Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

im currently majoring in audio and video engineering. first year still. going more with the audio courses. the video courses are just part of the classes. i was just curious if there was anything i could do to help sort of boost or jumpstart a career, or maybe find a job similar to my field. any tips or help is appreciated. i have a musical background as well as computer tech and such. just need the degree that says i can do it lol. thanks!

not even a tip?

I don't know if this helps, but one of my sons just returned to Full Sail to get a Bachelor degree after three months in New York getting turned down from job after job because he only had an Associate Degree in audio engineering. Aside from the degree there's probably nothing that jump starts a career better than good personal connections.

There are books on how to do this. I used a book that had all the advertising agencies in the Wash DC area listed, back when I was looking to get into the field. Never did get into it, myself, it seemed like a closed-mouthed lot & I needed $ so I got into other things.

You could try to get an in with your local TV or radio stations to do some free-lance ads for them on the cheap until you get established. Go ahead & do some stuff on spec, & try to sell it to local businesses. If your ad gets air-time, ppl will get interested in you quickly, I'd imagine. Make up a nice campaign for Coke, & play it for ppl & tell them you offered this to Coca Cola, but they had contracts elsewhere & couldn't use it. Make sure that your spec work is top notch & creative & uses good copy, something that sticks in ppl's minds. Anything you can do to impress ppl will help. Look like a pro, act like a pro, & make your work polished. That's what I'd do if I were going to do it again.

I did talk to a couple local ad agencies, & that's the advice they gave me. Well, there was also that other one about using more professional recording equipment...

Looked this over again, & I think perhaps I'm sending you in the wrong direction, as you never mentioned advertising - duh!

Okay, if I were going to try to break into the audio/video world at large, I'd probably offer my services to every band in town, either on the cheap or for free. That would get your chops up & get you established in a local market, at the very least. Then I'd start upping my price as my rep grew & ppl start coming to me.

I'd look into what JW123's been doing at his shows, too. Check it out at

http://forum.bandmix.com/viewtopic.php?t=6796

He's got some excellent ideas for promotion, & it falls right into your field of expertise. You could sell this to bands if you have the rig & the ability to use it, which is probably not a problem for ya.

Good luck!