Bloke...i wanna talk to you about the career

[OreO]

i just wanna ask you some questions about being a music producer/recording engineer. Do you have Yahoo messenger?

[Bloke]

I'm not a bona-fide producer or engineer. I mostly do mixing and mastering for other bands, usually for free or maybe for bud if it's a big job. Every now and again I'll run FOH at a concert, but I'm definitely not a professional producer at this point. My real job is actually extremely lame. :o Perhaps someday I'll be engineering or producing, but right now I just "play one on TV", so to speak.

[OreO]

can we stilll talk about a couple things?

[Bloke]

Sure! I don't have Yahoo! though. I have Hushmessenger, and access to an AOL account, if that helps any.

[OreO]

damn well i am wondering how long did it take u to understand everything that you know now, and was it a lot of hard work?

[Bloke]

I've been at it for a while now; I started on a four-track analog tape machine when I was thirteen, and sort of went from there. There's some concepts that never change, but young(er) people getting into it today are at an advantage, because computer and hard disk recording are fairly new. I started on tapes, and there's a bunch of stuff you could do with tape that sounds horrible when done in digital (clipping, mainly) so it took me a while to un-learn all that and get used to the new format.
I wouldn't say it takes a lot of hard work, but it takes a lot of practice. You have to make all the mistakes if you want to learn anything. And listen to your favorite music more closely.
To be honest though, I've learned the most in the last two years since I went all digital, which really isn't much time at all. I read a few books, and downloaded some product manuals. That's the only boring part, but once you get the hang of aux sends on mixers, sidechain inputs on compressors, and all the machinery that's in between you and the music, it really isn't hard work. You just really have to get in there and screw up as badly as you can (preferably when nobody's looking), and then figure out what you did that could be improved upon. I produced my band's first demo in 1999, and it sounds like so much ass to my ears now, but if I never finished it I'd still be producing crap.
So the basics can be learned pretty quick, you just have to play with everything you can for a while until you understand it.