Ha! Yes that band (Crackout) scored their deal with Hut off my first whirl with PT.

Still - I vote for the very low paid slavery / 'dues paying' route.

Training is too much of an effort to invest into someone that doesn't add value to my business at ALL times during the working day - for 2 year minimum period.

I pay though and make contributions to car repairs, phone bills Xmas bonuses & overtime tips... etc...

My last trainee (now freelance) was engineering a session at my place yesterday (fairly big TV theme mix) and brings his own clients in now.. All the effort with him was VERY worth it.

Jules,

I Think that your approach is more for the "lifer" who has some knowlege and just needs the right mindset and experence... Alpha's situation seems a good bit different?

OK, I don't have the recording experience most of you have but I have been in another professional industry for 13yrs and had to learn from the ground up. It is an industry where there is a high degree of technology and clients range from mom/pop garage type operations to multimillion dollar business with very specialized and highly trained people.

The type of business it is has no bearing to this thread but the aspect of training relates very closely. I have been through the training process and have trained many others and a couple of things are evident in both industries.

1) Textbook knowledge does not translate into success. It certainly can help but just because you know how, it doesn't mean you know "HOW". Make sense?

2) With any amount of training either in textbook or in practice, there is always a measure of absorbtion that is neccessary to be successful. You can have it in your head and it still takes time to really get into your understanding and finally into your practice.

As a personal example, Compression has been the biggest bear for me in recording. It took a long time before I finally reached the place where I absorbed enough and had enough hands on to really grasp what I'm doing and now can say if I want such and such effect/sound, I'll use...

AJ,
This is not an attempt to match tech wits with you as I am aware and not afraid to state my level of understanding/experience in recording. However as someone who has been in your position in terms of training, I want to encourage you (respectfully) to count the cost and be prepared for the time it takes for things to really sink in for someone brand new and most of all, be patient and do your best to instill confidence in them and their ability.

When I first started in this other industry, I was fielding a call and literally had the phone ripped out of my hands by a supervisor. that made me fell pretty low, at the time. I really can relate to the statement made about punching in/dubbing and remotes.(resisting the urge to step in)

.02 in an effort to help.

I'm tellin ya AJ, make it a visceral experience, the books are too early, she doesn't have any experiences to hang the knowledge on, knowledge without experience leads to preconceptions and conclusions. I can't tell you how many University of Miami Recording school graduates we had to 'unlearn' their concept on how it really is done. Too much theory, not enough practical experience.
Like I said, show her how to, and then do, things from the begining of the signal chain (the mic) eventually back to the speakers. It's all doable especially one task at a time.
My very first day in a studio I learned the value of wrapping up mic cables, and in a week I was the best cable wrapper they had ever seen. Then I was allowed to touch the mics and put them away, I became one with those mics through touch, feel, sight... I knew them. I was given 'little' jobs that I could do and master that added up to the big picture. After I mastered the recording room to the point that the engineer could give me a diagram of his setup and trust that I could do it perfectly, then I was allowed to start making patches in the patchbay, touching things in the control room, one little job at a time. I was proud and happy to be able to keep the track sheets, mark the inputs on the board, the secretary stuff. My radar was tuned to the recording room... if there were a problem, I would know the solution as that room was in my muscles and bones and my intuition was generally correct.

Teach her like Mr. Miyagi would do it:
cable on, cable off
mic on, mic off
mic stand up, mic stand down
ect.

the books are just to get the concepts of what things actually ARE... not necessarily how to learn what to do with it. that will come later on.

and i forgot to mention, i already picked up a job from them... with apparently a bunch more people they know.

Yeah, see... this is how an assistant can be extremely valuable. You were lucky to find someone with one foot in the scene already.

its a whole DIFFERENT scene than i typically deal with or even come across... singing groups. and some "teen" singers. lol. i MUST be hard up to start doing those type gigs.

oddly, she knows some other people who have studios but really liked what i played for them [RAUNCH n ROLL], thought it was much clearer than what they have heard their friends do... and apparently im cheaper [gotta fix that soon]

Among the many excellent pieces of advice, being at most an
intermediate "newbie" myself, loudist's methodology make a
lot of sense and would be a smart path to take IMHO.

I still think it would be beneficial for an intern to have a home recording setup though, and would accelerate their learning tremendously. Maybe instead of $$, they could earn a software program for their computer or a cassette portastudio on their
first "paid" assignment(s)? Then the books they read would have
more impact also.

Chris

I think the most important thing that I try and remember is that I would never ask anyone to do anything I wouldn't do myself. And that includes cleaning the bathroom. Hey, it's all important right?

So you don't clean your bathroom?

Not only that, the moose doesn't clean up after himself either.

Yeah, something like that.

I've been in the 'high tech' industry for, oh, 18 years. been getting paid for it for 10.

I've trained A LOT of people in how to be a good
sysadmin. you have to start small and move up.

how is a house built? on a foundation. You need
to give them foundation knowledge. You can
teach them how to do something, but that
only goes so far. "twist this knob to do X". great!
I know how to twist a knob now! But the WHY
is the important question. The WHY will move
you forward, not the how. The how just helps
you along.

I've seen these people who believe the hype
of places like coleman college, and ITT tech. Some of them might have a clue buried in the
bull****, most of them don't. Again, they were
taught how, not why.

Also, LET THEM DO STUFF. Nothing is worse than hearing :"well, I read about it a while ago, but I've never actually touched one of those".
Show them how it works, explain to them why
it does what it does, and explain(preferably
by example) why you would use it, and in
what type of scenario.


Training people is just like raising children, minus
the spankings. If you don't have the patience to train someone in your chosen field, you probably shouldn't raise children. (and vice versa)


t

(sorry for the shouting, i have an errant pinky
that likes to hit the ShiFt(damnit!) key...)

well there goes all my fun.

Man oh man. I usually tell them to learn: How to hook up tape machines, HOW TO ALIGN TAPE MACHINES, How to cal daws, How to do analog loops, learn the remotes, how to format dig tape, how to stripe timecode, how to "track slip" on a dig machine, remote basics, mic identification and phantom power, how to set up cues, Timecode routing to everywhere it needs it (console, daw, MPC, sequencers, video decks, etc), SIGNAL FLOW, how to do snapshots, how to do recalls, AUTOMATION, hard and soft groups, how to calculate delay times, how to zero a board, how to solo isolate, documentation, how to make a good pot of coffee, etc.

I also tell them they need to be prepared with a "gig bag":
Sharpies, Console tape, Duct tape, SPL Meter, Ear plugs, Grease pencils, WORKING flashlight, stopwatch, 9V batteries, Notepad, at least 1 reference cd, Calculator, Guitar strings (Bass and Guitar... If they bitch about $ for strings, tell them to beg for some free ones from some company), Guitar picks, Leatherman / Small tool kit, Gum / Breath mints / Cologne, Guitar tuner, Drum key, etc...

I try not to be an insensitive prick, but sometimes you simply don't have enough time to explain certain things that can be found out by typing a couple words into a search engine. Letting newbies know where to get started is a good help. When I was a newbie, the people that told me what I needed to learn was more helpful than someone explaining things to me I could find out of my own.

On that note, why not bring her in here if she has web access? Then she gets to see all the **** you talk and she can find out what the studio world is like from a lot of other perspectives.

****, she witnesses that first hand.... and i couldnt get a raunchier band to start her out on.

Excellent