When 2004 IAR grad Anthony Fontana recently visited IAR, he was proud to tell us that he just received his first gold record as an engineer for the “Don’t You Fake It” album by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus.

After graduation, Anthony began working as an intern at Water Music Recorders in Hoboken, NJ, where he moved up to assistant engineer. “That’s what I had hoped to do when I started at IAR – to get my name somewhere in small print. Interning also taught me in greater depth about what goes into making an album; it’s not as easy as you think.”

“I’ve also had the opportunity and honor of transferring and editing a great collection of classic rock, which gave me the chance to listen to live mixes from well-known engineers whom I had only read about, but I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to work on these projects, so I can’t go into the specifics.”

“IAR gave me a general knowledge of the recording process and the related editing skills you need when recording and mixing.”

Anthony’s advice to current IAR students is to “be prepared to work insane hours – a short day is ten hours. You need to understand signal flow and be extremely organized with patch bays and your studio sessions. You should mix at low levels and listen to your mixes on at least three or four sets of speakers, if possible. Last but not least, you should make sure that you know how to properly tie up microphone cables. It can be very annoying untangling a bunch of those things; remember to start with the female side first.”

Congratulations, Anthony, on your first gold record.