Record, mix and repair sound for music, film, games and live shows. One year of training, then years of ears.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$68,000
Starting out
$44,000
Senior mixer or supervisor
$95,000
Job Bank's national median is $32.86 an hour, about $68,000 a year full time. Staff jobs in broadcast, film post-production and game audio pay steadiest. Music studios pay the least and are the hardest to get into.
$44,000 to $52,000
Assistant engineer, live sound technician or junior in a post-production house
Live sound at venues and corporate events is the usual way to start earning while your ears and your speed catch up.
About $95,000
Re-recording mixers, supervising sound editors and broadcast audio leads
Job Bank's high figure is $45.46 an hour. Touring engineers for large acts and senior film mixers can earn more, but both are small groups.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a two year college music or audio diploma plus a modest setup of an interface, monitors, microphones and software. The high end is a private audio school, for example the Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology in London at about 35,950 dollars for eleven months, or Vancouver Film School's twelve month sound design program at about 28,950 dollars, plus better gear. The expensive schools buy you a one year credential, not a longer one. Employers hire on what you can do at a desk, not on where you trained.
Private audio schools are expensive for a one-year credential. College programs cost far less. Either way, employers hire on what you can do at a desk, not on the receipt.
Salary
Broadcasters, post-production houses, game studios and larger venues.
Day rate
Freelance film and television sound, corporate events, festivals.
Studio hourly
Music recording, usually billed with the room.
Touring
A weekly rate plus per diems while on the road. Good money, no home life.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Short training, then a long apprenticeship in practice if not in name.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Music, physics and computer studies. Record your friends' bands. Run sound for the school play.
Audio program
1 to 2 years
A one-year private audio school, a one-year film sound program, or a two-year college music technology diploma.
Assist and run live sound
1 to 2 years
Bars, theatres, churches, conference centres. Hundreds of hours of fixing problems fast.
Specialize
Year 2 to 4
Music mixing, film post-production, game audio, live touring or broadcast. They stop overlapping quickly.
Lead the room
Year 4 and beyond
Mixing your own sessions, supervising a sound team, or running front of house for a touring act.
Music
You do not have to play well, but you have to hear well and know the vocabulary.
Physics
Sound is waves. Acoustics, phase and impedance are physics problems.
Computer studies
Every session is a computer session now.
Technology or shop
Soldering a cable at 6pm before doors open is a real skill.
There is no licence, no exam and no protected title. Nobody will check your credential. What people check is whether the last show you mixed sounded good and whether you got it done on time. Private audio schools market hard, so compare their cost against a college diploma before committing to a year at full price.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Film and television post-production
Dialogue editing, sound effects, mixing. The steadiest well-paid branch.
Game audio
Implementing sound inside a game engine. Growing, and needs some programming.
Live and touring
Front of house and monitor engineers. Great money on the road, hard on relationships.
Music recording
The dream for most people entering the field, and the branch with the least money in it.
Electronics repair
Engineers who can fix a cable, a console channel or a wireless problem get called back.
Playing an instrument
Talking to musicians in their own language shortens every session.
A driver's licence
Gear, venues, and load-ins at 7am.
Hearing protection habits
Custom moulded plugs early. Your ears are the equipment and they do not heal.
Recording dialogue on a film set is its own trade: boom operator first, then sound mixer. It is union work on most professional productions, it pays well, and it involves standing in a field holding a pole for twelve hours. It uses different gear and different instincts from studio work, so decide early which side you want.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
In post-production: in by 9, headphones on, cleaning dialogue frame by frame, cutting footsteps and room tone, then a playback with the director who wants the rain louder. In live sound: arrive mid-afternoon, unload, rig, run cable, soundcheck at 5, doors at 7, mix the show, tear down at midnight. Both versions involve solving an unexpected technical problem under time pressure, most days.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
The Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology packs more than 1,300 hours of practical and classroom instruction into 11 months, with one all-in fee of $35,950.
Nearly every footstep, door and clothing rustle you hear in a film was performed in a studio by a Foley artist and recorded separately, because the location audio is usually unusable.
Noise-induced hearing loss is permanent. Experienced engineers wear moulded protection at loud shows and mix at lower volumes than people expect, precisely to keep working into their fifties.
Harris Institute offers a 12 month audio production program and a 12 month arts management program, combined into a 20 month double diploma for people who want the business side too.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students.