CRAS

(Double post from other CRAS business here on Unilocal)
Hi all, former student here (7−27−11pt if that means anything to you). Just popping in to do a quick review and tell a small snippet of my time here.
I spent 10 cycles here when it was 10 cycles I’d say only a couple months after they had Pro Tools tier 6 certification rolling out. The school is basically what you make out of it. I originally came here to learn how to use DAWs, learn about sound, how to make sounds in DAWs and make them sound great, and also produce music. While you will not get a musical education here, you will get a full load of technical information your brain and ears will thank you for later! So it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for initially, but I was optimistic.
If you thought you were going to get a crash course in engineering, music theory, production, and everything in between, you may need to look elsewhere. With that being said, if you want to be a recording engineer, move out to Nashville, Los Angeles, New York, anywhere you can find work, or freelancing, there’s no better place to learn than here. You go through 3 weeks of each cycle where they drop knowledge on you from day 1 for 4 hours. Be prepared to work your butt off! No matter how much time I spent here, I wish I had spent more, and in reality, you will too. When you leave the school and go on your internship you’ll be really sad, but you will also start a new life! I believe it’s even 12 cycles now, so you get a little more time spent there than I did! Again, I never thought about being an engineer, I only wished I could use DAWs like professionals and produce my own music. During my time at CRAS I actually got pretty decent at engineering, so I thought I’d just be hindering myself if I didn’t give it my absolute 100% all in.
The staff is pretty good. Project staff are basically guys who you will learn to love, fear or both. They will give you shit if you can’t wrap cables, and they will be hard on you about studio time limits, cleanliness, and overall studio etiquette… BUT ITS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD. Make mistakes now, and fix yourself now, because when Muse is in the live room waiting to record, your ass doesn’t have time to be making $ 10,000 mistakes because you couldn’t plug microphones in the wall. They will help you out, if you want the help, and you are motivated. They will help you reach your goals! The teachers know what they are talking about as well… I’m not if they are still there, but Phil and Sean the Pro Tools guys, will blow your mind with their knowledge. You can literally ask Phil anything and he will know, seriously, ask him. You got Alan who is LA engineering wizard, GHERY is the god of SSLs in Arizona. There are literally too many to name (What’s up Paul)!!
Thanks to CRAS I did an internship at Eldorado Recording Studios in Burbank, I worked 80 – 100 hours my first 3 weeks at the studio then landed a job within those three weeks. They taught me everything from basic signal flow to being able to run a large format console by myself. They also teach you tape… which honestly, is NOT DEAD. I used tape almost every day of my life at the studio. You NEED to be able to clean tape heads, sling tape on the machine, run the machine, link it to pro tools, get it to run from the desk, calibrate, EVERYTHING. Mentors at the studio will help you out and refresh your memory on the job, but you need a good base for this knowledge. Luckily, fresh out of school, you will have your notes as well.
After school I managed to get on a few really amazing records, meet a lot of cool and crazy artist, and got paid to do something fun and you can be proud of. You may also make tons of like-​minded individuals at school and on your way. I know you always hear people’s success stories and think, wow can I believe that, or man can I do that? You certainly can, but it’s all up to how you work.
Okay this is actually a lot longer than I anticipated, but I just noticed there weren’t that many reviews on this place and I wanted to give it a fair review to give future students a better idea on what they are getting out of it. Like ANYTHING IN LIFE, you certainly get what you put in. I put in quite a bit, and I got quite a bit.
Here’s proof if you want: