Yes you can teach an old dog new “tracks”. These days many if not most independent engineers and producers are self taught. We learn to mix by accident, mostly. We buy exotic gear, trendy plugins for our DAW’s (“Digital Audio Workstations”), haunt the music and gear forums looking for tips and tricks.
20 or 30 years ago an aspiring audio engineer interned for a local music studio, making coffee, cleaning toilets, and maybe after a few months got to mount tape, set up mics, or push a few faders on the console. Eventually that (young) person was asked to record an entire session, often with a critical senior engineer watching and listening. If you did a good job you got to work with major talent, maybe even get some credits on an album.
Well those days are mostly gone. Yes it still happens but you need to be willing to put in the time for free or low pay and earn your bones. Woof! Not my style.
So how does an old dog continue to hone his chops? One way is through on-line audio education. Another is through workshops and recording “boot camps”. I have done both. So far the most rigorous and rewarding school has been the Audio Master Class courses offered by David Mellor (Oxford School of Audio) out of Thame, England. I have completed the professional courses in Mixing and Equalization, and am currently working through the course on Compression.
These are certificate-track courses that take a minimum of 6 months to complete. You download professionally recorded tracks with the assignment to make them sound a certain way. One recent assignment in the EQ class was to remove hum, buzz, and broadband noise using just EQ filters (no fancy noise removal plugins allowed). This is the hard way, but it is a great learning experience.
So far I am doing quite well, and will continue taking these “adult education” courses because I am serious about improving my skills. Next up will be courses in reverb and mastering. Of course, I already “knew” how to apply EQ, compression, and reverb, but there is always more to learn, often those unexpected things you did not know you did not know.
The feedback I get from Mr. Mellor is the next best thing to “being there” in the role of intern. Highly recommended, if you are interested check out www.audiomasterclass.com.
I am a beginning “hobbyist” in the middle of the “basic” Audio Masterclass Music Production and Sound Engineering course and am impressed so far by the quality and rigor as I perceive them.
Once I complete this first AMC course I would like to do a workshop or bootcamp for exposure to a real studio. I know only of two such workshops: Ronan Chris Murphy’s Recording Bootcamp in LA and Michael Wagener’s workshop in Nashville. Do you know of these or of any others? Which have you attended, and what did you think of them? Any recommendations?
Chris Mara’s tape workshops and the Producers and Engineers conference (Nov.) are worth checking out if you want to rub elbows with real pro’s. His web site is Welcometo1979.com. Both of the others you mentioned seem to be very good also, but I have not been to them. Best of luck.