July 1, 2025 • 48 mins
In this episode of Musicians Tip Jar, hosts Chris Webb and Dave Tamkin interview multi-platinum producer Vince DiPasquale. They explore Vince's journey from his early love for music, through his education and struggles in the music industry, to his eventual success as a producer and educator. The conversation highlights the importance of saying yes to opportunities, the value of diverse income streams, and the role of mentorship in shaping a successful music career. Vince also shares insights on the challenges and decisions that come with pursuing a career in music, culminating in the founding of his online education platform, Fader Pro.
takeaways
https://www.instagram.com/vincent.di.pasquale/
https://www.instagram.com/solacescapemusic/
https://www.vincentdipasquale.com/vdp-music
Intro & Outro Music Donated by: The Magi https://www.themagimusic.com
Intro Read by: David “DJ” Lee of The Magi
https://soundcloud.com/rockababyrock
Pictures by: Kit Chalberg https://kitchalberg.com/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/musicians-tip-jar--4698023/support.
Visit MusiciansTipJar.com for more resources and tools to empower your financial journey.
Intro & Outro Music Donated by: The Magi https://www.themagimusic.com
Intro Read by: David “DJ” Lee of The Magi
https://soundcloud.com/rockababyrock
Pictures by: Kit Chalberg https://kitchalberg.com/
takeaways
- Vince's early exposure to music came from his father's unique babysitting technique.
- He struggled with classical music education but developed a good ear for music.
- Saying yes to opportunities is crucial in the early stages of a music career.
- Diverse income streams are essential for sustainability in the music industry.
- Education and mentorship play a significant role in career development.
- Vince's transition from assistant to engineer was marked by hard work and perseverance.
- The importance of being fun to work with in the music industry.
- Vince's experience at Disney shaped his understanding of the music business.
- Fader Pro was born out of a desire to educate aspiring producers.
- The journey in music often involves scary choices and self-discovery.
https://www.instagram.com/vincent.di.pasquale/
https://www.instagram.com/solacescapemusic/
https://www.vincentdipasquale.com/vdp-music
Intro & Outro Music Donated by: The Magi https://www.themagimusic.com
Intro Read by: David “DJ” Lee of The Magi
https://soundcloud.com/rockababyrock
Pictures by: Kit Chalberg https://kitchalberg.com/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/musicians-tip-jar--4698023/support.
Visit MusiciansTipJar.com for more resources and tools to empower your financial journey.
Intro & Outro Music Donated by: The Magi https://www.themagimusic.com
Intro Read by: David “DJ” Lee of The Magi
https://soundcloud.com/rockababyrock
Pictures by: Kit Chalberg https://kitchalberg.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the show that explores the methods and strategies
on rockin' the financial side of your music business. With
over forty years combined experience, here are your host Chris
Webb and Dave Tamkin.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to Musicians Tip Jar, where we talk about musicians
and money. I'm Chris Webb, joined by my co host
Dave Tampkin, who recently went through a breakup with his
sound engineer because they had too much trouble.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Dave definitely rubbing off on you.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I mean, eventually they're gonna run out of these now.
Speaker 5 (00:32):
You think that, But there's a plethora of dad jokes
for us both to share.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Musician dad jokes. Specific niche right there, you know.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Today we welcome multi platinum producer Vin's Deepest Qually. We
go on a journey from his early struggles to the
driver's seat of being an in demand producer and remixer.
His story is filled with celebrities and all kinds of genres.
It's pretty amazing. Today's quote comes from Vince himself. He said,
(01:01):
it's not the one who thinks they're great that's getting
the opportunities. It's the one that does the job, does
it good, and doesn't have a bad attitude.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
Today's nonprofit is Girls Makebeats dot org. They are on
a mission to close the gender gap in music education
at technology. They are here to change the image of
what music producers, DJs and audio engineers look like. Their
programs have served over nine hundred girls across the country
and around the world since twenty twelve. Three quarters of
(01:31):
the girls they serve come from historically underrepresented groups, including black, Latino,
and low income households. Learn more at Girls Maakebeats dot org.
Final this information useful, Please rate and subscribe to the
podcast and also slam that like button if you're on
YouTube so it can help keep you up on the
finance side of your music business.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Vin's Deepest Quality is an artist whose talent and dedication
have propelled him to multiplatinum success. He is a renowned
music producer, remixer, and educator with over two decades in
the music industry. He's worked alongside some of the biggest
names in music, including Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Mariah Carey, Timberland,
(02:11):
Nelly Fertado, and Missy Elliot. His remix of Madonna's hit
four Minutes not only sored to number one in the
Billboard Dance Club Charts, but also achieved double platinum certification.
Beyond his impressive career as a producer, Vince is passionate
about empowering the next generation of music makers. He co
(02:32):
founded fader Pro, an innovative education platform offering aspiring producers
unprecedented access to industry leading artists and their creative processes. Today,
Vince is here to share his wealth of knowledge, creativity,
and entrepreneurial wisdom, helping us all better navigate our journeys
(02:53):
in this business. Let's find out how he has achieved
so much.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Let's go today.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
We have been Steve Squeally, he cooks some beats. This
and is grill and Father's Day that we just listened
to a whole bunch of stuff that you haven't heard
that just makes you sound very cool and just about
your awesome career. So without you even knowing what we said,
(03:26):
just you know, congratulations on a successful career. Half of
it we made up. And then the stuff the other stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
You met the Pope. That's amazing.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
Yeah, I'd like to start with your early beginnings, like
let's begin with your earliest memory of falling in love
with music and what inspired you to pursue pursue this career.
Speaker 6 (03:55):
Yeah, I mean, great question. I'm glad you started at
the very beginning. That obviously different answers as to where
I got teach path. But the long story is short,
as I guess needs to be. Is.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
You know, I grew up in a in a very
musical family.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
My grandfather was a jazz sax player from like the
Big Band era, and grew.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Up listening to him plays sas.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
And my father a huge rock and roll fan, beatles
the whole you know, British Invasion rock and roll, and
so I grew up with him having a deep, deep
love of music and even recorded music. You know. He
had a quadraphonic system that I only mentioned because number
one they no longer exists, and number two he you know,
(04:39):
he was an audio file and so my mom was
a night teacher, and his way of babysitting us was
to throw records on the quadraphonic system and run my
sister and I ragged from dancing until we passed out.
That was his his babysitting technique. But so that did
two things that put us to sleep easily, and I
h subconsciously, and then really time kind of got this
(05:01):
amazing education of recorded music, you know, And he played
guitar in high school himself and was in a few
little bands and things like that. So I got into
instruments pretty early too, first with piano, and played piano,
but suffered through it because I don't learn classically, and
(05:21):
I was taught classically, so you can imagine the friction there.
And so but I had a really good ear, and
so I would do all these classical piano lessons and
kind of stuffer through them, but then go just noodle
and have fun. And especially with guitar, you know, I
took up guitar around the age of nine, and same thing.
Had kind of classical lessons and would suffer through those,
(05:42):
but then on my own would just learn to play
with my favorite records and so developed my ear just
by jamming along. It was about in high school. Then
at that point I had stopped taking all lessons because
it just school was never really my thing, which is
funny because now I'm an educator.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
We'll get to that later.
Speaker 6 (06:00):
I got in, you know, in high school, you know,
jammed a little bit with some people, but never did
the band thing. I didn't have any practice discipline, you know,
I didn't My brain wasn't wired that way at that time.
So I would just jammed my favorite records and you know,
new new enough chords. If I had to pick up
a guitar at a party, I could, but didn't really.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Love everybody that everyone loves that guy who picks up
like a tire at a party.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
And plays one song and it's like, all right, don't
keep going.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
First course of Wonderwall.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (06:34):
So my my high school had a radio program and
and you know, my dad knew this guy who owned
a music store, and so I began renting recording equipment
and got really into by myself in my parents' basement
learning to record. And it wasn't you know, you know,
telling a story now. It wasn't like ooh, I'm going
to go record. It was just another way to dabble
(06:55):
with music and audio. And at that time MIDI was
kind of an infant. And see, you know, in the
early nineties, I dated myself just then, so was kind
of fiddling with MIDI and programming the drum machines of
the of the day and recording on my four track,
which I still actually have city right over there, the
original one. I still run stuff through it. We can
(07:18):
maybe talk about that later if it's pertinent.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
And so got into the technical side.
Speaker 6 (07:22):
And so in college I actually got a business degree.
You know, I was never you know, in like I said,
in the kind of performing music arena. So just by
default and by the urging of my mother, got a
business degree, which was which was really good advice for
later later in life. And so during college I would
(07:43):
be doing all the business stuff and in school, but
then was like on the radio. I had a radio
show in college and had my four track tape machine
and would record anyone that would let me record them.
And I also recorded a ton of live concerts.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
You know.
Speaker 6 (07:58):
I had a phase as as a Deadhead where I
traveled and toured and recorded The Grateful Dead.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
With a pretty cool little setup on that tape.
Speaker 6 (08:08):
So I was just kind of by that point in
college had become a real true kind.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Of audio nerd.
Speaker 6 (08:14):
And then after college, I did a stint working in Orlando,
Florida in the mid nineties, and at that time electronic
music had really it was kind of like the British
vasion of electronic music. And then the mid nineties, some
DJs in Orlando brought over these really big DJs that
were big in Europe and this was still, of course
(08:35):
underground here in the United States. And so while I
was in Orlando, I got exposed to the electronic music scene.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Is that why you moved there to Orlando?
Speaker 7 (08:43):
No.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
I got a job for Walt Disney World actually during college.
I worked there for two years, partly as a semester
of college, kind of a work study thing, and then
I just stayed on and kept working there. So I
did a gap year before I knew that even was
a thing.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
What were you doing for them? I worked at Epcot.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
I was it was called the Ambassador program, and so
Epcot has all the countries, you know, and they bring
all the employees from those actual countries so you can
experience the culture. And so I was an American ambassador,
which meant we helped all the foreign employees, you know,
navigate life in America and we were just kind of
their their friends and helped them. And also we did,
(09:26):
you know, customer service things like we would walk dignitaries
around the park and have random jobs and customer service,
and so there was an educational component around how the
business of Disney was ran, but mainly it was just
a college kid working at Disney, you know, cheap labor
for them, great experience for me.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
And it really kind of did change the.
Speaker 6 (09:46):
Trajectory of my life, to be perfectly honest, because I
grew up in Ohio and that got me out of
Ohio and so that was what took me there.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
So this note I have as dressed up as Donald Duck.
That's not true.
Speaker 6 (10:00):
That's right, that's right. However, out I was Prince Charming
in a parade.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
That is true.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
Though one time, you're always so kind. I would say,
you're doing that all the time, friends, But I didn't
mean to cut you off from the DJ stuff. But
that is interesting what brought you down there?
Speaker 6 (10:17):
And yeah, so you know at that time, you know,
in Europe in the mid nineties, DJs were rock stars.
DJs were the new rock stars, and electronic music was
played on the radio. This was all, you know, a
decade pretty much before that happened in the United States.
And so I fell in love with electronic music because
these producers were doing everything, they were programming everything, writing everything.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
It was all in the computers.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
It was all with computer and audio nerdery, and I
just loved it, and I you know, and I enjoyed
the kind of cutting edge sounds that were happening electronic music.
So that was when I really got into electronic music.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
And so.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
The rest of my way through college, you know, was
djaying a lot and starting to learn how to produce
electronic music. Kind of started to self teach myself that.
And then after I got a business degree, I went
to the School of Audio Engineering SAE Institute down in Miami,
and I was the first graduating class because we moved.
(11:17):
By that point, my now wife and then girlfriend moved
down to Miami and she continued studying, and I just
I had random odd jobs in the audio industry, which
I think is pertinent to this conversation because I always
was trying to find any way to do anything related
to music, and at that point, I worked at record shops.
I worked, I had a stint constructing, and by constructing,
(11:38):
I mean assembling home theater speakers, you know, and doing
home theater installations, all while I was dejaying and trying
to learn music production. So I went to SAA Institute
got an engineering degree, which took about a year and
a half and then out of there was placed with
(11:59):
Lauren Hill for six months on one of her recording projects.
That was like my first like just graduated as an
engineer to go work with Lauren Hill, which was a
mind blowing experience.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
She's totally incredible.
Speaker 6 (12:12):
So I did that for six months, and then after
that got hired by the Hit Factory criteria in Miami
recording studio and this was two thousand and two, and
became a staff engineer there.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
And at the same time was I had these parallel
kind of worlds where I was at.
Speaker 6 (12:30):
SA learning you know, audio engineering, working with Lauren Hill,
getting at the Hit Factory, but still producing electronic music
at home.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
So I was.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
I was by that point, you know, making my own music.
I had signed a couple record deals with some electronic labels,
had my first few releases, then got invited separately.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Well not not invited, I should say.
Speaker 6 (12:49):
I a friend of mine from New York City said, Hey,
I got this friend who has a project that he
needs mixed, and he just moved to Florida.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
He knows nobody.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
Can you meet him and maybe help him his project?
And so I said sure. So, you know, I had
a home studio at that point. This is still you know,
early two thousands.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
So I had a.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Thirty two channel task cam, analog board and fresh out
of engineering school, you know, and this was one of
my first you know, besides all the big studio stuff
I was doing, you know, as my quote unquote day job.
I was at home and met this guy, Albert Cabrera,
and he's like, hey, I've got this project called Lee Cabrera.
We've got this first record. I want to mix it
(13:30):
with you. I want to mix it, so can you
help me? So we mixed it on my board, and
that song, Lee Cabret Shake it was the name of
the song, became like a absolute international smash and electronic
dance music and it just to this day it's one
of those seminal records that I was fortunate enough to touch.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
And an engineer, so I engineered.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
All those all those guys records, and you know, he
didn't pay me for that gig. He bought me Logic Pro,
which back then was like version three, and he's like
it was still when you know, Logic was pretty expect
and something.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
He's like, well, I won't pay you for this, but
I'll just buy Logic because I did the whole thing
in logic, so you need it anyway.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
So that introduced me to logic, and so so.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
That was great.
Speaker 6 (14:08):
I now had this kind of engineering kickoff of a career,
if you will, from that one project with these guys
that now were you know, very successful making tons of music.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
What was that learning curve like? Because you started out
by saying when you were playing classical music, but you
didn't learn classically, so you had this different way of
absorbing knowledge. So now you're going to become an engineer
or going to school for that, but you're also looking
at contracts now for record labels. How are you navigating
(14:43):
those fields at that time?
Speaker 6 (14:46):
At that time, I just kind of said yes to everything.
And you know, I in hindsight, there was part, you know,
sure willpower a lot of obviously hard work, some naivete
obviously mixed into that pot. I just you know, had,
(15:08):
you know, from very early on, you know, and again
in hindsight looking back, you know, I just had several
irons in the fire. And I think you know, even
now you know, sitting here saying that, I mean even today,
you know, I think for me personally, that has been
what has allowed me to do music production and engineering
and music creation full time for you know, over over
(15:31):
twenty years. Now is I think the you know, I
love this word entrepreneurship. You know, it's entrepreneurship, you know,
from a creative mindset. And back then I would have
never said these things like, oh, just a lot of
irons in the fire and be entrepreneurial. I just I
was doing that without really knowing. I was just kind
of saying yes and trying to put myself in places
(15:51):
that would maybe give me an opportunity. So just kind
of wrap up the the about me story, I guess.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
You know.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
So at that time, you know again, was at my
home studio, was doing a lot of electronic music and
producing it, and and was then working at the Hit
Factory as a staff engineer there. And you know, this
was you know, I would that was you know, I
was an employee as an engineer and and you know,
started off as an assistant engineer, which is basically a runner,
(16:21):
you know, like go get lunch and sweep up this
mess and make the fruit bowl and make the flowers
look pretty and all the all that kind of thing,
which was an amazing experience because you know, yeah, in
those days, and especially a studio like that, it was
very humbling to come in and you know, I, you know,
everyone comes in and they're like, yeah, I have an
(16:41):
audio engineering degree, and here's all the here's all the
consoles I know how to use, and here's all the gear,
and they're like, great, go make coffee.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
You know. It was kind of that kind of you.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Have to work on your stamina for that at first,
where you're like out of breath a lot, and you're
like this is too much. And then maybe second week
you're like, no problem, coffee and like, oh, how did
I get it back so fast?
Speaker 6 (17:00):
No, it was nine or ten months of constant questioning,
like wow, is this the right choice? Honestly because you
know the engine the engineers, you know that there's not
many of them, and when you get that job, you
know there's not a there's not a high turnover, you know.
And so I was I again, it was just naivete
(17:25):
or stubbornness or whatever it is. I just kept going
and and you know, and I did, you know, I
did keep my eye on the prize, I guess, for
lack of a better word, and I knew if I
stuck it out that maybe an opportunity would.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Come, and and then it eventually did.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
And what was that the opportunity. This is when it
gets good, Chris, This is.
Speaker 6 (17:46):
When it gets So by this point, we're now close
to a year of making fruit baskets and flowers and
coffee and cleaning up messes of very famous people. Then
I at home, by this point had started my electronic
music production had then transferred. I met a person he
(18:09):
and I collaborated. So now I was doing remixes for
a lot of major labels, for a lot of you know,
high profile artists, doing electronic remixes, which for me was
a dream because it married all worlds. It married commercial music.
I love commercial music. It married production, the technical and
my you know, my early dream of music, which was
(18:31):
to create, to write, to record, you know, and and
all these things. And so I was at home in
my studio doing all these remixes and getting to a
point where I couldn't do both anymore full time, and
you know, I was taking long walks and trying to
figure out what the right move is. And so one
day I went in to the manager's office and and
(18:53):
I said, Trevor, I'm done. I can't you know, I
was still a general assistant, so I was still kind
of arboy. I said, I can't do this anymore, you know, unfortunately,
and he looked at me and he's like, you know,
are you sure? Because he had a way of kind
of wording things that had you questioning something. And at
that point I kind of had this fear wave roll
(19:13):
over me, like I had stuck it out this long,
you know, And I said, yeah, you know, I'm sure.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
And the next day he called me and he's like,
do you want to engineer?
Speaker 6 (19:24):
Ah, which which there was a need there for that.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
It was it was whatever it.
Speaker 6 (19:31):
Is, divine intervention or whatever stars aligning it is. And
so I shifted then from kind of being full time
to then being, you know, a staff engineer, and then
you're kind of on call all the time.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
But what's awesome about that story is the wave of
fear that came over you and even the way you
tell the story. I'm thinking you're gonna say, and I
stuck it up for three more months, but no, you
followed your gut. You knew what you wanted not only
out of your career but a life.
Speaker 6 (20:01):
Yeah, and at the time, I think, you know again,
you know, my, my, my, my brain now looks back
and says, you know, if you have to choose, and
you know back then I didn't. Back then it was
like I'm doing all this work. I want to be
a producer and an engineer and a writer and a creator,
(20:22):
and that's over here.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Yes I did.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
I do want to be an engineer, you know, for
for artists too. But it you know, it did win out, honestly,
and it and it worked out because you know, I
got lucky, to be honest with you, because you know,
the next day there was a need and I was
the phone call.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
So from that point on, I was now, you know, engineering.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
There they were you know, you're on call as an engineer.
So you know, you get a phone call, you're working
with so and so. Today you're working so and so.
That could last a single session, a single day, a week,
a month, you know, various projects. And then at home
still was doing all the remixing and production, which by
at that point was starting to branch out into not
just electronic music, but singer songwriters, other bands, and so
(21:11):
you know, I did those kind of parallel worlds for about.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
The next you know, eight years. Wow. Down in Miami.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
One thing that comes up a lot with interviews about
how people kind of find success is that it sometimes
can be kind of in hindsight, can be narrowed down
to just a couple moments, and it feels like that
that moment that you decided you instinctively knew that it
was time to make a change, and the sweat that
(21:39):
came out of you in the moment of making that
change and how scary that can be, might be one
of those moments where it was like, if you hadn't
done that, that the rest of this would never have happened, right,
that butterfly effect of it, because you wouldn't have shown
him maybe that you were ready to do that next thing,
or made yourself realize that you were truly ready for
(22:00):
that next thing.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
It's true, and you know, I think I think you
know doubt and questioning and certainly a level of fear
in this field, you know, but a lot of times
in life, you know, it's part and parcel with these
hard decisions, and sometimes the hard decisions are well thought out.
You know, Now that I'm older, I have ways of
working through these types of decisions. You know, Back then
(22:22):
I was young and just just was, you know, just
trying to work as hard as I could. But yeah,
I think I innately did know that that's the path
that I wanted to go down, you know, and and
and you know, who knows what would have turned out
if I never got the phone call. I mean a
lot would have been different, obviously, but you know, but yeah,
(22:42):
I remember making the decision, which was not easy, and
I remember being in the office and hearing are you
sure with this look like? And my interpretation of that
question was are you sure because you're like this close?
And what I was reading into it was like, are
you sure because if you you know, all the all
the fear stuff, and you know, and I was sure,
(23:05):
you know, heart beating, scared as hell, all the things.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
But for for.
Speaker 6 (23:10):
For reasons I can now kind of fill in the blank,
I just stuck to it, you know, but it was
it was it was not easy.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
And maybe he needed someone to make those hard decisions
to say you are sure, because next you're moving on
to work with people like Madonna, timbaland Maria Carry and
someone who's unsure of what they want on of their
future is someone that he doesn't want behind the board
for those situations.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
And that's a very good point, Dave. And that was
that whole year of getting caught.
Speaker 6 (23:43):
You know, I mean everybody's heard the runner like make
coffee and clean up the you know mess insert creative
messes here.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
You know, you're right and.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
It and the proving process then was not about necessarily
the engineering chops. What is important is going and learning engineering,
going and doing a lot of the things in a
creative field. Is you know a lot of people are
doing that. That's not the differentiator. What's the differentiator. Differentiator
is is you know your personality And in this case,
(24:16):
what's going to happen when I have profile client who's
impossible to please is barking at you to do things.
How are you going to handle that? And so this
whole trial by fire kind of break you down, build
you up thing, Dave, was exactly the point. Was exactly
the point because during that year, you know, it's wild
(24:39):
because sessions would start in the evening and we'd be
repainting the walls during the day because someone scuffed it up.
I mean, we were just constantly doing stuff. So you
paint the wall and it's the wrong color of paint,
so you got to do it again, Well, maybe it
wasn't the wrong color of paint. Maybe that was not
maybe that was part partly like Okay, that's not good enough,
I go do it again.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
And so the.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
People that are like, you know, having the reaction that
you would have when you've done it two or three
times are not the people that maybe they wanted that studio.
And so you know, I had an idea of that.
You know, to me, there's like this Iceberg type thing
where there's like, you know, the percentage you see above
the water and then below it is ninety percent of
everything else. That's kind of how I viewed it at
(25:21):
the time even then. And also as a marathon, you know,
I viewed it as a marathon and not a sprint,
you know, and I did sprint during times in my life,
but in this.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
Career, but trying to always look at it as you're
a runner.
Speaker 6 (25:33):
But if I did the if I did a marathon
pace though at the hit factory, they would have fired me,
you know, the second way it'd be a sprinter. So yeah,
but anyway, yeah, so that that I mean again, that
kind of taught me so much. And to back up
to Disney, I made all the mistakes as an employee.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Or a young person who thought they were like, you.
Speaker 6 (25:57):
Know something right in the jobs I thought I wanted
to have a Disney and I saw my friends in
the program getting cooler jobs than me, and I was
kind of like, well, why aren't I getting the cool jobs?
Speaker 4 (26:08):
You know?
Speaker 6 (26:09):
That was looking back my learning process of how not
to do it, so fast forward to the Hit factory.
By then I had some wherewithal of like, Okay, it's
not the one that thinks they're great, it's the one
that just does the job, does it good, and like
doesn't have a bad attitude.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
That's so often the biggest part of being successful is
are you fun to work with?
Speaker 6 (26:34):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Like, despite all of the other things that are happening
around you and the pressures that are probably existing in
that situation, are you still fun to work with? One
other question I wanted to ask about, as you got
started and started finding yourself working with these incredible artists,
did you feel like as an educator maybe this would
be something that you can add to that. Did you
(26:55):
feel like you were well prepared for all of the
technical end of things that you had to do right
out of the gates with these opportunities because of your
education that you got from the university, or did you
feel like you had to learn those in the hard
knock style.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
That's a that's a really good question. It's both. For me,
it was both, you know.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
I well, back then, you know, to get into a
studio like the Hit Factory, they wouldn't look at you
unless you had a degree from full Sale or SAE.
So the piece of paper was necessary, you know. And
and and you can equate that to the business degree too. However,
you know, unfortunately in our in our world, you know,
(27:34):
the piece of paper will get you in the door.
But but but that's when you start learning really whatever
the piece of paper says, you know a little about,
you know. And so in the case of engineering, we
had practiced time as an as an as a general assistant. Yes,
you were doing all the errands and stuff, but you
(27:54):
got to as long as the studio was open, you
could go in there and do stuff.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
And you were encouraged.
Speaker 6 (28:00):
And so you did know every single thing on the
ninety six channel SSL and you knew every like like
the back of your hand, you know. And so so
it was the school of kind of hard knocks, of
hitting the you know, the rubber hitting the road. Same
thing with the business degree that that comes in later,
but I'll go ahead and kind of give give that away.
Now it's like in two thousand and four. So now
(28:21):
I'm you know, I'm doing all these remixes. I'm working
at the Hit Factory, and I worked on Nelly Fortado's
man Eater and it was doing phenomenally well. And I'm
working in logic and a mentor engineer of mine that
I was working with at the Hit Factory, his name
is Jimmy Douglas. You know, he knew some people at Apple,
(28:44):
and somehow the word got around that, you know, I
had I work in logic and I had worked on
that song, and so Apple reached out to me and said,
you know, did you do any of this stuff in logic?
And I said, yeah, you know, I did.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
And so.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
At that point, I had also been invited back by
SAE to give a lecture to the current class of
like audio you know, aspiring engineers, and I gave a
lecture about my story but also about you know, music production,
and I loved it so much. I had so much fun,
and you know, the feedback was was really good. That
I started to do more lecturing at I SAE and
(29:20):
that got me into education, and then you know, back
to Apple. They they invited me, you know, to nam
one year to give a demonstration on making music and
logic pro using now the Fortado's man eater and it
was a ton of fun and and and kind of
got a front row seat with the Apple team and
got to know them, and that was an amazing experience.
(29:41):
But that's kind of the landing of the airplane of
like how I got into education was through that because
after all these events that I would do, everyone would
come up and say, you know, where can I learn more?
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Can I come hang out? And this? Can I just
where do I learn more?
Speaker 6 (29:54):
And that was the birth of fader Pro, which is
the online education company that I founded teaching music production.
So that's kind of the full circle of you know,
my story in terms of engineer and then and then
starting vader Pro and getting into education.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
Is price is processes like prevacy, I just don't think processes.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
I agree sounds right.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
I liked it.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
I was impressed less as it was nice having Vince
I had. I was fortunate enough to work with him
on a project for a Ben Kueller song a few
years ago, and I wasn't very good at it, and
he was very patient and kind with me the entire time.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
So it was nice to see him again.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And I liked the connection that he was previously teaching
at the University Calady of Denver. It's really cool that
it never came across We never crossed paths while there,
but I'm sure those students got a lot out of
him being there when he was there.
Speaker 5 (30:58):
So if two musicians teach at a cool but they
don't see each other, are they really teaching?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I thought they're gonna say this one actually make a sound.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
That's where I was going with it.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Well, will never know because they won't release it anyway.
But to talk about his story a little bit.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Really enjoy interviewing people like Vince because he comes from
this place of this organic desire to be an artist,
and so much of how we get to where we
end up, and when we start talking about our journey,
so many of the things that we've done to get
there have been sort of these decisions in the moment,
(31:37):
you're not thinking long term. When certain opportunities come up,
you just know that that opportunity feels right you know,
and that was sort of a theme in his story,
was making decisions based on how it felt and his
instincts and how he knew that it was instinctively going
to be a good choice to say yes to some
of these things. And it was a lot of stuff
that he had to say no to, but pretty much
in those early years, as we'll talk about, it was
(31:59):
all saying yes. And it's so common in the stories
of people that we interview that in the early years
it's so critical to just keep saying yes and being
that yes person, you know.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
Well, he instilled that in himself, even having difficulty learning
instruments and in school at the beginning. You think a
musician who you know, is like okay at playing music
at first would be like I'm giving up. And that
was more than just one instrument, and he just kept
pushing and getting better and followed that dream to be
(32:30):
a musician. If it wasn't from an educational standpoint of
being taught from a teacher, he was going to do
it somehow, learnt it by year.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
And it really does seem to be another pattern that
we've seen that you know, the instrument doesn't make the artist, right,
I mean would Jimi Hendricks have still been a great
artist without the electric guitar.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yes, he would have.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Expressed it differently, and maybe it would have had to
be received differently. You know, it's sort of their community,
it's his language. And sometimes when we're trying to expand
our vocabulary and going with this metaphor, we're not as
good at learning certain things as others. And that can't
be what stops you. If you're an artist inside, you
(33:14):
just have to figure out how to let it out.
And he really did that, and he's got a common
story there where I think a lot of people, especially artists,
they tend to struggle in school. They tend to struggle
with education. I myself, I experienced plenty of that too,
and I still wonder if I'm dyslexic.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I actually don't.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Know, and I mean there's signs for sure, But again
it's you use it if you can. You use all
of those characteristics in who you are to help you
continue pushing forward and being unique and having something to offer,
and then also being empathetic to others and understanding that
everyone struggles.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
Yeah, and that doesn't mean failure. The struggle doesn't mean failure.
And I think when you play by feel, it can
reveal a better route for you in your future. And
it definitely did that him totally.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
And you might have said moving to Florida might have
been a failure. I just kidding to Oliver Florida listeners.
I just kidding.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I just like to give Florida a hard time. But
I do like Disney World, so my kids love it.
So I mean, I do think that there's so much
about moving to a new place that pushes you to
keep focus on why you moved there. You know, it
sort of raises your expectations for don't waste the time
because you know it's a sort of a limited situation.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
Yeah, I know that first sand for sure, there you go.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yeah, and getting into the electronic music scene. I loved
how he said he was one of the first to
graduate with that in that program, and I think that
he's paved away in a lot of ways like that.
That program has probably only grown.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
He mentioned Full Sale my senior year of high school.
Full Sale College was then called Rock and Roll University,
and for ninety nine dollars at Rolling Metals High School
you could sign up. They would put you on a
plane for a day. You would land in the morning
and go to full salesity and see everything they had
to offer, and then you'd fly back that evening. It
(35:04):
was like a field trip for seniors to see if
you wanted to do this for future. But at the
time you see rock and Roll University and you're like, well,
it's come so far since then. It's way more than
just just a music university.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yeah, really has grown. And how great to have found
those resources. As he said, a lot of these opportunities
without that degree would they wouldn't be an option because
he couldn't have gotten that first job. Even though he
was an errand boy. The job still required having those
that piece of paper. Even though, as he said, you
really don't learn, you know, you start doing what it is,
(35:40):
you start learning what it is you thought you were
learning in college when you start doing the job, and
you only got the job because of that piece of
paper of trying to learn what you're supposed to do
in college. And that's unique to that to that aspect
of music industry.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
I think when we also talk about diversifying your income,
that's that's all he did, was from selling records and
shops to everyday odd job set fed his audio obsession,
made a point to stay near sound no matter what
from any aspects. So it's like, what did he say,
Proximity to your passion matters?
Speaker 4 (36:11):
I thought that was great advice.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
The odd jobs thing to me, too, also stands out
because I think we hear this a lot, and I
certainly think this is true with myself, that it was
those odd jobs that taught me a lot about the
character and of who I am and strengths that maybe
music doesn't bring out directly by being a musician. When
I had a sales job, I learned a lot about
(36:32):
the fact that I'm good at sales, and I actually
think that's a common thing as artists go. We're good
at sales, and I think that's because we understand people.
We understand the inner workings of how we feel and
think and how that influence is our decision making. And
for that reason, I think we're good salespeople. But I
don't think I would have learned that if I didn't
have if I was only doing music. You know, like
(36:54):
it's those odd jobs, learning how to do things, fix things,
learning how to say yes when you have to help
someone else, and humbling your ego perhaps and all of
that builds the character of you the artist when you're
on stage and helps you look back and realize it's
been a long journey getting to where it is that
(37:15):
you wanted to go.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
And also how to create demand for your presence, your product,
your music. I think that helps out a lot too.
If you're trying to sell something, you have to have
that create that demand for your audience.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah, we used sales all the time for sure, especially
as performers. I mean the fact that he didn't even
put Lauren Hill in his bio.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
Yeah, man, amazing.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
And did you see the parallel with sides too?
Speaker 3 (37:43):
With logic pro totally totally.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
And that makes it sound like we're kind of bias
here because that's pretty much all we use it on
campus too, But I truthfully think you need to learn
multiple ones, and it's not that once you've learned one,
the others really do feel a lot easier. And that's
probably true with language, you know, too. Yeah, it's certainly's
true with instruments. Like we said earlier, like when you
start to learn one instrument, the other instruments start to
become easier. There's a less of a learning curve, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
And with logic pro though he's also given that as
a gift, you know what, She then made that gift
work for him, so it wasn't even the monetary thing
that he got in return. So it's the you know,
the value doesn't always come in dollars, comes in tools,
knowledge for your future potential. And then because he became
a master at that, again, Apple came calling for him.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Just like sides, what about the scary choices? What about
making looking back? You know, as we talked about on there,
I really do think we could all do this. It's
actually probably good exercise to try to simplify how you
are to where you are right now by like three
to four moments in life, you know, And I know
(38:53):
that might feel like oversimplification, but I think sometimes when
you allow that vision of that being reality of how
you've just made a couple of things that made such
huge impacts over the long haul afterwards, I'd like to
think that we all could do that, and it's good
for us because we see simplification to our journey. I mean,
people do it on their bio all the time, right
(39:14):
I wanted you know, I grew up playing music and
then I got to open up for Taylor Swift and
now you know I'm releasing an album and you're like, Okay,
there's a lot in there, but you just simplified it
to like four things. And his scary moment of saying
yes or no, of quitting, his scary moment of quitting.
(39:36):
I think it's one of those I think that that's
when you just sort of feel that I have a
recognition of one of those moments when we started to
do this podcast, when I just felt that urge, there's
like an overwhelming urge in me. While I was driving
my car home from teaching an in house lesson and
I really don't do those anymore because I don't really
have the time and my schedule for them. And at
that moment, I was thinking, I'm ready for the next thing.
(39:59):
Like I remember feeling like I'm really ready to move
forward to do this next big opportunity. I didn't know
what it was, but you and I had been talking
and I remember just getting home and being like, I
know what I need to do.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
This needs to get pushed forward.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
And I think that that moment in the car, even
though that moment wasn't saying yes or no to anybody,
it was just sort of being like I felt overwhelmingly ready,
you know what I mean, And at that moment is
one of those moments for me, because I think everything
changed after that.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
You've also continued to do that, I mean month in
and month out for now three years. So your gut
was telling you something, just like his gut was saying like, hey,
I can only get coffee and paint this wall so
many times.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Right right, Well, and as you go, your income streams changed.
And I liked how he explained his revenue streams because
he kind of took us through the journey of how
one takes over and then the another one kind of
takes over, and then you might go back, and then
you might be both. And you're always kind of looking
(41:07):
ahead to see what it is that might be coming
as the next big one. And it really does evolve
that way in this industry. And that's a weird thing
because you can have a music business and still be
making money and your revenue's changing.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
It's a very strange thing.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
If you sell a product in a retail story, that's
always where you're going to make your revenues. How much
of that product, and it might change what product it is,
but you're always selling product here, it can be so
different how you're ending up generating your income still being
an artist at the center.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Having that diversity, though, allows you to be a little
bit more choosy at what you take as well when
it comes to even like what you said, you were
at that point, don doing what you were doing driving
in your car, saying I need to do something different,
and having multiple revenue streams like that allows you to
follow your passions in different ways. If you didn't have
that and you're only stuck with one pass on your journey.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Yeah, the other funny parallel that came out of his
story to Sides was that using logic attracted Apple. So
it was another example where he sort of put himself
out there and then got their attention by being so
useful and so valuable in that skill set. And I
(42:24):
think that's really kind of funny that we've now seen
that twice. If there's something that you really want to
attract out there, you need to just keep putting out
how valuable and becoming so valuable at that thing that
they're going to notice you that. This is sort of
the reoccurring theme here, And he.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
Still creates music every day all the time, and so
many times you hear you know, just sometimes with musicians
more than not that you know they don't do so
they teach, you know, Yeah, that's not the case. You
can love giving back to your community and like, you know,
turning back like he does and puts his hand out
(43:03):
and says, come along, let me show you a different
way of doing it. So totally I love that about him.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Well, and the other thing that he highlights there is
that he loves teaching. That The other problem with that
statement of like those who can't do teach is that
most people that can't do still doesn't make them a
good teacher.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Yeah, you really aren't.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
It's a hard thing to do to be a good teacher.
And in the bit of a way it has to
do with sales. In my mind, it has to do
with presenting things in a way that it appeals to people,
because you have to be entertaining to be a teacher,
to be a good teacher.
Speaker 5 (43:35):
And in so many different ways, because everybody learns differently.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yes, And that's the other aspect of when you struggle
in school, you learn how you learn. That's that's really
what I got out of college mostly was learning how
to learn how I learn. And when you become a
good teacher, I think you have the understanding that everyone's
learning differently, and you have the accessibility to allow them
to learn the way they learn. It's a much easier
process for everyone if they have the opportunity to learn
(44:00):
the way that they learned best. And so he's obviously
a very good teacher, and it's such a huge part
of that is because of his passion to help others.
Speaker 5 (44:09):
I learned when a university has a twelve percent freshman
dropout rate, don't go to that school.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
I learned there.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
Is that you're saying that was your experience in college?
Speaker 5 (44:21):
Oh yeah, SIU, Oh my god. I had the best year,
the best fun year of my college experience, knowing that
only twelve percent of freshman graduate from that school. I
got kicked out the first semester. I thought to stay
there the second semester, I did it, and then I
failed out second semester, which I mean, I wouldn't have
done it any other way because I ended up at
(44:42):
the Paul.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
But you know, it was a hard learning ger well.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
And that's the other aspect of this. These big moments,
these big moments they might not always be positive in
the moment. Right, these big things that you look back
on that might define your how you got to where
you are, can off to be bad things, or in
the moment, they can feel like bad things, But in
the long run, you'll see that clear.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
So we talked that.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
We've talked about that a few times, and I just
think it's worth bringing up again because I know everyone's
struggling in some ways. You know, everyone's got different things
they're dealing with. Those things can feel so heavy and
they can feel like the problem. And sometimes if we
allow ourselves to look at them and be like, how
can this actually lead me towards a good thing? Like
how what is this teaching me? You know, like what
(45:28):
is this preparing me for? It's really important that we
just keep that on our mind when we're dealing with
this stuff.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
And talk about it with your musician friends. I had
a great time in Chicago on Tuesday talking to a
friend that I was just bringing her through some of
the things that I was going through with branding and
things that I want to do moving forward. And she
works with musicians all day and she's like, this is
this is hear this all the time, and it felt good.
(45:55):
She's like, if you're not talking about this stuff, if
you're not going through this, you're not growing. So I
definitely encourage people that if they're having those hard times
to you know, feel free to talk about it with
other musicians, because I think more often than not they'll.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Agree with you or at least feel for you.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Right, And that's the community aspect the show on its
head again. Well, from that whole story, I think the
best thing that we can offer you as an action
step is to keep it real simple. I would spend
ten minutes looking at your current situation identify if there
might be that scary moment of doing the right thing
to push your career forward. Maybe that opportunity to do
(46:34):
that big moment of your life that changes the trajectory
just by making a certain decision might be sitting in
front of you right now. It might be something that's
waiting for you to be ready, and this might be
the opportunity to let yourself figure out what that might be.
We know that your time is valuable. We appreciate you
spending this time with us and being a part of
this community. Is there hope that you feel that sense
(46:54):
of community here at musicians tip jar and help spread
the word to make us all stronger. If you'd like
to get a hold of us or Vince, what's the
best way to do that.
Speaker 5 (47:04):
You can get a hold of us at musicians tip
jar at gmail and musicians tipjar dot com, where you
can check out all the resources and discounts we have
collected just for you. Check out all our episodes now
on YouTube channel as well. If you find this information useful,
please rate and subscribe to the podcast and slam that
like button so we can help keep you up on
the financial side of your music business. Definitely go to
faderpro dot com and look up Vince's name and you
(47:26):
could find all his resources and all his socials there
as well, and I'll put it in our liner notes.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
As always, thank you for joining us, and remember there
is already enough for everyone, You just need to know
how to get it. Until next time on behalf of
Dave Tamkin and myself Chris Webb, Stay happy, healthy and wealthy.
So often the key to continuing towards our music goals
is not just following the signal, but keeping the right
signal to noise ratio.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
This these musicians tit Jar.
Speaker 7 (48:00):
Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or
professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, business, or
financial professional for individualized advice. Individual results and are guaranteed,
and all discussed strategies have the potential for profit or loss.
The hosts are operating on behalf of Musician's tip Jar
LLC exclusively
Welcome to the show that explores the methods and strategies
on rockin' the financial side of your music business. With
over forty years combined experience, here are your host Chris
Webb and Dave Tamkin.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Welcome to Musicians Tip Jar, where we talk about musicians
and money. I'm Chris Webb, joined by my co host
Dave Tampkin, who recently went through a breakup with his
sound engineer because they had too much trouble.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (00:27):
Dave definitely rubbing off on you.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
I mean, eventually they're gonna run out of these now.
Speaker 5 (00:32):
You think that, But there's a plethora of dad jokes
for us both to share.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Musician dad jokes. Specific niche right there, you know.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Today we welcome multi platinum producer Vin's Deepest Qually. We
go on a journey from his early struggles to the
driver's seat of being an in demand producer and remixer.
His story is filled with celebrities and all kinds of genres.
It's pretty amazing. Today's quote comes from Vince himself. He said,
(01:01):
it's not the one who thinks they're great that's getting
the opportunities. It's the one that does the job, does
it good, and doesn't have a bad attitude.
Speaker 5 (01:10):
Today's nonprofit is Girls Makebeats dot org. They are on
a mission to close the gender gap in music education
at technology. They are here to change the image of
what music producers, DJs and audio engineers look like. Their
programs have served over nine hundred girls across the country
and around the world since twenty twelve. Three quarters of
(01:31):
the girls they serve come from historically underrepresented groups, including black, Latino,
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Final this information useful, Please rate and subscribe to the
podcast and also slam that like button if you're on
YouTube so it can help keep you up on the
finance side of your music business.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Vin's Deepest Quality is an artist whose talent and dedication
have propelled him to multiplatinum success. He is a renowned
music producer, remixer, and educator with over two decades in
the music industry. He's worked alongside some of the biggest
names in music, including Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Mariah Carey, Timberland,
(02:11):
Nelly Fertado, and Missy Elliot. His remix of Madonna's hit
four Minutes not only sored to number one in the
Billboard Dance Club Charts, but also achieved double platinum certification.
Beyond his impressive career as a producer, Vince is passionate
about empowering the next generation of music makers. He co
(02:32):
founded fader Pro, an innovative education platform offering aspiring producers
unprecedented access to industry leading artists and their creative processes. Today,
Vince is here to share his wealth of knowledge, creativity,
and entrepreneurial wisdom, helping us all better navigate our journeys
(02:53):
in this business. Let's find out how he has achieved
so much.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
Let's go today.
Speaker 5 (03:06):
We have been Steve Squeally, he cooks some beats. This
and is grill and Father's Day that we just listened
to a whole bunch of stuff that you haven't heard
that just makes you sound very cool and just about
your awesome career. So without you even knowing what we said,
(03:26):
just you know, congratulations on a successful career. Half of
it we made up. And then the stuff the other stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
You met the Pope. That's amazing.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
Yeah, I'd like to start with your early beginnings, like
let's begin with your earliest memory of falling in love
with music and what inspired you to pursue pursue this career.
Speaker 6 (03:55):
Yeah, I mean, great question. I'm glad you started at
the very beginning. That obviously different answers as to where
I got teach path. But the long story is short,
as I guess needs to be. Is.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
You know, I grew up in a in a very
musical family.
Speaker 6 (04:09):
My grandfather was a jazz sax player from like the
Big Band era, and grew.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Up listening to him plays sas.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
And my father a huge rock and roll fan, beatles
the whole you know, British Invasion rock and roll, and
so I grew up with him having a deep, deep
love of music and even recorded music. You know. He
had a quadraphonic system that I only mentioned because number
one they no longer exists, and number two he you know,
(04:39):
he was an audio file and so my mom was
a night teacher, and his way of babysitting us was
to throw records on the quadraphonic system and run my
sister and I ragged from dancing until we passed out.
That was his his babysitting technique. But so that did
two things that put us to sleep easily, and I
h subconsciously, and then really time kind of got this
(05:01):
amazing education of recorded music, you know, And he played
guitar in high school himself and was in a few
little bands and things like that. So I got into
instruments pretty early too, first with piano, and played piano,
but suffered through it because I don't learn classically, and
(05:21):
I was taught classically, so you can imagine the friction there.
And so but I had a really good ear, and
so I would do all these classical piano lessons and
kind of stuffer through them, but then go just noodle
and have fun. And especially with guitar, you know, I
took up guitar around the age of nine, and same thing.
Had kind of classical lessons and would suffer through those,
(05:42):
but then on my own would just learn to play
with my favorite records and so developed my ear just
by jamming along. It was about in high school. Then
at that point I had stopped taking all lessons because
it just school was never really my thing, which is
funny because now I'm an educator.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
We'll get to that later.
Speaker 6 (06:00):
I got in, you know, in high school, you know,
jammed a little bit with some people, but never did
the band thing. I didn't have any practice discipline, you know,
I didn't My brain wasn't wired that way at that time.
So I would just jammed my favorite records and you know,
new new enough chords. If I had to pick up
a guitar at a party, I could, but didn't really.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Love everybody that everyone loves that guy who picks up
like a tire at a party.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
And plays one song and it's like, all right, don't
keep going.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
First course of Wonderwall.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (06:34):
So my my high school had a radio program and
and you know, my dad knew this guy who owned
a music store, and so I began renting recording equipment
and got really into by myself in my parents' basement
learning to record. And it wasn't you know, you know,
telling a story now. It wasn't like ooh, I'm going
to go record. It was just another way to dabble
(06:55):
with music and audio. And at that time MIDI was
kind of an infant. And see, you know, in the
early nineties, I dated myself just then, so was kind
of fiddling with MIDI and programming the drum machines of
the of the day and recording on my four track,
which I still actually have city right over there, the
original one. I still run stuff through it. We can
(07:18):
maybe talk about that later if it's pertinent.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
And so got into the technical side.
Speaker 6 (07:22):
And so in college I actually got a business degree.
You know, I was never you know, in like I said,
in the kind of performing music arena. So just by
default and by the urging of my mother, got a
business degree, which was which was really good advice for
later later in life. And so during college I would
(07:43):
be doing all the business stuff and in school, but
then was like on the radio. I had a radio
show in college and had my four track tape machine
and would record anyone that would let me record them.
And I also recorded a ton of live concerts.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
You know.
Speaker 6 (07:58):
I had a phase as as a Deadhead where I
traveled and toured and recorded The Grateful Dead.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
With a pretty cool little setup on that tape.
Speaker 6 (08:08):
So I was just kind of by that point in
college had become a real true kind.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Of audio nerd.
Speaker 6 (08:14):
And then after college, I did a stint working in Orlando,
Florida in the mid nineties, and at that time electronic
music had really it was kind of like the British
vasion of electronic music. And then the mid nineties, some
DJs in Orlando brought over these really big DJs that
were big in Europe and this was still, of course
(08:35):
underground here in the United States. And so while I
was in Orlando, I got exposed to the electronic music scene.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Is that why you moved there to Orlando?
Speaker 7 (08:43):
No.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
I got a job for Walt Disney World actually during college.
I worked there for two years, partly as a semester
of college, kind of a work study thing, and then
I just stayed on and kept working there. So I
did a gap year before I knew that even was
a thing.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
What were you doing for them? I worked at Epcot.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
I was it was called the Ambassador program, and so
Epcot has all the countries, you know, and they bring
all the employees from those actual countries so you can
experience the culture. And so I was an American ambassador,
which meant we helped all the foreign employees, you know,
navigate life in America and we were just kind of
their their friends and helped them. And also we did,
(09:26):
you know, customer service things like we would walk dignitaries
around the park and have random jobs and customer service,
and so there was an educational component around how the
business of Disney was ran, but mainly it was just
a college kid working at Disney, you know, cheap labor
for them, great experience for me.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
And it really kind of did change the.
Speaker 6 (09:46):
Trajectory of my life, to be perfectly honest, because I
grew up in Ohio and that got me out of
Ohio and so that was what took me there.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
So this note I have as dressed up as Donald Duck.
That's not true.
Speaker 6 (10:00):
That's right, that's right. However, out I was Prince Charming
in a parade.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
That is true.
Speaker 5 (10:06):
Though one time, you're always so kind. I would say,
you're doing that all the time, friends, But I didn't
mean to cut you off from the DJ stuff. But
that is interesting what brought you down there?
Speaker 6 (10:17):
And yeah, so you know at that time, you know,
in Europe in the mid nineties, DJs were rock stars.
DJs were the new rock stars, and electronic music was
played on the radio. This was all, you know, a
decade pretty much before that happened in the United States.
And so I fell in love with electronic music because
these producers were doing everything, they were programming everything, writing everything.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
It was all in the computers.
Speaker 6 (10:41):
It was all with computer and audio nerdery, and I
just loved it, and I you know, and I enjoyed
the kind of cutting edge sounds that were happening electronic music.
So that was when I really got into electronic music.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
And so.
Speaker 6 (10:55):
The rest of my way through college, you know, was
djaying a lot and starting to learn how to produce
electronic music. Kind of started to self teach myself that.
And then after I got a business degree, I went
to the School of Audio Engineering SAE Institute down in Miami,
and I was the first graduating class because we moved.
(11:17):
By that point, my now wife and then girlfriend moved
down to Miami and she continued studying, and I just
I had random odd jobs in the audio industry, which
I think is pertinent to this conversation because I always
was trying to find any way to do anything related
to music, and at that point, I worked at record shops.
I worked, I had a stint constructing, and by constructing,
(11:38):
I mean assembling home theater speakers, you know, and doing
home theater installations, all while I was dejaying and trying
to learn music production. So I went to SAA Institute
got an engineering degree, which took about a year and
a half and then out of there was placed with
(11:59):
Lauren Hill for six months on one of her recording projects.
That was like my first like just graduated as an
engineer to go work with Lauren Hill, which was a
mind blowing experience.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
She's totally incredible.
Speaker 6 (12:12):
So I did that for six months, and then after
that got hired by the Hit Factory criteria in Miami
recording studio and this was two thousand and two, and
became a staff engineer there.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
And at the same time was I had these parallel
kind of worlds where I was at.
Speaker 6 (12:30):
SA learning you know, audio engineering, working with Lauren Hill,
getting at the Hit Factory, but still producing electronic music
at home.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
So I was.
Speaker 6 (12:38):
I was by that point, you know, making my own music.
I had signed a couple record deals with some electronic labels,
had my first few releases, then got invited separately.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Well not not invited, I should say.
Speaker 6 (12:49):
I a friend of mine from New York City said, Hey,
I got this friend who has a project that he
needs mixed, and he just moved to Florida.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
He knows nobody.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
Can you meet him and maybe help him his project?
And so I said sure. So, you know, I had
a home studio at that point. This is still you know,
early two thousands.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
So I had a.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Thirty two channel task cam, analog board and fresh out
of engineering school, you know, and this was one of
my first you know, besides all the big studio stuff
I was doing, you know, as my quote unquote day job.
I was at home and met this guy, Albert Cabrera,
and he's like, hey, I've got this project called Lee Cabrera.
We've got this first record. I want to mix it
(13:30):
with you. I want to mix it, so can you
help me? So we mixed it on my board, and
that song, Lee Cabret Shake it was the name of
the song, became like a absolute international smash and electronic
dance music and it just to this day it's one
of those seminal records that I was fortunate enough to touch.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
And an engineer, so I engineered.
Speaker 6 (13:50):
All those all those guys records, and you know, he
didn't pay me for that gig. He bought me Logic Pro,
which back then was like version three, and he's like
it was still when you know, Logic was pretty expect
and something.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
He's like, well, I won't pay you for this, but
I'll just buy Logic because I did the whole thing
in logic, so you need it anyway.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
So that introduced me to logic, and so so.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
That was great.
Speaker 6 (14:08):
I now had this kind of engineering kickoff of a career,
if you will, from that one project with these guys
that now were you know, very successful making tons of music.
Speaker 5 (14:19):
What was that learning curve like? Because you started out
by saying when you were playing classical music, but you
didn't learn classically, so you had this different way of
absorbing knowledge. So now you're going to become an engineer
or going to school for that, but you're also looking
at contracts now for record labels. How are you navigating
(14:43):
those fields at that time?
Speaker 6 (14:46):
At that time, I just kind of said yes to everything.
And you know, I in hindsight, there was part, you know,
sure willpower a lot of obviously hard work, some naivete
obviously mixed into that pot. I just you know, had,
(15:08):
you know, from very early on, you know, and again
in hindsight looking back, you know, I just had several
irons in the fire. And I think you know, even
now you know, sitting here saying that, I mean even today,
you know, I think for me personally, that has been
what has allowed me to do music production and engineering
and music creation full time for you know, over over
(15:31):
twenty years. Now is I think the you know, I
love this word entrepreneurship. You know, it's entrepreneurship, you know,
from a creative mindset. And back then I would have
never said these things like, oh, just a lot of
irons in the fire and be entrepreneurial. I just I
was doing that without really knowing. I was just kind
of saying yes and trying to put myself in places
(15:51):
that would maybe give me an opportunity. So just kind
of wrap up the the about me story, I guess.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
You know.
Speaker 6 (15:59):
So at that time, you know again, was at my
home studio, was doing a lot of electronic music and
producing it, and and was then working at the Hit
Factory as a staff engineer there. And you know, this
was you know, I would that was you know, I
was an employee as an engineer and and you know,
started off as an assistant engineer, which is basically a runner,
(16:21):
you know, like go get lunch and sweep up this
mess and make the fruit bowl and make the flowers
look pretty and all the all that kind of thing,
which was an amazing experience because you know, yeah, in
those days, and especially a studio like that, it was
very humbling to come in and you know, I, you know,
everyone comes in and they're like, yeah, I have an
(16:41):
audio engineering degree, and here's all the here's all the
consoles I know how to use, and here's all the gear,
and they're like, great, go make coffee.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
You know. It was kind of that kind of you.
Speaker 5 (16:49):
Have to work on your stamina for that at first,
where you're like out of breath a lot, and you're
like this is too much. And then maybe second week
you're like, no problem, coffee and like, oh, how did
I get it back so fast?
Speaker 6 (17:00):
No, it was nine or ten months of constant questioning,
like wow, is this the right choice? Honestly because you
know the engine the engineers, you know that there's not
many of them, and when you get that job, you
know there's not a there's not a high turnover, you know.
And so I was I again, it was just naivete
(17:25):
or stubbornness or whatever it is. I just kept going
and and you know, and I did, you know, I
did keep my eye on the prize, I guess, for
lack of a better word, and I knew if I
stuck it out that maybe an opportunity would.
Speaker 4 (17:38):
Come, and and then it eventually did.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
And what was that the opportunity. This is when it
gets good, Chris, This is.
Speaker 6 (17:46):
When it gets So by this point, we're now close
to a year of making fruit baskets and flowers and
coffee and cleaning up messes of very famous people. Then
I at home, by this point had started my electronic
music production had then transferred. I met a person he
(18:09):
and I collaborated. So now I was doing remixes for
a lot of major labels, for a lot of you know,
high profile artists, doing electronic remixes, which for me was
a dream because it married all worlds. It married commercial music.
I love commercial music. It married production, the technical and
my you know, my early dream of music, which was
(18:31):
to create, to write, to record, you know, and and
all these things. And so I was at home in
my studio doing all these remixes and getting to a
point where I couldn't do both anymore full time, and
you know, I was taking long walks and trying to
figure out what the right move is. And so one
day I went in to the manager's office and and
(18:53):
I said, Trevor, I'm done. I can't you know, I
was still a general assistant, so I was still kind
of arboy. I said, I can't do this anymore, you know, unfortunately,
and he looked at me and he's like, you know,
are you sure? Because he had a way of kind
of wording things that had you questioning something. And at
that point I kind of had this fear wave roll
(19:13):
over me, like I had stuck it out this long,
you know, And I said, yeah, you know, I'm sure.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
And the next day he called me and he's like,
do you want to engineer?
Speaker 6 (19:24):
Ah, which which there was a need there for that.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
It was it was whatever it.
Speaker 6 (19:31):
Is, divine intervention or whatever stars aligning it is. And
so I shifted then from kind of being full time
to then being, you know, a staff engineer, and then
you're kind of on call all the time.
Speaker 5 (19:44):
But what's awesome about that story is the wave of
fear that came over you and even the way you
tell the story. I'm thinking you're gonna say, and I
stuck it up for three more months, but no, you
followed your gut. You knew what you wanted not only
out of your career but a life.
Speaker 6 (20:01):
Yeah, and at the time, I think, you know again,
you know, my, my, my, my brain now looks back
and says, you know, if you have to choose, and
you know back then I didn't. Back then it was
like I'm doing all this work. I want to be
a producer and an engineer and a writer and a creator,
(20:22):
and that's over here.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
Yes I did.
Speaker 6 (20:26):
I do want to be an engineer, you know, for
for artists too. But it you know, it did win out, honestly,
and it and it worked out because you know, I
got lucky, to be honest with you, because you know,
the next day there was a need and I was
the phone call.
Speaker 4 (20:43):
So from that point on, I was now, you know, engineering.
Speaker 6 (20:48):
There they were you know, you're on call as an engineer.
So you know, you get a phone call, you're working
with so and so. Today you're working so and so.
That could last a single session, a single day, a week,
a month, you know, various projects. And then at home
still was doing all the remixing and production, which by
at that point was starting to branch out into not
just electronic music, but singer songwriters, other bands, and so
(21:11):
you know, I did those kind of parallel worlds for about.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
The next you know, eight years. Wow. Down in Miami.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
One thing that comes up a lot with interviews about
how people kind of find success is that it sometimes
can be kind of in hindsight, can be narrowed down
to just a couple moments, and it feels like that
that moment that you decided you instinctively knew that it
was time to make a change, and the sweat that
(21:39):
came out of you in the moment of making that
change and how scary that can be, might be one
of those moments where it was like, if you hadn't
done that, that the rest of this would never have happened, right,
that butterfly effect of it, because you wouldn't have shown
him maybe that you were ready to do that next thing,
or made yourself realize that you were truly ready for
(22:00):
that next thing.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
It's true, and you know, I think I think you
know doubt and questioning and certainly a level of fear
in this field, you know, but a lot of times
in life, you know, it's part and parcel with these
hard decisions, and sometimes the hard decisions are well thought out.
You know, Now that I'm older, I have ways of
working through these types of decisions. You know, Back then
(22:22):
I was young and just just was, you know, just
trying to work as hard as I could. But yeah,
I think I innately did know that that's the path
that I wanted to go down, you know, and and
and you know, who knows what would have turned out
if I never got the phone call. I mean a
lot would have been different, obviously, but you know, but yeah,
(22:42):
I remember making the decision, which was not easy, and
I remember being in the office and hearing are you
sure with this look like? And my interpretation of that
question was are you sure because you're like this close?
And what I was reading into it was like, are
you sure because if you you know, all the all
the fear stuff, and you know, and I was sure,
(23:05):
you know, heart beating, scared as hell, all the things.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
But for for.
Speaker 6 (23:10):
For reasons I can now kind of fill in the blank,
I just stuck to it, you know, but it was
it was it was not easy.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
And maybe he needed someone to make those hard decisions
to say you are sure, because next you're moving on
to work with people like Madonna, timbaland Maria Carry and
someone who's unsure of what they want on of their
future is someone that he doesn't want behind the board
for those situations.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
And that's a very good point, Dave. And that was
that whole year of getting caught.
Speaker 6 (23:43):
You know, I mean everybody's heard the runner like make
coffee and clean up the you know mess insert creative
messes here.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
You know, you're right and.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
It and the proving process then was not about necessarily
the engineering chops. What is important is going and learning engineering,
going and doing a lot of the things in a
creative field. Is you know a lot of people are
doing that. That's not the differentiator. What's the differentiator. Differentiator
is is you know your personality And in this case,
(24:16):
what's going to happen when I have profile client who's
impossible to please is barking at you to do things.
How are you going to handle that? And so this
whole trial by fire kind of break you down, build
you up thing, Dave, was exactly the point. Was exactly
the point because during that year, you know, it's wild
(24:39):
because sessions would start in the evening and we'd be
repainting the walls during the day because someone scuffed it up.
I mean, we were just constantly doing stuff. So you
paint the wall and it's the wrong color of paint,
so you got to do it again, Well, maybe it
wasn't the wrong color of paint. Maybe that was not
maybe that was part partly like Okay, that's not good enough,
I go do it again.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
And so the.
Speaker 6 (25:00):
People that are like, you know, having the reaction that
you would have when you've done it two or three
times are not the people that maybe they wanted that studio.
And so you know, I had an idea of that.
You know, to me, there's like this Iceberg type thing
where there's like, you know, the percentage you see above
the water and then below it is ninety percent of
everything else. That's kind of how I viewed it at
(25:21):
the time even then. And also as a marathon, you know,
I viewed it as a marathon and not a sprint,
you know, and I did sprint during times in my life,
but in this.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
Career, but trying to always look at it as you're
a runner.
Speaker 6 (25:33):
But if I did the if I did a marathon
pace though at the hit factory, they would have fired me,
you know, the second way it'd be a sprinter. So yeah,
but anyway, yeah, so that that I mean again, that
kind of taught me so much. And to back up
to Disney, I made all the mistakes as an employee.
Speaker 4 (25:53):
Or a young person who thought they were like, you.
Speaker 6 (25:57):
Know something right in the jobs I thought I wanted
to have a Disney and I saw my friends in
the program getting cooler jobs than me, and I was
kind of like, well, why aren't I getting the cool jobs?
Speaker 4 (26:08):
You know?
Speaker 6 (26:09):
That was looking back my learning process of how not
to do it, so fast forward to the Hit factory.
By then I had some wherewithal of like, Okay, it's
not the one that thinks they're great, it's the one
that just does the job, does it good, and like
doesn't have a bad attitude.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
That's so often the biggest part of being successful is
are you fun to work with?
Speaker 6 (26:34):
Right?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Like, despite all of the other things that are happening
around you and the pressures that are probably existing in
that situation, are you still fun to work with? One
other question I wanted to ask about, as you got
started and started finding yourself working with these incredible artists,
did you feel like as an educator maybe this would
be something that you can add to that. Did you
(26:55):
feel like you were well prepared for all of the
technical end of things that you had to do right
out of the gates with these opportunities because of your
education that you got from the university, or did you
feel like you had to learn those in the hard
knock style.
Speaker 4 (27:09):
That's a that's a really good question. It's both. For me,
it was both, you know.
Speaker 6 (27:14):
I well, back then, you know, to get into a
studio like the Hit Factory, they wouldn't look at you
unless you had a degree from full Sale or SAE.
So the piece of paper was necessary, you know. And
and and you can equate that to the business degree too. However,
you know, unfortunately in our in our world, you know,
(27:34):
the piece of paper will get you in the door.
But but but that's when you start learning really whatever
the piece of paper says, you know a little about,
you know. And so in the case of engineering, we
had practiced time as an as an as a general assistant. Yes,
you were doing all the errands and stuff, but you
(27:54):
got to as long as the studio was open, you
could go in there and do stuff.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
And you were encouraged.
Speaker 6 (28:00):
And so you did know every single thing on the
ninety six channel SSL and you knew every like like
the back of your hand, you know. And so so
it was the school of kind of hard knocks, of
hitting the you know, the rubber hitting the road. Same
thing with the business degree that that comes in later,
but I'll go ahead and kind of give give that away.
Now it's like in two thousand and four. So now
(28:21):
I'm you know, I'm doing all these remixes. I'm working
at the Hit Factory, and I worked on Nelly Fortado's
man Eater and it was doing phenomenally well. And I'm
working in logic and a mentor engineer of mine that
I was working with at the Hit Factory, his name
is Jimmy Douglas. You know, he knew some people at Apple,
(28:44):
and somehow the word got around that, you know, I
had I work in logic and I had worked on
that song, and so Apple reached out to me and said,
you know, did you do any of this stuff in logic?
And I said, yeah, you know, I did.
Speaker 4 (28:58):
And so.
Speaker 6 (29:00):
At that point, I had also been invited back by
SAE to give a lecture to the current class of
like audio you know, aspiring engineers, and I gave a
lecture about my story but also about you know, music production,
and I loved it so much. I had so much fun,
and you know, the feedback was was really good. That
I started to do more lecturing at I SAE and
(29:20):
that got me into education, and then you know, back
to Apple. They they invited me, you know, to nam
one year to give a demonstration on making music and
logic pro using now the Fortado's man eater and it
was a ton of fun and and and kind of
got a front row seat with the Apple team and
got to know them, and that was an amazing experience.
(29:41):
But that's kind of the landing of the airplane of
like how I got into education was through that because
after all these events that I would do, everyone would
come up and say, you know, where can I learn more?
Speaker 4 (29:51):
Can I come hang out? And this? Can I just
where do I learn more?
Speaker 6 (29:54):
And that was the birth of fader Pro, which is
the online education company that I founded teaching music production.
So that's kind of the full circle of you know,
my story in terms of engineer and then and then
starting vader Pro and getting into education.
Speaker 5 (30:20):
Is price is processes like prevacy, I just don't think processes.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
I agree sounds right.
Speaker 4 (30:27):
I liked it.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
I was impressed less as it was nice having Vince
I had. I was fortunate enough to work with him
on a project for a Ben Kueller song a few
years ago, and I wasn't very good at it, and
he was very patient and kind with me the entire time.
Speaker 4 (30:43):
So it was nice to see him again.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
And I liked the connection that he was previously teaching
at the University Calady of Denver. It's really cool that
it never came across We never crossed paths while there,
but I'm sure those students got a lot out of
him being there when he was there.
Speaker 5 (30:58):
So if two musicians teach at a cool but they
don't see each other, are they really teaching?
Speaker 2 (31:04):
I thought they're gonna say this one actually make a sound.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
That's where I was going with it.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Well, will never know because they won't release it anyway.
But to talk about his story a little bit.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Really enjoy interviewing people like Vince because he comes from
this place of this organic desire to be an artist,
and so much of how we get to where we
end up, and when we start talking about our journey,
so many of the things that we've done to get
there have been sort of these decisions in the moment,
(31:37):
you're not thinking long term. When certain opportunities come up,
you just know that that opportunity feels right you know,
and that was sort of a theme in his story,
was making decisions based on how it felt and his
instincts and how he knew that it was instinctively going
to be a good choice to say yes to some
of these things. And it was a lot of stuff
that he had to say no to, but pretty much
in those early years, as we'll talk about, it was
(31:59):
all saying yes. And it's so common in the stories
of people that we interview that in the early years
it's so critical to just keep saying yes and being
that yes person, you know.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
Well, he instilled that in himself, even having difficulty learning
instruments and in school at the beginning. You think a
musician who you know, is like okay at playing music
at first would be like I'm giving up. And that
was more than just one instrument, and he just kept
pushing and getting better and followed that dream to be
(32:30):
a musician. If it wasn't from an educational standpoint of
being taught from a teacher, he was going to do
it somehow, learnt it by year.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
And it really does seem to be another pattern that
we've seen that you know, the instrument doesn't make the artist, right,
I mean would Jimi Hendricks have still been a great
artist without the electric guitar.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yes, he would have.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Expressed it differently, and maybe it would have had to
be received differently. You know, it's sort of their community,
it's his language. And sometimes when we're trying to expand
our vocabulary and going with this metaphor, we're not as
good at learning certain things as others. And that can't
be what stops you. If you're an artist inside, you
(33:14):
just have to figure out how to let it out.
And he really did that, and he's got a common
story there where I think a lot of people, especially artists,
they tend to struggle in school. They tend to struggle
with education. I myself, I experienced plenty of that too,
and I still wonder if I'm dyslexic.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I actually don't.
Speaker 2 (33:28):
Know, and I mean there's signs for sure, But again
it's you use it if you can. You use all
of those characteristics in who you are to help you
continue pushing forward and being unique and having something to offer,
and then also being empathetic to others and understanding that
everyone struggles.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
Yeah, and that doesn't mean failure. The struggle doesn't mean failure.
And I think when you play by feel, it can
reveal a better route for you in your future. And
it definitely did that him totally.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
And you might have said moving to Florida might have
been a failure. I just kidding to Oliver Florida listeners.
I just kidding.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I just like to give Florida a hard time. But
I do like Disney World, so my kids love it.
So I mean, I do think that there's so much
about moving to a new place that pushes you to
keep focus on why you moved there. You know, it
sort of raises your expectations for don't waste the time
because you know it's a sort of a limited situation.
Speaker 5 (34:26):
Yeah, I know that first sand for sure, there you go.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yeah, and getting into the electronic music scene. I loved
how he said he was one of the first to
graduate with that in that program, and I think that
he's paved away in a lot of ways like that.
That program has probably only grown.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
He mentioned Full Sale my senior year of high school.
Full Sale College was then called Rock and Roll University,
and for ninety nine dollars at Rolling Metals High School
you could sign up. They would put you on a
plane for a day. You would land in the morning
and go to full salesity and see everything they had
to offer, and then you'd fly back that evening. It
(35:04):
was like a field trip for seniors to see if
you wanted to do this for future. But at the
time you see rock and Roll University and you're like, well,
it's come so far since then. It's way more than
just just a music university.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yeah, really has grown. And how great to have found
those resources. As he said, a lot of these opportunities
without that degree would they wouldn't be an option because
he couldn't have gotten that first job. Even though he
was an errand boy. The job still required having those
that piece of paper. Even though, as he said, you
really don't learn, you know, you start doing what it is,
(35:40):
you start learning what it is you thought you were
learning in college when you start doing the job, and
you only got the job because of that piece of
paper of trying to learn what you're supposed to do
in college. And that's unique to that to that aspect
of music industry.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
I think when we also talk about diversifying your income,
that's that's all he did, was from selling records and
shops to everyday odd job set fed his audio obsession,
made a point to stay near sound no matter what
from any aspects. So it's like, what did he say,
Proximity to your passion matters?
Speaker 4 (36:11):
I thought that was great advice.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
The odd jobs thing to me, too, also stands out
because I think we hear this a lot, and I
certainly think this is true with myself, that it was
those odd jobs that taught me a lot about the
character and of who I am and strengths that maybe
music doesn't bring out directly by being a musician. When
I had a sales job, I learned a lot about
(36:32):
the fact that I'm good at sales, and I actually
think that's a common thing as artists go. We're good
at sales, and I think that's because we understand people.
We understand the inner workings of how we feel and
think and how that influence is our decision making. And
for that reason, I think we're good salespeople. But I
don't think I would have learned that if I didn't
have if I was only doing music. You know, like
(36:54):
it's those odd jobs, learning how to do things, fix things,
learning how to say yes when you have to help
someone else, and humbling your ego perhaps and all of
that builds the character of you the artist when you're
on stage and helps you look back and realize it's
been a long journey getting to where it is that
(37:15):
you wanted to go.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
And also how to create demand for your presence, your product,
your music. I think that helps out a lot too.
If you're trying to sell something, you have to have
that create that demand for your audience.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yeah, we used sales all the time for sure, especially
as performers. I mean the fact that he didn't even
put Lauren Hill in his bio.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
Yeah, man, amazing.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
And did you see the parallel with sides too?
Speaker 3 (37:43):
With logic pro totally totally.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
And that makes it sound like we're kind of bias
here because that's pretty much all we use it on
campus too, But I truthfully think you need to learn
multiple ones, and it's not that once you've learned one,
the others really do feel a lot easier. And that's
probably true with language, you know, too. Yeah, it's certainly's
true with instruments. Like we said earlier, like when you
start to learn one instrument, the other instruments start to
become easier. There's a less of a learning curve, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
And with logic pro though he's also given that as
a gift, you know what, She then made that gift
work for him, so it wasn't even the monetary thing
that he got in return. So it's the you know,
the value doesn't always come in dollars, comes in tools,
knowledge for your future potential. And then because he became
a master at that, again, Apple came calling for him.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Just like sides, what about the scary choices? What about
making looking back? You know, as we talked about on there,
I really do think we could all do this. It's
actually probably good exercise to try to simplify how you
are to where you are right now by like three
to four moments in life, you know, And I know
(38:53):
that might feel like oversimplification, but I think sometimes when
you allow that vision of that being reality of how
you've just made a couple of things that made such
huge impacts over the long haul afterwards, I'd like to
think that we all could do that, and it's good
for us because we see simplification to our journey. I mean,
people do it on their bio all the time, right
(39:14):
I wanted you know, I grew up playing music and
then I got to open up for Taylor Swift and
now you know I'm releasing an album and you're like, Okay,
there's a lot in there, but you just simplified it
to like four things. And his scary moment of saying
yes or no, of quitting, his scary moment of quitting.
(39:36):
I think it's one of those I think that that's
when you just sort of feel that I have a
recognition of one of those moments when we started to
do this podcast, when I just felt that urge, there's
like an overwhelming urge in me. While I was driving
my car home from teaching an in house lesson and
I really don't do those anymore because I don't really
have the time and my schedule for them. And at
that moment, I was thinking, I'm ready for the next thing.
(39:59):
Like I remember feeling like I'm really ready to move
forward to do this next big opportunity. I didn't know
what it was, but you and I had been talking
and I remember just getting home and being like, I
know what I need to do.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
This needs to get pushed forward.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
And I think that that moment in the car, even
though that moment wasn't saying yes or no to anybody,
it was just sort of being like I felt overwhelmingly ready,
you know what I mean, And at that moment is
one of those moments for me, because I think everything
changed after that.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
You've also continued to do that, I mean month in
and month out for now three years. So your gut
was telling you something, just like his gut was saying like, hey,
I can only get coffee and paint this wall so
many times.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Right right, Well, and as you go, your income streams changed.
And I liked how he explained his revenue streams because
he kind of took us through the journey of how
one takes over and then the another one kind of
takes over, and then you might go back, and then
you might be both. And you're always kind of looking
(41:07):
ahead to see what it is that might be coming
as the next big one. And it really does evolve
that way in this industry. And that's a weird thing
because you can have a music business and still be
making money and your revenue's changing.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
It's a very strange thing.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
If you sell a product in a retail story, that's
always where you're going to make your revenues. How much
of that product, and it might change what product it is,
but you're always selling product here, it can be so
different how you're ending up generating your income still being
an artist at the center.
Speaker 5 (41:38):
Having that diversity, though, allows you to be a little
bit more choosy at what you take as well when
it comes to even like what you said, you were
at that point, don doing what you were doing driving
in your car, saying I need to do something different,
and having multiple revenue streams like that allows you to
follow your passions in different ways. If you didn't have
that and you're only stuck with one pass on your journey.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
Yeah, the other funny parallel that came out of his
story to Sides was that using logic attracted Apple. So
it was another example where he sort of put himself
out there and then got their attention by being so
useful and so valuable in that skill set. And I
(42:24):
think that's really kind of funny that we've now seen
that twice. If there's something that you really want to
attract out there, you need to just keep putting out
how valuable and becoming so valuable at that thing that
they're going to notice you that. This is sort of
the reoccurring theme here, And he.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
Still creates music every day all the time, and so
many times you hear you know, just sometimes with musicians
more than not that you know they don't do so
they teach, you know, Yeah, that's not the case. You
can love giving back to your community and like, you know,
turning back like he does and puts his hand out
(43:03):
and says, come along, let me show you a different
way of doing it. So totally I love that about him.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
Well, and the other thing that he highlights there is
that he loves teaching. That The other problem with that
statement of like those who can't do teach is that
most people that can't do still doesn't make them a
good teacher.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
Yeah, you really aren't.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
It's a hard thing to do to be a good teacher.
And in the bit of a way it has to
do with sales. In my mind, it has to do
with presenting things in a way that it appeals to people,
because you have to be entertaining to be a teacher,
to be a good teacher.
Speaker 5 (43:35):
And in so many different ways, because everybody learns differently.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yes, And that's the other aspect of when you struggle
in school, you learn how you learn. That's that's really
what I got out of college mostly was learning how
to learn how I learn. And when you become a
good teacher, I think you have the understanding that everyone's
learning differently, and you have the accessibility to allow them
to learn the way they learn. It's a much easier
process for everyone if they have the opportunity to learn
(44:00):
the way that they learned best. And so he's obviously
a very good teacher, and it's such a huge part
of that is because of his passion to help others.
Speaker 5 (44:09):
I learned when a university has a twelve percent freshman
dropout rate, don't go to that school.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
I learned there.
Speaker 3 (44:19):
Is that you're saying that was your experience in college?
Speaker 5 (44:21):
Oh yeah, SIU, Oh my god. I had the best year,
the best fun year of my college experience, knowing that
only twelve percent of freshman graduate from that school. I
got kicked out the first semester. I thought to stay
there the second semester, I did it, and then I
failed out second semester, which I mean, I wouldn't have
done it any other way because I ended up at
(44:42):
the Paul.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
But you know, it was a hard learning ger well.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
And that's the other aspect of this. These big moments,
these big moments they might not always be positive in
the moment. Right, these big things that you look back
on that might define your how you got to where
you are, can off to be bad things, or in
the moment, they can feel like bad things, But in
the long run, you'll see that clear.
Speaker 3 (45:07):
So we talked that.
Speaker 2 (45:08):
We've talked about that a few times, and I just
think it's worth bringing up again because I know everyone's
struggling in some ways. You know, everyone's got different things
they're dealing with. Those things can feel so heavy and
they can feel like the problem. And sometimes if we
allow ourselves to look at them and be like, how
can this actually lead me towards a good thing? Like
how what is this teaching me? You know, like what
(45:28):
is this preparing me for? It's really important that we
just keep that on our mind when we're dealing with
this stuff.
Speaker 5 (45:34):
And talk about it with your musician friends. I had
a great time in Chicago on Tuesday talking to a
friend that I was just bringing her through some of
the things that I was going through with branding and
things that I want to do moving forward. And she
works with musicians all day and she's like, this is
this is hear this all the time, and it felt good.
(45:55):
She's like, if you're not talking about this stuff, if
you're not going through this, you're not growing. So I
definitely encourage people that if they're having those hard times
to you know, feel free to talk about it with
other musicians, because I think more often than not they'll.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Agree with you or at least feel for you.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
Right, And that's the community aspect the show on its
head again. Well, from that whole story, I think the
best thing that we can offer you as an action
step is to keep it real simple. I would spend
ten minutes looking at your current situation identify if there
might be that scary moment of doing the right thing
to push your career forward. Maybe that opportunity to do
(46:34):
that big moment of your life that changes the trajectory
just by making a certain decision might be sitting in
front of you right now. It might be something that's
waiting for you to be ready, and this might be
the opportunity to let yourself figure out what that might be.
We know that your time is valuable. We appreciate you
spending this time with us and being a part of
this community. Is there hope that you feel that sense
(46:54):
of community here at musicians tip jar and help spread
the word to make us all stronger. If you'd like
to get a hold of us or Vince, what's the
best way to do that.
Speaker 5 (47:04):
You can get a hold of us at musicians tip
jar at gmail and musicians tipjar dot com, where you
can check out all the resources and discounts we have
collected just for you. Check out all our episodes now
on YouTube channel as well. If you find this information useful,
please rate and subscribe to the podcast and slam that
like button so we can help keep you up on
the financial side of your music business. Definitely go to
faderpro dot com and look up Vince's name and you
(47:26):
could find all his resources and all his socials there
as well, and I'll put it in our liner notes.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
As always, thank you for joining us, and remember there
is already enough for everyone, You just need to know
how to get it. Until next time on behalf of
Dave Tamkin and myself Chris Webb, Stay happy, healthy and wealthy.
So often the key to continuing towards our music goals
is not just following the signal, but keeping the right
signal to noise ratio.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
This these musicians tit Jar.
Speaker 7 (48:00):
Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or
professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, business, or
financial professional for individualized advice. Individual results and are guaranteed,
and all discussed strategies have the potential for profit or loss.
The hosts are operating on behalf of Musician's tip Jar
LLC exclusively
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