In March, NICH began a 14-week Audio Technician course. The idea was to teach and certify the participants to be sound engineers.
It's not easy work, and proof of that is in the numbers: it started off with 40 people and only 22 were left standing at the end. But after about 14 weeks of intense training the 22 students graduated with a head full of new knowledge last week Tuesday. The instructor told us more about the course and its importance today.
Whitfield Welch, Bliss Institute Sound Engineer
"They got real intense training on each of the equipment that we use from speakers to microphones. We did not just use microphones. We went through a whole lot of microphones so they know what to expect when they see a microphone. They could tell you what that microphone can do without seeing the microphone so to me that is what a real sound engineer is about. It is a person who analyses before he gets to the job."
"I also taught them that a sound engineer is not just a person who does sound there is a lot of different things that you can do as a sound engineer. There are so many jobs out there. You can be a doctor but then you can be a brain surgeon and you can go into dentistry, or whatever so it is the same thing with sound engineering you have what we call the fold back or a monitor engineer. You have a sound engineer in the television or radio field. You have sound engineers that just create sounds so it is a big industry."
The graduates are now certified audio engineers and can seek a job in that field.
