I am not looking for job here. I am still studying. In sound engineering field.
I am trying to open a discussion about sound engineering career in Malaysia.

Anyone here know anything about it?
Like the location of studios in Malaysia.
Any career related to sound engineering.
Anything at all.

For the one who are finding where to study sound engineering in Malaysia, there are few courses available in Limkokwing Cyberjaya, Ocean Institute of Audio Technology and SAE Malaysia. I think there are more but these are the only that I know.

In Malaysia, there lots of singers and bands trying to break into the market and entertainment industry,
but I hardly found a person who want specialize in sound engineering.
Of course the are many, but it is not a common thing as singers and bands.

If fame and fortune are the main things that people after in show biz,
they are prone to be the one in front of the TV or on stage.
Most Malaysians don't even know what is sound engineering.
I encounter lots of people who ask me what course am I taking, and they responded, 'what the heck is sound engineering?'

If I say, mechanical engineering, everyone knows. And they would be so proud knowing that I am studying it.
But when it comes to sound engineering, they tend to give a bad thoughts about it.

For me, sound engineer is a scientist and an artist at the same time.
Ever wonder why your favourite band sounds so smooth and nice in their CD but not during live performances?
Without proper sound engineers, there wouldn't even be a record or a well live performance.

In my opinion, sound engineers in Malaysia were not credited well for their hard work.

This post has been edited by Zulhilmi Arts: Jun 12 2012, 11:51 PM

u mean like sound designer software?



This post has been edited by Zulhilmi Arts: Jul 28 2009, 07:53 AM

Anyone know anything about the local film scoring?

SAE Malaysia, Ocean Institute of Audio Technology, Limkokwing Cyberjaya
Dont know if there are more

Wow, thanks man for the information. It could really help those who are stumble upon this thread and me too. I am not really well connected to the industry to fill this thread with lots of information to help us all who are interested in this field. But I try to fill it each time I got something new, which hardly anything at all so far when regarding to job availability or likewise. Still studying though. I appreciate every single information that anyone can post here.

From what I learn so far, when you are music industry, connections and experiences beat the 'paper' you get after graduated. But of course in sound engineering, a certificate could give you a boost and give you more career options. So you won't stuck with just few careers to choose from.

I am very sorry for this incredibly late reply. I didn't get any notification from Lowyat in my email and it's been a while since the last time I been to this thread. I am a senior student in Limkokwing University. It's been a great for the last few semesters. I learned a lot. But most of the time, I learned everything myself. I guess you probably already know that since you already work, that all of us in audio engineering really have to be an autodidact. Audio engineering is all about practical work more that theory. You are not going anywhere until you try doing it yourself. You won't learn EQ until you touch that EQ knob.

So where do you work? It would be nice if you can share your working experience here. Last time, I couldn't find audio engineering thread in Lowyat so I started this hoping that people who are in interested and already work in this field would share and we all can benefit from each other. I really like to see audio engineering field grow a lot bigger in Malaysia especially from the job opportunity and having a vast professional community that could help the new and upcoming engineers.

It would be nice if people ask us what do we do, and we say we are in audio engineering field and that person know what it is instead of giving us a face. He3

I am more into music production, that's where most on my audio passion falls into. ^^

This post has been edited by Zulhilmi Arts: Mar 6 2011, 04:28 PM

Actually sound engineering is a big field. But today, when you say sound engineering, most people will think about music production, live sound and post production.

That consultant can also be counted in sound engineering coz he is dealing with noise control, which need the knowledge in sound and acoustics. I think. Coz when you meet students who study sound engineering, you hardly meet a person who say he wanna be that noise control consultant. Most answers would be a music producer, sound designer, musician, live/studio engineer, etc. More into show biz.

Probably that consultant is more in civil engineering? I am not sure.

For the BA(hons) Sonic Music, I dont really know much about it. I saw the course at Limkokwing U website but my classmates and even the lecturers never talked about it. In fact, when it comes to degree in audio engineering, we all agree that there is no courses available here in Malaysia yet. Some of the graduated students are studying oversea right now for their degree.

For the comment about Limkokwing U not having a good lecturers, thats more in general for the U itself. Not to any particular lecturer in any course. I heard that comment lots of time already, even some are from the graduated students from there are suggesting to stay away from that U. I dont know why exactly but now that am a student there, I gotta say this U has a bad management. The reason I am there coz there is no audio engineering course in public/government U. Not coz I really wanna be in Limkokwing U. Its a private U and its very expensive but I have no other choices. I feel kinda bad coz my parents are paying for the fee. But I am really passionate about this course and I am studying very hard. I do wanna tell you one thing, in Limkokwing there are lots of students who are there not really coz they want to study. They hardly attended classes and when they got bad grades, they blamed it on the lecturers. It happens every semester. So the lecturers are taking the heat for their mistakes. For the lecturers in my course, they all very helpful and always there to help. So to conclude that bad lecturers comment, in depends on who was commenting. I dont know about the lecturers in other faculties. I only know those in Sound and Music Design Academy only. My experience, they all good lecturers. They taught us what we need to know. Mostly the basics are covered. Like I said in previous post, audio engineering is really about practical work. And need to be an autodidact, one who is really passionate about it and will always learn by himself/herself. Its different from engineering field in mechanical, electronics, etc, medical, accounting whereas the time spend in lectures in U are obligatory to know the courses well but in audio engineering, if you hang with the right person, you dont even need to attend courses in U, might as well just go straight to the industry, but I am not saying we should skip school. That diploma/degree certificate might help a tiny bit in getting a better starting position in the music industry.

My course is Diploma in Sound & Music Technology. Actually that and Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Sonic Design are under Faculty of Multimedia Creativity (FMC). Till today I don't understand why is my course under Faculty of Multimedia Creativity but is being handle by Sound and Music Design Academy (SMDA). Confusing. Maybe SMDA is a company that handle that course that provided by the FMC. I don't know. Didn't bother to find out about that neither.

Anyway I'll try to find out about that course.

The degree course is not available yet. A staff there said that course was planned to be taught there but right now they don't have enough lecturers to teach degree students. Only enough for Diploma only right now. What makes me wonder is why the heck did they put that course on their website if they are not available yet . They said it will be available soon though. Still, if you want further info I guess you gotta check with them personally.

You are welcome and thank you for the support.
BTW, I think the nearest degree for audio engineering is at SAE Singapore. I dont know how much it cost though.

I don't know much about SAE but last time I heard they combined all the media courses into one, which means in the diploma they provided, the film, audio and creative media courses will be combined into one course only. It's when the degree level the courses are branched out again.

That one is very technical topic and Audio Engineering Society website has lots of research media of audio engineering but it would require a paid subscription to get the access to all of the research papers. But it is worth the money especially for researchers. But I can't go into details on who/where you can find the information because I am not very particular with that field.

Congrats to you on the scholarship.

All I can say is go for it since money for the tuition fee is no longer a problem. But if it's a scholarship to do music diploma or degree that you can choose in any college or university, then it's a different opinion.

BTW, the Diploma in Sound and Music Technology in LKW focuses more on audio engineering. Not much on singing or instrument playing. Just to let you know.

This post has been edited by Zulhilmi Arts: May 3 2012, 11:23 AM

If you have the right contact, you can jump actually. I studied in uni first because I started from 0 contact in audio related industry. Of course by the time I entered the uni, I already have the basic idea of what sound engineering is. Lots of engineers out there don't have proper paper qualification, but they get the job done, they started from bottom moving up the food chains, they have experiences, better than fresh graduates of course. But still, I am not saying that papers dont matter at all coz they do. If you have a diploma, it helps you to get into degree, to master, to Ph.D and so on. There is more to sound engineering than just EQ'ing a knob for a band in live concert. Sound engineering is as details and real science as much as mechanical engineering. You should have a look at AES where they do research on audio/sound/acoustics technology and scientific part of it. It's not just for music. If you jump straight into the industry, you might miss lots of scientific part in sound engineering, in case you have a passion to learn it. BUT, do take note that in Malaysia, so far most of the sound engineering courses focus on music production, not really into scientific part of it. You will learn acoustics engineering, but so little. So so little. I have yet to find a sound engineering course in Malaysia that really means engineering sound.

This post has been edited by Zulhilmi Arts: Jun 13 2012, 12:05 AM

That's a bummer. Coz the only physics stuff that I like if its related to audio. And electrical and electronics stuff, related to audio. Other than that..

Have a few friends back when in uni, they surely disappointed and had no idea why they were learning technical stuff instead of singing and playing instruments. They are very good at what they are doing, it's a shame that they were in a wrong course.

I could not verify of the crimes done by those you mentioned and the cover up by the management. But there are a few cases of crimes committed by foreign students (or maybe they were not students at all) in Cyberjaya area.

When I was in LKW, yes everyone was smoking. NO SMOKING signs were everywhere and people smoking were also everywhere. Sometimes just next to the signs. Students smoked. Staff smoked. It's a smoking university. And no action had been taken to prevent this. Don't know about now.

My music faculty had excellent staff/lecturers. I love them all. It's a small faculty compared to other faculties. But I always treated it like my one big family. Lecturers were always helpful and available to help and advice in doing assignments. They were all very nice. Of course if you skipped classes and intentionally did not do the assignments and then being rude to them, you will not be getting a smiley face from them. Be good, get good. Be bad, get bad. Fair situation.

But the university itself was just somewhat not right for learning environment. At least not for me. It's just... BAD. The only thing that I love from that university are my friends and what I mentioned about the music faculty/lecturers/staff.

I think Knowles Electronics that you mentioned is for those physics related engineers that specialize in audio/acoustics field.

This topic in this forum is towards audio/sound engineering in music field.