Shownotes
From making coffee and sweeping floors to credits with Taylor Swift, Imagine Dragons, and Ariana Grande... Travis breaks down the mindsets that have helped his career so far.
In this episode, you'll learn about:
- The Engineering Philosophies that Get You Hired
- How to ACTUALLY Network
- The Importance of Business
- Avoiding Perfectionism
- Defining Success
- What He Wishes He Knew Before Starting in Studios
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Credits:
Guest: N/A
Host: Travis Ference
Editor: Travis Ference
Theme Music: inter.ference
Transcripts
I've been working as a professional recording engineer in mixer for 18 years, and over
Speaker:that time I've gone from getting food orders as a runner at Capital Studios to
Speaker:working on projects for some of the biggest artists in the world. As an engineer,
Speaker:I've had four billboard number ones, multiple gold and platinum records, and
Speaker:over 1 billion streams. And I attribute almost none of that
Speaker:success to my skills as an engineer. So in this episode, I'm going to share
Speaker:with you what I've learned over the last 18 years. And as a
Speaker:bonus, what I wish I knew before I started.
Speaker:So the goal today is to hit you with as much information as I can
Speaker:in a fairly rapid fire format. And I've divided things up into the
Speaker:following sections. What I've learned about the art of engineering and mixing and this
Speaker:is not a tips and tricks section. This is like a big picture perspective
Speaker:on the mindsets that will help you have a long career in audio. What
Speaker:I've learned about networking and getting gigs, or not getting
Speaker:gigs, what I've learned about the music business and what I've learned about
Speaker:people, both myself and others. And finally, what
Speaker:I wish I knew before I started. So I'm going to be moving quick. If
Speaker:you want me to deep dive on anything, just drop a comment down below and
Speaker:I'll try to put together a video or a newsletter on it. So let's get
Speaker:into it. The art of engineering and mixing these are the mindsets that you
Speaker:need to have a career as an engineer. First, be the most
Speaker:prepared person in the room at all times. You must be prepared for
Speaker:anything and willing to try anything. The worst thing you could
Speaker:possibly do is be a barrier to someone's creativity. One of the reasons I
Speaker:excelled at engineering writing sessions is that I was set up so that anything
Speaker:the writer or producer wanted to try was doable with the press of a button.
Speaker:There'd be a mic for vocals in pretty much every room. Di setup, mini
Speaker:keyboard, ready to go. If there was a piano in the room, it was always
Speaker:mic'd. Ideas happen so fast that you have to be able to capture them
Speaker:quickly, which leads me to the next point, which is the music
Speaker:is what matters more than anything. There will be times when you
Speaker:have to record an instrument or a vocal with a less than ideal microphone or
Speaker:without the chain that you want. It doesn't matter.
Speaker:If the performance is great, then the recording is great. End of
Speaker:story. And while supporting the artist's creativity and enabling them to try anything,
Speaker:you are also responsible for setting expectations and educating people
Speaker:on the limits of the technology. The best example of this is recording
Speaker:multiple people in the same room. If the artist wants to record piano
Speaker:and sing at the same time, it is your job to explain to them what
Speaker:will be possible and not possible later in the process.
Speaker:Assuming that everybody in the room is as experienced in the recording studio as
Speaker:you are, is eventually going to lead to problems. This is another reason
Speaker:that session preparation is so important. Everybody needs to
Speaker:understand what the intentions of a session are so that it can all run
Speaker:smoothly. And when things don't run smoothly, you have got to be able
Speaker:to troubleshoot. It doesn't matter whether you are working in a classic studio like
Speaker:Abbey Road or a local project. Studio time is money,
Speaker:and I guarantee that downtime will be one of the top reasons someone does not
Speaker:want to come back to work with you. So to properly troubleshoot,
Speaker:you have to first remember not to lose your cool.
Speaker:Everything is solvable. You just have to work through things in
Speaker:steps. Don't try changing multiple things at the same time. That won't
Speaker:identify the issue and can sometimes even make things worse. So
Speaker:be methodical and you can pretty much solve anything. Next up,
Speaker:be a team player, and along with that, respect the work
Speaker:of everybody that has come before you. The goal of the project is to put
Speaker:out the best final product possible and drastically changing
Speaker:something because you think you know better than somebody that came before you in the
Speaker:process is going to work against that. Ego should be
Speaker:left at the door when you're working on a team, and this goes for people
Speaker:early in the process as well. If you are frustrated that you are
Speaker:recording something but not mixing it, do not get rid of all your
Speaker:processing before you send it off. If you sat in the room with the artist
Speaker:and shaped the tone of something using plugins, then people expect
Speaker:that sound to be the same on the next round of the project. The
Speaker:role you play in a project may not always be the one that you
Speaker:want, but you still have to play as a team member. You've got to
Speaker:practice. Engineering is a skill that can be practiced just like an
Speaker:instrument. If you have downtime, mix something, download some multitracks,
Speaker:or redo something you did years ago. Train your ear. Do stuff like try
Speaker:to identify the frequencies you want to take out before you go sweeping around and
Speaker:looking at the analyzer. Or compare different plugins, right? We all have
Speaker:like 14, 11, 76 plugins. Put them on the same source
Speaker:material level, match them and listen. What do you like about each one?
Speaker:What do you not like? You can never stop getting better. This industry is far
Speaker:too competitive to get complacent. And lastly, the
Speaker:mixtape. To rule over all mixtapes, the sooner you
Speaker:identify the most important element of a song, the quicker you can
Speaker:carry the listener through the journey that the artist intended. Now onto what I've
Speaker:learned about networking and getting gigs. First up, there's good
Speaker:networking and then there's bad networking. I used to go to these post college
Speaker:networking events for where I went to school, and even as an unemployed
Speaker:22 year old, I could see how much of an absolute wank these
Speaker:things were. It would break down like this. 90% people looking for a job
Speaker:and 10% people with a job. And those poor employed souls
Speaker:would get bombarded with business cards. The desperation was
Speaker:crazy. And that's bad networking. Good networking
Speaker:is being yourself, meeting people authentically in real life.
Speaker:The relationships that you make at these events are likely just going to
Speaker:be transactional and fleeting, right? Everybody is just looking to get
Speaker:something real. Collaboration comes about naturally
Speaker:from real relationships. The best relationships you make are with
Speaker:people that you're working with. My network is made up of people that I've
Speaker:come up with or spent a lot of time with, either as friends or coworkers.
Speaker:So what if you don't work in a studio or live in a music hub?
Speaker:Don't let that be an excuse for not having a network. Reach out to
Speaker:people via email or social media. Try to foster connections with
Speaker:people that you think you'll resonate with. Don't reach out to
Speaker:bands begging to work together. A good network is not necessarily
Speaker:made up entirely of clients. It's important to have just music
Speaker:friends, whether you work together or not. That has been the biggest
Speaker:benefit of this podcast for me. I've met so many awesome people,
Speaker:many of which I now get to call friends. Having a network of like
Speaker:minded and supportive people around you is super important to your journey.
Speaker:Since I mentioned social media, it is a necessary evil. And I know so
Speaker:many engineers and producers absolutely hate posting on socials, but
Speaker:I think they are missing an opportunity, and it's not the opportunity that you might
Speaker:think. When I started in this industry, there were a lot more people
Speaker:going in and out of studios. You were interacting with people every day and
Speaker:it was easy to get to know someone. Now everybody's in their
Speaker:home studio like this, and we're all by ourselves.
Speaker:Social media has become an opportunity for people to get to know who you
Speaker:actually are and to determine whether you might be the type of person they
Speaker:would click with. Which is why when you post on socials you've got to
Speaker:be authentic. You cannot make a fake version of your
Speaker:life just to make you feel better because that eventually that will
Speaker:backfire. When it comes to getting gigs, the best gigs you get will be from
Speaker:word of mouth. It is also the hardest way to get gigs because it is
Speaker:dependent on doing a lot of work. You have to spend years doing
Speaker:great work for people before you will be anywhere close to a calendar
Speaker:full of word of mouth referrals to speed that process up. The most
Speaker:underestimated and misused tool is the follow up. Most people
Speaker:think of following up as an email that says, loved working together, let's do it
Speaker:again. But getting more work from someone is not necessarily the purpose
Speaker:of following up. If you made a record with someone, you're probably
Speaker:somewhat friendly with them. And like I mentioned earlier, a network of
Speaker:like minded and supportive people is key to your success.
Speaker:So fostering those music friendships will go a lot further than
Speaker:asking for more work. Remember, somebody may never hire you again, but
Speaker:they could be talking to someone else when they get your text and say, oh,
Speaker:you should work with this guy. Y'all would really click and that could be the
Speaker:gig that changes your life. The last thing to know about networking in this industry
Speaker:is that it is not a big industry. If you're outside
Speaker:a music hub like La or Nashville, you might feel like the industry is huge
Speaker:and that your town is the only place that the community is small. But that
Speaker:is definitely not true. When you're in it, you realize that pretty much
Speaker:everybody knows everybody else or is only one degree of separation away.
Speaker:So you don't talk shit. Don't be dishonest, world get around
Speaker:next up, what I've learned about the music business and just business in general. So
Speaker:first off, if you're a music freelancer, you are an entrepreneur and a small
Speaker:business owner. If you are looking at yourself as anything else, you're never actually
Speaker:going to get ahead. The whole I'm an artist and business is the devil vibe
Speaker:is just not going to work. The brutal truth is that you cannot have a
Speaker:career in something if it doesn't pay your bills. And that's not to
Speaker:say there's anything wrong with having a normal day job and recording bands on the
Speaker:side. Lots of people do that. But if you ever want your passion side
Speaker:hustle to sustain your living expenses, you're going to have to learn about the
Speaker:business of it. Next up, since you're an entrepreneur now, you have to be confident
Speaker:in the value of your time and only you can set that I did a
Speaker:whole episode about how to best calculate your rate, which I'll link down in the
Speaker:comments. But in short, you need to understand how long an
Speaker:average project takes so that you understand what to charge. If you're
Speaker:paying your bills or would like to pay your bills engineering and mixing then you
Speaker:have to be sure that you're making a living wage from your work. The only
Speaker:way to do that is to understand how long a project takes. That also
Speaker:allows you to understand how many projects you can actually do. Having
Speaker:any amount of accountability in this industry actually goes a long way. I've
Speaker:heard hit songwriters complain about hit producers taking forever
Speaker:to finish something. When you have the cloud of number ones, you might get a
Speaker:little slack, but if you're working with independent artists and consistently missing deadlines,
Speaker:you will be losing clients. People are probably going to hate hearing this next one,
Speaker:but you've got to understand contracts don't ever sign
Speaker:something unless you've read it and understand it. Should you have a
Speaker:lawyer read it? Yes, but remember that a lawyer sees
Speaker:this stuff every day, and there's probably something in there that they expect to
Speaker:see and might assume that you also expect to see that you
Speaker:don't. So what I always tell artists I work with is the most important part
Speaker:of any deal you sign is the shitty part. It's great to look at your
Speaker:pub or record deal and see your vance, but what are you trading
Speaker:for that money? You have to understand all of the bad parts of everything that
Speaker:you sign along the lines of contracts. Do not leave conversations
Speaker:about money, publishing, splits, or royalties until after a project
Speaker:is done. You should not work on something without determining the rates
Speaker:first. If the artist doesn't want to talk about it, then you have to get
Speaker:with their team and have the conversation. Telling someone how much they owe
Speaker:you after you do the work is going to be a disaster, I
Speaker:promise. And likewise, going back to workout splits or points
Speaker:after the fact is also not going to work out in your favor. You need
Speaker:to become comfortable talking about business. Next don't be afraid
Speaker:to outsource things. Engineers tend to micromanage and
Speaker:refuse to let parts of the process go, but that can definitely hold us back.
Speaker:If you absolutely love mixing and tuning vocals and editing is preventing
Speaker:you from mixing an extra couple songs a month, why would you not
Speaker:outsource that to someone you trust so that you can do more of what you
Speaker:love? So as long as you're able to generate more money
Speaker:with the time you gain than it costs you to outsource the task,
Speaker:then you have a positive ROI and you should go for it. And speaking
Speaker:of return on investment, gear is fun. Plugins are
Speaker:fun, but what's the real ROI? Does buying a piece of gear actually
Speaker:make you more money? If it's a rack of mic breeze that allows you to
Speaker:do remote recording, then yes it does. If it's a vintage
Speaker:1176 that you'll use on a mix insert on one track. As much as
Speaker:I would love to encourage everyone to buy a vintage 1176, it's not
Speaker:actually going to make you any more money. So before you spend money on gear,
Speaker:just think about whether it's going to actually be a good investment. And lastly,
Speaker:there's almost no one in this business that I know that does not have
Speaker:good months and bad months. Just the nature of the way payments are
Speaker:processed by labels. You can work a whole month and not get paid for two
Speaker:more. And this is why you have got to be aware of your cash flow
Speaker:in and out, and plan accordingly. Try as best you can to
Speaker:save and invest. Remember that as freelancers, we are the
Speaker:ones that are responsible for our retirement. So the earlier in your career you get
Speaker:that mindset in place, the better off you'll be. So engineering is
Speaker:about people as much as it is the technical details, if not more
Speaker:so. This last section might be a bit touchy feely for some of you, but
Speaker:I think this is actually the most valuable stuff so far. So stick with
Speaker:me. In order to show up as your best self for the other people involved
Speaker:in a project, you have to understand yourself. And that takes
Speaker:reflection. It also takes time. It might take getting
Speaker:a little bit older as well. Stuff I've learned about myself over the years is
Speaker:one I'm a perfectionist and it's definitely held me back plenty of times.
Speaker:Putting something out into the world that I didn't think was perfect was super difficult.
Speaker:But ultimately, perfectionism is related to confidence and fear.
Speaker:Either you're too afraid of failure to move forward, or
Speaker:you aren't confident in your own work. And what helped me was
Speaker:starting this podcast four years ago and releasing something every
Speaker:week. So if you're a perfectionist, I suggest finding a creative
Speaker:hobby. Make some stuff, put it out in the world. The confidence that you gain
Speaker:will branch into everything else that you do. I also found that I love learning
Speaker:new stuff, and I also believe that people are just happier when they're exploring their
Speaker:interests and learning. I had a period in my life that I was often uninspired
Speaker:and pretty burnt out. And it was probably four or five years into my
Speaker:career, I'd been fortunate in the fact that I was doing a lot
Speaker:of engineering for pretty big projects. By the time I was 25, the first song
Speaker:I had a mixed credit on was a number one album. And I think that
Speaker:early success made me feel like I knew what I needed to
Speaker:know already. And then if I just did the work, I'd become a huge
Speaker:mixer. Which wasn't true, obviously, but that period of
Speaker:uninspiration definitely quickly came to an end when I started exploring
Speaker:new stuff, started getting into production, I started making music again, and
Speaker:I started this podcast. So I now know that I thrive on learning new
Speaker:things and applying non music concepts to my music career. Next up is setting
Speaker:boundaries. There's a belief in the music industry that we all have to be available
Speaker:at all times. And while that can definitely help you early in
Speaker:your career, it will also eventually lead to burnout. For
Speaker:more than a decade, I kind of just viewed myself as a service provider
Speaker:and not as a collaborator. Because of that, I felt the need to
Speaker:serve at all times and putting up boundaries with
Speaker:clients was just not going to be an option. But once you start thinking
Speaker:about the value that you bring as a collaborator and the downtime that you need
Speaker:to be the best for those people, then you'll become okay with
Speaker:setting boundaries. And you know what? Your clients will
Speaker:respect them. I know that you think I'm lying and that they won't, but
Speaker:they will. When my daughter was born, I took four weeks off, and every single
Speaker:job that came my way during that time waited all four of those weeks. I
Speaker:didn't lose a single gig. So try boundaries
Speaker:next. Youve got to prioritize health. For most of my career, the number
Speaker:of hours I worked was like a badge of honor. I think thats the case
Speaker:for a lot of us. And I even got to the point of having a
Speaker:doctor tell me the solution to my elbow pain was a surgery to move a
Speaker:nerve. And I didnt do that. Nor did I stop working 16 hours a
Speaker:day. I just put up with the pain and moved on. Now
Speaker:I exercise. And guess what? All of those aches, as well as a
Speaker:great deal of stress, magically gone. The
Speaker:hectic lifestyle of the recording industry does not make it easy for us to take
Speaker:care of our physical and mental health. So if you want to perform at
Speaker:a high level for a long time, you have got to take
Speaker:that stuff seriously and make time for it. And lastly, I struggled
Speaker:with believing that I was successful. Some
Speaker:classic imposter syndrome I was trying to fit into some
Speaker:predetermined mold of what success as an engineer meant instead of
Speaker:setting my own definition. And once I realized that I was
Speaker:going to make my own path and that my journey would never match any of
Speaker:my heroes or any of my peers, that's when I felt good about
Speaker:what I was doing, and I became truly confident in my work and
Speaker:ultimately more successful. So, as promised, a quick bonus
Speaker:section of things I wish I knew before I started working in
Speaker:studios. One, you've got to be an advocate for yourself.
Speaker:When I started at Capital Studios, I thought if I worked hard, then I would
Speaker:just magically be taken up through the engineering career hierarchy.
Speaker:But hard work is simply not enough. Nobody else is going to put
Speaker:you in a position to succeed except for you two.
Speaker:Positioning matters, and what I mean by that is you have to be aware
Speaker:of what your goals are and reflect to be sure that you're in a position
Speaker:to be able to hit those goals. If you want to be a film composer,
Speaker:don't go on the road doing live sound. If you want to record pop songs,
Speaker:don't work at a scoring stage. I've quit great gigs because they were not
Speaker:in line with where I wanted to go, and it's hard, but you will
Speaker:bounce back and you'll be happier for it. Number three, have
Speaker:patience. It's going to take a lot longer than you think it will. There is
Speaker:no overnight success. It just looks like there is because we don't see all
Speaker:the hard work it takes to get there. And four, you
Speaker:cannot quit. I've said this on the podcast so many times, the music industry is
Speaker:about being the last person standing. Eventually you will
Speaker:be busy because you'll be good and you won't have quit.
Speaker:And if you've been at this for a while and you're feeling totally burnt out
Speaker:right now, check out this video about how my burnout actually saved my
Speaker:career.
