How successful is the music production/sound engineering field?
How successful is the music production/sound engineering field? My brother is heading into the 3d modeling field for animated features and video games but commented that not many people enter that field so more often than not people find jobs with ease for 3d modeling. I was wondering if this was somewhat similar for sound engineers and music producers, and with living in the bay area I wondered if that would help with seeking a job in the field. It interests me due to the fact most of the day for me revolves around listening to music or sounds within a game. Seeing how many artists now a days gave success even without going to school for music engineering also peeked my interest given that if get a degree in the field it may help me even more but i'm not sure of that either. #musicproduction #soundengineering #music
3 answers
Daniel Cantor
Daniel’s Answer
Success is a very loose term. There are more people doing music production because of the power of laptops and DAWS then ever before. If you mean success as in getting work, that's possible. If you mean having the same income as a lawyer, no you won't. I tell my students to go into this only if that's definitely what they want to do and there's nothing else tempting them. They also need to be willing to work 12 to 14 hours a day, because that's what most of the people who are successful in this feild do.
Daniel’s Answer
Israel Tanenbaum
Israel’s Answer
Hi Sergio,
I agree with Daniel when you look at the role from a more traditional standpoint. On the other hand, music is produced and heard more than ever before and being distributed in ways we never dreamed of. Today the broadest distribution of music is happening via the gaming industry. There are other big players going after their piece of the pie (Google, Facebook, Amazon)... and as they go others follow as well. Audio is now fully integrated and prominently featured in so many global services that it's hard to keep track of. So there is quite a bit of work out there and a lot more coming, particularly in the Bay Area. But there's a catch... employers are looking for audio engineers with some musical background who can write code (Java, C++, etc). To get an idea of what they're looking for take a look at job postings.
Also, if you're truly interested in going that route, there is a new "FREE" school in Fremont, CA (yes... just a few miles from you...!!!) that has an amazing innovative program that was originally developed in France where it has been enormously successful. It's called 42. They are all about programing. It's too extensive an explanation to detail here, so check them out. I've included the url below.
Good luck in all your endeavors.
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