Live sound courses have been added to the curricula at many major pro audio education facilities in the last several years. The one at the Curb College at Belmont University, in Nashville, seems to be taking it a step further, though. Clear As A Bell (CAAB) Audio is the name of the SR provider based at the school that's staffed and operated by a dozen students enrolled in Curb College's Audio Engineering Technology Advanced Sound Reinforcement course.
They maintain the gear and assist Tony Cottrill, the coordinator of the Live Sound program, in bookings for CAAB's four PA systems. They also do FOH and monitor mixing, track inventory and keep the books. In short, it's a commercial sound company run out of an educational facility.
Student-Run, Student-Staffed
"The basic concept is to build a working, real-world sound reinforcement company," Cottrill explains. "It's completely student-run and student-staffed. We charge clients according to the complexity of show, equipment upkeep costs and staff engineer show fees. This will focus students on what it takes to work in this field in all aspects of touring."
CAAB has four main systems. First, there's a basic PA system for smaller on-campus musical and speaking events, which includes some JBL VRX mains and SRX wedges and a Midas Venice 160 console. Next is a mid-size music system that uses EAW 325 boxes and 128 subs and a Soundcraft Spirit 8 mixer. Then there's a larger mid-sized system with 4 VRX boxes and L Acoustics wedges with a Yamaha M7CL console. Finally, there's a PA system for larger on or off-campus events for up to 2,000 people. The larger festival system is based around a JBL VRX line-array speaker system with EAW subwoofers, a Digidesign D-Show Profile FOH mix console and a Yamaha M7CL-48 digital console for monitors.
Picking Up the Check
Cottrill says the live sound academic and employment model has followed that of the studio business: an industry sector that once disparaged professional media technology school graduates now won't hire anyone without a degree. But as the number of live-sound education options grows, Cottrill says he designed this program to mimic reality by making it granular. "We not only expect them to go out and do the job but also to make sure they pick up a check," he says.
Belmont has been known to make some sharp business deals. The Curb College is the multi-million-dollar jewel in a massive musically philanthropic crown endowed by label mogul Mike Curb. The college opened as a department in 1995 and is now an institution unto itself as its pro audio and music business programs have expanded. It also acquired a major recording studio in 2001 when it bought Ocean Way/Nashville, which benefits to some extent from the school's nonprofit status as it competes in the constricted economics of music recording.
Undercutting the Market?
CAAB's student/employees are paid $7.25 per hour for on-campus work, and the company bills commercial clients at $15 per man-hour. I asked Cottrill, who still mixes monitors for Ronnie Milsap, whether turning an academic exercise into a subsidized commercial enterprise – the college underwrote all of the technology purchases – had elicited any concern from other SR providers in the 150-mile radius that CAAB works in. He said he was sensitive to that. "These are companies that my students would be looking to get jobs at when they graduate, so if I think we're competing with them I'd rather pass on the work," he explains.
Cottrill says he had already experienced that kind of conflict at another school he worked at in Ohio. In that case, school programs that let local bands use school studio facilities for student recordings drew concerns about unfair competition from some local recording studios. In fact, he adds, several local SR providers regularly use his students as interns, including Clair's Nashville office, which participates in a work-study program with the school. "That works out well for everyone, because the students bring back the experience of working in a top-flight shop to the school, and the PA companies get people who are ready to hit the ground running, who understand power and who know how to fly a rig."
A Real-World Education
Considering that the line between the real world of media technology and its academic iteration is thinning to the point of transparency – it seems as though half of the social media industry was incubated in an MIT dorm – the commercial nature of Belmont's CAAB venture is arguably necessary to achieve the authenticity that will give its graduates a putative edge in an increasingly crowded marketplace. And now that more students have wised up to the fact that an A.S. in Pro Tools is not going to guarantee them a Madonna remix, that's a good thing, as is Cottrill's awareness of the threat that some truly commercial SR propositions in the neighborhood might feel. That's part of the real world, too.
