The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As

A Recording Studio Technician

Hey--you're the kid who runs sound for the assemblies in the gym. A studio techie? Yeah, I guess that's a possibility--let's see...

You'll have to do more than run the crappy gym sound system to learn the skills needed for a career in the recording studio. You'll have to hang around those pathetic rec. center teen band nights, help out in the ska festival, volunteer to run the board for weddings, funerals, elementary school Christmas concerts--whatever it takes. Eventually, you'll understand how to avoid the crappy sound you so often subject us to each time we gather in the gym--hey look, honesty is the only way to go in this sort of business, okay?

You'll either resort to the lamest approach possible to this career--convince your parents to set you up with semi-crappy equipment in your basement or garage--or you'll finally luck into one of the studios downtown. Once you're in, you'll have to be ready to have no life outside the studio--not that you'll get lots of hours, but you have to hang around and be ready to work at a moment's notice.

You visualize making the perfect mix for the next Kurt Cobain, and then while you're smoking up with some rocker during a break he'll invite you to join his upcoming tour so you can live out your own "Almost Famous' fantasy, but that's not likely to happen. More often than not, you're helping some spoiled princess make a demo tape or some bad Christmas CD for her extended family. You get blamed for the shrill, off-pitch caterwauling that is her rendition of "Jingle Bell Rock", and you learn to swear with your mouth closed--so effective when you're in the soundproof producer's mixing room. The hourly rate the studio charges makes them hate you all the more; little do they know you see less than a quarter of that in salary. You take revenge in small ways--deodorant is something you bother with only for the nice clients.

Even worse are the commercials--rarely do singers or talented voiceover professionals grace your sound booth--you get the egocentric real estate magnate who thinks he and his team of ersatz professionals can somehow make their cheesy ditty about their great service into something that doesn't cause thousands to switch stations each day.

You'll never really make any significant money--studios continually go out of business because it only takes a few years for people to realize there's no real profit margin in it. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get hired to run sound in the hockey arena or down at the arts centre. That, and second job down at the rendering plant is the only thing that may eventually enable you to afford moving out of your parent's attic.

Next assembly, how about doing the sound checks BEFORE the entire school is sitting there mocking the special way your voice cracks...