FE Exam

Things on here have been a bit slow lately. By that, I mean that I haven't posted anything up here in something like two weeks. Definitely not the most responsible thing to be doing...

A large portion of my lack of internet presence was taking the Fundamentals of Engineering exam last weekend. The FE is an 8 hour long engineering test that's cumulative for 4 years of engineering courses. After taking it, I found that it had a lot in common with recording.

Yes, that's a bizarre connection. And I know everyone's experiences with recording are rather different from one another, but this is at least with my experiences, which may at least be in common with a few people out there.

• Preparation
• For the FE, I had to review 4 years of course material. That included just about everything I've learned at college. Likewise, before going in to record, you've gotta bust your butt to get every note of the songs that you plan on recording. Sometimes these are pieces written over a few years and so you've got to relearn all of that stuff. It's a ton of sucky work, but ends up being really beneficial.
• Early Mornings
• Unfortunately, for both of these, it's important to get lots of sleep the night before. For the FE, I went to bed around 9:30 and was up by 5:00AM... It's important to go into these with a clear head to be able to concentrate and last through the day.
• Endurance
• An hour long engineering test is enough to render you brain-dead for the rest of the day. The FE was the most exhausting test I've ever taken. The first section (4 hours) were a breeze. Got through that and felt great about it. However, by the second section, I was mentally shot; it didn't matter how well prepared I was for it. With recording, you're usually recording for hours on end. As a solo act, when I'm in to record, it's me playing, and playing, and playing... The first half goes great, but as the day wears on, it ends up not mattering how well you practiced - it will get you. Your technique starts to get sloppy and the quality that you're able to produce drops off.
• Exhaustion
• Not only did the FE ruin the days leading up to it, but it also sucked pretty bad a few days afterwards. It was an early morning followed by a late night and just the inability to function properly. I took a nice  break from being productive after that. With recording, you need a break afterwards, too. When I recorded Deconstructing The Temporal Lobe I was in the studio for 22 hours over the course of 2 days. Afterwards, I needed a break and didn't play for a few days.
• Waiting
• You can't record an album and have a final product a few days later. It doesn't work like that. If you're getting CDs pressed, it'll probably take a few months from recording through post-production and pressing. The FE, for whatever reason, takes 12 weeks to grade. At least with recording there's a legitimate reason for it to take so long. The FE is a scantron... all you do is have a computer read them. No reason that should take so long to grade.
• Reward
• As an engineer, one of your goals is to become a professional licensed engineer. You can't take your PE test until you pass the FE and work for a few years. In music, one of your goals may be to be able to make a career out of music or to at least have your name and music spread. You can't make much money if you don't have any recorded material of yourself and you can't get by on word of mouth without recordings either.

So it's a strange connection, but they're very similar. Hopefully I'll be able to get back into the studio sometime soon... And  hopefully they figure out that you can grade tests like the FE in like 3 days and don't take 12 weeks to get back to me.

-Alex