Isaac Newman is a 2006 CRAS grad who carved out a niche as an audio pro in the burgeoning House of Worship market. He was recently featured in Church Production magazine in an article telling the story Isaac’s church, Temple of Greater Beth-El and their high-end audio installation. Just last year, the facility won “Best Design, Implementation and Operation: Video Equipment/System” at WFX (Worship Facilities Conference & Expo) in Houston. Click here to read the article.

Bryan Pringle graduated less than a year ago and has scored a great gig with Carnival cruises. His new job involves mixing and recording shows in a floating, state-of-the-art showroom. “The new ship I am on is highly advanced runs some complicated gear,” says Pringle. Playback for our 3 shows comes from an HD24, plus I’m mixing a 10 piece band.” Bryan is also managing wireless mics and mixes the shows on a Yamaha PM5D. “It is such an amazing digital console,” he says.

Pringle credits his CRAS education with giving him the ability to step into his new job with confidence. “I came to this ship with my background and education and made some changes to their show and got several compliments and questions about why I did what I did. It really is possible to get this kind of job after school.”

The Conservatory’s curriculum covers a broad range of audio skills, preparing grads for a variety of jobs in audio once they leave the program to start their careers.

CRAS grad Eddie Mapp has mixed FOH for Zakk Wylde, Evanescence and currently the Stone Temple Pilots. Watch him mix live on Presonus’ new StudioLive console which is a professional digital mixer with a multi-channel recording system and built-in effects.

In less than a year, 12/07 grad Greg Ruoff has parlayed his CRAS education into a successful career as a studio manager at Ocean Studios in Burbank California. Ocean has hosted some of the biggest names in the business including producer/engineer Jerry Finn, Amy Lee of Evanescence, Steve Berlin of Los Lobos and Jim Adkins of Jimmy Eat World.

The video below is June Nine tracking drums with engineer Todd Burke at Ocean Studios in August 2008

photo caption: Nickelback is just one of the touring bands employing CRAS grads

Our MRPII grads have done very well for themselves. The list of CRAS attendees below have gone on to their internships and then been hired to work on major tours or with live sound companies.

On Tour
Jeremy White, PA Tech – Aerosmith, Snoop Dogg, Nickelback
Wayne Newton, FOH engineer – Aerosmith, Snoop Dogg, Nickelback
Alex Rotelle, PA Tech – Aerosmith, Snoop Dogg, Nickelback
Nathan Lettus, Crew Chief/V-DOSC engineer – Chicago
Matt Strasser, PA Tech – Chicago
Armando Montalvo, PA Tech – Nickelback

Working at PRG Las Vegas
Adam Parrish – Operations Mgr.
Cory Harrington – Shop Mgr.
Mitch Sorenson – Assistant Shop Mgr.
Marian Mast – Inbound/Outbound Asset Coordinator
Bruce Kilmer – Speaker Quality Control

Congrats to all of you, keep up the good work

CRAS Grad Eddie Mapp runs FOH audio for Evanscence

photo caption: Andrew Mayer (right) and Paragon Studios’ crew pose with Nicole Kidman

Andrew Mayer officially graduated from the CRAS in March of 08, but even so, in a few short months he’s racked up some notable successes in his new home city of Nashville. For starters, he was hired on at Paragon Studios, one of Music City’s hottest spots for post and music production. The facility recently recorded Nicole Kidman’s voiceovers for the movie Australia. Andrew also received his first credit for assisting on Sugarland’s newest release Love on the Inside.

photo caption: Jordan Gresham at ARU’s ICON console

Recent CRAS grad Jordan Gresham has been working with some interesting clients at ARU (Audio Recording Unlimited) in Chicago. She recently logged hours assisting on voiceovers for Pixar’s Toy Story 3, Guiliana Rancic from E! Daily News, and a Jerry Springer voiceover for America’s Got Talent.

Jordan is excited that she’s had such great opportunities in such a short time. “Just the chance to get to work with Pixar this early on was unbelievable.” she said. “I didn’t really realize that they thought of me as the assistant engineer until the day before the last session we had when the script editor called the studio and asked for Jordan, the assistant engineer. It was sooo cool to hear our receptionist say ‘Jordan you have a call on line 1 from PIXAR!!’ They put me in charge of making sure Joan Cusack’s contract was given to the producer first thing in the morning, and they entrusted me with it overnight! So, like the big dork I am, I had to keep the fax cover sheet from Pixar as a souvenir, since it was addressed to me, and they had written a little note thanking me for all my help on this project.”

We recently heard from CRAS grad Jonathan Pendergrass who started his career in LA. Here’s a note from him outlining where he’s going in the world of big city music.

“After finishing classes at the Conservatory, I left for L.A. and started an internship with 7 Pin Studios (formerly Tweakhead Productions). During this time, I had begun to work with a hip-hop artist in L.A. and he had purchased several of my pieces. After working for two weeks with Allison Wright Clark, the awesome music/score supervisor at 7 Pin, she sent me to S3 Music and Sound, a publishing company in West L.A. There I began work uploading, categorizing, and organizing their music library of about 1600 songs. S3 composes all the music for Robot Chicken, a few MTV reality shows, and licenses its library music for SiTV. As a composer myself, I have been given the opportunity to upload my own pieces into their library. I met another composer named Dennis Smith at S3 during a recording session, and I worked for him briefly delivering hard drives around L.A. I met several composers and editors on these runs and that networking brought me invaluable contacts and real world information. Currently, I am pitching their library to film, TV, and video game companies (a couple of bites here and there but here’s hoping). I begin recording next week at a home studio called Fantastic Traccz and it is very likely that I will record and engineer their upcoming albums. I also met another hip-hop artist in my apartment complex and I start recording his album later on in the day. There seems to be no end to the work you can do in this city as long as you aggressively look for it. Go Conservatory!”

CRAS grad Ariel Gross parlayed his CRAS education into a full-time gig at Volition Inc. He is now able to focus his skills on creating innovative audio for games. He has composed soundtracks to and created sound effects for over ten published games, and the list grows daily. In his spare time, he manages an IDM record label and writes lots of funky music. The CRAS offers a game audio program based on the Wwise audio pipeline solution. Wwise allows a programmer to work within a game audio team for a company like Volition, or act as an independent content provider offering freelance services for a range of clients.