OIART

[josh porter]

I plan on going to OIART sometime in the near future and was wondering if anybody has gone there and can tell me what its like and what to expect? thanks

[Alain Benoit]

MacRae did.

[Malcolm Boyce]

I think Blake did as well.

Very reputable school. Been around longer than most of the schools of the genera. I applied and was accepted there as well when I was looking at options, but decided on Trebas mostly because of the instructors of the day and the location of the campus. (Toronto vs. London ON)

I would put it in the top 5 programs in the country for audio/production schools.

[Alain Benoit]

I would put it in the top 5 programs in the country for audio/production schools.

Right between CATAC and SORF!!

Sorry could not help it.

[macrae11]

Yeah Blake and I both graduated the same year. Great school, would highly recomend.
They have a nicley varied gear list, which includes your usual ProTools LE and mackie mixer setup, (it seems anyone who has these two can open there own recording school.) but also includes a full RADAR rig, 2 HD rigs, a Samplitude rig, a Logic/Reason rig, as well as still teaching on 2" Analog and a whole wack of outboard gear.

A few of the instructors have changed since I was there though the core instructors are the same. A couple to highlight -

Christoph Hodgins-Babin, Studio Maintence. If you want to be a techie pay attention to this guy. Crazy what he can do with a soldering iron. Even Al would be impressed.

Mark Macdonald, Recording Technology. Don't let the throw back 80's hair/clothes fool ya, this guy knows his stuff.

Lee While, Acoustics. Sounds like a boring course, but there have been so many times i've been glad that i took it. And Lee is great teacher and metalhead to boot.

They've also been doing great work in Audio for Pictures including Video games, since before most other schools picked this up.

The big thing though is 3 semester. The first 8 months are great and very educational, but semester 3 you basically get free run of the studios for 3 months. Don't waste that time! You get to take all you learned through the previous year, and really put it to use. Make contacts and find bands in the area who want to record, or help out a local independent film, build up your portfolio.

Basically if you're ready to go and eat, sleep, breathe audio, you'll have the time of your life, and learn more than you could have imagined. If you wanna go because your parents want you to go to school, and you think this will be fun and easy.... well we'll see you back in November.

I'm sure that's not you though, all i'm saying is that you get out of it what you put into it.

Feel free to ask any more questions you might have.

Cheers

Andrew

[weatherstation audio]

as well as still teaching on 2" Analog

Wow, that I didn't know ?
my schooling took place back in the day when the only thing digital in the school's studio was a 2-track DAT recorder and some Midi program on a primitive Atari computer... I imagine that all schools offer the usual ProTools... but schools today that still maintain the analog gear are going the extra mile, in my opinion.

I'll echo my opinion of MacRae,
The other thing that can be undervalued sometimes,
is a basic maintenance course showing students how to solder wires/connectors together and trouble shoot week links in a signal path... a highly underrated skill, I'm sure Al would agree. (being the soldering nut that he is)

[josh porter]

Thanks for all the info. im not leaving til 2009 cuz i have to earn money and experience, but while im there, i will be keeping in touch and keeping you all updated to my progress

[Blake]

ya it is a great place. wile we were one of the projects we had was to build i simple active DI

[Alain Benoit]

ya it is a great place. wile we were one of the projects we had was to build i simple active DI

Better than a simple passive DI!

[Blake]

it shore is