Samir asked: I’d like to know ways you've seen young go-getters learn to record and mix!

And Rob replied: I'm with Samir: how do you get a start doing what you do? There aren't really any established internship programs that I know of. So how would a young guy/gal get started.

Great question, guys!

The long and the short of it is that it all comes down to your talent and how hard you are willing to refine it. I know that sounds like the pat music school teacher answer, but hopefully I can break this down a bit more:

Let’s compare the art of mixing to that of playing piano – the two are a lot more comparable than you might think! It takes years to get from Chopsticks to Chopin, and no real way to accelerate this process than practice, practice, practice!

Of course, some people will show more natural talent than others, so the child prodigy will be doing major concerts in a year, while the average hobbyist might be able to barely help out with the Christmas Carol Sing-Along a decade down the road.

All that aside – it’s really not so much about the equipment as it is your creativity, you either have it or you don’t, and the only way to find out is to try. As to Rob’s question:

No, there are no real established internship “programs”, but even a lot of the real world (non-A Cappella) studio internships don't do much for people anyway – they can’t give you natural talent, and give very little real experience.

This doesn’t mean that there is no basic training available from the experts – Deke Sharon and I give an intensive week-long course each summer on the West Coast, and the group Transit (which includes renown A Cappella producer Dave Sperandio) put on a weekend seminar on the East Coast every summer as well.

There are also lots of resources online (hopefully these articles have helped, for example!)

The rest is up to you – at the risk of making it sound like I’m just throwing you to the wolves! Sometimes just doing the work for your own group will give you amazing amounts of experience – this is how many in our particular community got started. James Gammon took on the task of learning this for his group, Academical Village People, while a young member – I don’t think he was aware it would become a career after college! Tat Tong did the same for his group, Last Call. Peter Hollens with On The Rocks, Gabe Mann with Off The Beat, and the list goes on and on…

Jump in, make your mistakes, and come up with new untried ideas that will make us oldtimers marvel! You will never know until you try…
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