But do I go to the diploma or degree course??
Music technology at La Salle SIA
- Thread starter DoubleBlade
- Start date
But do I go to the diploma or degree course??
You would go into Level 1 of the diploma course and still need to do Level 2 before proceeding on to the degree course in Level 3. Think of it as a degree in 3 years instead of 4.
ooooh... Then what's the bachelor course about? They have foundation, 1, 2, and 3 as well.
And btw, can you briefly tell me what's the audition like? After i get my composition written up, i'll apply and wait to be called. zzz... kinda worried
PM me and we can discuss more.
well, dats becoz you are in Byron Bay NSW australia's SAE. if you have a chance to come to Sg's branch, you will laugh you shit out of your lungs. no offense here to Sg SAE. just my personal opinion. coz I personally saw Byron Bay SAE studios and the eqiupments that they are using, as compared to Sg (both studio size & acoustic and eqiupments), sg SAE is totally gone. But if one is to choose Byron Bay SAE, definitely a tumbs up frm me.
things to take note:
Audio Engineering is a very general term. It covers quite some areas such as the Live Sound, Theatre Sound, Audio Post-productions for film/video, Music recording, Acoustics, etc. So before you decide which course you want to take, you gotta know which area are you going to go into. Although all the courses stated below are technically teaching a little bit of each area of audio enginnering, but they still ahve a praticular area that they focus in.
Lasalle-SIA is a 3-year diploma, and 4-year degree course. That means after completing your 3 years diploma, if you decided to continue to a degree, u just nid to continue with them for another 1 year n you get a degree. But from wat i heard, Lasalle's music tech course is abit more towards music n theatre.
SP, new course, hence, new studios with new equipments. They got my fav. digidesign control|24. Their eqiupments are practically newer than NP's FSV. Of course, same goes for the studios, newer and not bad acoustics. however, despite of that, their lecturers are new, so I'm not sure how is the teaching over there. New equipments doesn't means good. Coz not every studio in Sg have the luxury to have a Control|24 for you to use after you graduated. So at the end of the day, you might still need to re-learn how to use old equipments.
NP FSV, old course. It's not a audio course actually. It's actually a film course where it allows you to specialse in audio. But overall, you will still need to study the main film modules. Advantage of this course is that it's been around for a very long time, so it;s quite reputated and have produced alot of talented pple in the industry, including both film and audio personnels. This course focus more on Audio Post-productions for film/video. Bcoz it's the very first media institution in Singapore, it's studio and equipments are quite old. But old doesn't means good, coz not every studio in sg are also using those new equipments.
SAE singapore, once again, old course. Private institution. 1-year nia, cost 10k to study it. They shifted from old campus at ajunied to new campus at bencoolen. Old campus studio acoutics better, but old equipments. New campus studio has got a lousy acoustic in my opinion, but have a few new equpiments added. Heard the new studio acoustics is designed and built by the students themselves, which makes me wanna laugh. Sorry I just can't help it. but they have also got a Control|24 with ProTools HD. 5.1 surround mixing. And the ironic attractiveness is that they have got a SSL AWS900. It seems very attractive coz no other institute has got a SSL. But come to think of it, does any studio in Sg is using an SSL?? Used to have in Audioplex, but it's closed down now. Not sure Lion studio is still around. So i's pretty much ironic even if you have a SSL in your institute, unless you intend to go to overseas studio to work, then learning an SSL would be a plus point. Then again, I heard they don't teaches much with the SSL. But again, I heard they are not using the SSL for any recordings. just for you to route the signals from ProTools or Nuendo into the console for some analogue 5.1 mixing. Lastly, the teaching style there is like quite self-study, not as in the lecturers are not teaching anything, but they just teach wats on book, the rest, you gotta go explore and learn it yourself. It goes like this, daily lecture time is only 3 hours a day, the rest is self-study or book studio self-explore, not sure then ask them the following day. They only got 2 studio that is able to do recording, plus a SSL studio that cannot do recording. Due to limited studio, each studio can only book a certain amount of studio time a week. But if after your slots, no one is booking it, you can continue using it for free. They bascially teach you a bit of everything, many theory, but most assignments are music reocrding based. 10 SAE graduates, 6 doing something unrelated to audio after graduation, 2 doing something related to audio but not an audio engineer, 1 end up in love sound, and 1 managed to become an audio engineer.
All the above informations are just for reference. I do not garantee it's 100% accurate. Informations are gathered from graduates from the various institutions, as well as my personal opinions and encounters.
However, I have typed this same old message in many diferent thread of this same topic and I'm gotta remind you again. The audio industry in sg can be considered very small. the happening one is live sound. if you wanna get into a studio is pretty much tough by default, plus the fact that sg studio are facing a tough business now. Why? coz in a music recording studio, tawaniese artitses used to come here to studio such as Audioplex to recording their albums, but they no longer does that now. they rather record in their own country's studio for cheaper budget (dun nid to buy air-tix n book hotel), or they go Japan/US for a better quality record. why cut ost? COZ ALBUM"S SALES ATR DROPPING N IS STILL DROPPING DUE TO INCREASING ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS N FILE SHARING!! (so pls think again the next time you wanna download or share files, even the US are affected!!) So back in Sg, our studios are left with amateurs bands or independant artiste to record. but how many indepenant artiste are there in Sg who are active in music, yes there are, but is it enough for the num of studios in sg to continue their business? then to the amateurs, most of them are youngsters and students who can't afford to record so often in professional studios, so they turn to free-lancers, or self home recording coz technogies have make home recording a reasonabley quite possible today.
With these, studio in sg have to try to continue their business by switching focus to audio post-production for film/video. but again, audio post houses are now facing a problem where video production houses are buying and setting up their own audio department to do audio post such as voice-over, etc. Why? Cut cost lor. Why cut cost? Illegal video downloads and Youtube, etc. lor.
So my conclusion here is that having a diploma in audio dun garantee u a job in studio. in fact, I have friends orked in studio who don't even have any form of certifications in audio, they got the job by strong port-folio. futhermore, despite of which institute u choose eventually, all these institute only teaches u basics such as sciene of sound for you to understand how sound behaves physically, how to operate typical equipments found in local studio, etc. Things like creativity and the art of mixing is something no one can teach you, u got to learn it by years of experiences. Many have been mistaken by the word "engineering" that audio engineering is all about technical stuffs. Indeed, It requires you to know some technical basics in order to operate the machines properly, but dat all. They dun expect u to b able to repair, of coz if u know they would be a plus point. The rest is all about creativity and art. dats why it's categories in the creative industry, not engineering or technical. So at this point, u must ask yourself, are you prepared to give up audio n do something else after u graduate if you can't get a job in this industry?
Audio Engineering is a very general term. It covers quite some areas such as the Live Sound, Theatre Sound, Audio Post-productions for film/video, Music recording, Acoustics, etc. So before you decide which course you want to take, you gotta know which area are you going to go into. Although all the courses stated below are technically teaching a little bit of each area of audio enginnering, but they still ahve a praticular area that they focus in.
Lasalle-SIA is a 3-year diploma, and 4-year degree course. That means after completing your 3 years diploma, if you decided to continue to a degree, u just nid to continue with them for another 1 year n you get a degree. But from wat i heard, Lasalle's music tech course is abit more towards music n theatre.
SP, new course, hence, new studios with new equipments. They got my fav. digidesign control|24. Their eqiupments are practically newer than NP's FSV. Of course, same goes for the studios, newer and not bad acoustics. however, despite of that, their lecturers are new, so I'm not sure how is the teaching over there. New equipments doesn't means good. Coz not every studio in Sg have the luxury to have a Control|24 for you to use after you graduated. So at the end of the day, you might still need to re-learn how to use old equipments.
NP FSV, old course. It's not a audio course actually. It's actually a film course where it allows you to specialse in audio. But overall, you will still need to study the main film modules. Advantage of this course is that it's been around for a very long time, so it;s quite reputated and have produced alot of talented pple in the industry, including both film and audio personnels. This course focus more on Audio Post-productions for film/video. Bcoz it's the very first media institution in Singapore, it's studio and equipments are quite old. But old doesn't means good, coz not every studio in sg are also using those new equipments.
SAE singapore, once again, old course. Private institution. 1-year nia, cost 10k to study it. They shifted from old campus at ajunied to new campus at bencoolen. Old campus studio acoutics better, but old equipments. New campus studio has got a lousy acoustic in my opinion, but have a few new equpiments added. Heard the new studio acoustics is designed and built by the students themselves, which makes me wanna laugh. Sorry I just can't help it. but they have also got a Control|24 with ProTools HD. 5.1 surround mixing. And the ironic attractiveness is that they have got a SSL AWS900. It seems very attractive coz no other institute has got a SSL. But come to think of it, does any studio in Sg is using an SSL?? Used to have in Audioplex, but it's closed down now. Not sure Lion studio is still around. So i's pretty much ironic even if you have a SSL in your institute, unless you intend to go to overseas studio to work, then learning an SSL would be a plus point. Then again, I heard they don't teaches much with the SSL. But again, I heard they are not using the SSL for any recordings. just for you to route the signals from ProTools or Nuendo into the console for some analogue 5.1 mixing. Lastly, the teaching style there is like quite self-study, not as in the lecturers are not teaching anything, but they just teach wats on book, the rest, you gotta go explore and learn it yourself. It goes like this, daily lecture time is only 3 hours a day, the rest is self-study or book studio self-explore, not sure then ask them the following day. They only got 2 studio that is able to do recording, plus a SSL studio that cannot do recording. Due to limited studio, each studio can only book a certain amount of studio time a week. But if after your slots, no one is booking it, you can continue using it for free. They bascially teach you a bit of everything, many theory, but most assignments are music reocrding based. 10 SAE graduates, 6 doing something unrelated to audio after graduation, 2 doing something related to audio but not an audio engineer, 1 end up in love sound, and 1 managed to become an audio engineer.
All the above informations are just for reference. I do not garantee it's 100% accurate. Informations are gathered from graduates from the various institutions, as well as my personal opinions and encounters.
However, I have typed this same old message in many diferent thread of this same topic and I'm gotta remind you again. The audio industry in sg can be considered very small. the happening one is live sound. if you wanna get into a studio is pretty much tough by default, plus the fact that sg studio are facing a tough business now. Why? coz in a music recording studio, tawaniese artitses used to come here to studio such as Audioplex to recording their albums, but they no longer does that now. they rather record in their own country's studio for cheaper budget (dun nid to buy air-tix n book hotel), or they go Japan/US for a better quality record. why cut ost? COZ ALBUM"S SALES ATR DROPPING N IS STILL DROPPING DUE TO INCREASING ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS N FILE SHARING!! (so pls think again the next time you wanna download or share files, even the US are affected!!) So back in Sg, our studios are left with amateurs bands or independant artiste to record. but how many indepenant artiste are there in Sg who are active in music, yes there are, but is it enough for the num of studios in sg to continue their business? then to the amateurs, most of them are youngsters and students who can't afford to record so often in professional studios, so they turn to free-lancers, or self home recording coz technogies have make home recording a reasonabley quite possible today.
With these, studio in sg have to try to continue their business by switching focus to audio post-production for film/video. but again, audio post houses are now facing a problem where video production houses are buying and setting up their own audio department to do audio post such as voice-over, etc. Why? Cut cost lor. Why cut cost? Illegal video downloads and Youtube, etc. lor.
So my conclusion here is that having a diploma in audio dun garantee u a job in studio. in fact, I have friends orked in studio who don't even have any form of certifications in audio, they got the job by strong port-folio. futhermore, despite of which institute u choose eventually, all these institute only teaches u basics such as sciene of sound for you to understand how sound behaves physically, how to operate typical equipments found in local studio, etc. Things like creativity and the art of mixing is something no one can teach you, u got to learn it by years of experiences. Many have been mistaken by the word "engineering" that audio engineering is all about technical stuffs. Indeed, It requires you to know some technical basics in order to operate the machines properly, but dat all. They dun expect u to b able to repair, of coz if u know they would be a plus point. The rest is all about creativity and art. dats why it's categories in the creative industry, not engineering or technical. So at this point, u must ask yourself, are you prepared to give up audio n do something else after u graduate if you can't get a job in this industry?
Hey, i think you've addressed my problem haha. What I'm looking for is Audio Post-productions for film/video, but I'm not sure whether Lasalle offers music tech in this way. Where did you fish this info about Lasalle being more towards music and theatre?
I do not think that i'll opt for SAE coz it's way too expensive, and the rating from other people isn't that great. But i think they cater more towards films and video...
How??? Btw, can you name some industries where graduates from these area can go to?
syltramon
New member
i think if i really study music, my passion will be gone! :shock:
gutturalpiss
New member
SAE Singapore is a joke, yes. But SAE in general, not a joke at all. AES lists only four local schools for recognised academic courses in the field:
http://aes.org/education/geoinst.cfm?GeoID=8
Audio Engineering, like mentioned, is a broad term. You don't go calling yourself an Audio "engineer" if all you can do is use a DAW and/or a Mixer and maybe do a lot of fancy miking. Sound knowledge and practice of electronics, acoustics and physics is a must for anyone wishing to be called an Audio Engineer IMO.
None of the schools here will enable you to be one. The market and interest is pretty much all hyped up by teenagers who want to release their first album. There are a number of Universities in Canada, and especially this one private institute in Europe (forgot the name), which are pretty solid.
Post-production is relatively on a different scale. The market may be saturated, but regularly start-ups will ask these local Audio/Film-based schools for potential employees. SAE students have an advantage here due to the global network which includes top-ranking corporates, but most of the time it's due to the students' personal achievements rather than their SAE certificate.
Music Technology puts more emphasis on Music as an Art than Science. For this, I highly recommend SP's or La Salle's courses.
http://aes.org/education/geoinst.cfm?GeoID=8
Audio Engineering, like mentioned, is a broad term. You don't go calling yourself an Audio "engineer" if all you can do is use a DAW and/or a Mixer and maybe do a lot of fancy miking. Sound knowledge and practice of electronics, acoustics and physics is a must for anyone wishing to be called an Audio Engineer IMO.
None of the schools here will enable you to be one. The market and interest is pretty much all hyped up by teenagers who want to release their first album. There are a number of Universities in Canada, and especially this one private institute in Europe (forgot the name), which are pretty solid.
Post-production is relatively on a different scale. The market may be saturated, but regularly start-ups will ask these local Audio/Film-based schools for potential employees. SAE students have an advantage here due to the global network which includes top-ranking corporates, but most of the time it's due to the students' personal achievements rather than their SAE certificate.
Music Technology puts more emphasis on Music as an Art than Science. For this, I highly recommend SP's or La Salle's courses.
Ohh..for lasalle, I've got friends who studied this course before. And I personally attended the open house and read the course information booklet before too. But that was quite some years back that I've attended. Coz they have got drama, dance, music faculty, and all these are under concert hall and the theatre (or performing arts), so their school life is such a way that they will collaborate the music technology students with these other faculty students. Which means, when the dance n drama have got some performances, the music tech pple will b the one handling the sound system & sound design, and when the music (non-tech) wanna record their composition assignments, the music tech will b the one recording. Their purpose of this is to make all the faculty to hang around with each other, n hence, learn more than just your own music tech area. These are what my friends told me. And from reading the course information booklet, I dun think they are so much into audio post for film/video. I duno whether they have changed now, so it'd b best for you attend their open-house again.
Once again, advantage of this course is that after u completed your 3 year diploma, you can continue with them to degree with just 1 more year. But then, I'm not very sure they do have attachment anot.
As for SAE, nope, they dun focus on audio-post as well. They do have audio post assignment, but thier Major assignments is still 16-track or 24-track recording, where u will nid to find your own bands and book them into SAE studio for recordings. So I would say, they are more music recording. I think now SAE have attachment, stil not sure, but last time they do not have any attachments.
If you are keen in audio-post, then I guess NP FSV would b a better choice. I got a fren who graduated from this course, and he is working in YellowBox studio. But bare in mind that this course is not entire just on audio, audio is just part of the course. n u only get to specialse into audio when u are in 2nd or 3rd year of the course. So throughout the course, you will have to study film making modules, film history modules, and do group assignments such as shooting a short film, etc. The good thing about this course is firstly, it has got attachment. Secondly, u are not stuck in just audio engineer, u can become film/video editor, producer, etc. etc. And as a audio-post engineer, understanding the film procedures would also b a plus point for u.
Do check out SP audio course as well. They also have attachments. But am not sure which area they focus in. If I'm not wrong, they also teaches a little of everything. Advantage is that they have got nice new studio with new equipments.
As for area which students can go upon graduation, that would depends on which course u take. As mentioned above, if u take NP FSV, then your area is widely coz u can become editor, producer, etc. As for purely audio, actually audio has a very big area like, Live Sound (eg. gigs), theatre (eg., Esplanade, National Art Council), Audio-Post (eg., Mediacorp, audio post houses, production houses), Music studio (eg., Snakeweed studio), all the way to Studio Acoustic Design, Earring Aid design, Sound Card design (eg., Creative), school audio/visual technician (eg., secondary school, JC), cinema technician (Cathay, Gold Village) all the way to Sales (eg., Sinamex, Team 108 ).
So the prospect is in fact very big, BUT, not everyone wanna become sales man, technician, live sound. Most youngsters like u wanna get into a studio which is not impossible, but relatively not easy to get in. I've explained why in my previous reply. Other than those reasons, most studio owners are engineers themselves, so they wun need u if they themselve know how to do it right? Then again, studio in singapore are consider to be very small as compared to overseas studio, so they wun wanna employ so many pple, esp inexperience pple that u still nid to spend time teaching them.
Lastly, I would once again emphasize here that alot of my engineer frens have no former audio certifications. They get into studio by portfolio. Coz this is a creative industry, not a technical or engineering industry, so they look at portfolio and experiences more than cert/dip/degree. To us, when a person with a dip in audio come to us for job, how we see this:
"Oh...hmm...this guy know how to operate typical studio equipments such as mixer, ProTools, BUT, that does not mean that if I employ him n I throw him a project n a deadline, he can handle it FAST on his own with creative result. (Knowing how to use ProTools, n using it efficiently n creatively is 2 different thing. Knowing how to OPERATE/USE an eq/compressor and knowing how to APPLY them appropriately n creatively is again two diff thing.) So we will meet up with him for an interview to LOOK AT HIS REELS/PORTFOLIO to decide."
And if reels are not very good but acceptable, then some will test you on the spot, like how fast n efficient u can work with your DAW, etc. I have heard jokes that some might go to the extend of testing whether u are tone-deaf or not, haha. Not sure if it really happens, but I just heard it somewhere along my journey. but now it is much more better than the past. Last time we got to cut tapes, not like now u can cut audio with DAW.
So decide for yourself n once u decide, dun regret n dun give up. Just rem, this path is a very slow n long path. n the competition is pretty tough, coz the industry is small n everyone is waiting for that one opportunity. Well, if u are thinking of "ohh...I wanna earn big bucks n retire at the age of 40", than I'm sorry, this is not your path. n if you are thinking, ohh i wanna work 8-5pm n go home spend time with my family/frens, then I'm once again sorry, this path is not for u either. Coz we work like 12 hour or so a day. n during busy periods, we can work as much as 16 hour or so a day, incl weekends n P.holidays.
(I'm not sure other area, but I'm talking about audio-post houses)
Good Luck brotha', n all who are interested in this very interesting industry!!
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Yea, I totally agree with this guy, course the real audio engineer have knowledge of many areas such as electronics, etc. But in Sg, we simply misuse the term Audio engineer as the title of the job. That's why I often prefer to use terms like Recording & Mixing engineer, Sound Designer, etc.
But I think the AES website is not updated. Coz Sp sudio course is a new course n I dun think courses from SP would not recognised eh?
gutturalpiss
New member
Probably. Nobody cares outside of the business circle. The academic scene for audio here is pretty much non-existent (students or teachers don't take the initiative to be part of a bigger community other than school). Either that or the course does not fall under "Audio Engineering" per se. I'm not sure what the modules are but from what I hear it sounds pretty comprehensive and satisfactory for aspiring producers.
gutturalpiss
New member
It's not easy and you won't be able to buy a car and house as soon as you might've planned. In this age, you may want to specialise in different sub-fields, at least. Examples include owning a mixing house and offering post-production services for various markets.
Do it not for job prospects but for the knowledge and experience. Getting an academic qualification solely for employment purposes is a global bad habit.
Do it not for job prospects but for the knowledge and experience. Getting an academic qualification solely for employment purposes is a global bad habit.
