomas Edison invented a machine called the phonograph that could record sound. He planned on using it to relay telegraph messages, and also for automated speech via the telephone which he had already invented a year and a half prior. He figured out that the needle could prick a paper tape and record a message, which led to a stylus on a tinfoil cylinder, which, to his great surprise, played back the short message he recorded, "Mary had a little lamb." The phonograph machine was a tinfoil wrapped cylinder on which sound vibrations could be engraved and then played back.
By the early 1900s, many recordings were being produced by musicians worldwide. The recording industry became a serious business by 1910 for anyone who had the money. Over the next 90 years, the recording, editing and distribution of music was only available to those who had money and could afford expensive recording equipment and big recording studios.
It wasn’t until the late1980s when people began to experiment with digital audio processing. Sound vibrations were converted to binary words by the computer. Greater bit depths were available in the ‘90s, so audio could be better represented digitally, but it took computers with high processing power and big caches of memory and ram. Once again, like the old days of the recording industry, it took lots of money.
Today, personal computers have become accessible and less expensive, so memory and fast processing speeds that are needed for digital audio are available on nearly all computers. Sound cards and audio interfaces have also become easier to use and less expensive. Software like Digidesign, Garage Band, Reason, Logic Pro or Audacity, programs for digital audio recording, are now available for free so almost anyone can play around with recording their own music.
At the Recording Connection, Pro Tools software is the favorite go-to tool. These days more and more students who are interested in a career in the music recording industry already have experience with audio recording on their computers, so in order for the students to excel in the industry we encourage mentor courses where students can learn the business from a working professional.
Reasonably priced at around $7,450, students get a classroom that is a real recording studio in the town or city where they live. This is a school that trains people for a job in the music recording industry, because a classroom is not the best way to learn this business.
Check out our video here. This is an accredited apprenticeship, where you learn a structured course that has been written by audio professionals, and you are also working with a mentor, one-on-one, the basics and advanced. There are over 5,000 recording engineers have endorsed the Entertainment Connection course.
