I took 2 semesters of audio school. The first thing my Professor said was "If you are serious about this, then you will learn more from talking and listening to your classmates than I could ever teach you." It was 100% true. Meeting people who made/produced completely different kinds of music than I was used to was the best thing that I could have ever done.

Another video idea: 13 skills outside the studio you should learn. Like soldering etc.

"I bought a dual rec as a wedding present to myself" lmao

You giving the warning about the flamability of some foam treatments was awesome advice! Your advice may just save a life! Good for you!

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth my Grandfather told me " Poor people can't afford cheap things".

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for mentioning the Station Nightclub Fire. I am a live sound guy and applied for a job at the Station the month before they burned down. Even when that happened i still had to tell people in the Rhode Island area not to use packing foam or egg cartons in their studio (especially when they were smokers. ) So many people just don't know. Even upholsterers.

5:11 "So now they're off fucking somebody else's mixes!" I burst out laughing!

I "left" my Line6 Spider at a friend's house. When he sometimes mentions he doesn't know where it came from, I remain silent.

"please consider making a better product instead of suing someone for writing a bad review" Glenn is the best!

First big amount I spent was on an acoustician and room treatment, never regretted it and my translation game went up like hell.

7:04 I can definitely vouch for the books thing. I played a show once in a tiny bookstore and it had the best acoustics of any room I've EVER played in! And this was no folk-y acoustic show either. It was a weird mixed bill with down-tuned Sabbath type stuff, sludgey shoegaze, a straight up punk band, and a lighter mid-2000's indie band.

Having a long haired metal head yelling at me really helps me focus on what is being said! Awesome!

One lesson I learned in audio school that stuck with me was when we were recording a voiceover for a sound-for-picture class. We had an isolation booth with some XLR pass-throughs on it, and I used a series of adapter cables to send a headphone feed into the booth. The student doing the voiceovers reported a buzz in the headphones and that they didn't sound good. I started troubleshooting which adapter had a problem. The instructor came over, disconnected the whole mess, tied it in a knot, and threw it in the trash. "These broken cables just cost you a bunch of money, because you're trying to make them work instead of recording. This is time you can't bill for. It cost you more money than it'd cost to just replace the cables." (Paraphrasing; it's been about 25 years now.) We eventually just ran a cable under the door instead of using the jacks on the booth.

trust me as someone with a BA, no one has ever asked me my school degree

I was already at a University for something else (which I currently have a career in), and the music school had a studio that you could only use if you were a Music Tech minor. So, I did the minor, and it was great. The studio was the best studio I've been able to actually use since, and I ended up making money because the school allowed us to do gig work in there, and would even pay us on behalf of music students who needed recordings done. It was a great deal, a resume builder if nothing else. With school, you really need to know your own case. It could be a great idea, could not be.

The thing about music-related school programs is that its 1+ years of - Being 100% invested in learning/improving (or else you waste your money) - Having the ability to ask teachers and students anything you want whenever you want - Meeting (potentially life-long) friends/colleagues who will mention your name in 5 years for a game-changing opportunity that they can't commit to It's all about the mindset that gets engraved in you. Whether or not its worth your money is up to you...

I went to an audio school in germany, and I do not regret it. Learned a lot, improved myself, even got a job afterwards (live sound engineer), but the work conditions for live events are not easy, so I switch to IT and made music my hobby again.

Glenn, you are one of the most genuine producers on KZfaq, straight to the point, no bullshit. I have learned so much from you in such a short time! Keep up the badassery

I've learned so much from more experienced guys being brutally honest and and properly shaming, less experienced guys into not doing dumb things. Thank you glenn and keep rocking! 🤘🤘

Thru the years of my on off guitar playing this guy always give the good advice .

when you said don't be a "whiney suckhole" for some reason I broke out in uncontrollable laughter, do I need a professional?

Glen you are using the LINE 6 Spyder wrong, you need to have 6 of them, each mic'ed with a Blue Snowball and ran into each other in series. Then into a behringer interface

Hruumphhh! I have been a music product rep for 30+ years. Thanks for this video! There are a million choices out there and this video will help people make right ones. Keep up the good no BS work!

I love a brilliant and twitchy old semi burnout sound engineer genius like this guy. Brings me back to my best days learning from old school weirdos that knew some really profound things you'd never catch an into to in a college class ... unless your class was taught by one such person. Note: absolutely no offenses intended here. I meant every word in nostalgic love

I went to recording school, and while I don’t regret doing it I feel like real world experience would have been more applicable. The good things I took away from my education had little to do with audio and more to do with people.

4:58 OMFG I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT 😂😂😂 I just spilled water all over my desk

17:31 I got a 4-year Bachelor of Music: Technology; Sound Recording at a private university. The first year was actually phenomenal. We learned so much because we had a great instructor. Once we got to year 2, however, the remaining courses were all taught by the same classical engineer who had no experience or expertise for recording or mixing any genre that gets heard in the modern industry. Classes revolved around what this guy wanted to do, and courses were generically called Audio I, II, II, IV, etc. While we did plenty of editing, we spent WAY too much time on the physics of Electrical Engineering (the professor's background), and there was little or no focus on specific topics such as mic choice/placement for different instruments/situations, modern EQ/gate/compression techniques, putting together a mix in any genre, etc. etc. The saving grace at this school was: in addition to the Sound Recording track, ALL music majors (tech/sound recording included) were required to pass an instrumental audition and continue instrumental study as a "field" major; and the general music curriculum at this school was actually pretty badass. And it also included a non-music "core" curriculum. So while the Sound Recording track had its flaws (which I have heard have since been improved), I think I got a pretty well-rounded college education. But it was quite expensive and I don't work in audio full-time. I do way more work as a guitar player than an engineer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One thing that made a big difference was making sure i was using balanced trs cables for my monitors. For the longest time I was using guitar cables, it wasn’t until my friend gave me a set of mogami balanced trs 1/4th inch to xlr that my monitors really came to life.

God when I started recording my own stuff, I was ping pingong using 2 cassette decks. The resources available now for home recording at good prices just kills me.

10:17 If you can, stay away from cables with gold plugs. The idea is that gold is a better conductor and doesn't tarnish. Gold is great for connectors that will just stay plugged in all the time, but gold is soft and will wear off with a lot of plugging and unplugging. Quite often the metal underneath is exposed and will tarnish, which results in crappy connections.

I agree about the schools for the most part. I would add that some of the benefits I got were doing some projects in few commercial studios, using the analog gear, patch bays and all that. Also the mentors were there to answer and help with anything, and we could use two of the studios in the facility a lot. These are some of the things and experiences you can't get with online classes. Also (depends on where you are and what you want) I landed three jobs, each better than the former. One as a live sound engineer and two as tv broadcast sound engineer (national TV was one of those), and all of them I got because (well, other than my portfolio) employers were more inclined to give the job to someone with a diploma. I've also had institutions and companies reach out to me with a job offer... which is almost crazy in my country where people with even higher education than me can barely get a job as a waiter. That being said, what we learned were mostly technical stuff, no "tricks", no creative ideas to get a certain sound etc...

I just recently discovered your channel and thoroughly enjoy the content! I also appreciate the no-bs approach to sharing your knowledge and experience with us. It has been enlightening and educational. Noticed a trend of Robotech t-shirts in your videos; grew up on the cartoon and still have my old table-top source books!

I did my degree in music, I feel like college/uni courses in music or music production are worth it if you would do the course even if they didn't give you a piece of paper at the end of it. If you're learning enough and getting enough experience while you're there, that's the important part.

man your sledge hammer technique has room for improvement: should have flattened the U87 clone on the first blow. It's all in the aim..

I did a year of audio tech college in like 2001. It was a good college though, and we got access to this guy as a tutor who was a proper gritty ex English rock circuit engineer. There was a studio with an mci desk in that had been used by led zeppelin among others. Apparently when they bought it for the college they cleaned out like half a pound of gear and resin from the fader strips. But I learnt a lot from the people I mixed with at college rather than the course per se. Definitely equipped me and a buddy with enough info to go set up our own home studio to record our band. That definitely taught me the most. And now your channel is sending out some real gems of advice that, even after years around this stuff, still surprise and learn me. Cheers Glenn from across the pond

I like the bookshelf idea. It works, and it dual purposes to hold your (drumroll please) books, so you can get smarter. I ran into a problem getting two huge new displays for my studio, and I noticed I was getting some reflections behind me. I put the bookcase behind me opposite the desk . . . amazing. No reflections. Need Mogami gold cables? No. Buy bulk cable, Rean connectors, solder them yourself and you got Mogami gold cables at 1/4 the cost.

I did a 3 year BSc Audio and Music Technology Degree. About 50% was studio recording. The lectures were very upfront that it would be unlikely any of us would work in the dream studio scenario. We even did a module which was record 3 songs at a £500 ($700) budget and 2 higher quality at a £1500 ($2100) budget, it really opened our eyes to how much renting studio time cost and how low your hourly rate would end up if you agree to a bad deal. We did modules on Electronics, Live sound and Acoustics which were very useful too for real life situations. With all that said it cost £9000 ($12500), was it worth it? I'd say it largely depends on your character, I was that mid range student that did well and enjoyed it but didn't take every opportunity that I could have. We had studio rooms with hundreds of thousands of pounds of gear that we could book to use everyday if we wanted. It only started getting limits towards the end of the semester. If I'd just spent hours learning the gear and in the process training my ears further I definitely would have got more out of the opportunity presented to me. My career? Live sound engineer for 2-3years, then realised I would rather protect my ears and work more social hours so went into programming and do audio as my hobby now. I don't regret my degree for the social aspect and further figuring out my life, but I couldn't argue it was necessary.

I went to a specialized audio engineering and music technology school. I learned a lot, but couldn't finish because of the expense. Also the stress put on by peers and society at the time of you've gotta go to college right after highschool, you have your whole life ahead of you and you're barley an adult, you better have your shit together and figured out right this instant and go to college. This will determine the rest of your lifes work. Don't fuck it up! Good luck. Thanks Glen for the great content. I continue to learn a lot from your videos.

Glen I absolutely love your latest videos! That's because I am willing to build a home studio and I find your advice invaluable! Thank you!

Number one hits home for me. I learned to record on my own from books and KZfaq videos when I was in middle and high school. I then went to a major university for recording. I found everything you said true. Limited use of the gear, limited experience and knowledge from teachers, and lessons that weren’t really catered to the types of things I wanted to work on. Oh and maybe one person I went to school with has a job in recording. I dropped out about halfway through because I felt like I wasn’t really learning anything new from the stuff I had learned from KZfaq and some books. The one class that really was great was my acoustics class where I learned about room design and the science of sound. Now I’m running my own studio, making money and have several albums under my belt. Recording school is more about networking. If you want that it’s great. Else wise dive in to your DAW and get going.

7:00 as a bonus, read a few of the books from time to time, and you might learn something new!

The BBE unit is a piece of live gear lmao. It's basically just an active EQ, once the mid range gets over a certain range it automatically boosts some highs to compensate. It also does some amplitude and frequency dependant phase compensation. If you're doing live shows and you can't afford a good DSP like a DBX DriveRack or another solution the BBE can help clean up your live sound a bit. But 50% of the time it makes things worse. It's an extremely environmentally sensitive effect, though we still like to have one around. You can also slam your drums through a BBE and get some really funky distorted drum sounds!

You have some of the most entertaining as well as useful videos. Always manage to laugh out loud a little which is much needed these days

The best piece of advice ever 👍🏿 I bought in the 90’s a “Berhinger” effect unit, Jesuschrist what a nightmare

Man, I keep repeating myself lol, but this has become just about my favorite series on the channel. Been a follower since the Metalsucks days. Awesome stuff, as always! 🤘🤘

Everything I know about music and recording I've taught myself over the last 14 years. I didn't really have a choice and stumbled my way through it early on, but now a days its so much easier with just a little bit of research. That bookshelf thing will come in handy sometime down the line and I'll more into it when I get to that stage. This is honestly actually a very useful video for anyone looking to get started in making a home studio!

Dude you’re hilarious and I’m grateful to see guys who genuinely want to help others save time and money. Great video 👏

I think you hit the nail on the head with the cable part. I’ve bought almost all big box store cables and have never regretted it. I’ve got one or two that’s been around for over 10 years. And if they mess up they will replace it for free. No need for the big price name brand cables that are all the same.

One of the most useful videos about audio recording I've ever seen. Plus mega points for the Skull Squadren t-shirt!

A big Hell Ya to Glenn’s Macross shirt

I got a BS in Audio Engineering Technology and while it was expensive I think the technical/theoretical knowledge is worth it. It has set me up to further my study in audio in a way I don’t think I could have done myself. Plus, just having a BS in literally anything is an important prerequisite regardless of the industry nowadays. If I gotta get a degree, might as well be in something I enjoy

Me: Watching this on my Acer Nitro 5 that's been acting up lately *smiles and silently sheds a tear*

With regards to cables... in my personal opinion... buy a spool of decent quality cable and solder your own high quality XLRs to them. I've made a shit ton of these and they're basically the identical "quality" of Mogami, but cost half as much.

Glad to see Vim Fuego getting a shout out. Haven't heard much from him lately, but I hear he's been communing with some rather interesting figures from recent rock history.

Glenn is right about Cheap cables. I had a hodgepodge of name brand cables, and they worked. Then I bought a few Mogami wires our of pure curiosity. Mogami cables are stupid expensive, but they are probably the best upgrade I've made to my studio. I replaced all my cables w/ Mogami Gold cables.

Hilarious, this man is the 'Lewis Black' of music gear.

Very thankful I went to CU Denver and TOOK ADVANTAGE of the program. My grades were shit, but I can get around great in any studio I've been in so far, get solid drum tones, and above anything have a strong understanding of what I need to do to monetize audio outside of studio work.

College Courses - I remember reading "The Daily Adventures of Mixerman" back in early 2000s and he said in there that he felt audio courses were a waste of time because the jobs just weren't out there. Although a former work colleague of mine studied an Audio course at my former University and regular works at Rockfield Studios here in the UK! Keep up the great work!

I learned a ton from my community college recording/music production courses. And they were fairly inexpensive too! It is nice to have instructors who know their shit that you can bounce questions off in real time. Maybe it's not the best to learn how to produce a specific genre of music... But it can be a great way to learn some basics, get to experiment with expensive gear, and meet other people who are into music production.

Yup...I have a "school of hard knocks" region of my basement that stores the reminders of poor quality (in case I forget that "the pain of buying junk quickly overcomes the delight of saving money"). Choosing quality over price is almost always the sustainable choice because it eliminates waste, improves efficiency, and supports businesses that prioritizes value. Investing in a quality product ends up saving you money since it will need to be replaced less frequently and focusing on quality also encourages corporate social responsibility practices.

SO glad you mentioned "acoustic foam". Seems like every beginner gets sucked in by those (myself included, when I started). Stick to Rockwool & Owens Corning 703

"For the love of Crom"? Bravo! Banging my spear on my shield.

Had an orange TH30 and was going through a ruff time (as I was going through a break up). I decided to give it to a friend who was in a band at the time and was looking at getting a something different. He had a boss katana which we traded cuz I didn’t care. Tbh I regretted it cuz i really loved that amp. Moral of the story don’t make dumb decisions when your at your lowest. thanks for this video Glen!!! Very informative and help me out on what’s to get, planning on doing a home studio and kinda indecisive on what to get. Keep up the great work!

I went to Full Sail (Orlando) in the late 80s. I learned a lot but didn’t get into audio production for a livelihood because my profession at that time (electrician) paid a lot more and had way more opportunities. I recently took video production classes at the local community college. I actually found great value and it was super cheap, $148 a semester. The great thing about going to a local college is that you get to meet people. I recently did a video and hired a couple of students for the gig. I don’t know how else to get to know people. The local community college is the best few bucks I ever spent.

Damn, this series is so good, so welcome, so appreciated! Thanks a ton, Glenn!

When it comes to computers in the studio, make sure to switch your hard drives to SSD’s, the read/write speeds are so much faster, and boot time will be cut by a very long margin. Thinkpads are a good budget option for laptops. Most have pretty decent CPU’s in them and are very easy to upgrade.

Hey Glen I love your channel! Don't ever change your direct honest approach.

Great advice on the Acer . My older one had no issues . My new one although more powerful in all areas is a big problem .

Glenn should be sponsored by some elite shampoo company. his hair is so amazing. top notch....compliments from a bald guy.....

My time in audio school was absolutely essential. I think it really just depends on the college you went too.

You are so right about avoiding cheap mic stands. They are made with cheap, soft metal alloys whose threads strip easily.

Thank you Glenn thanks to you and many other youtubers I started my show today and im super grateful for all your tips

Soft cover books, in a pinch, arent half bad as monitor pads either.

I use a maximizer in my bass rig. It makes the bass more deep and punchy, without it on it sounds like your ears are plugged. I don't really know what it does but it sounds pretty cool for me

I appreciate your approach because I'm a semi retired Auto technician and want the best bang for my money, you rock Glen

The description of the BBE was essentially correct. The signal is split into two paths, one that filters out the highs and a full range one. The control section adjusts how much of an unfiltered signal is fed back into the low frequency signal. This is determined by how hard the instrument is played.

Never realised how much weight Glenn had lost until I watched this vid, damm good job man!!

Hilariously, the opening ad to this video was for Full Sail... Hahahaha.

Hearing you recommend Kali LP6's *through* LP6's I did research on is such a good feeling. Love this series. Hilariously informative.

After two years of college me and a buddy a) setup the entire new studio after the previous year the studio got flooded out, pretty nice actually 100k Speakers and fat desk for the day b) implemented all the software, networking such as it was back then, smpte striping and Midi system exclusive backup dumping. Realised we were a very capable team and were running the Local council community studio 3 months later. We left college. You can learn a lot. sometimes the paper might matter. Honestly not much has been my experience. the right t-shirt can get you further sometimes. It is what it is, treat every experience as a learning experience is the best advice I can give. Never stop trying to learn.

When it comes to computers, I always build my own. A few months ago I was considering going to an audio engineering school but it looks a lot like it's better to just do it on my own.

"I donated them and now they are off fxcking up someone else's mixes" best thing I've ever heard!

I have to say that when i started i had to buy inexpensive stuff, so i did the research, at that time on recording magazines and some online forums. And although many said Behringer was shit, i bought the mx 3242 mixer and the VAmp pro guitar rack amp (which i still have and use sometimes) and they were absolutely amazing.

9:07 i havent owned a mouse pad since the 00's, I'm about to order 30 . Thanks Glenn

In my experience, Even high-quality cables need to be re-soldered at some point just far less often. I still have a Mogami from 10 years ago, I've soldiered the plug back on about 2 times and it's one of my favorite cables to use

For metal at least, in my opinion, I’ve been able to get a decent listenable mix out of Reaper and all free plugins. I guess my tip would be to learn on free stuff first. I still haven’t bought a plug-in.

Lol this dude is the best. Always energized and stoked about what he’s doing. Mad love .

15:18 *accepting my fate and preparing my patience while watching from my Acer laptop*

I am in a surprised state of shock to see a young Glenn Fricker from back in the day, and comparing it to how he looks now... holy shit! That look of dissatisfaction has definitely remained the same. Honestly though no hate man, but definitely keep doing your thing.

Great video. What areas in the studio CAN you cheap out in? Effects pedals? Plug-ins? Interfaces? DAW? Mixer? Thanks for the content 🤘🏻

😂 dude 3:50. I am fkn stoked to have stumbled on this channel. I’m going to watch literally every video you have. I need this.

i7 cpu and 16GB memory was the best purchase.

A good mixer and recording audio interface is worth the money for decent recording and playback. Mogami silver and gold cables are great.

That feeling when you watch it on the Acer Laptop that is 6 Years old and never let you down!

I’m currently 15 months at Fullsail university and I love it!!! I have a lot of recording experience so the beginning classes were somewhat basic but being self taught it helped me understand what I was doing right (relatively speaking) and what I was doing “different.” Mainly I wanted the degree to get better jobs in Hollywood like sound design and soundtrack stuff for movies, since I had been turned down many times simply because I lacked “higher education.” That sucked pretty bad. It’s definitely helped me out a whole ton though. There are a lot of things that I had never understood like sound design for video games, granted I could have taken time to understand it but it would have taken a long time. Now, every single on of my local friends that have gone to a community college and even private colleges have shown me they know nothing about real world production techniques. You don’t always get what you pay for haha and this school is awesome considering tuition is less than half of other competitors for the same time commitment.

I attended SAE institute.. and tbh, that was a very positive experience

I saw a lot of kids come into our venue with BBEs back in the mid 00s. Metalcore bands mostly, I have to say those guys often had extremely good tone, and they always attribute it to the bbe.

The first time I have seen this channel and I gotta love someone who cuts through the crap.. Good Stuff!!!

Great video, I just found your channel and can already say I’m a huge fan.

I made the mistake of buying an Acer laptop in the early 2000's. That thing would get so hot that you couldn't even sit it in your lap.. Worked pretty well for a coffee cup warmer though . lmao