KEVIN MCCOMBS: From Aerospace to Audio, Building a DIY Studio, and How to Get Clients

Speaker 1 (00:00):

This episode of the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast is brought to you by Solid State Logic. SSL is a manufacturer of high-end mixing consoles and recording studio software for over 49 years, SS L'S products have been at the heart of thousands of the most respected, timeless recordings, solid state logic. Thank you for listening. And now your host Eyal Levi.

Speaker 2 (00:26):

Alright, Kevin McCombs, welcome to the Unstoppable Recording Machine Podcast. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.

Speaker 3 (00:34):

Absolutely. Thanks for having me on. This is really cool.

Speaker 2 (00:36):

Well, the reason we have you on is because lately we have been highlighting students of URM who have been kicking ass with their recording careers and you have been kicking ass with your audio career and so we wanted to talk to you. So before we go any further, could you tell us about yourself in a couple minutes? Who you are, what you do?

Speaker 3 (00:59):

Yeah, absolutely. So again, my name is Kevin McCombs and I run midnight oil recording out of Jacksonville, Florida. I've been doing audio for the better part of a decade from bedroom producer stuff to doing a little bit formal, informal in college to kind of grinding once I got out until my studio space was built. Everything that I do in the studio I have built from the ground up from an industrial warehouse that was just a complete and utter shit hole when I got in here. So I spent a really long time making my facilities and getting gear and stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:36):

Wait, wait, so when you started you just got this warehouse and it was just like a warehouse?

Speaker 3 (01:42):

So my brother has a machine shop in the same parking lot as my studio and we live together. So we were already in good with these landlords and the space opened up, which is attached to a brewery in town called Bold City Brewery. It's a great location, but yeah, it's just an old industrial office space. It's probably been renovated three times since the thirties or whatever when it opened. And so I got in here and it was just decrepit, moldy carpet that works. I was scraping floors for months painting, doing all that stuff. And now I've got a live room control room rehearsal and sort of chill room and it constitutes a studio.

Speaker 2 (02:21):

I'd love to see pictures of it of you. Send me some pictures. We'll put them in the show notes. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (02:26):

Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (02:26):

So everyone can see because you basic sounds like you built it from scratch. That's correct. It's impressive. Would love to see it. I'm sure everyone listening would love to see it. How long did that take you?

Speaker 3 (02:37):

So my brother and I got the space two years ago, but it took until just last year to have it actually be a functional space. So when we got it, I was working a full-time job and by full-time I mean 50 to 70 hours a week, just trying to grind as much as I possibly could. And then I'd come over to the studio spot after work and do grunt work basically to turn this into what it was. I made all my own acoustic treatment panels with the help of a coworker. I installed the window between control room and live room and basically the works. But yeah, the whole build process took a year. It's a constant work in progress because there's always things that I would like to improve about my space, but time and resources always. When is

Speaker 2 (03:28):

The last time you worked a job? Like a non audio job?

Speaker 3 (03:33):

So I quit my job coming up on three months ago.

Speaker 2 (03:37):

Nice.

Speaker 3 (03:38):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:38):

Congratulations.

Speaker 3 (03:39):

Thank you. Yeah, it was a huge step. So I graduated college in 2015 and almost immediately I got a job working as lead technician of an aerospace company in town. I So you're smart. Yeah, I guess so.

Speaker 2 (03:56):

A smart person make me feel stupid. A real engineer. I'm just going to make you feel really uncomfortable. I'm just going to keep saying weird shit. No, go on. That's impressive actually.

Speaker 3 (04:08):

So to be sure, I am not an engineer, my brother is, but I was doing engineer level work for a technician salary at a military industrial drone company basically for three years. And honestly, as far as jobs go, it was pretty killer. It was really stimulating. I got to work with my hands to learn a whole lot about electricity that applies to and wiring that applies across the board to guitar amps and guitar wiring and setup and all that stuff. So it is been really cool getting those skills and kind of honing them. But at the end of the day, it wasn't being a professional metal dude, which is something that I've been after since I was 15. What you really wanted to do. Exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:53):

So what made you realize you could be a professional metal dude? What made you realize you could do it?

Speaker 3 (04:59):

A long slow process really. And when I made the jump, it didn't seem like it was time. It seemed too soon, but I had everything in place. What

Speaker 2 (05:08):

Do you mean by too soon?

Speaker 3 (05:10):

So I didn't have enough saved up in the bank to really be at ease completely. I didn't have six months set up, but I was expecting a decently large tax return from all of the studio expenses that I've had accrued over the past three years. So I kind of just made the leap of faith. There was some political nonsense that happened at the job that perhaps accelerated my pace of departure. But yeah, I just made the jump and after I put in my two weeks notice, I really aggressively started reaching out to potential clients. And

Speaker 2 (05:45):

When you say aggressively, what do you mean?

Speaker 3 (05:48):

I mean no fewer than 10 a day.

Speaker 2 (05:51):

So aggressively,

Speaker 3 (05:52):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (05:54):

And how did you go about it? How did you not come off like a punisher? How did you turn that into actual clients and not people that just block you and hate you forever for spamming them?

Speaker 3 (06:07):

That is a good question. So the client outreach strategy is really just cold messaging people on Facebook, check out their, see what their recordings sound like and basically kind of assess where they're at. Don't even launch into a pitch until I kind of discover that they're looking for it. And if not really just give 'em a on Facebook, shoot the shit and try to make it out to one of their shows if at all possible. I try to go do at least one show a week in my area, and the return on investment for buying someone a beer is also unbelievable. There's no better

Speaker 2 (06:41):

Marketing strategy. So you're actually going about it semi organically. You're not just carpet bombing people with yo come record some tracks stranger. You're hitting them up, you're getting a feel for the temperature of their interest even in recording in the first place, and you're kind of getting to know them and then trying to actually get to know them in real life.

Speaker 3 (07:04):

That's exactly right. I mean, like you just mentioned, nobody wants to track with you from a Facebook message that they received from somebody they've never heard of. That doesn't happen. Of

Speaker 2 (07:14):

Course not. Yeah, no. If it does happen, like watch we're saying this and then you'll get a comment from the one guy who made that work, but everybody hates that guy. He annoys everybody. There will always be somebody who made it work, but it's fucking annoying and nobody likes it. And that's not the reason that bands choose to go with somebody. They choose to go with somebody for many, many reasons, not that not being one of them. They want to go with somebody that's going to help them fulfill their dreams, their audio dreams, and who they're going to have a good time working with. And so you can't tell any of that stuff off of a Facebook ad or some random message. And in fact, the random messaging leads some people to believe that you're not going to be a chill person. So it will have the opposite effect sometimes. And the way the bands find these things out about a producer is not through what a producer necessarily tells them, but it's what other clients tell them that they're friends with and what YouTube tells them when they hit play on one of his mixes that that's what does the talking for you in my opinion. And then of course, once you meet in person and you're not a total weirdo, that helps seal the deal.

Speaker 3 (08:40):

The thing to me that I attribute to actually landing projects is really having the whole package is going out to see people in person, hang out with them, actually enjoy their music, be there for a reason, but also having a website that shows my facilities, that shows my portfolio, that shows what they'll be getting if they come to work with me. And the thing that I try to do most often is I try to get people to just come tour my studio and hang out with me for a couple hours and talk about your project, talk about what you're trying to do, and if my space is not the right space for that, I know the person who's got the right space for that. And I'll give 'em a reference too. It seems really important to me right now that as I'm sort of getting my footing in the scene that people just know that I'm not out to get 'em legitimately interested in listening to what they've recorded. And if I can help them record something that sounds better, then I want to help. And that's really why I'm kind of doing this is because I

Speaker 2 (09:45):

Can imagine

Speaker 3 (09:45):

Joy from that.

Speaker 2 (09:46):

You're not just trying to cash grab the local scene and fill them up with bullshit and give them whatever recordings you want to help these artists fulfill their potential and get the best possible representation of their audio art that they could get at this moment in time.

Speaker 3 (10:07):

And honestly, in many instances, that has meant artists that are not death metal. I record genres all over the map because people hit me up through word of mouth. That's really exciting to me. That's a trend that started in the studio that I built at the college that I was at is I got experience recording, radio drama, bluegrass, blues, acoustic music, death metal, it was all over

Speaker 2 (10:36):

The place. By radio drama do you mean those plays that they would read over the radio back in the day

Speaker 3 (10:42):

With sound effects? That's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (10:44):

So sick step back into 1942 for real, the kind of stuff that they did in the forties and

Speaker 3 (10:53):

Thirties. So it was a student project that was based on studying that time period, and so they did a sci-fi radio drama. I had to insert the laser sound effects into my DAW and stuff like that. It was pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (11:08):

Sounds like a fun project. Yeah. So what's been the biggest challenge so far? How did you overcome it?

Speaker 3 (11:17):

I think really it's a mindset challenge that every single week is not going to produce a project for me and staying diligent on myself to use open

Speaker 2 (11:30):

Mindset wise. I just want to clarify. So are you saying that you need to accept that not every week is going to score a project and to not get bummed or not let that get you down to where you're not still going for it? A hundred percent.

Speaker 3 (11:49):

Yeah. So it's not getting bummed, but also not getting anxious or kind of stressed out by the fact that two months from now my bank account is not accounted for. And if I work very diligently to take my free time and plow it into nail the mix or plow it into systematizing things about my business, then when the clients do show up, they're going to be stoked because I've got everything in place. And that philosophy has held true for all of the projects that have come in so far, but it can still be very difficult to be so uncertain basically.

Speaker 2 (12:27):

Well, let me just give you a little bit of, not advice, but just from my own experience, my own experience tells me that this lack of certainty is something that you need to figure out a way to be very comfortable with because you're going to have it no matter what level you're at. And lemme give you an example, two examples. One is I was talking the other day to a guy who has produced two gold level bands in the past year. He's having a huge career and he's working on something right now and then he doesn't have anything booked for the next six months, then he's got something after that. Oh, so he's finishing a project, it finishes in two weeks and nothing for six months. I'm sure that he's going to find work that's not that he's not going to find work, but this uncertainty thing and the up and down of booking that happens at all levels.

(13:37):

And so it's something to get used to and it's also one of the reasons to have backup funds. If you can save them, do your best to have three to six months because this will happen. And so it can get very, very stressful and you don't want that stress to come out onto your clients. You don't want them to feel it because stress is contagious and it can ruin projects. So by having that backup money, it'll make life a lot better. But also the second example is my dad. My dad, the symphony conductor who he both has had tenure years at orchestras where he's the music director for X number of years and then he also guest conducts and he's in his late sixties now. He's been doing it my whole life and contracts end with orchestras and he always has that what's next fear. Even now he's world famous and one of the best in the world and more than has paid his dues and it still comes up when a contract is almost over with an orchestra. It's like, so what's next? It's the same thing. So I'm just telling you that this is part of the gig. So whatever you can do to minimize how it affects your psychology the better.

Speaker 3 (15:05):

I have prided myself on being able to line up side gigs during very good during off periods. So my last job was an aerospace company. I've been building competition robots with my brother for a decade now, and so I've got a lot of handy skills that can really get me out of a rut. I mean, will

Speaker 2 (15:23):

You build me a terminator?

Speaker 3 (15:25):

It'll cost you, but yeah,

Speaker 2 (15:27):

That's fine. I need a T 2000 to handle something for me.

Speaker 3 (15:31):

Okay. Give me six months.

Speaker 2 (15:32):

That's it. That's fine. Okay.

Speaker 3 (15:35):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (15:35):

I mean I don't want to talk about what I needed to do on the air, but all I need to know is that it's a fully functional T 2000 and we're good. We will discuss details later. Most definitely. Yeah. Okay. So back to the biggest challenge so far. So you've gotten side work. You were saying that your biggest challenge was not getting, I guess stressed out when the schedule isn't full or when you don't get a band every week. Talk about that a little more.

Speaker 3 (16:07):

So as it stands, the projects that I have lined up, I usually have a session every two or three weeks. I'm very lucky, or rather I should say I have strategized such that my overhead is so low that I can survive off of only working two weeks out of every month. That's not ideal. Obviously I'd like to be able to start saving for retirement or all that good stuff, but for the most part, I live very lean. I'm very good at being poor basically. I learned how to do it in college. It's not so bad, but yeah, it's just I'll have a session and then things will seem very doom and gloom because I don't have one lined up, but without fail, good things are happening because good things are happening. I get calls from people kind of unexpectedly, and it's really a matter of stringing together the smaller gigs. So a session or two with an artist for some drum programming or just some even one day of drum tracking can be the difference between paying rent and not being able to pay rent.

Speaker 2 (17:14):

Absolutely. I mean, also view want to be a professional recording guy for a living, which you do, she already are one of the things that will make a big difference coming up. I started to notice this five, six years ago, and it's only gotten more and more so this way, but there was a time period where bands did everything with the producer, everything. But then I think maybe little longer, around 2010 ish, 11, after Guitar Pro had been around a while and more and more people had a DW, it started to become more and more normal for a band to just go to their producer for drums and then vocals and mix or record it themselves and then have the guy mix or just do drums at the guy's place. If he's got a nice drum room, do the rest themselves. This is a reality of the modern recording age and it's only going to be more so as we go along.

(18:24):

So find comfort in the little projects like that and try to get a great reputation for them. I got a great reputation for my drum sounds, and so I did a ton of projects, just drums for them, big bands too. Just drums. Just drums. I did so many projects like that when the word got out that I had a great drum room and that it was great and that I knew what I was doing. So I mean, in some ways it was cooler than doing the full record, way less stress, but most definitely those side gigs, man are, I would focus real hard on getting as many of those as possible. That is the future.

Speaker 3 (19:08):

I find myself actually giving artists tips on tracking themselves to be able to get gigs from them. So there's a lot of people that hit me up that don't know how to do pre-production work, but they don't have the budget to be able to come in and do it with me. So I have lint artists a di box and say, yeah, man, just bring it back when you're done. I got an extra one for the studio if you do all the tracking and just let me mix it. That's rock and roll basically. And that is, I'm finding that most bands, you're right, are doing more and more themselves such that they only really want to pay for the stuff that only the producer can do. And honestly, that was the experience in my own band as well. It's the reason why I decided to outsource the mix after I spent months in the tracking phase because I know I could do the mix and do a really good job, but if I send it to somebody who can really do a good job, then that's where the money is.

Speaker 2 (20:15):

That's what I did with my band too at the beginning, back in the day when we were not signed, and I did have the studio, I did track everything and we self-produced, but I went and I found us mixers better than me. Okay. I could have done okay, but I found someone who could crush

Speaker 3 (20:37):

What

Speaker 2 (20:37):

I did, who could get us that next level sound.

Speaker 3 (20:42):

Yeah, that's exactly what we were looking for is the top shelf basically, and there's no replacement for the top shelf and nope. Why would there be? Because the dudes truly at the top have been listening to music eight hours a day for 30 years. Of course they're going to crush it harder than me.

Speaker 2 (21:02):

Can you say who you went with?

Speaker 3 (21:04):

Yeah, so my band is called Criter. We're a death metal band from Florida and we sent off our,

Speaker 2 (21:12):

I've heard of you guys.

Speaker 3 (21:13):

Oh, nice. We sent off our tracks to Jacob Hansen in Denmark of Hansen Studios.

Speaker 2 (21:18):

Oh yes.

Speaker 3 (21:19):

Yeah, so he's a ripper. He's a God, and

Speaker 2 (21:24):

Yes, he's a phenomenal producer mixer. So yeah, I mean, okay, so yeah, I get what you're saying. You wanted someone that's above your level, and I got to say too, kudos to you for having the strength of ego to say that and do that. So for instance, we just did a podcast with another student that's crushing it, Anthony Potenza, and we talked about the same thing. He took his band to Taylor Larson and he could have recorded it and mixed it himself, right?

Speaker 4 (21:58):

He's

Speaker 2 (21:58):

Good enough, he could have done it, but he wanted his own band to be mixed and stuff by a master end of story, and he knew that. I mean, even if nothing else came out of it, he would learn a lot from being around Taylor, but Taylor was going to do something better than Anthony could do at this point, and he wanted that for his band. He didn't want his own skills to hold the band back, and I applaud everyone who does that because the ego move would've been to just do it yourself.

Speaker 3 (22:33):

Yeah, mostly I'm just stoked that I get to work with him.

Speaker 2 (22:38):

It's great, isn't it? You'll learn a ton

Speaker 3 (22:41):

And honestly, the fact that I even approached him to do the mix is something that I didn't know how to do a year ago. I have learned a tremendous amount through URM and especially the summit in terms of strategy for reaching out to people who are at the top,

Speaker 2 (23:00):

How to get them to actually pay attention to you and not see you as just another Punisher online.

Speaker 3 (23:11):

And the truth was, he wasn't the only mix engineer that we reached out to. We reached out to several top shelf mixers and I was expecting to hear back from none of them, to be perfectly honest, but a very concise, polite, well worded email that says what we're about. Here's some demos, here's our budget, and we'd love to work with you. It really goes a long way when they can tell that you're serious basically.

Speaker 2 (23:42):

Absolutely. One of the things that people get really, really wrong when they hit up busy people is leaving details out and making them do too much work, not including their budget or not including a good work of a link, not giving all the pertinent details. Someone's super busy if they open your email with the possibility of taking you seriously enough to say yes, they want all the info right then and there. What is this band? What is their budget? What are they looking for? What do they sound like? Now, while I have five minutes to devote attention to this, because if you lose those five minutes, who knows if they're going to get to your email ever again, let alone in the next five months,

Speaker 3 (24:27):

Right? Yeah, everything, I mean, I said what amps we were going to use exactly what tracks he was going to receive in what format based on the technical document that I read from his website and yeah,

Speaker 2 (24:40):

Very good.

Speaker 3 (24:41):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (24:42):

You actually read the document on his website and in the email you referenced it.

Speaker 3 (24:48):

Yeah, so I mean, he lays it out exactly what he wants and why would I give him anything

Speaker 2 (24:54):

Else? Very good for, very good as in for just, it's just thorough, man. It shows that you're paying attention. It's the kind of thing. I don't know if you remember the stories about Josh Newell and his internships for Lincoln Park, and I've told the story many times, so I'll be real quick about it. There were lots of people who were runners at NRG for Lincoln Park and interns and Josh Newell got the chance to edit drums one day after being a runner. And the reason that they gave him a shot was because he was the guy that never messed up their drink orders because that means that he was paying attention to what they wanted and got the orders exactly right every time. And so by you looking on his site and reading his requirements and referencing that, it shows that you're paying attention. You're not just one of those idiots that hits people up online that doesn't even realize they're hitting up another human being. You're respectful and being thorough and serious about it, so of course you got a response.

Speaker 3 (26:02):

Yeah, man, that's something that I've been very in tune with also on the producer side of the equation is being thorough is kind of everything.

Speaker 2 (26:14):

Oh yes.

Speaker 3 (26:16):

Is that when bands come in and they can tell that even if I'm working very quickly, I'm addressing every little part of the process and I have a process to do it, that really is the difference. And one of the mindset things that allowed me to see myself as a professional instead of as a bedroom dude, that's something that strikes me every single time I see a nail. The mix is just how much attention to detail gets placed on the right things.

Speaker 2 (26:46):

Oh, you mean when the mixers are doing in the live streams?

Speaker 3 (26:51):

Exactly.

Speaker 2 (26:52):

Yeah. A great example is May, 2018, Carl Bound going to all

Speaker 3 (27:00):

10 hours of it

Speaker 2 (27:01):

From a Valentine, but the attention to detail is just second to none, and that's why it sounds great. You can also tell, or for instance, this month with opec, I'm sure that the mix itself is going to be very detailed, but you can just tell with the tracks that we got that so much detail work went into those, you can just tell there's a reason for why the stop level guys put stuff out that's top level and it does not happen by accident happens through a lot of great decisions and a lot of focus on those things. So question for you. How did URM help you?

Speaker 3 (27:44):

That is a very large question. So I got involved with URM after I signed up for one of your bootcamps. Oh, shit. So I signed up for one of your bootcamps

Speaker 2 (27:56):

Back in 2014,

Speaker 3 (27:59):

So I did not attend a bootcamp because I signed up immediately after you had just run one because I got your creative live. I was like, oh, this shit is rad. I need more than anything. Which one? Say again? I'm sorry,

Speaker 2 (28:12):

Which Creative Live? I've done a Oh,

Speaker 3 (28:14):

The bootcamp.

Speaker 2 (28:16):

The Monuments Bootcamp. Got it.

Speaker 3 (28:18):

Monuments bootcamp. Yeah. And so I saw that and then I saw the in-Person bootcamp and I had been operating basically with myself and the Sneak forum for years at that point, and I've been very lucky in my life to have really profound mentors on the engineering and robotics and philosophy and writing side of things, but I've never had a music production mentor and I was like, this is what I need in person, turning knobs and stuff and seeing what happens in real life in the room. So I signed up for it even though I knew that one wasn't scheduled and you shot me an email like, Hey, look, hang tight. We've got some stuff in the works, but it is going to be a while. So I waited two years and the bootcamp turned into the summit, correct?

Speaker 2 (29:09):

Yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:09):

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:10):

So you're that guy.

Speaker 3 (29:12):

I'm that guy.

Speaker 2 (29:13):

Awesome, man. I am so glad, and I hope you're glad too, but I'm so glad that you didn't just ask for a refund and that you trusted me enough when I said, just sit tight. We are going to do something. It is going to happen. Just it's going to be a lot cooler than what the bootcamps were. Just roll with me here.

Speaker 3 (29:34):

Yeah, man. Honestly, my knee jerk reaction when I found out about the summit was, man, I signed up for a 15 person kind of one-on-one feeling bootcamp, and now I'm about to get diluted by a hundred guys out of no man. So I had to think about it and then the more and more I got involved in URM, I was like, no, I'm about to bear witness to something far more radical when the summit happened. No event like that has ever happened before

Speaker 2 (30:05):

Or since

Speaker 3 (30:06):

Or since, and nothing will until the 2018 summit because it was literally a group of a hundred individuals who were going at not only audio, but audio for heavy music who were

Speaker 2 (30:19):

With a niche within a niche

Speaker 3 (30:21):

Exactly like the hundred most driven people who are not already crushing it on the planet showed up to this thing. It was a really life-changing experience. Even if there were no courses, even if there were no seminars or anything, and it was just that group of a hundred people hanging out, really important things would've happened. And they did. I mean, I met a lot of people that I work with remotely, so he's been interviewed on this podcast before, but Tiago Mosquito from Portugal did drum production work on the Aria album, and I couldn't have done it without him. He did my editing, he did.

Speaker 2 (30:58):

Tiago is a badass,

Speaker 3 (31:00):

He's a bad motherfucker. And yeah, he's really quick. He's really reliable and he's just a super nice dude. And I met him very briefly at the summit and that's what that interaction turned into. And yeah, I can't even begin to express how every facet of that event changed what I'm doing because I got back and pretty much immediately put my 51 50 on the stack and then used the Andrew Wade 51 50 technique and got the danst tone of my life.

Speaker 2 (31:33):

Oh, okay. You're referencing that Andrew did a guitar tone class?

Speaker 3 (31:38):

Yeah, the guitar tone masterclass. So he just showed a method for committing to the tone at various stages, and it was more a tone philosophy than a tutorial in many instances. I'm not looking for his tone, I'm looking for better tone. And

Speaker 2 (31:55):

You couldn't get his tone even if you tried because you don't have his brain.

Speaker 3 (31:59):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (32:00):

You have your brain, your brain's fine.

Speaker 3 (32:01):

Yeah, I have my brain, I have my signal chain. I know what I think sounds good for the material that I'm working with, and simply the mental template of saying, you place a ribbon mic, you get that sound good, and then you don't touch it, then you go to the 57, you place it and then you don't touch it. And then after you commit to all of these things, then you dial in the amps. Then you do seeing, again, I'm going to keep harping on this, but seeing how thorough and methodical the process was really eyeopening because I think we've all in our recording infancy go through periods of endless tweaking and just beating dead horses and does that sound better? Not committing to anything and then coming out with a really shitty tone. And honestly, that was just one seminar. I refer to my notes from the summit every single week and it helps me every single week.

Speaker 2 (33:01):

I mean, the idea with it was that you'll have information you can use for years, for years if you took proper notes. And it's interesting, man, I know that there's some guys who went and got inspired and then went back and did nothing with it, but then there's, that's just how it is. Same thing with you go to a Tony Robbins seminar and 3000 people are crying and are like, oh my God, my life ready to change their life. And then they get back to their real life and 90% of them don't do anything. But then you always hear about the ones who are like, that changed my life. The very next day I got home and started doing this and this and that and this and that, and two months later I did this and two years later I'm a millionaire or something. It's a similar sort of thing where you talk to the people who went to the summit who took meticulous notes, really, they got every ounce of value they could out of the experience, and they went right home and started applying it. It's amazing watching what those people have been able to achieve in just a few months.

Speaker 3 (34:17):

Yeah,

Speaker 2 (34:17):

It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (34:19):

It is crazy to consider that it has only been a couple months.

Speaker 2 (34:23):

Yeah, man, six.

Speaker 3 (34:24):

Yeah, it's been six months and I'd be so extremist to say I felt a moral obligation to crush it after that event.

Speaker 2 (34:32):

Good.

Speaker 3 (34:32):

Yeah. It is far deeper than just, yeah, man, I can make a living doing this. No, it was far deeper than that. It kind of fed the 15-year-old kid in me that wanted to do this. It totally stoked out every part of me that's been into it,

Speaker 2 (34:52):

That's killer to hear. I totally was not expecting that to be the answer of how URM helped you, but that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (35:00):

And I mean, again, that's just the summit, all the nail, the mix and the fast tracks have also been really integral. I have a lot of bad mixing habits that I've been breaking myself of with nail the mix. I mean, I didn't even touch nail the mix until after I quit my job because there was no time to do it. And that was crushing me because I was just kind of stockpiling months that I knew I was going to be able to get to eventually. But on top of 60 hour weeks getting a studio off the ground and having band practice a couple times a week, just my mixes were suffering.

Speaker 2 (35:33):

But you stuck around anyways.

Speaker 3 (35:35):

That's right. Well, because I knew I would always have it if and when I needed it, and the time is now basically.

Speaker 2 (35:43):

That's great. That's great to hear. And yeah, nail the mix is our time consuming. That's very true. That's actually why we started Mix Lab, even though it doesn't, it's not ever going to replace the live mixes.

(35:56):

We just wanted some resource and it is in its infancy, so eventually you'll have 200 videos in it within a year and a half or something like that, but it's still at the early stages. So it's only 25 videos, but it's for people who are very, very busy, don't have the time to watch nail the mix, and they just need a quick tip on something. But also one thing people should always keep in mind is nail the mix has timestamps. There is that, but I totally understand. Me personally, if I was the one who was going to study nail the mix, I'd want to go little by little taking meticulous notes and have spent all the time I could on it. And if I couldn't spend time on it, I wouldn't be cool with only spending an hour a week on it if that's all I had.

Speaker 3 (36:50):

The thing that has helped me the most with Nail the Mix is not only taking notes, but I have my DOS session up and I basically work as I go through the mix and I'm pausing constantly. So even a five hour nail, the mix turns into a 10 hour endeavor for me because that to me is the thing that allows me to see what is my instinct with how to EQ this snare and how do I break myself of that habit because his sounds so good. And being able to identify like, oh, I tend to hype my a hundred hertz in all of my mixes. Why do I do that? That's something that I think I can beat out of myself from really taking from treating it like homework, if you

Speaker 2 (37:35):

Will. Hey, you know what, man, I would like to talk to you about getting you in our group to discuss that on maybe a Facebook Live. Absolutely. That is a brilliant way to approach nail the mix, and I wish that everybody approached it like that. I think a lot of people watch it. I mean, when they watch it live, one of the reasons that they're watching it live is because of the chat and the interaction and there's all that stuff, and that's fun and that's cool, but then people watch it and rewatch and rewatch it, but don't get the impression, and I could be wrong, I know that some people do this, but by and large, I do not get the impression that people are doing it the way you're doing it, and that's the way you should do it. You should pause a lot.

(38:26):

You should take meticulous notes and you should try to do it yourself. And then once you get a result, then watch what the master did and see what's different about what he did, what you did and what is better about what he did. And then try to apply it to your own workflow right then and there. Use it to break bad habits, use it to evolve. You'll get way better if you take a slow and meticulous approach like that. And that can only be done after the mix poll too. That's right. The other thing I was going to say was I suggest that with your mixes that you're handing in, do them as quickly as possible and hand them in and then wait for the live stream. But then once the live stream happens, approach it like this, would you be interested in doing a Facebook Live in the year?

Speaker 3 (39:16):

A hundred percent, yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:17):

Okay, cool. We'll talk about that after. Sweet. I want people to get that straight from you killing it, and I think people should hear what you have to say. You're killing it in multiple ways and you are getting out of the service what the service is intended for you to get out of it. And that makes me very happy. I'm glad to hear that.

Speaker 3 (39:42):

I'll say this too, is that as a mix engineer, I honestly consider myself more of a tracking engineer As a mix engineer, I'm not that great. I'm getting better constantly, but I also, I don't have to be the best to be able to do this full time. I have to be able to produce a product that sounds better than their last recording. That's

Speaker 2 (40:04):

Right.

Speaker 3 (40:05):

Yeah. And that's something is like even if I'm hard on myself because I listen to the mixes of even my colleagues and nail the mix, what are other people turning in? Damn, that's fire. I am not there yet, but that's also okay. It's totally fine because obviously it's ideal that I continue to master my craft over a long period of time, but it shouldn't prevent me from being able to work with people.

Speaker 2 (40:32):

No, there's multiple levels of mixed quality that falls under the professional umbrella. Not everybody is CLA. Absolutely. And that's not expected In most situations. The artists you work with couldn't afford something, someone on C'S level, and that's just reality. And if your mixes get to that level, if you keep working at it and working at it and give it 10 more years and keep working at it and say you get to that level, you'll be earning that kind of money too. But what's important is that what you're putting out is competitive for the market. You're in

Speaker 4 (41:20):

Precise,

Speaker 2 (41:21):

Whatever market that is. If your market is huge, bands like CLA, then okay, it's got to be competitive for huge bands. But if you're looking at Jacksonville and surrounding areas, then you need to beat the last thing they did in the Jacksonville or surrounding area.

Speaker 3 (41:38):

And I'm sure you've been to Jacksonville, but for the listeners at home, Jacksonville is a place that metal tours skip. It's a place

Speaker 2 (41:46):

I wish mine had.

Speaker 3 (41:48):

Yeah, exactly. And I mean that was over 10 years ago, right?

Speaker 2 (41:52):

Yeah, man. About one of the bad things that came of it. The other two were that I experienced two shootings in Jacksonville. Oh, Jesus. At shows. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:03):

Yeah. So we have a bad reputation as a city, especially for heavy music, and I have my thoughts as to why that's been the case for a long time. I think it largely has to do with musical infrastructure. So it's our venues, it's our lack of studios, and it's a mindset thing among the bands that participate in the scene. But I see things improving and I am trying to be at the forefront of things improving because when I was 16 in a band in Jacksonville, it felt like an insurmountable obstacle to be from that place.

Speaker 2 (42:40):

I can totally see that.

Speaker 3 (42:42):

And granted, I was 16, so the insurmountable obstacle was obviously me at the time, but both can be true is that I want to make sure that if 16-year-old me were here right now, that he'd be able to come to my studio and get stoked. I'm trying to provide a service for the type of people that I used to be in order to improve their lives. That's

Speaker 2 (43:10):

Great. And there's a big opportunity for you to be the guy there. I know, and I can back this up, that it's a wasteland out there as far as studios are concerned. So it's fertile ground for you. So I wish you all the luck in the world with that. And final question, what advice do you have for someone who's struggling to make the leap and turn audio into their full-time job?

Speaker 3 (43:34):

I will say make sure you have the systems in place to be able to do it is that all of your work has to be done to where if people come to your studio, they're not like, man, this is kind of whack. I know he's kind of getting off the ground, but this is not really indicative of paying a thousand dollars to get a demo. The thing that has allowed me to do what I do.

Speaker 2 (43:58):

So meaning when people show up that your shit works and you know how to work it, how to get from zero to working very quickly.

Speaker 3 (44:10):

So be able to exceed expectations across the board. And at that point, I would say make the jump. The other thing, and I mentioned this earlier, but keep your overhead as low as humanly possible and don't take on debt. I did not take on any debt across the three years that I spent amassing gear and building my studio. And I learned a lot in that process. Obviously if I could go back and I'd do it slightly more efficiently in terms of my purchases, but get enough gear that allows you to work and then stop.

Speaker 2 (44:46):

Yeah, there's a lot to be said for Ed for getting credit cards and buying gear with it, and there might become a point when that's the right next move, but I wouldn't do that until you're already established full-time for at least a year. Because the only reason to go into debt like that is if you're able to pay it off very, very quickly, not something that's going to take you years and years to pay off. And also that you have, I guess a fair amount of certainty that you're going to be able to pay it off from audio. So when you first start though, try not to go into debt at all. I completely agree. Start with what you've got and build from there. And then eventually, if you're making a living, you're paying for everything, you're doing good, you've got clients you want upgrade, then consider it. But don't do things that audio won't pay for debt when it comes to adding debt. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (45:55):

Just live within your means and make sure,

Speaker 2 (45:58):

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (45:58):

Make sure that any purchases that you make are actually towards capabilities that you need. So not every studio has to be a studio that records drums, but if you are, you have to have enough inputs to make it work. And something that I've found is that one of the most important pieces of gear that I've got is a headphone monitor that allows me to very efficiently give the drummer what they're looking for in the headphone mix. And the same goes for vocalists, especially if you're trying to track multiple people at the same time. The headphone mix is more important than any compressor that you can buy. And I believe very strongly in that.

Speaker 2 (46:37):

I completely agree with you. Well, it's important that people at the beginning especially stick to non-sexy, but essential purchases. Exactly. The stuff that you'll use in day in, day out in order to create the product. So room treatment, the computer you're working on, what you're listening through, things like, well, the headphone distribution amp that you were just talking about, whether it's hear back system or the Beringer unit or whatever

(47:09):

That counts as what you're listening through. That is how people plug into your system for recording. And I don't mean that you have to have the nicest preamps ever, but just taking care of all that stuff and making sure that it works well and that it well, it goes a long, long way, long way. And it's much more important to have that stuff established than to not really know what you're doing and just have a bunch of badass preamps, but terrible monitors and stuff. I remember I was talking to someone in one of our groups who had all this gear, they spent all this money on outboard and were mixing on these shitty headphones. You couldn't afford monitors. It's like, what are you doing? You could have bought five sets of monitors with the amount of money that you spent on compressors. What difference does it make if you can't hear what you're working on anyways, so yeah, you spend the money on the stuff on your workhorses and the stuff that's crucial first. Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (48:21):

And I'll say one last thing about making the jump is that I think a hundred percent you have to have a strategy to be known, and obviously based on what area you're in, it's different. I have no idea what it's like to try to tap the market in la. I understand Jacksonville, and that's what I'm trying to do. But my strategy, and this kind of comes a little bit full circle too, because it was one of my gear purchases, but my interface is actually a console. It's a M 32, a Midas console, but it uses the Barringer X 32 control scheme. And basically what that means is that I can run live sound at almost any venue because I know how to use the X 32. And that has been incredibly beneficial for me that I can not only go to shows, but I can run live sound and use that as advertisement for my business to do that and get out and meet people and turn some knobs and stuff. And so again, that strategy is not going to work for everyone, but you have to find out what is going to convince people that you know what you're doing in a way that is not going to beat them over the head with it.

Speaker 2 (49:38):

So one thing that would be good is to do things in the right order. So you develop the strategy first and then the tactics second, the tactics being, for instance, I'm going to buy this piece of gear. So everything that you do, like every action you take should be serving the strategy. So you made a very wise tactical purchase of that board and Beringer to serve your strategy of using live sound as a way to get your name out. If you were just randomly buying gear because you're setting up a studio with no strategy, I'm sure you could end up with some good pieces and stuff, but then your strategy of getting out there and using live sound to promote yourself, it would be, it's not that you couldn't do it, it's just by doing it this way, it's so much easier. There's one less thing that you have to swim upstream against.

Speaker 3 (50:36):

That's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (50:38):

So wise thinking, my friend. Alright, Kevin, thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing of yourself with the community. It's been a pleasure talking to you and hope to talk to you again in the future very soon.

Speaker 3 (50:52):

The pleasure has been mine. This is super cool, and I appreciate all the work that you guys at URM do. Y'all just heard it. It changed my life, so thank

Speaker 2 (51:01):

You. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (51:02):

To get in

Speaker 1 (51:03):

Touch with the podcast, visit URM podcast and subscribe.