The End of an Era

In November 2002, the Conservatory first held classes in its then new 10 cycle MRP II program! This was a monumental change from the previous curriculum of 5 cycles at the Tempe campus only. Expanding to 10 cycles, and two campuses, allowed us to provide much more detailed education to our students. The two campuses were mirrored, with four studios and a number of classrooms at each location, including the 6,000 square foot live sound venue.

Today adds a new notch to the most recent epoch of CRAS. This is officially the last on-campus day of class for our last group of students in the 10 cycle MRP II audio engineering program! As our latest batch of freshly-tuned audio engineers head out to their respective internships across the country, we can sit and reminisce on all the progress, success and achievements we’ve made over the last decade+.

The 2013-10-04 class brings to a close a long celebrated history at CRAS, and we usher in a new era of audio recording education with the beginning of our new, fully-immersed 12 cycle program. First started with the 2013-10-25 class, we are completely entrenched in the new curriculum which offers new paths and opportunities for aspiring audio engineers. In addition to the overhaul of our classic program, we have added so much new content to the program that I can’t even contain all of my excitement within one single post.

On Monday we will also have new exciting things happening! Our long-awaited Mobile Broadcast Unit will begin its excursion into the CRAS-curriculum, kicking off our brand new broadcast program, which is the first time any school in the nation has offered a broadcast recording curriculum. With co-operation and help from Studer themselves, we have been able to make the Studer Vista online certification program, and be able to offer that to our own students as well! Venturing into this new territory we can truly revolutionize the education we can provide our students.

Think about any NASCAR race you’ve seen on TV, any PGA golf tournament, any basketball game, football game, soccer… the list goes on. Obviously we have to be able to see the program, but think about how important the audio tied to those events are! And now we can thankfully say we know how to do that! Cultivated with the help of the legendary Fred Aldous, our brand new broadcast program will give our students yet another tool in their tech book to use to their advantage.

We look forward to our new, exciting curriculum and all of the opportunities we can give our new recruits! There are many more things happening that I can’t quite mention yet, but be on the lookout for the future!