THE TIME LINE
1965 - Chicago IL
     The head of the Engineering Department of RCA Studios, Chicago was completing the tour of the facilities for the visiting engineers from Motown Records.  He got on the subject of how RCA got and trained their recording engineers for their complex of four studios and the near-dozen mastering, editing and mixing rooms.  We look for people with training, interest and/or experience in both electronics and music.  We start then out in mastering, advance them to mixing and finally into recording.  We use this sequence because its easy to replace a botched master, harder, but still possible to correct a bad mix, but its nearly impossible (and most expensive to try) to correct for a poor recording.
     At the time RCA Chicago employed a dozen recording engineers and technicians and the corporation had four major studios in the USA, with Chicago being the smallest.  Staff engineers worked in shifts and handled any session that was on their shift in their assigned studio or recording room.   Other major record companies like Capitol, Columbia, Warner Brothers, etc had their studio complexes.  Independent record companies like Chess Records and Motown also had their own studios and had staff engineers.  Motown, for instance, had more than a dozen recording engineers on staff to service two studios, one mix room and one mastering room.
1965 - 1990's
     By the late 1960's large independent studios, like Record Plant in New York were getting more major business than some of the studios owned by the record companies.  Producers and recording artists like to work with engineers and studios that understood their music, rather than the "stiff color" corporate recording studios.  By the 80's almost all of the major label recording studios had closed their doors and virtually all recording was done with independent studios and independent engineers.  As the new millennium rang in, large independent studio complexes were having a hard time competing with the independent engineer working at smaller commercial and self-owned project studios for the vast majority of work.

WHAT IS AN INDEPENDENT RECORDING ENGINEER?
     An independent recording engineer is one who operates in different studios.  It requires an ability to walk in and use a console or recording equipment that you have never used before.  About the only thing you can expect for help is a quick explanation of any custom things installed by the chief engineer:

     If you are unfamiliar with a studio it is a good idea to take a tour of it a few days before the recording date to get an idea of things you may run into during the recording.
     It is really nice, if the recording budget allows, to have a second engineer (assistant) in for the sessions that the independent recording engineer does at the studio, but this is a luxury that often cannot be arranged for, without diminishing the independent engineer's fees for the project.

BECOMING AN INDEPENDENT RECORDING ENGINEER
     To become an independent recording engineer

     After successfully engineering in several studios, becoming qualified to engineer in a studio gets a lot easier.  Extensive independent engineering experience often means that the studio manager will automatically give his OK to Engineer and this experience also means that the independent engineer actually becomes qualified to figure out just about any console or recording setup. 
     The activities to get fully established as an independent engineer could be interning or working as a low-paid assistant engineer at several studios to do step 2 of the sequence given above.  Eventually the time needed to scope out new surroundings reduces and the independent engineer is able to convince the studio manager to let the independent engineer have an hour in the room for a test mix to get familiar with the setup.  When a big paid project is coming up, the studio manager is often very willing to cooperate.

HOW RID TRAINS INDEPENDENT ENGINEERS 
     Looking at steps 1 & 2 above, the wannabe independent has to both train and intern.  Large training programs of 9 or more months usually require more than 100 hours of interning to be qualified to do recording engineering work in a studio.  Shorter training programs require more interning time to get to the same level of competency.  It's real simple:

     RID has programs that are short and basic or longer and advanced.  In addition to the training programs shown above,  the school offers an independent engineer internship in it's own Golden Section recording studios.  During the first part of the internship, the interns works on an "OK To Engineer" in the studio.  The intern does a minimum of 50 hours and may be invited to do up to an additional 100 internship hours.  Students then get themselves one paid job and they are complete on the internship. At this point the student has become a starting professional independent recording engineer.
     Students in the Recording Engineering Program are not charged a fee if  they use a portion of their program "lab time" for the purpose of interning as an independent engineer.  A full description of the internship program is the subject of a separate article.