PAVI – You Could Do Better…

I first heard about the PAVI Audio Engineering Program through a roommate who was currently enrolled in the program at the time. I had always been involved with music in some way or form for the majority of my life and had begun to think about what I could do with it career-wise. My roommate’s involvement with PAVI made me curious and he convinced me to attend. He also revealed that if I did end up enrolling and mentioned his name, we would both receive $500. He would receive a cheque while I would be reimbursed in my tuition.

Like all schools, I expected to receive the necessary education that I would need in order to begin a career in the audio and recording world. With PAVI, it just didn’t take the cake.

I was guaranteed a spot in the program, but this really should have been my first clue.

Getting In

I should have known that I would not receive the education I needed after my initial meeting with a PAVI rep. I was given a small exam to test my knowledge. When the rep had finished marking it, he pointed out the only question I had gotten wrong and proceeded to explain the answer to me. He took out his calculator and started doing some calculations. Feeling pretty confident about my solutions, and seeing that he himself was slightly confused, I explained to him how I derived my answer. He concluded that I was indeed right, and then told me that no one had ever received a perfect score on the test before. I can see why. I was guaranteed a spot in the program, but this really should have been my first clue.

The Program

One thing that PAVI did, which was a complete shock and I believe to be completely useless, was schedule reviews an hour and a half before midterm and final exams. The entire three months would be reiterated in that short span. For some classes we were even allowed to take notes during the reviews and use them for the exam. In fact, for a good number of classes, the QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS were given during the review. I don’t know if this was some ploy to have students receive higher grades, but I don’t think it was helpful in the least. No reputable college or university would do this.

Anyways, here are some of the highs and lows of the audio program at PAVI.

Audio Engineering
This class was taught throughout the entire year and the essentials of the recording process were explained. The teacher was pretty awesome and he taught really well. Things such as the different kind of mics, signal flow, editing, recording, etc.

Parts of his class were really useless. We were forced to learn how to use Microsoft Word – things like how to start a New Document were explained. The basics of Adobe Photoshop, Excel, Dreamweaver were also taught. I wish more time was spent on this instead of explaining Word.

Sound for Film and Video
We learned how common sound effects were made. We had access to a sound bank of thousands of different professional sound effects, and were encouraged to make our own. Projects consisted of adding sound to movie clips and syncing them up properly.

Only thing I really disliked about the course was the amount of time spent watching “behind-the-scenes” DVD features on audio. This would have been better as an assignment maybe. Two viewings of a DVD would have been enough, but we endured something closer to ten. It started to come off as filler for class time. I was so sick of Lord of the Rings by the end of the course.

Music Theory and Electronic Music
The teacher for these two classes was excellent. Basic theory was taught as well as how to use certain software to make electronic music.

Production
We’d sit and listen to music for hours. Towards the end of the semester, we started to learn how to budget for tours which was a bit useful.

Studio Design
This was definitely the most difficult class which a lot of people failed. The majority of the class was learning math formulas for electricity. The last three weeks were spent reading a manual on how to design a studio. The disappointing thing about the class was we spent the majority of the time on math, and only one day was spent with doing some hands-on soldering.

Career Management
You were taught how to market yourself, learned about copyright laws, and how different labels worked.

The hours an individual student would actually spend in the studio was probably closer to 100.

Studio Time

Studio time is one of the biggest faults that PAVI has. In its brochure it claims to provide over 900 hours of studio time available for students to have access to. This was very misleading, as the hours an individual student would actually spend in the studio was probably closer to 100.

PAVI is home to Blue Wave Studios, which has two recording rooms. The consoles, mics, and all the equipment there is really good, but the amount of time you’re able to have access to it is absolutely terrible.

Students are only able to use the studio on Tuesdays or Thursdays, and each student can only book one three-hour slot outside of their class schedule. Students also had to have at least 3 other people in the program with them during the booked times. Students in their first semester were not allowed to book studio time as well, unless invited by students further along in the program.

A three-hour time slot for learning students was never really enough time to set-up, record, and take down all the equipment. With only one shared studio assistant between the two studios, you’d usually have to wait to be helped. Most students usually tried to book two slots back-to-back by asking other students to reserve the next time slot for them. This also meant that they also had to be there as well, which would sometimes cause problems.

Getting a time slot in itself was a difficult task. Bookings would only occur during the start of each semester, where every student would crowd around and try to fill up as much time as possible. Students were limited to only 3 sessions per semester, so planning ahead was a must.

Throughout the school year there were scheduled class times in the studio, which would occur every other week. However, even with the class split between the two studios, it was obvious that there were too many people for everybody to adequately learn the controls. On these nights, there were also problems with who and what we were recording. Sometimes the owner of the school would bring in his own projects for us to record for him. Other nights, we wouldn’t have anything to record, so we were left editing pre-recorded material, which doesn’t take many people at all.

The best way to learn how to use the studio equipment was to spend as much time as much time as possible in it; but with all the restrictions on studio time, this was nearly impossible.

However, there were a few teachers (although good people) who seemed to have very little experience.

Teachers

The majority of teachers were well learned in the industry and the classes they were teaching. However, there were a few teachers (although good people) who seemed to have very little experience, qualified only because of the little basement studios they had, recording a few of their buddies. One teacher in particular was hired last minute to teach Pro Tools. He only knew how to use Mac commands and had a very difficult time providing us with the directions for PC use. The school did provide dual-os Macs but the Mac side was completely incapable of running Pro Tools.

Another teacher, who was assigned the task of teaching us how to become good producers, spent the majority of the semester repeating the same exercise. We would listen to a song about 5 times, and then try to individually identify the different parts (chorus, verse, etc.) and instruments within it. It’s a fairly descent exercise, but it was something that we spent way too much time on, sometimes half of a 4 hour class. If we missed or incorrectly named an instrument, we lost marks. Seeing as the majority of the errors we made were based on hard to recognize instruments, I felt it was very unfair. When I eventually asked the teacher how we were supposed to be able to identify a “guero” when none of us had ever heard one in our lives, he told us that he would teach us. This is something that never happened and we continued to lose marks.

What Tuition Gets You

Out-Of-Date Textbooks
A mandatory $750 is tacked on top of the $16,000 tuition for textbooks. The majority of the textbooks we received were out of date – some were published dating back to the late 80’s or early 90’s. We received a textbook for each class, and in all those classes, save for one, we didn’t touch them. Some teachers were completely unaware of the textbooks we received to accompany their classes. There was even one time that we didn’t receive our textbooks until a couple weeks into the course as they had run out. To this day, all my textbooks are sitting on a shelf and have never been opened. Altogether, they were worth nowhere near the $750 we were required to pay for them.

Horrible Headphones
Part of the $750 also went towards headphones that the school provided for us. In my class, they were horrible and would probably be worth approximately $20. They had mediocre sound quality and did nothing to block out noise.

Zero Printers
What kind of school in its right mind does not have printer access for students? We had to go to a little convenience store to get things printed off. Awkwardly enough, the store was suspected of having some kind of shady sex massage rap going. Several students complained of having been approached in the store about being offered some “service”. The store is out of business now, so I have no idea where future students can possibly go to get things printed.

No Heating
This may be a little nit-picky, but I spent the entire winter shivering for hours every time I went to class. The people that worked in the office went home at 5:30pm, and turned the heat off to conserve energy and save money. This left the majority of the night class freezing for the entire winter. I had to lug extra clothes around with me to work all day just so I could be warm in class. I was constantly sick all throughout winter because of this.

PAVI comes off as a shady fly-by-the-night school, content with providing a mediocre education for as much money as they can get.

The Verdict

Overall, PAVI comes off as a shady fly-by-the-night school, content with providing a mediocre education for as much money as they can get. I’ve spoken to many people who’re unhappy about their education, and the majority of my own class were left unsatisfied. PAVI is not reputable in the audio engineering world, and I’d recommend you take your money elsewhere. You could also invest in your own equipment and learn from online “howtovillage” videos. We ended up doing this for 45 minutes in one class, so you wouldn’t be missing out on much.

I’ve been out of PAVI for almost a year now and haven’t done anything related to the audio industry. I literally felt embarrassed…that’s the only way to describe it. I was embarrassed by the lack of experience I got from my education. I wouldn’t know what to do if I was put into a studio, and I realized this by the third semester there. A few students and I were even contemplating taking legal action against PAVI after we graduated, but the stress of it all kind of got in the way.

Now there’s a student loan to pay back and no good job to pay it back with. Because of this, I decided to go back to school and change career plans altogether. I’ve been going to college and plan to get a bachelor in teaching. I’m already going to China this year to teach English. Things may have been different if I had gone somewhere more reputable, bitten the bullet, and paid more money, but I couldn’t fathom taking out an even larger student loan. With the education I received from PAVI, the most I’ll be able to do is record as a hobby.

(12 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)

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