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Erik - Audio Engineer
32 Plays4 days ago
From an early age Erik loved music. Metal music was what his mind dwelled on most often. He played in bands, consumed music and dove head first into his passion of recording, mixing and editing music. He was in his lane when creating, either by himself or with others. Fast forward 15 years and he owns his own company mixing, editing and helping artists realize their dreams. He also does audio book and podcast editing and recordings. We discuss so many interesting topics in this interview so if you love music and recording, this is a can't miss. We discuss the road to learning, internships, mentors, the pros and cons of AI music, the creative process, how to be a creative person but also handle the administrative side of running your own company and so much more. If you think Erik may be a good fit for your next project, don't hesitate to reach out to him at his website found HERE. (www.vikingguitar.com). Thanks Erik!
If you liked this episode and would like to support the show, you can do so HERE. Thanks!
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Transcript
Introduction to Eric and His Background
00:00:01
The Jobs Podcast
Hey folks, you're listening to the jobs podcast and I am your host, Tim Hendricks. Today we have Eric with us. Eric is an audio engineer and he also owns Viking caar guitar, guitar productions.
00:00:12
The Jobs Podcast
He does mixing and mastering and audio. And I mean, the guy is a savant when it comes to quality sound and mixing. And I'm really glad we've got this cool profession on today.
Eric's Musical Journey and Influences
00:00:23
The Jobs Podcast
Eric, thanks for joining me.
00:00:24
Erik Peabody
Of course. you ah You were wonderful to invite me and even more generous to leave the word idiot out of Idiot Savant earlier, so I appreciate all of that.
00:00:33
The Jobs Podcast
Well, I try and build up my guests and make them feel good when they're done. so So let's start off like we always do. Give us a little bit of an origin story of where Eric was born and upbringing, early influences, and kind of how you first got into maybe this is going to be my career path.
00:00:49
Erik Peabody
Sure. um Well, i I grew up in the Bay Area, California, ah good old Santa Cruz where the Lost Boys was filmed and all that stuff.
00:00:56
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:00:57
Erik Peabody
So I you know grew up in in Surf City, USA, basically in the late 80s and 90s. And um in my teenage years, like many people do, I discovered the wonders of heavy metal and got way into that and started playing guitar.
00:01:11
Erik Peabody
And that kind of was the the real jumping off point for all of this. And i was in various bands and pursuing various musical projects. And somewhere around maybe 2001, 2002, wanted to start recording my own stuff.
00:01:29
Erik Peabody
and um You know, the the technology was rapidly evolving around that time, but and obviously isn't where it is today. So there was ah a few years of me kind of figuring out different processes. I was, you know, 17, 18 at the time, didn't have a ton of money to spend on this. So it's not like I could just go.
00:01:45
Erik Peabody
you know, do an internship somewhere or something.
00:01:47
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:01:47
Erik Peabody
And, you know, um so it was something I just kind of got more and more into. It started as a way for me to get down my musical ideas to more efficiently share them with people I was collaborating
Professional Work and Projects
00:01:59
Erik Peabody
with.
00:01:59
Erik Peabody
And then as the... the inevitable disillusion with ah trying to have a successful band ah continued to dawn on me.
00:02:10
Erik Peabody
um I started looking at it more from a standpoint of, well, why don't I just do this on my own and put out albums on my own?
00:02:10
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:02:16
Erik Peabody
And that's really where things went. I started learning how to do it and got better at it. And in the ah the community I was doing music in, other people started to like the sound of what I was doing and hire you know hired me to do their production.
00:02:33
Erik Peabody
And it just grew from there. And today I spend about half of my time doing mixing and or mastering for various hard rock and metal bands, particularly within this niche community of ah video game cover bands um and video game composers and stuff, which is something I've done for a long time.
00:02:49
The Jobs Podcast
Oh, sure.
00:02:54
Erik Peabody
And ah the other half is doing voiceover and narration. I, you know, just as a function of doing audio stuff, I somehow fell into that and ended up getting some traction with it. And there's a weekly horror fiction podcast I host and narrate for called Horror Hill.
00:03:11
Erik Peabody
And In addition to that, I have a few YouTube channels I do, a few other projects, finishing up an audiobook right now. um It's nice. So i I actually had to relocate out of California because the cost of living outpaced me, as has happened to a number of people out there.
00:03:25
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:03:28
Erik Peabody
um But I'm in Rochester, New York these days. um My wife and I are living in a wonderful little suburban area with our stupid cat, and I get to spend my whole day listening to heavy metal and reading horror stories, and it's kind of a dream, actually.
00:03:43
The Jobs Podcast
That's kind of a shift going from the West Coast to Rochester, New York. Was that a hard, I mean, it's a pretty different environment, I would think. is Was that a, you fell right into that or was that kind of a culture shock?
00:03:56
Erik Peabody
No one can leave the vast selection of amazing Mexican food in the Bay Area and and consider anything a smooth transition.
00:04:03
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah, I know.
00:04:06
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:06
Erik Peabody
um ia it's It's fine. it It took a bit of getting used to. you know i I managed to, I was very lucky living in Santa Cruz in a lot of ways because it's you know, one of the most temperate climates in the world. It has a lot of entertainment and all this other stuff and good food, as I mentioned.
00:04:23
Erik Peabody
And getting out here and having actual seasons and, you know, the impacts on life surrounding that, it it took a bit of getting used to. um And ah yeah actually I actually I'd moved to Pittsburgh for about a year to try that out. I had some friends there and Pittsburgh's a great place, but it wasn't a good fit for me.
00:04:41
Erik Peabody
And I moved up here. And ah little did I know on the front end that it was going to go how it did because I was planning on moving the last week of March
Learning and Skill Development
00:04:52
Erik Peabody
2020.
00:04:52
Erik Peabody
And there was some stuff going on in March of 2020. And twenty and but so got up here and immediately quarantine hit.
00:04:56
The Jobs Podcast
little bit. Yeah, a little bit.
00:05:02
Erik Peabody
And, you know, I feel that was the right thing, of course, but it turned into me being in the house up here in a new area without anyone I knew um except my you know, then girlfriend, now wife, um for about a year before anything started to normalize a bit.
00:05:18
Erik Peabody
So, you know, it's it's impossible for me to say if my experience was indicative of how it normally goes, but yeah it certainly was a transition.
00:05:25
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
00:05:28
The Jobs Podcast
When let's go back to when you were learning kind of how to do the mixing and what, what was your process? Were you just self-learning and you were on forums? The internet was around then you were maybe on some message boards or on YouTube and just kind of self-taught experimenting, failing and succeeding it over over and over again.
00:05:47
The Jobs Podcast
Or was there like an online program that you purchased or an online course or how did that all kind of transpire?
00:05:54
Erik Peabody
It was a lot of self-directed learning and um I had a few opportunities for some shadowing and stuff like that ah too. um It's interesting with audio in particular, ah there it's a field where it's very easy for people online to um claim to you know be experienced at it or have knowledge, like I'm doing right now, actually.
00:06:21
Erik Peabody
but And um the unfortunate thing is that due to the nature of audio, the fact that every listening experience is very subjective and it's determined by the equipment you're listening on and the environment you're listening in and all that stuff, it's very easy for bad information to proliferate.
00:06:42
Erik Peabody
And so I probably spent as much time you know, buying into BS and then slowly disproving it to myself over time as I did learning actual tangible good things.
00:06:56
Erik Peabody
um Something that was... Well, stepping back even a bit more, in about 2004, 2005, I um was recording some stuff of my own ah for the first time doing an album on my own. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I mean, I could get sound into my computer and that was that was the first hurdle and I was happy with that.
00:07:16
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:07:16
Erik Peabody
um But the the process I kind of jerry-rigged together was so cumbersome and such a nightmare that I finished the album and I was very happy with it and I didn't pick up my guitar for another two years.
00:07:27
Erik Peabody
um And then getting back into it, ah you know, the the technology surrounding home recording and home audio production had increased even more. And I had... but been listening to this one-man musical project called Metroid Metal, run by a wonderful fellow named Grant Henry.
00:07:45
Erik Peabody
And his stuff sounded amazing. And I remember thinking, he's doing this out of his home. Why can I not attain this? And ah Grant actually had a section up on his little you know community page about how he does his stuff. And it provided a you know detailed, but not exhaustive outline of what he does. And I kind of used that as my template to to get back into it and try to establish a better process for this. and um Grant and I have actually been friends since he plays in my live band when we perform. He lives out in Santa Cruz now, even though I'm on the East coast. And so, uh, it's, you know, there've been a lot of good friendships that came from this and that was as much of ah a learning tool as anything else.
00:08:30
Erik Peabody
Um, Another thing I fell into is there's a a monthly competition called Dwelling of Duels, and it's ah through this video game music ah community called The Shiz.
00:08:44
Erik Peabody
ah It grew up around, um it was the fan page for this band called The Mini Bosses, which were one of the progenitors of this thing. But the point is, every month there was a theme picked, whether it was you know Street Fighter games or you know action games or DOS games or whatever, and whoever wanted to would pick a song from within that you know parameter, record ah cover of it, do all their own stuff, and submit it anonymously.
00:09:08
Erik Peabody
And everyone that collaborated in this each month, plus everyone else in the community, would listen to these anonymous submissions and rank them and provide feedback. And, you know, the feedback provided there was just as useful or not useful as from any other source.
00:09:24
Erik Peabody
You kind of have to weigh what applies to you and what doesn't, especially since art is so, you know, I mean, it's artistic. There are there are very tangible things with how you want it to sound, but
00:09:30
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:09:35
Erik Peabody
how you want it to sound is what dictates where you're going with it. So, you know, there there was bad feedback I got. I don't mean like feedback that was negative about the stuff I did. Of course, there was that. I was still learning.
00:09:46
Erik Peabody
um But, you know, ah ah certain amount of feedback that I would receive from there that I would think about and try to apply and then dismiss as not being relevant. But there was a lot of good stuff.
00:09:57
Erik Peabody
ah There too. And since it was a monthly thing and it was fun and, you know, we were just a bunch of dudes in our 20s that were, you know, you had a free weekend. And if you didn't want to drink that weekend, you could crank out a song real easily, you know, back in the early mid 2000s.
00:10:13
Erik Peabody
It was kind of a regular source of self-improvement. And I also was lucky enough to fall in with a few um other more established composers. um Jesse Harlan, who's done the soundtrack for the Mafia games and um Star Wars, the Old Republic, a bunch of stuff like that. I ended up doing some assistant work for him that grew into a um a larger relationship and I got to shadow him and a a mixing engineer named Ronan Murphy as they were up in Studio D in Sausalito, California, doing the mix for the Mafia III soundtrack. And, you know, a few other situations like that that kind of helped me
00:10:53
Erik Peabody
you know, take what I had learned in what admittedly was really just kind of a ah amateur hobby space and apply it to something more professional and see how it held up there.
00:11:04
Erik Peabody
And it's just been a ah refining process since there, ah since that time, you know, spent a lot of time listening to other music in very specific and controlled ways to try and identify what what I like about it, what it is I want to be able to replicate, what I don't like and how to avoid it, all that stuff.
00:11:22
Erik Peabody
um And there have been various little training things from time to time. You know, you you find a guy that is known for good guitar stuff and then, you you know, you find an in an interview with him or a seminar he does about how he processes his guitars and, you know, just stuff like that.
00:11:36
Erik Peabody
But, yeah.
00:11:37
The Jobs Podcast
Do you see a lot of folks that, what you just mentioned right there, a guy that's good at guitars, do you find that most folks in your line of work niche down or niche down into, i do bass, that's my thing.
00:11:43
Erik Peabody
Mm-hmm.
00:11:52
The Jobs Podcast
I do percussion. I do vocals. I mean, do you usually find that you have to go to different specialists to create a finished product or what?
00:12:02
The Jobs Podcast
Are most folks going to be good at everything, but maybe they're just really into this one particular instrument or sound?
00:12:10
Erik Peabody
In my experience, um I think that anyone that's doing this with any sort of you know success as dictated by you know bringing in money by it um needs to have the foundation of you know, working broadband, doing a whole song or a whole album or different genres, all that stuff.
00:12:28
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:12:31
Erik Peabody
And as ah certain people spend more time in their particular career path and pursuing their interests with this, um it will sometimes grow from that into a a more niche or specialized, um you know, kind of role.
00:12:49
Erik Peabody
um I think that what I was referring to more was that, you know, um It's someone whose productions I like in general, and I see their, you know, if I happened to think like, oh, you know, this guy, Scott Elliott is great at producing death metal. And in particular, I really liked the relationship between how his rhythm guitars and the bass sounds.
00:13:10
The Jobs Podcast
ah
00:13:10
Erik Peabody
And then I will see that he's like, you know, puts up something on his page. Hey, I'm doing a ah clinic on how I process my guitars. And I'll think, wow, well, I like his stuff. And I particularly like how he does this thing with guitars. So let me go look at that.
00:13:24
Erik Peabody
um I think there, you know, back in the day, you would read stories about, ah you know, ah band like Def Leppard or someone that, you know, they track here and then for, you know, for the the bass or the drums or whatever, they want to go to this specific area to, you know, to do that there. And of course, it's some other country or something because they're just swimming in production money.
00:13:44
The Jobs Podcast
I know.
00:13:44
Erik Peabody
But yeah.
00:13:45
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:13:46
Erik Peabody
You know, that back in the day, I think had more to do with a a specific space being well known for imparting a certain acoustic characteristic to something. And that is still very much valid um these days. But the ability to record things direct or virtually, you know, using and an electronic drum kit, say, instead of tossing up a bunch of mics around a drum kit in a room that is designed to sound good and, you know, all that stuff.
00:14:14
Erik Peabody
So, you know, i think the need to go different places for special things isn't quite as ah present as it was back then.
Video Game Music and Cultural Shifts
00:14:24
Erik Peabody
um But it's just an entirely different landscape. i I will say this, if I'm having trouble with a particular thing, I have a kind of a network of people that I will go to for certain things, and I will pick who I ask based on the nature of the question.
00:14:42
Erik Peabody
um You know, sometimes I just get a guitar line where There's just some issue with it. And for some reason, i you know the tools at my disposal and the processes I've used in the past ah to effectively handle that just aren't cutting it. That just happens.
00:14:56
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:14:57
Erik Peabody
And so um in a situation like that, know can up i know i can hit up just for example, someone like Grant Henry again. And you know he does this stuff all the time and I can send him the file and be like, look, you know this is having this weird noise thing, you know or there's some screeching sound on the pick attack that I just can't get rid of. What do you think? And he might've encountered something like that before.
00:15:20
Erik Peabody
you know i might go to him or someone else because I know they've worked with um maybe the same client I'm currently working with and might have some further insight, stuff like that. I think I provided a very extensive answer to your question that didn't really answer the question.
00:15:34
The Jobs Podcast
No, no, it did.
00:15:35
Erik Peabody
So if you need to redirect me, just say the word.
00:15:38
The Jobs Podcast
No, no, it absolutely did. And I want to kind of take that a step further. What I'm noticing is you have a network of people. Do you find that your, I guess, your occupation, your community of audio engineers, do you get a lot of collaboration and people that there's no ego here? I'm i'm willing to help. i'm Man, tell me what you need and I'm glad to to provide my advice. Or do you find there's a lot of gatekeeping or this is my specialty and I don't want to share my knowledge.
00:16:10
Erik Peabody
um
00:16:12
The Jobs Podcast
Or is it a mixed bag?
00:16:14
Erik Peabody
I'd say it's a mixed bag, but only by definition. um
00:16:18
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:16:18
Erik Peabody
One of the nice things about working, you know, largely in this video game cover band sphere, and, you know, I hesitate to even say it like that because that's not...
00:16:29
Erik Peabody
where all my work comes from. It's where I got started and it's where I've developed most of my stronger relationships.
00:16:31
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:16:35
Erik Peabody
But like, you know, the people I'm talking about, you know, even though we were talking about Sonic the Hedgehog covers back in 2012, you know, one of the guys is the bassist for Trans-Siberian Orchestra now.
00:16:48
Erik Peabody
And, you know, um Grant did a bunch of the music for Steven Universe. And, you know, we've all kind of gone into other things. So, it Every time I say, oh yeah, this video game cover scene, i I don't want the listeners to be like, wait a minute, this guy has no experience in anything.
00:17:05
Erik Peabody
Anyway, um this sphere... of audio by and large is, um, in my experience has been more welcoming, has had less ego and narcissism and just in general has had a better sense of sharing in the excitement surrounding what we do than other scenes I've been in. And some of it has to do with the fact that it's, um, decentralized, you know, a lot of this stuff is online and, um,
00:17:36
Erik Peabody
Like, for example, the the five people in my band, I live in Rochester, Grants in you know the Bay Area, California. Our bassist and drummer are in North Carolina, and our third guitarist is in Pittsburgh.
00:17:50
Erik Peabody
So we clearly don't meet up for band practices regularly, and a lot of us will only see each other if we happen to be at a convention or something, you know?
00:17:58
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:17:58
Erik Peabody
um But the nice thing about that is you can you can kind of cherry pick who you want to work with. you know um Back in the day, if you know if I was doing this 30 years earlier than I had, I would have been limited to the people that were available locally within driving distance and the studios and stuff that were available there. and There's nothing wrong with that, but once you expand that pool from your local area to the United States or to every country that speaks you know speaks English that I can effectively interact with, you have a ah much larger pool of people to pick from.
00:18:29
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:18:32
Erik Peabody
um And with the video game thing too, I think that, you know, we're, I'm 41 right now. And I think that, you know, the people that were getting started with this when it was still young, a lot of them were coming from the background of, you know, growing up when video gaming and this sort of stuff wasn't as, you know, just a normal accepted thing.
00:18:53
Erik Peabody
You know, it was, it was a nerd hobby and it was something that, you know, to a certain extent you'd get made fun of.
00:18:53
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
00:18:59
Erik Peabody
And it just, you know, it appeals to people that tend to be more, um, you know, ah introspective and less socially outgoing and stuff like that. And I think as a function of that, having suddenly this community where It's a bunch of people that are kind of used to being by themselves because other people, you know, give them a hard time about stuff. All of a sudden you find tons of people that are not only not going to give you a hard time about that stuff, but are very, very interested in the same thing you are.
00:19:26
Erik Peabody
And just as obsessively focused on the technical aspects of audio or this, that, and the other, it it tends to feel more like a bunch of people that have finally found their tribe and less like a group of people that know, you know, there's only x amount of money to be,
00:19:43
Erik Peabody
rung out of this thing each month and they want to make sure you know they're at the top of it to get as much as they can. um you You do run into personalities that you don't jive with and you know unfortunately a few times people that, yeah, objectively that's just a person you never want to deal with again, but the percentage of that happening is far less than any other you know musical community I've been a part of and it's great.
00:20:08
The Jobs Podcast
You know, the the video game genre, you know, when I was young, I would go to the mall on a Saturday. I'd ride my bike over with a roll of quarters and I had a video, an arcade, and there was one or two buttons and a joystick.
00:20:17
Erik Peabody
Uh-huh.
00:20:22
The Jobs Podcast
And that was my, you know, Galaga Space Invaders 1943 video games of that time.
00:20:24
Erik Peabody
Yeah.
00:20:26
The Jobs Podcast
video games of that time And then, you know, you fast forward to college and I have friends that would be getting together for weekend LAN parties where they would all break.
00:20:37
Erik Peabody
Yeah, playing Quake and stuff and yeah.
00:20:38
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah, exactly. And i'm I'm leaving to go out to do my best and usually failing to talk to a girl and they're, you know, playing video games. And it just, it wasn't something that clicked with me. I never had looked down at it all. It just wasn't something that I was into like they were.
00:20:56
Erik Peabody
And it was still very new. you know There wasn't this established history of like, you know it's not like, yeah, your folks and your grandparents also had friends that were going out and playing baseball every weekend while they were studying to be a lawyer or something.
00:20:58
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:09
The Jobs Podcast
sure
00:21:09
Erik Peabody
it it It's this new take on things that felt very indulgent and very, um you know there was a lot of ah news coverage about you know the zombifying effects, like how they talked about TV and stuff.
00:21:22
Erik Peabody
So, yeah.
00:21:23
The Jobs Podcast
Well, you move forward to where I remember a few years ago is in the firehouse one evening and we were after dinner and some of the guys were playing. I forget what game it was, Halo or something like that. And they handed me a joystick or a controller and I'm looking at it and like, man, there's more buttons on this. i don't even know what to do.
00:21:40
Erik Peabody
Uh-huh.
00:21:40
The Jobs Podcast
So I tried and failed miserably to play, but I sat back and I watched them play and it dawned on me. And you know this is a few years ago to compare it even to the video games in 2025.
00:21:54
The Jobs Podcast
The graphics and the music and the story and everything involved in the game was on multiple levels higher in in its depth and its quality and the entertainment that it offers you.
00:22:03
Erik Peabody
Oh yeah.
00:22:08
The Jobs Podcast
And I remember thinking, golly, that is impressive. And I've even found myself listening to a couple of, I think it was Assassin's Creed had some music that I thought, wow, this is really just cool music to listen to while I'm editing a podcast or something along those lines.
00:22:22
Erik Peabody
Oh yeah.
00:22:23
The Jobs Podcast
um It's just, it's come so far. I can see why people are drawn to it because it's it's on such a professional level.
00:22:33
Erik Peabody
The overall objective quality of this stuff has just continued to skyrocket. And i mean i'm let me step back. Skyrocket might not be the right term because you know as time has gone on, the leaps in graphical fidelity and stuff, it it's diminishing returns just as a function of you know the rate of improving technology and the fact that you know, let's say we have some new breakthrough in graphics and all of a sudden, you know, you can have way more fidelity and lighting effects and stuff and that's all great, but now your team needs to be able to generate content to utilize that processing power, you know.
00:23:07
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:07
Erik Peabody
um So, like we, um my wife and i just this past weekend got a PS5, finally. It's been out for, you know, five years at this point, but we finally got one and tossed in a newer video game, the remake of Dead Space. We're big horror fans. And, um,
00:23:24
Erik Peabody
I was pretty blown away by it, but still, you know, it felt like, yeah, this looks better than the PS4, but it wasn't like going from the Nintendo to Super Nintendo or, you know, from that to a PlayStation or something.
00:23:35
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
00:23:36
Erik Peabody
So it is slowing down, but, you know, I'm i'm um being pedantic here. the I agree with you. I think that the ability to... tell a story and to have an emotional interaction with the audience is just insane. It's as good, if not better than any any other artistic medium, because there's a level of interaction that I think generally, um you know, you don't have with people consuming media.
00:24:03
Erik Peabody
You do with with books and written stuff to a certain extent, because the, you know, the reader needs to be filtering that stuff through their own imagination to be, you know, generating the story to a certain extent.
00:24:14
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:24:14
Erik Peabody
With movies and TV, it's easy to just sit there and kind of accept what's happening. But with video games, you're you're making decisions on ah a micro and a macro basis. And, you know, there are stories of daring deeds and all this stuff. And it's it's just great, you know. And I think that especially since the nature of a lot of our work has kind of I don't know, coalesced around you you sit at a desk or you stand up and to do some form of labor.
00:24:42
Erik Peabody
I think that having this increased ability to go explore different ways of life and different worlds and, you know, different perils and joys and all that stuff, it's it's more important now than it any any time before, you know?
00:24:56
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Do you think that VR is the next frontier when it comes to video games?
00:25:01
Erik Peabody
I don't know. i you know, I've seen a few pushes for VR to be the next thing. Like, I remember there being stuff in arcades back in, I don't know, the mid-2000s that were purporting to have VR stuff.
00:25:16
Erik Peabody
And I don't even know if that's technically what it was at that point. But then, you know, maybe about eight or 10 years ago, I was seeing it all over again.
00:25:19
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:25:23
Erik Peabody
And it's it just seems like it keeps coming up and then not quite catching on and then fading and then doing it again. But each time it sticks around a little bit more.
00:25:34
Erik Peabody
i I don't know if it's ever going to become like the primary form of people gaming or consuming you know visual media or anything.
Studio Setup and Audio Engineering
00:25:42
Erik Peabody
But I do think that you know at these days, if I see a game announced that's only for VR, or if I see someone talking about you know playing something on VR at their home, it doesn't raise my eyebrow like it used to. It doesn't come off as this this novelty. you know it's It's more just part of the the zeitgeist of how people you know use media and entertainment.
00:26:03
Erik Peabody
I don't know if it'll ever take over.
00:26:06
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah, I guess time time will tell on that one. But let's go back to when you first got into the recording studio as as an audio engineer, or you were learning, or you you know you had some some folks that kind of took you under their wing and were showing you some things.
00:26:09
Erik Peabody
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:26:23
The Jobs Podcast
I've... I've been in a few recording studios and in my time on this earth, and i have to admit, you walk into some of those things, there's a million sliders and a million knobs, and it it's almost like, man, I'm glad somebody knows what they're doing because I have no idea what any of this stuff does.
00:26:40
The Jobs Podcast
I don't even know how to turn the volume up. So is it a bit overwhelming to to go in there? But is it also kind of exciting? Because there's, I mean, I just have endless days of learning and tinkering and finessing with the sound.
00:26:57
Erik Peabody
Right. Well, it's ah first off, just to clarify, i don't work in some big tricked out recording studio. um You know, the recording stuff, specifically recording that I do has to do with, um you know, voice stuff like we're talking right now.
00:27:13
Erik Peabody
I'm i'm recording through the same setup I use for my audio book narration and stuff and then recording um guitar and bass.
00:27:18
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:27:22
Erik Peabody
And. The guitar and bass, I don't need to run through an amp that just goes into my audio interface, which is ah you know a glorified analog digital converter with a few you know knobs and get that into my computer. And I do all of my amp stuff digitally in my PC.
00:27:39
Erik Peabody
So if you look at my workstation here, you know there are there are definitely you know esoteric looking pieces of equipment that if you you know weren't familiar with, it'd be like, oh, God, I can't touch that.
00:27:49
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:27:49
Erik Peabody
But it's not like walking into you know the traditional studio that listeners here are probably thinking of where it's ah you know a big board with a few sets of speakers and then racks of a bunch of outboard gear. And the you know the main desk faces this window into the adjoining room where you know there's a guy at a mic some guy a drum kit or you know some gal playing guitar or something like that.
00:28:11
Erik Peabody
um All of my stuff has to do with um everything after that point. So If you went to a studio and recorded everything there, but for some reason you didn't want that same studio or those people to handle everything afterwards, which is balancing the relative volume of the different recordings, handling panning, EQing things, compressing, you know, just all of the million little things that are done to take it from a group of raw recordings to a finished song or whatever that, you know, sounds like how you would expect it to sound when placed up against similar things by other artists.
00:28:47
Erik Peabody
That's all the stuff I do. So I have the luxury of working in a a less cluttered space, which is nice because it's also a smaller space. um But when I do walk into a recording studio, which doesn't happen that frequently these days, so um there is a little bit of that, oh man, just look at all this ah feeling, but I'd say it's maybe 20 or 30%, oh geez, you know i I better not sit on something accidentally or bump up.
00:29:14
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
00:29:15
Erik Peabody
And you know the other 70% is, this is so cool. you know And even if I don't have the same pieces of outboard gear that are there, or if you know the mixing board the guy's using has 30 tracks more than I'm used to and all these other options,
00:29:32
Erik Peabody
I know that for the most part, if I just walked over and looked at what the labels are, I would pretty quickly have an idea of how it functions, at least on a rudimentary level, you know.
00:29:43
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:29:43
Erik Peabody
um
00:29:43
The Jobs Podcast
I see.
00:29:44
Erik Peabody
And with a lot of that stuff, it it really comes down to the same things. And, you know, with those big mixing boards, you see like a million sliders and, you know, 5 million knobs, something to keep in mind is what that really is, is it's one or two sliders and maybe four knobs times however many tracks they want to be able to do that with.
00:30:03
Erik Peabody
So, you know, for each track, you have a mic coming into there.
00:30:03
The Jobs Podcast
i see
00:30:07
Erik Peabody
So like on a drum kit, just to provide a simplified explanation, you know, if you have eight eight tracks in front of you, there's a slider that controls the volume and probably a ah knob for panning left to right.
00:30:20
Erik Peabody
There might be some controls about, you know, handling equalization or compression there, you know, how bass you want it or how trebly. And that's it. But all that just controls the mic coming from the kick drum. And then you'll have that same set of controls connected to another mic coming from the top of the snare, you know, that sort of thing. So it's not like, oh my God, there's these...
00:30:42
Erik Peabody
gajillion things I need to keep track of. It's that there's only a few things you need to keep track of times however many things you're working with. I know I'm using the most vague descriptions possible, but does that make sense?
00:30:55
The Jobs Podcast
No, it absolutely puts it in perspective. it it kind of dials it down to where it's not so overwhelming. You realize each one of these is just on repeat for that and for that and for that. And so it's just a redundancy, but it it can look overwhelming when you don't know what you're looking at.
00:31:11
Erik Peabody
Exactly. And it's, you know, that that sense of feeling overwhelming is compacted by the fact that, you know, you look at that stuff and one of the first thoughts you have is that's expensive.
00:31:23
Erik Peabody
I can't damage that, you know, or especially back in the day when people were recording to tape and stuff like that, you know, God forbid you accidentally do something that records over part of the recording or, you know, forget to arm a track before you tell the guy, all right, start drumming, you know.
00:31:23
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:31:40
Erik Peabody
um And that's one of the nice things about what I do is that I'm generally not in a situation where I can cause a fatal error to a client's project without, you know, there being more than enough time and copious backups to, you know, undo it to the point where it might as well never have happened, you know?
00:31:59
The Jobs Podcast
When I see those big boards like that, the first thing that runs through my head is I'm going to need a label maker because I i want to label everything.
00:32:05
Erik Peabody
Oh, yeah.
00:32:07
Erik Peabody
Yeah, you'll you'll see labels a lot. You'll see... um Other funny things, like i've I've seen people, you know, set something to a place they want it and then just put a drop of super glue on the dial to hold it there because they know that, you know, on this board in particular, if I turn this fader up past eight, you know, it's exponentially, it gets higher past that point or, you know, there's some crackling issue there something.
00:32:32
Erik Peabody
You know, labels and kind fly by the seat of your pants modification is fairly normal in those situations.
00:32:39
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:32:40
Erik Peabody
And, you know, the title audio engineer... used to, and you know still does and in more traditional recording situations, it refers not just to engineering the audio, but being able to engineer and work on the physical components there. you know If your board or one of your pieces of outboard gear you know blew something or you know something shorted out, generally the guys that were working on that stuff recording knew how to get under there and you know fix most of the stuff that was going to go wrong because
00:33:13
Erik Peabody
You know, if you if you have to wait to call a technician or something, there goes at least that day's worth of revenue, if not the next few also,
AI in Music and Artistic Integrity
00:33:20
Erik Peabody
you know. Yeah.
00:33:20
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. the When I hear you talk about the audio engineer and the adjusting and the fine tuning, that's very much the human aspect, the human interaction of fine tuning or getting the sound that everyone is looking for.
00:33:38
Erik Peabody
Mm-hmm.
00:33:39
The Jobs Podcast
AI is something that is just kind of creeping into every industry. And I know that without a doubt, it's into the recording industry.
00:33:43
Erik Peabody
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:33:47
The Jobs Podcast
I share, or I have the opinion, i don't know if you share it, that AI may make some things faster and smoother, and it can help in certain areas, but the final product, there's always going to be that human intangible thing that AI will not be able to reproduce, and it's going for that specific sound.
00:34:08
The Jobs Podcast
It's kind of like records. They're perfectly imperfect. They have the pops and the cracks and whatnot that make it, that give it the warmth and the character. Do you have any opinions on AI or what are your but are your overwhelming thoughts on that?
00:34:24
The Jobs Podcast
Overlying thoughts.
00:34:24
Erik Peabody
Tim, I recall before we actually got live here asking you if you had a preference as to whether I swore or not, and you said you would prefer if I didn't. And now you bring this up.
00:34:34
The Jobs Podcast
Okay, my apologies.
00:34:35
Erik Peabody
No, no, no, no.
00:34:36
The Jobs Podcast
get it.
00:34:36
Erik Peabody
we're i'm I'm more than happy to talk about it. I'm just being a little hyperbolic here.
00:34:40
The Jobs Podcast
i get it
00:34:40
Erik Peabody
um It's. it's impossible to say what the overall impact of AI is going to be on this industry or any. It is still fairly fairly new in this latest public awareness and you know things are changing so rapidly. And you know just in general, it's also happening in the context of And I don't want to talk about politics, but like, you know, for example, you know, the current administration is, ah my understanding is working towards preventing regulation of AI stuff on a state level. And whether or not I'm, you know, correct or you know, so oversimplifying that or something, the point is, is that
00:35:22
Erik Peabody
not only do we have this very new technology that's growing at a fairly rapid pace, but you know it of course is going to be subjected to whatever mindsets have control over that stuff at the time that it is becoming apparent.
00:35:37
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:35:37
Erik Peabody
So I have no way of knowing how big or small this is going to get.
00:35:42
Erik Peabody
But I do agree with you. I think that the the computational capabilities of AI to handle data is something that we are all going to probably benefit from.
00:35:57
Erik Peabody
And what I'm talking about are you know things like um you know parsing through insane amounts of you know medical testing and coming up with you know new ideas based on correlating that massive amount of data, you know
00:36:10
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:36:11
Erik Peabody
or uh things like going through and uh you know if i have a full recording of a narration and you know every once in a while the you know the narrator's cat was walking into the room and meowing i can go through there and strip that stuff out manually but If I could have an AI that just knew you know the range of what a cat's meow sounds like and can go through and remove that without causing um you know destructive artifacting to the audio, that's great.
00:36:40
Erik Peabody
Those are all non-creative, non-artistic uses of it.
00:36:44
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:36:44
Erik Peabody
and i
00:36:44
The Jobs Podcast
Productivity enhancements.
00:36:46
Erik Peabody
Exactly. And I think that that is where it can and should succeed. And in terms of using it for anything creative,
00:36:58
Erik Peabody
I'm staunchly against it. And I mean that, you know, everything from something as egregious as using it to write an entire story or write a song, you know, at that end of the spectrum, like someone just going in and typing in, you know, make me a country song about pickup trucks or something, you know, something that requires the least amount of
00:37:01
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:37:17
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:37:21
Erik Peabody
artistic consideration on the part of the person person instigating this whole process. um But even so far as you know taking it to the other end of like, look, i you know I'm just taking it back to our you know prose writing ah situation. I've i've written 12 chapters of this book.
00:37:39
Erik Peabody
i need to you know I'm just kind of stuck with what these characters are doing. Here's the context of the whole book. give me 25 options for what I might write next.
00:37:51
Erik Peabody
And in a situation like that, you know it can be argued that that's not very different from what people do normally. you know It looks at everything that's come before, it makes a bunch of different um possible suggestions, which is what you know if you were writing a story you would be thinking of in your mind anyway, and then you would select the one that seems like it jives most with what you wanna do.
00:38:14
The Jobs Podcast
You're brainstorming.
00:38:15
Erik Peabody
Exactly.
00:38:16
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Right.
00:38:17
Erik Peabody
But you're brainstorming.
00:38:19
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:38:19
Erik Peabody
And you're brainstorming is based on so many things that you could, you know, label and identify if someone asked you, as well as millions of things that you couldn't. And that stems from, you know, everything from how you're feeling that day to, you know, if you have a, let's say ah ah bias towards, you know, um Certain ah colors, meaning certain things are having associations for you or word choice. you know Obviously, if you're writing a story, you know you can open a thesaurus and find a million different ways of saying the same thing.
00:38:59
Erik Peabody
But there's context with certain things. you know You might choose to use a word or you know place it before or after an adverb in a way that you know hints towards something else earlier or can contain a double meaning that will cause the reader to think.
00:39:15
Erik Peabody
or, you know, might be a little indicator that, you know, some character saying something, oh, they phrased it this way. Wait a minute. That makes me think of this other person, you know, all that sort of stuff.
00:39:25
The Jobs Podcast
nuance
00:39:25
Erik Peabody
there' is There's nuance and there's subtext and there's There's the ability to be playful with art. And I mean that in a very broad sense.
00:39:34
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
00:39:36
Erik Peabody
Like, I mean, playful as in you could say something that might amuse someone, or, you know, if you're writing something, you could drop the hint that, you know, the person, the protagonist is talking to the the murderer right there and they don't know it, you know, but that sort of stuff is all going to be lost through AI.
00:39:52
Erik Peabody
And, you know, yes, these things are still getting trained and getting better, and it might get to a point where it's able to replicate that, but only insofar as it's able to steal it from what it has been trained on, you know?
00:40:07
Erik Peabody
And even if it's been trained on, you know,
00:40:13
Erik Peabody
objectively the best authors of all time or something, you know, that doesn't mean that it's the right choice for your story. And it also pushes things towards a certain um realm of homogeny, you know, as more people do this stuff.
00:40:26
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:40:27
Erik Peabody
All it's doing is picking from what's come before and rehashing it. And it might do that in ways that, you know, could be found interesting, but it's not, it's not intentionally doing it in a way that's interesting.
00:40:38
Erik Peabody
Okay.
00:40:39
The Jobs Podcast
You know, i've been I've been using AI a tiny bit with some of my podcasts, and there's some neat software.
00:40:39
Erik Peabody
no
00:40:46
The Jobs Podcast
it's It's a productivity thing, like I went back to a little bit ago. When I listen to someone's interview, some folks... they they sometimes struggle to convey what they're wanting to say and so you have long pauses when they're speaking or they have a lot of filler words that is part of their regular speech.
00:41:07
The Jobs Podcast
And in order to make the conversation flow and be smoother and easier for the listener, AI has software that can go in and remove the filler words and close up the gaps and it polishes up the podcast.
00:41:20
The Jobs Podcast
without removing the soul. And I think that's the thing about AI that I don't think will ever, it's going to get close and it's going to be difficult if it's not already to tell the difference between music or art that's created by a human being versus artificial intelligence.
00:41:36
The Jobs Podcast
But i I hope that I'm not proven wrong, but I believe that the human being, the soul, and the emotions and the spirit is what is conveyed. There's a warmth and a ah relational, you can't put your finger on it, but this feels genuine versus there's something missing over here and I just can't put my finger on it, but they look and sound identical.
00:42:02
Erik Peabody
Yeah, i I agree with you. It's it's hard to fully define and quantify all of the...
00:42:10
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:42:10
Erik Peabody
you know, the little things that makes art relatable. And, you know, I think to a certain extent that also comes down to what makes things resonate with certain people, you know, and as opposed to other people. Like, you know, let's, you can take a an objectively great piece of art, like the novel ah Grapes of Wrath, say, you know, i i think that by and large, most people agree, yes, that is a great American novel.
00:42:36
Erik Peabody
Obviously, there are people that don't really care for that book or hate that book, and that's fine. And it doesn't mean that they're just, you know, idiots or, you know, Luddites or someone, you know, that and Philistines, they don't appreciate art.
00:42:49
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:42:49
Erik Peabody
um It's just that certain things resonate differently with different people. And I think that it's going to be interesting to look at that in the context of AI, because If I create a piece of art, like a song, and it resonates with someone else, generally there's a certain understanding that the reason it resonates with them has you know something to do with the emotional um energy I put into it and what I was trying to convey as the artist.
00:43:19
Erik Peabody
you know any Any artistic experience is a certain amount the creator and a certain amount you know the person observing it or partaking of it.
00:43:20
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:43:27
Erik Peabody
With AI, you only have that second half. If a person responds to it in a way that's emotional for them, it doesn't, I don't feel that it, you know, it negates that emotional response the person is having, it's not coming from a human place.
00:43:46
Erik Peabody
You know, you're not having a connection with another person or with a human experience. You know, to me, it feels like
00:43:52
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:43:56
Erik Peabody
if someone's able to pull one over on you, you know?
00:43:59
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
00:43:59
Erik Peabody
Like, um I don't, it's just that that thing, you know, you you see and it's kind of just, how do I phrase this properly? There's a certain type of tropey social interaction you see where like, you know, someone will be bullying someone else or something and do the whole like, oh, you know, we should hang out.
00:44:21
Erik Peabody
You want to come over and hang out with the guys, you know? And it's like, oh yeah, sure. And it's like, oh, well, you know what? No, we're we're not going to hang out to you with you. Why would you ever think we would do that? And it's like, well, because you told me to, you know, because you told me that was your intention.
00:44:29
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:44:32
The Jobs Podcast
Let's do lunch.
00:44:34
Erik Peabody
And so with something like this, it kind of feels the same to me.
00:44:34
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:44:38
Erik Peabody
It's like if if someone... presented a ah piece of AI generated whatever to me and was you know telling me, this is just a piece of art. I want to know what you think of it without even mentioning whether or not it's AI.
00:44:54
Erik Peabody
If I looked at that and I had a response to it, And then i was told, well, that's created by AI. My feeling would be like, well, okay, then so what? You duped me, you know?
00:45:07
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:45:08
Erik Peabody
How is that any different than me, you know, happening happen if i'm if I'm out on a walk somewhere and I happen to catch...
00:45:08
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:45:15
Erik Peabody
you know, the way lighting hits a ah stone or something as water's going over it or, you know, something very, very not human created. I can have a reaction to that. And still, that is a more genuine and earnest human experience because it's relating to the world around me.
00:45:32
Erik Peabody
It's not...
00:45:34
Erik Peabody
It's not looking at a thin skin that's been placed over, you know, a pile of kind of dead art that's been crunched into the shape it thinks it wants to be for you.
00:45:45
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:45:45
Erik Peabody
um I don't know. This is something that it's it's been tricky because more and more you see people that are trying to put forward AI generated music, images, whatever.
00:46:01
Erik Peabody
And it's very telling to me that the vast majority I've seen are very defensive and, um, very prone to denying that it's there was any AI generation involved in it. you know If this was the type of thing that people felt wasn't, I'll just use the word cheating just because it's an easy shorthand.
00:46:24
Erik Peabody
If people felt like it wasn't cheating, then there wouldn't be any need to disguise how they're doing it. Does that make sense?
00:46:33
The Jobs Podcast
That's an excellent point. And to take that even a step further, I would wonder if they're a little bit ashamed of their laziness. Because if you compare a band or a musician that plays the notes, that's practiced, that's gotten the mistakes, and then they've they've gotten the improvement and they've perfected it, and then they record it.
00:46:53
The Jobs Podcast
And then you come in and press a few buttons and you create AI music, quote unquote, and then you put it out there, that's not the same. I earned that recording.
00:47:05
The Jobs Podcast
You just pushed a couple of buttons and had a computer make some noise that sounds similar, and they're not the same.
00:47:11
Erik Peabody
I agree. And I think thats that's a tricky argument to make because while I entirely agree, i think that bringing concepts like you know, what someone deserves and what they've earned into it. Those are very nebulous concepts that are easy to have arguments against that are valid arguments. Like for example, um there's a guitarist named Jason Becker and Jason Becker was a, you know, shred virtuoso back in the eighties. He was in this, among other things, this musical project called Cacophony with Marty Friedman, who went on to be a lead guitarist for Megadeth.
00:47:48
Erik Peabody
Anyway, so Jason Becker was, you know, extremely good at what he did and put in a ton of time and then ended up with a crippling medical condition where he's entirely in a chair. He is only able to move and communicate through eye movement. And I think he has some apparatus that he can use his mouth to control.
00:48:09
Erik Peabody
But um he's still making music and he's using various tools for that. And I'm not sure if he has started incorporating AI or not into it, but he was using things like MIDI sequencers and drum machines and all that stuff.
00:48:22
Erik Peabody
And um those are things that in the past have been targets of of similar um arguments that I'm using against ai right now. You know, it's soulless. It it has no humanity, this or that.
00:48:33
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
00:48:35
Erik Peabody
But in that specific situation with Jason Becker, this is someone that absolutely has not only earned it, but has been dealt like a really unlucky hand that he couldn't have done anything to prevent.
00:48:45
Erik Peabody
This isn't a situation where, you know, he OD'd on something and had some, you know, neurological issue as a result and then could no longer play.
00:48:45
The Jobs Podcast
sure
00:48:54
Erik Peabody
Not that that justifies what happens to the the person in that situation, but I can at least see an argument that's like, well, you know, he played with fire and he got burnt or something. This is a very pure situation of this guy just kind of got screwed over by the universe.
00:49:04
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:49:11
Erik Peabody
And even in that situation though, you know he is making decisions on what he's making based on the sense of music that he has developed over the course of him learning to play an actual instrument. you know um And the argument could be, well, you know if if he can use something like that, you know how is that any different than someone using AI or something?
00:49:36
Erik Peabody
And it's just that if you're coming from a standpoint of not having put in the time, it's not that there is this karmic balance of, you know, what you have earned and what you deserve and what you don't deserve and stuff like that. It's more that you are only able to interact with that interface and make selections, ah you know, on the resulting um stuff that comes back.
00:50:01
Erik Peabody
You can only do that as effectively as you know what you're working with. And if you haven't spent the time working with this stuff, then you're going to be making very naive and amateurish, and I might add obviously amateurish, decisions about this stuff.
00:50:19
Erik Peabody
And i you know I've seen it. i've i've had i won't i won't name names, but there's someone that I have done work with in the past that sent me, oh, hey, I'm working on this musical project, wanted to know what you think, and sent me the files.
00:50:34
Erik Peabody
And my first thought is, this just sounds like garbage. Like, yeah, it's polished. It sounds like a pop song insofar as bass isn't... you know, blowing out my speakers or it's not saying incomprehensible lyrics that obviously are gibberish or Esperanto or something.
00:50:52
Erik Peabody
um It's just, yeah, this this is exactly what it would seem like if you if you got a toddler or someone that has no knowledge of actively being involved with music, of just passively receiving it, and then told them that they had the ability to do what they want.
00:51:11
Erik Peabody
And there's nothing wrong with that when it is a part of a learning process, because that's what we all do with instruments. You know, the first time I picked up a guitar, I said i very obviously was an amateur.
00:51:24
Erik Peabody
but And the first songs I wrote were very obviously amateurish. But, um you know, you develop that with time and whether or not you know the the personal um growth and reward and fulfillment that comes with that has any bearing or tangible value, strictly from the standpoint of if you are trying to create a piece of art, whether it's legitimately or through AI, what do you want to do with that?
00:51:54
Erik Peabody
And if what you want to do with that involves anything beyond I just want to have it, then you are not going to be as capable at accomplishing your goal as you would if you actually had the background working with this stuff.
00:52:09
Erik Peabody
i um I stumbled across ah a quote online a while back that I actually saved a screenshot of, and I just want to read it real quick. It says, um ah people making things with AI don't love making things. They love having things.
00:52:24
Erik Peabody
And capitalism has convinced them that ownership is self-actualization.
00:52:25
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
00:52:29
Erik Peabody
So, you know, I mean, there's a lot to unpack there and I can't say that I absolutely agree with it, but I do agree that it feels much more like a situation where you go and buy a CD.
00:52:42
Erik Peabody
I'm dating myself here by saying buy a CD.
00:52:44
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:52:45
Erik Peabody
But, you know, if you go buy a CD and you take it home and you listen to it and you pick the tracks you like and the tracks you don't like, that's fine. That's part of the, that that is the experience of being a music consumer.
00:52:57
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:52:58
Erik Peabody
Now, that is not the same as being someone that makes music. And I think that all of... I mean, hell, when I'm writing a song, i will sometimes flub a note, you know play something wrong or make a mistake and you know shift a track over so it starts on the offbeat instead of the downbeat.
00:53:16
Erik Peabody
And those are all accidental things. I can't really say that like you know those are the result of my creative decisions, but sometimes... I'll hear it in that new context or hear that off note and be like, oh my God, that's way better than I was going to do.
00:53:30
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:53:30
Erik Peabody
And none of that stuff exists in AI generation of things, you know?
00:53:35
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
00:53:36
Erik Peabody
So, the yeah, i'm I'm harping on this a lot, but I i think that it's it's fine for um data things, procedural things, non-human things, but frankly, anyone that's using it in any sort of creative context, ah it it makes me lose pretty much all respect for what that person's doing, you know?
00:53:56
Erik Peabody
So, yeah.
00:53:57
The Jobs Podcast
Well, yeah, I mean, it's going to it's going to be interesting to see where AI goes. There's so many different avenues that it can help and it can harm and it can remove the soul from something.
00:54:04
Erik Peabody
Yeah.
00:54:09
The Jobs Podcast
And I think time is going to be what what's going to tell us the eventual answer of all that. And hopefully it doesn't take over the world. Yeah.
00:54:16
Erik Peabody
Well, you know, that that's one other thing. And, you know, this is probably for a different podcast. But, you know, I think that all of the discussions around AI right now are largely running with the assumption that it will always be publicly available and free and that everyone will have access to the same caliber of tools.
00:54:36
The Jobs Podcast
Oh.
00:54:36
Erik Peabody
And... As soon as it gets to a point where you know the processing power you can access or the quality of the stuff you can do is based on how much money you can pay or that only certain people or certain entities have legal authority to access things, the whole landscape is going to be very different. And you know who knows where that's going to go? But I think that it's it's very short-sighted for the people really championing AI for creative endeavors um to assume that it will always be the way it is with their unfettered access and that sort of
Collaboration and Personal Connection
00:55:14
Erik Peabody
thing.
00:55:15
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:55:16
Erik Peabody
so
00:55:17
The Jobs Podcast
What do you like most about your job? If you could name one or two big things.
00:55:24
Erik Peabody
Besides that I just get to listen to heavy metal and read horror stories all day. but um
00:55:28
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:55:30
Erik Peabody
What I like is
00:55:32
Erik Peabody
Well, in a meta sense, I like the people I work with. um the The fact that I've gotten into this world has absolutely been the the largest single thing that has shaped my life. My wife is someone I met through this video game music community, you know.
00:55:51
Erik Peabody
um And besides the people... From a mixing and mastering standpoint, I love getting a group of files that are raw where I can hear what the artist has been doing. I can hear how they care about what they're doing and I can hear what they're going for.
00:56:09
Erik Peabody
And to slowly through ah million little micro decisions of, do I wanna nudge this up another decibel? Or you know maybe I i don't wanna have you know the the high pass on the EQ here when the guitar is just by itself because I really want that low end.
00:56:23
Erik Peabody
All those little things that take it from being you know, how it is in a raw sense and augmenting all of those intentions that the artist has to take it from being, you know, or ah raw piece of metal that you can cut someone with if you have enough force behind it to being exactly that razor sharp, lethal thing that you want to immediately just drop the people that are listening to it.
00:56:53
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
00:56:53
Erik Peabody
And, you know, that isn't always possible. And sometimes the the vision I have for something differs from what the artist wants to the point that, you know, we can get it to where the artist wants. But personally, I feel like it should gone differently.
00:57:07
Erik Peabody
But still, it I love that that refining process, you know, not to, you know, overly aggrandize myself, but it it feels like sculpting. You know, I think of when... you know, old artists that were way more talented than I am, you know, were chipping away pieces of marble because they saw that form in there.
00:57:26
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
00:57:27
Erik Peabody
And that's what I like about it. And the cool thing is, is that I get to do that in a situation where I'm listening to a bunch of guys dressed up like werewolves screaming about money, mummies chasing coeds or something, you know?
00:57:40
Erik Peabody
So it it manages to be this really technical and creative process that has a lot of just visceral wow factor for me.
00:57:50
Erik Peabody
I still just love hearing a good, you know, distorted guitar, just palm mute, a low open chord. It just makes me like, you know, forget that I'm 41 and doing this professionally in my room and makes me think back to, you know, being 14 and seeing Slayer for the first time or something. And, you know, the only thought in my mind was just, oh, yes.
00:58:11
Erik Peabody
You know, I love that I still get to get that on a day-to-day basis for the most part, you know, that's wonderful.
00:58:18
The Jobs Podcast
your Your creative juices are just constantly flowing, aren't they?
00:58:23
Erik Peabody
Most of the time, yeah. And I mean, you'll have off days and, you know, I'd be lying if I said there weren't projects where, you know, I take it because I need the gig or it fills a empty slot or something.
00:58:24
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Sure.
00:58:34
Erik Peabody
And not that I'm super jazzed up about it, but, you you know, i've I've been lucky enough to not to have to work on anything where I'm just like, you know counting the minutes until I can finish the project.
00:58:45
Erik Peabody
you know like
00:58:46
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
00:58:47
Erik Peabody
It's by and large always fun. And it's it's you're working with people that feel the same way about it too. um And that's something else going back to the AI thing real quick. I i have a disclaimer that I i don't work with you know musical artists where that was part of the process.
00:59:02
Erik Peabody
And outside of my you know ethical stance on it, when I'm talking to someone about mixing their song If I do well with it, I want them to come back to me and be like, dude, that sounds so damn cool, you know? And like, oh, we were listening to it and just couldn't stop this, that, and the other.
00:59:19
Erik Peabody
And I like them talking to me on the front end about, you know, this is why I wrote this song and this is what it means to me and this, that, and the other. And that that doesn't exist with AI stuff. Even if someone is going and like, well, you know, I have this very deep emotional feeling for this piece of art I want to create, but I don't have the talent or the means to create it, so I had AI do do it, and now I want to, you know, polish it up.
00:59:44
Erik Peabody
Even if it is representative of what they were trying to achieve, there still isn't that um almost maternal connection to it from their standpoint. you know It's no different than like if I, let's say I was ah making a film, I was a director, okay?
01:00:01
Erik Peabody
And I go to you, Tim, and I say, hey, I want you to score this and make the music. You could create a score that is exactly what I was hoping it would be. It just hits all the right notes, no pun intended, you know but still That is a collaborative process between you and another creative professional, you know, and there is dialogue there.
01:00:21
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:00:24
Erik Peabody
And anyone listening to this that has the thought, well, there's dialogue with an AI too. Just shut up. It's not it's not the same thing at all.
01:00:34
The Jobs Podcast
No, it isn't.
01:00:34
Erik Peabody
but
01:00:35
The Jobs Podcast
ah You know, it it can look like it is on the surface, but it when you start getting into the muddy waters is where the human and the AI separate. And, you know, it's I can see why you would like, you know, you talked about having somebody come back to you and saying, man, I really like what you did here.
01:00:54
The Jobs Podcast
You put your stamp on it, your unique human impression and your unique take on it. And then another human being picked up on that. It registered with them and they came back for more.
01:01:05
The Jobs Podcast
And it's kind of like, you know, Michelangelo had those things where there was a muscle in the forearm that they would only...
01:01:10
Erik Peabody
I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah.
01:01:12
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah, would only be shown if his pinky was raised. And guess what he sculpted? His pinky was raised and that tiny, it's those kind of unique human takes that I think AI is going to struggle to ah creative whims, I think is where they're really going to fall short.
01:01:30
Erik Peabody
Yeah. And it's it's because it can only be derivative.
01:01:33
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:01:33
Erik Peabody
And, you know, therere that might change. And I'm not saying that I have a crystal ball um or anything like that. But i I don't think I will ever get past the concept that there needs to be a direct human connection to the creation of art for it to have any sort of validity.
01:01:51
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:01:54
Erik Peabody
And, you know, that's just me. But anyway, going back to what we were talking about, i I love that I get to work with people that are excited about this stuff as much, if not more, than I'm excited about it too.
01:02:06
Erik Peabody
You know, like... um I mentioned the whole, you know, singing about mummies chasing coeds thing. You know, I um was working with an artist a few years back. I still work with called Pitch Black Manor.
01:02:16
Erik Peabody
And ah they do a bunch of, you know, Halloween and gothy themed rock songs and stuff. And when I was first emailing with the dude, Chad Pfeiffer, who, you know, was my point of contact for the project, somewhere in there, he said, we want the album to feel like you're just sitting down to watch Return of the Living Dead.
01:02:37
Erik Peabody
And for me, I'm like, okay, I can't believe I'm getting paid to do this. Like, that's like the magic phrase anyone could have said to me. It's like, hey, you know, you want to come with me?
01:02:47
The Jobs Podcast
me
01:02:49
Erik Peabody
We're going to swim through shark infested waters, but we want it to feel like Return of the Living Dead. I'd be like, dude, I'm jumping in with you, you know? So the fact that I get to work with people that have that same level of um kind of quirky, but...
01:03:04
Erik Peabody
um earnest, sort of ridiculous sense about things.
01:03:09
The Jobs Podcast
Vision?
01:03:11
Erik Peabody
you know
01:03:11
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. yeah
01:03:12
Erik Peabody
um I like the thing, you know you're working with people that are pouring all this time and all this energy into doing something that they truly love and at the same time can recognize this is absurd. you know um Death metal in general is like that.
01:03:27
Erik Peabody
I love death metal. I think it's some of the heaviest stuff out there and I enjoy listening to it, but there is ah a sense of self-parody to it that
01:03:29
The Jobs Podcast
Thank you.
01:03:34
Erik Peabody
And it's my favorite when people are aware of that. Not the gruff metal, oh, you know, we're so serious. What are you doing laughing at this stuff? But it's like, yeah, this is inherently absurd. And it can be absurd at the same time that ah it can also be the heaviest thing you're going to hear that month, you know? And I i love that element to this specific world I'm in.
Balancing Creativity and Business
01:03:54
The Jobs Podcast
Aside from AI, because I know that that's a bit of a flashpoint I've picked up on, what what are some things that, you know, every job has things you like and things you don't like.
01:03:56
Erik Peabody
Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:00
Erik Peabody
Yeah.
01:04:04
The Jobs Podcast
What are some things that you dislike, the mundane or or the insufferable aspects of your career?
01:04:13
Erik Peabody
um I, you know, I'm a freelancer, so I'm i'm not doing this um through any sort of of corporation, you know,
01:04:16
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:04:22
Erik Peabody
I mean, I have my own business, but you know not an external corporation. The irregularity of things can be frustrating. And I'm also someone that really likes to have stuff planned out in advance and know when things are going to happen.
01:04:34
Erik Peabody
um But it's just not how it goes with this. you know You don't know when work's going to come in. And there are times when... you're You're not getting much for couple months and times where there's everything at once. And that that is a little frustrating.
01:04:49
Erik Peabody
um The nature of working with creative people means that ah you'll have a larger percentage of situations where folks can flake on you or be unprepared or stuff like that.
01:05:02
Erik Peabody
um
01:05:02
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:05:03
Erik Peabody
There are a few situations I've gotten into where we'll start on a project and then something will happen on their end where they aren't able to finish it on the schedule they wanted.
01:05:14
Erik Peabody
And then it'll sit half finished on my end for ah few months or a year or several years. And, you know, i honor the contracts I have with those people. But at the same point, you know, now it's reopening stuff that's several years old.
01:05:30
Erik Peabody
Maybe, you know, I'm hearing things that I would have done differently back then. So I have the question of, man, do I want to redo the stuff I've already done? I'm also locked in at whatever rate ah payment rate that we agreed on back then and you know that very likely would have changed since that time. you know Just stuff like that. i I really like when things are clean and organized and the nature of this work is that that is impossible a lot of the time.
01:05:57
Erik Peabody
um But really, the you know the way I found to mitigate that is just discussing these things upfront and managing expectations and communicating clearly. um And that's all I can do.
01:06:09
Erik Peabody
there There have been times I have fired clients and there have been times I've finished projects and been very smiley and in my mind thought I will never, ever work with that person again.
01:06:19
Erik Peabody
But those are those are few and far between and they exist in every every industry, you know, so.
01:06:23
The Jobs Podcast
Well, sure. There is the, you know, the business side. i mean, you are, ah i guess, a small business owner. You own your company, but you also have the creative aspect of it.
01:06:31
Erik Peabody
Mm-hmm. huh
01:06:33
The Jobs Podcast
But there's also the nuts and bolts of I've got bills to pay. I've got, you know, the structured things that are the unpleasant side of being a creative person. ah Do you find a struggle there to I really want to be creative today, but I have to sit down and be Mr. Administrative and get everything done, you know, that I have to get done today?
01:06:54
Erik Peabody
Very much so. And in in a couple different ways, actually.
01:06:56
The Jobs Podcast
and
01:06:58
Erik Peabody
um First off, there is that, you know, that sense of, well, there's the admin side of things and then the actual trade side of what I do. And generally, i've I've set up a good process where I know, you know, the times a day that I tend to be better at doing certain things and not others. And so I'm usually able to structure my day where I handle things.
01:07:21
Erik Peabody
emails and invoices and stuff like that, you know, during times when I'm not feeling like mixing or narrating and, you know, shifting stuff around. But um taking it back even a step further, that has been one of the the negative side effects of doing this full time is that I am pursuing my own personal creative projects far less.
01:07:41
Erik Peabody
And, you know, it's not that I'm, I don't like doing this stuff or anything. It's just that, you know, there's a certain amount of hours I can spend during each day sitting at the computer in my studio, which just by the nature of how it has to function is rather dark and doesn't have any natural light coming in and is very quiet.
01:08:03
Erik Peabody
And there's nothing wrong with that. But after eight hours of doing that, I'm far less likely to like, you know what? I think I want to go do that for three more hours, but this time working on something on my own.
01:08:12
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:08:13
Erik Peabody
You know, if I was out, you know, driving a delivery van or something, or even working a different office job somewhere, it would feel less like going back into that same mode again, you know?
01:08:27
Erik Peabody
So, yeah.
01:08:27
The Jobs Podcast
You're completely shifting gears.
01:08:29
Erik Peabody
Um, And I miss working on my personal projects and I still want to, and I, you know, I find time to pick at it and stuff. And I have things that I, I plan on releasing and am working on, but just the, the rate at which I can, I can get through this stuff is very different than it used to be.
01:08:45
Erik Peabody
But, um, you know, all things said and done, I, I think probably anyone experiences that where they turn what, you know, originally was just a passion of theirs into a, you know, a source of income or a career,
01:08:57
Erik Peabody
um And I will say that it's it's much nicer in a situation like this where it it tends to be fairly low impact physically.
01:09:08
Erik Peabody
You know, like this would be different if I was running a daycare all day and then came home and like had to like play with my kids and, you know, give them a bath and like carry them around and all that stuff, you know.
01:09:15
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
01:09:18
Erik Peabody
um This is just about... ah a certain amount of daily mental exhaustion and not about, oh God, i I have nothing left and I have to go actually physically perform again, you know?
01:09:30
The Jobs Podcast
yeah That's one question that when I talk with folks that are in their line of work, that is a passion of theirs or something that they love. Like I've got an interview schedule with a competitive shooter here in ah and another few weeks and ah and a professional fisherman and, you know, folks that those are activities that people, a lot of folks do.
01:09:52
The Jobs Podcast
I want to go and go fishing. I got the day off unexpectedly. I'm going to go with my dad or my brother or my buddy, and we're going to go fishing today. It's going to be great. When you do that every day, and that's your job, does it take the fun out of it?
01:10:05
The Jobs Podcast
And I'm wondering if that affects the longevity of the career, or do you eventually just find a balance?
01:10:15
Erik Peabody
i I mean, I think it entirely depends on the person and the specifics of the situation.
01:10:17
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:10:19
Erik Peabody
But just to you know provide one anecdote, i you know I still have a band and we put out songs and stuff.
01:10:20
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
01:10:28
Erik Peabody
And earlier this year, i was finalizing, we were putting out a cover of a Metallica song just for kicks. And while I was working on the mix for that, you know, that's the closest analog to what I actually, you know, do professionally.
01:10:42
Erik Peabody
Like, of course I i recorded guitars for that and we filmed a video and I got to, you know, jump around and headbang and all that stuff. And of course that stuff's fun because I'm still 14 at heart, but, you know, sitting down to mix it and go through and, you know, handle any editing, you know, pull out drumstick clicks and like a little pick scrape stuff.
01:10:50
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:10:59
Erik Peabody
You don't want all that stuff. That's the point where it would be very easy for me to lose a lot of steam. um But I really still enjoy that part. And I enjoyed it working on ah song that I'd listened to, you know, a million times growing up, and then a number of times to, you know, work out who was playing which guitar parts.
01:11:21
Erik Peabody
And then I listened to it a bunch of times again as I was tracking the scratch tracks to send you know files to everyone. And again, as I was recording my own parts, and then now as I'm editing it all together and doing the mixing, i you know I'd set myself up to have the best chance of being burned out on this specific thing as possible.
01:11:42
Erik Peabody
And still going through it, you know i would be in work mode and focus on, okay, i need to do this. All right, you know there's that thing there. Let's pull out that that you know spike noise and this and that. All right, let's listen back through it.
01:11:55
Erik Peabody
And still, when I would go back and listen through a section, my mind would immediately have a certain amount of that thought of, you know I'm not just analyzing it but analyzing it anymore, but that visceral reaction of like,
01:12:08
Erik Peabody
man, this just rules this, you know, this just kicks ass and this is what I'm looking for.
01:12:12
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:12:14
Erik Peabody
And I think that's great that I can still get that, you know, and part of it is that i'm I'm working with people that I know enjoy this stuff too.
01:12:18
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
01:12:22
Erik Peabody
And, you know, there's, you know, it's not like Fleetwood Mac where we're all just waiting for a chance to kill each other or something, you know, um,
01:12:31
The Jobs Podcast
The you you're kind of laying the groundwork for a question that I always ask, and that is what types of soft skills or personality traits lend themselves to being successful in your line of work?
01:12:47
Erik Peabody
Oh man. um
01:12:49
Erik Peabody
Music in particular is interesting. um Because like I said, you're, you know, generally working with people that are creatively minded and Obviously, it doesn't happen in all cases, but by and large, you know, i've found that the people that tend to be very creative tend to um not be as good with some other time management things and, you know, punctuality and stuff like that, communication.
01:13:14
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:13:18
Erik Peabody
And so part of it for me has been about...
01:13:22
Erik Peabody
finding ways to communicate better, especially since most of how I interact with people is remotely. So it's a lot of emails, you don't have body language and, you know, facial expressions and stuff to help convey what you want.
01:13:35
Erik Peabody
And um I think that's developed into a very,
01:13:43
Erik Peabody
I don't want to say the word rigid, but almost like a cascading flow chart of how I go about communicating with people and structuring emails and stuff.
01:13:52
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:13:52
Erik Peabody
um It's about writing things and communicating in a way that doesn't, not that it controls them or anything, but it it helps hem them in and their responses so they do hit the points that you need to have addressed.
01:14:09
Erik Peabody
And it's stuff like that. It's stuff like
01:14:12
Erik Peabody
Just being enthusiastic like genuinely enthusiastic about the stuff you're working with, I would say, is you know one of the most important soft skills, even though it's not even a skill. you know like if i If I'm working with a client um on a new metal album or something, and if we're trying to you know nail down the sound, we want to take it, and I mention...
01:14:33
Erik Peabody
some band or something like I pull out, oh, you know, so are you talking more like such and such or more like, you know, Megadeth's So Far So Good So What Album? And sometimes you can just like hear it and in their voice if you're on the phone or in the response on the email.
01:14:46
Erik Peabody
You just happen to click on entirely the right thing with that person. and the
01:14:51
The Jobs Podcast
You're speaking the same language.
01:14:52
Erik Peabody
Exactly. And it's not just that, you know, you're
01:14:53
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:14:56
Erik Peabody
a tourist in that area, but like, you know, if you and I wanted to talk right now about Dave Mustaine as a guitarist and how his interpersonal stuff has impacted the sound of the Megadeth albums from 1985 up through the present, we could talk about that for three hours, you know?
01:15:11
The Jobs Podcast
No, we couldn't, because I know David Mustaine is, and that's about as far as it goes, man.
01:15:11
Erik Peabody
And
01:15:16
Erik Peabody
yeah, but I mean, you know, the point I'm making is that like, you know, that stuff goes a long way
01:15:18
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah, yeah, I get it.
01:15:22
Erik Peabody
towards making it a personal connection with someone, which is hard to do remotely anyway.
01:15:25
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
01:15:28
Erik Peabody
and you know with With creative stuff like this, when when an artist that you know I'm assuming has poured their heart and soul into making their music and you know doing the performance as well as they can and getting it down, and now they're in the homestretch and they need to find someone to bring it to that is going to make it sound good.
01:15:52
Erik Peabody
And I don't mean make it sound just how they want, but manage to realize the most likely somewhat amorphous and ambiguous you know vision they have for it in their mind.
01:16:05
Erik Peabody
but also to bring in things that they didn't even know were an ingredient that needed to be included in that.
01:16:14
The Jobs Podcast
a
01:16:14
Erik Peabody
and And sometimes that's little things like, you know, more tangible things I can say, hey, do did we want to put a reverse cymbal swell here just to kind of give some energy going into that? Or, you know, how would you guys feel if we tracked another guitar line and, you know, added a harmony here?
01:16:27
Erik Peabody
You know, there's stuff like that. But there's also just little things like, you know Like I was talking about earlier, if you have a full band going and you know you're listening to everything in one part of a song and then it drops out and there's just the guitar introducing a new you know a new part before the rest of the band slams back in.
01:16:47
Erik Peabody
There are ways to handle that that will be reflective of how you feel that music should go. And that's influenced by all the songs you've heard do similar things and the times you've liked that and not liked it.
01:17:03
Erik Peabody
And also your personal thoughts about what you think would be cool to experiment with to try and give it a new sound. You know, it's that... interaction with the other person about a thing that you're commonly excited about.
01:17:18
Erik Peabody
And I think that, you know, not to pat myself on the back, but by and large, I have happy clients. And my assumption is that that is because I am able to accomplish what they want me to accomplish, you know.
01:17:30
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-mm.
01:17:31
Erik Peabody
But I had someone recently, they had been debating whether they were going to hire someone to master their stuff or if they were just going to do it themselves like they have with other stuff.
01:17:42
Erik Peabody
And we had a a number of very long communications on Discord about what they wanted and you know what the obstacles were that they had been facing that had led to them wondering to hire it out in the first place, what the song meant to them, all that stuff.
01:17:58
Erik Peabody
And the culmination is that when we were done, that person said to me, I'm i'm able to enjoy this again for the first time in months. And that is the coolest thing in the world for me to hear because that that is what matters. it's It's not just about me being able to polish up what they've done in a way that, you know, at its most base, you know, a noble goal will sell, even though that's important or on, you know, a better level will connect with its audience.
01:18:32
Erik Peabody
But if I can do something that helps the artist connect with their own creation again, That's, I mean, that is a unique human experience that not many people get to have. And as someone that's, you know, made a bunch of music and experienced that frustration of like, I'm so sick of this, I never want to hear it again, or I'm trying so hard to do what I'm hearing in my head and I can't do it.
01:18:56
Erik Peabody
To... be able to have someone in that situation and to step in and fix that for them. It's just so awesome. You know, it's like it's validating for myself.
01:19:08
Erik Peabody
It makes me feel like I'm doing something that actually matters to another person. On a tangible level, it means there's also a better chance that this will connect with the people that they want to have listen to it. And, you know, it will sell more copies as a result of that, theoretically.
01:19:22
Erik Peabody
You know, there's there's a synergy to it that's multifaceted, and multi-directional when things lock
Artistic Fulfillment and Growth
01:19:30
Erik Peabody
in perfectly. You know, it functions on a tangible level, on a personal level, on an emotional level, on, you know, I hesitate to say the word spiritual, but for some people, you know, like that is the connection they have with their art.
01:19:42
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
01:19:42
Erik Peabody
And, you know, I'm i'm sure I'm self-aggrandizing at this point and I'm not trying to do that, but, you know.
01:19:46
The Jobs Podcast
No, I think what you're, I think you make a valid point. If someone has a creative task that they're absorbed in and they reach a wall and they can't get past it, it goes from a joy to a burden.
01:20:00
The Jobs Podcast
And if you're able to step in and remove that wall and then allow them to fully realize what they're trying to do with that creative endeavor, you return the joy to them.
01:20:12
The Jobs Podcast
So I can absolutely see why everybody would be ecstatic because I don't care what anybody says. If you can help somebody, like genuinely help somebody, not just I'm going to help you because of what I can get out of you, but if you can genuinely help somebody realize something that has to make you and them both feel great.
01:20:24
Erik Peabody
Yeah.
01:20:30
Erik Peabody
it's It's wonderful. And i I think it's one of the, you know, if i if I want to get all wooshy about this, it's also one of the few pure joys that we as a, you know, a species can have.
01:20:42
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:20:42
Erik Peabody
You know, it's that sense of I was able to communicate fully what I wanted to.
01:20:48
Erik Peabody
And with music, any art, you know, it's it's so subjective and it's so... ambiguous and amorphous, like I said before, you know, like if you're thinking of a song you want to write, you're probably not thinking of every note and every drum beat. What you're thinking of is maybe a few little snippets of like specific things and more than that, a general sense, or for some people it's, you know, just a color or a ah vibe to pick a, you know, that the parlance of today.
01:21:19
Erik Peabody
um But, you know, to to help someone define that and either maintain or regain their love of that, that's a wholly human experience, you know?
01:21:30
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:21:30
Erik Peabody
I mean, insofar as we can't talk to the animals and the art my cat does is usually just destructive in nature. um You know, as far as I know, we're we're the only real species creating art and The phenomenon of feeling alienated from your own artistic creation is terrible.
01:21:50
Erik Peabody
And i I think that if if I can be a part of removing that for someone, that's just so damn cool. you know
01:21:59
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
01:22:00
Erik Peabody
That makes me so happy. And the fact that it's you know it's it's also you know covering my cost of living is even better.
01:22:01
The Jobs Podcast
that
01:22:05
The Jobs Podcast
Oh, sure.
01:22:06
Erik Peabody
Yeah.
01:22:06
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Well, you you made a good point there is that we are really the only entity on earth that is making art. Although I did see an elephant make a painting one time, but I think that was just...
01:22:15
Erik Peabody
You know, I was specifically thinking of that when I was saying it. I'm like, oh God, I put my foot in my mouth here.
01:22:21
The Jobs Podcast
no
01:22:21
Erik Peabody
I'm not going to bring up the elephant.
01:22:22
The Jobs Podcast
No, no, no, no, it's not. I don't consider that to be art. But anyway, so
01:22:26
Erik Peabody
Well, way to address the elephant in the room, Tim.
01:22:28
The Jobs Podcast
yeah Oh, lovely. so i We got to add a soundtrack or a yeah ah a rim shot to that one.
01:22:33
Erik Peabody
Oh, yes.
01:22:33
The Jobs Podcast
But so failure, let's ah we're all happy now. Let's talk about how we failed.
01:22:39
Erik Peabody
oh absolutely. Absolutely.
01:22:39
The Jobs Podcast
um Well, you know, a failure is one of those things where I think there's some people and I know some of them. They set this unrealistic an unrealistic expectation to, I'm not allowed to fail. I have to be perfect.
01:22:53
The Jobs Podcast
It's a recipe for never-ending frustration.
01:22:56
Erik Peabody
Yes.
01:22:56
The Jobs Podcast
I think life is easier when you accept that despite your best efforts, you're going to make mistakes. Now, okay, that's a fact.
01:23:05
The Jobs Podcast
That's not up for discussion. But how you respond to that failure is 95% of that mistake. Okay. of that mistake What's your advice when you on rare occasions have made a mistake?
01:23:05
Erik Peabody
yes
01:23:20
The Jobs Podcast
How do you find is best to respond to it?
01:23:23
Erik Peabody
First off, I make mistakes so all the damn time. It's not rare occasions.
01:23:26
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
01:23:27
Erik Peabody
I just try to keep them ah in the realm of mistakes that are easily corrected.
01:23:31
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
01:23:33
Erik Peabody
um
01:23:35
Erik Peabody
As far as advice goes, A similar question that I get asked with some frequency is how do you know a song is done from a writing standpoint or when is a mix done? How do you know it's time to release it?
01:23:49
Erik Peabody
um Or how do you feel okay with releasing something if it's it's still not where you want it? And the answer is the same to your question. And it's you want to think of everything you do as not just a finished thing you were putting out, but it is there to serve as training for you.
01:24:12
Erik Peabody
And more importantly, the release itself is not, don't think of anything as your magnum opus or, you know, the the most precious thing you have ever created. You can't be too married to any of this stuff. is as weird as it sounds to say, because obviously you need to be incredibly emotionally invested in any artistic pursuit for it to be as effective as it's going to be.
01:24:37
Erik Peabody
But if you can think of everything you do artistically as a time capsule, it is a snapshot of you as an artist, as a human being, as someone that has something to convey at that point in your life.
01:24:52
Erik Peabody
And its representative it's representative of what you wanted to convey as well as the tool set and abilities you had with which to convey that at the time.
01:25:03
Erik Peabody
And if you can think of everything as well, This is just a mile marker and it's not where I'm stopping. And, you know, i i will look back at even the things I thought were perfect and find, you know, with with fresh hindsight, be able to identify things I would change and all that stuff.
01:25:21
Erik Peabody
Why stress on the front end? You know, you obviously need to put in time to make sure that it's what you want it to be. But there's this kind of slippery slope where it can go from, well, I still need to work on it, still need to work on it, to I will now always be working on it because it will never be ready.
01:25:39
Erik Peabody
And that's the point where I think you just need to change the mindset and go, i don't need to work on this until it's perfect. I need to work on it until it's as good as it can be with where I am right now.
01:25:53
Erik Peabody
And that's okay. So, you know,
01:25:55
The Jobs Podcast
you do You do kind of have those artists that, you know, and we all can kind of see this image in our head is it's a tortured soul that he just can't ever get that painting right. And he's done it 75 times and he just tears it up and throws it away. No, it's not perfect yet.
01:26:10
Erik Peabody
Mm-hmm.
01:26:10
The Jobs Podcast
It's never, I don't think that's an achievable goal. I think that's a negative feed loop that you just can't get out of.
01:26:16
Erik Peabody
Yeah. And it doesn't even guarantee that it's going to do what you want it to either. Like, um I didn't see the movie, but that, what was, there was some source Scorsese flick that came out recently with Adam Driver that they had he had spent like years making this thing or something.
01:26:22
The Jobs Podcast
Right. Right.
01:26:34
Erik Peabody
And it flopped hard. And, you know, I mean, that's not, there could be a million reasons why that happened, but regardless, it is an example of you you know, a very talented set of creatives that...
01:26:49
Erik Peabody
made the decision to take the time to get things exactly where they wanted it to be. And there's a strong argument to be made that that was not the right course of action for that specific piece of art, you know?
01:27:02
Erik Peabody
um On the flip side, Black Sabbath needed to have one more song before they released their second album and they cranked out Paranoid in some disgustingly short amount of time. And it's one of the best heavy metal songs of all time, you know? so I get that it is important to not cut corners and that you don't want to just give up on something because it's not going how you want. That's not what I'm talking about.
01:27:27
Erik Peabody
um But recognizing that the amount of effort you put into something doesn't always correlate to its... value afterwards. And I use the term value in a very broad sense.
01:27:39
Erik Peabody
um But between that and the fact that, you know, you need to put stuff out if you want to put stuff out, you know, you can, yeah, you could spend another six months working on it and getting it right or two years or something. But A, there's no guarantee you'll feel at that point that it's ready to release yet.
01:27:55
Erik Peabody
And B, that's six months or two years that you are still working on this thing and not putting it out, taking a bit of downtime, listening to it again, trying to figure out what you did well, what you don't want to do well, learning from it and going on to the next thing that will be better because you have, you know, you're, you've grown, you've matured as an artist and as a creator of the specific type of work that you want to put into the world.
01:28:20
The Jobs Podcast
Do you think that certain people just have an ear or a knack for your line of work? Do you find that a lot of people get into it and then they, because they like, they romanticize the job and they, you know, they they see themselves working with some legendary band or artist and cranking out a masterpiece.
01:28:40
The Jobs Podcast
But when it comes down to the day-to-day or just an ear for it, they don't really have it.
01:28:47
Erik Peabody
Not so much with what I do, at least not with other people that are doing client work. um There are people I know that are, you know, mixing their own recordings. You know, it's it's just part of their production process. They want to put out songs and they either, you know, want to be mixing it themselves or they can't afford to hire someone else.
01:29:10
Erik Peabody
And there are um people in that situation that I think just really aren't cutting it. And... in some In a lot of cases, I think it's correctable. you know One of the other things about this specific line of work is that one of the unfortunate realities is that you do need a certain listening environment and a certain caliber of equipment to be able to work with it, um or else you're just handicapped and it's it's a huge fight uphill. The analogy I frequently use is like if someone gave you a page out out of a coloring book and said, hey, color this in,
01:29:47
Erik Peabody
You could make it look as good or as bad with a set of crayons as you could based on your own talent, but you're going to have a much better shot at doing that if you're sitting in a room with white neutral light than if you're sitting in a room with a yellow tinted bulb or you know a dark room with just a red light or something.
01:30:07
Erik Peabody
And it's the same with mixing audio. A lot of people that are making music can play an instrument great or can write great music and this, that, and the other, but And it's asking a lot to be like, well, you know now you need to actually set up a whole environment with acoustic treatment and proper monitoring and dedicate it just to that because it's know at least a several thousand dollar affair, not to mention that a lot of people can't do it because they're renting or they don't have the space in their house or you know this, that, and the other.
01:30:28
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:30:39
Erik Peabody
and unfortunately that plays into it a lot of the
Financial Aspects of Creative Work
01:30:44
Erik Peabody
time. um A lot of the folks that I see that are struggling with this, it's not because they're not dedicated and it's not because they aren't finding good sources of learning.
01:30:55
Erik Peabody
It's that there's some actual hard limitation, you know. um
01:30:58
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:30:59
Erik Peabody
But on the flip side, you know, there are people that are just naturally great at this. There are people I know that were mixing in in situations that I never would have guessed based on listening to the the quality of the music they put out.
01:31:13
Erik Peabody
And then there, you know, sometimes you talk them, it's like, yeah, I mixed this in my back room. You know, my my dog was snoring the whole time I was recording it.
01:31:19
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:31:20
Erik Peabody
And, you know, refrigerator was right up and causing all this electrical interference in my monitors. But yeah, it turned out okay. You know, like there will be people like that, just like with your...
01:31:29
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:31:30
Erik Peabody
Um, your, your, other person you mentioned that does sharpshooting. I've, I've done target shooting for a number of years and, you know, I'm somewhat okay at it, but it's the result of me putting a lot of time into it.
01:31:41
Erik Peabody
But you do see people where it's like, yeah, I thought I'd get into it. And like, you know, two weeks later, it's apparent that they're just a natural at it, you know, and you can have that with anything.
01:31:50
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
01:31:51
Erik Peabody
And it's very frustrating. And, you know, you, you quietly wish ill upon them behind their back, but, uh,
01:31:58
The Jobs Podcast
No, the guy that just, he's been shooting for two weeks and he throws a golf ball over his head and then shoots it out of a mirror reflection, you know, facing the other way. And it's like, oh, I just picked it up.
01:32:05
Erik Peabody
Yeah, Annie Oakley.
01:32:06
The Jobs Podcast
You know, it's like, golly, you make me sick.
01:32:09
Erik Peabody
Yeah, get out of here. I don't want to hear about it.
01:32:10
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Yeah.
01:32:11
Erik Peabody
Go be perfect somewhere else.
01:32:11
The Jobs Podcast
Well, I know. That's exactly right. So as we come into the homestretch here, the the topic that in any interview that I do, folks want to know is about pay.
01:32:24
The Jobs Podcast
Now, I never ask my guests what they make, but what can you give me any ballpark or kind of explain how someone in your line of work is paid? Is it by project or is it by the hour or both or studio rental time or how does that kind of pan out?
01:32:42
Erik Peabody
I'm assuming that you want me to exclude the people that wait until we're several conversations in and then they say that they can just pay you and weed, right?
01:32:50
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:32:50
Erik Peabody
Okay, yeah, because that happens.
01:32:53
The Jobs Podcast
I bet it does.
01:32:53
Erik Peabody
um It's all over the place and it um it's compounded in my situation because I'm i'm doing several different disciplines. you know Mixing engineering is its own thing. Mastering engineering is its own thing. And then the voiceover stuff is you know even further away.
01:33:11
Erik Peabody
um For me, was it's funny, I was just talking to someone else about this the other day, but um I was reading an interview with a composer a while back that said, you know never work for free, but that doesn't mean always work for money.
01:33:26
Erik Peabody
um There are three ways reasons to take a job. One is if it pays well. Two is if it's going to provide you with an experience that you know will be beneficial for either you you know personally or professionally.
01:33:41
Erik Peabody
and you you know have your baseline covered already. You can afford to take that job. Or three, you're going to not make anything on the front end, but you know that the exposure to say the bad e word is going to be sufficient enough to justify it. And I'm not talking about, yeah, you know well, my cousin might play this at his party if I do it for free. you know But like um my understanding is with, oh God, what game was it?
01:34:08
Erik Peabody
It was with Shovel Knight. Shovel Knight was an indie video game that came out, don't around about 10 years ago now that just made it huge and had a great team behind it. And the composer is this fellow, Jake Kaufman.
01:34:20
Erik Peabody
He goes by Vert. And he was he actually started in the video game cover scene. um For anyone listening, if you want to hear the the best ah the best version of The Legend of Zelda Link to the Past music, Go Find Vert's Blood of Ganon cover.
01:34:36
Erik Peabody
But anyway, this guy went from doing you know that stuff to doing it professionally. And at the point that he was approached by the team from Shovel Knight, it would have been very easy for him to you know present them with a number that he would do it for. And when they said, look, we can't afford that,
01:34:50
Erik Peabody
He, you know, could have been fully justified walking away. However, he was interested enough in the project and had enough faith in it that he did it.
01:34:52
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:34:57
Erik Peabody
And it's huge. It's had like, you know, a ton of expansions. It's still frequently talked about and just great situation. So bringing that back, not all of the work I do is for pay.
01:35:11
Erik Peabody
These days, since I've been doing this 15-ish years now, the vast majority is, but there are still times I'll take things on just because I think it's fun or you know there's an opportunity with it or it's a chance to you know work with someone that I haven't you know really interacted with before.
01:35:29
Erik Peabody
Anyway, that's just kind of skirting the edges of your question. I tend to do that if you haven't noticed. um Got a circle around on it. As far as actual pay, um generally, i look at each project by itself.
01:35:43
Erik Peabody
With my voiceover stuff, I have... Most of my pay structure is per finished hour. And it's because I do audio engineering and I have the luxury of being able to, you know, engineer my own narration and stuff. I'm not delivering raw files to clients unless they specifically request that.
01:36:03
Erik Peabody
So it doesn't make as much sense for me to bill it by work hour because... Who knows, you know, I could be tripping over weird phrasing and, you know, be adding five minutes here and there to the whole project that the client really shouldn't have to pay for.
01:36:17
Erik Peabody
So per finished hour is great. You know, i I have something that rolls out at the end to an hour and 15 minutes of finalized audio that they can just drop in their project. That's a great way for them to pay it based on that amount.
01:36:30
Erik Peabody
um With musical stuff, it's usually based on the size of the project per song. So, you know, if you have a metal band and you come to me and you're like, hey, we're putting out a 10 song album, you know, what do you think?
01:36:38
The Jobs Podcast
Ah.
01:36:44
Erik Peabody
And I have a, you know, a base pay per song that I usually go to. And for a larger project like that, since a lot of times in those sorts of things, you can replicate work, um you know, from one song to the next, like, excuse me.
01:37:00
Erik Peabody
Generally, I'm not reworking the drum sound from the bottom up for each song on an album by the same band, you know.
01:37:06
The Jobs Podcast
ah
01:37:06
Erik Peabody
So if i if I get, you know, one song from them, I'll build a full thing. But if I have an album, you know, with eight or 10 songs, I can give them a discount because I know it won't be as much work.
01:37:18
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:37:19
Erik Peabody
At the same point, you know if someone comes to me and they're like, yeah, we've got a 10 song album and it's just two guys with acoustic guitars and you know someone singing over it, I will probably drop the price of that. you know On the flip side, if it's you know four layered rhythm guitars and there's a ton of synths and a full orchestral track and you know ah a 32 layer vocal stack with all this stuff, i'm I'm probably going to charge more in a situation like that.
01:37:44
Erik Peabody
But again, it's based on the project, not necessarily the hours worked. And with these sorts of things, I you know allow a certain number of revisions. um This is ah technical process, but it's also so also largely a you know a creative process. And you want to account for the fact that However much you and the client talk on the front end about making sure you're you're both aiming for the right target, you know there's going to be redirection, and that's just part of it.
01:38:13
Erik Peabody
So there'll be a feed per project based on that reasoning that I discuss and we come to with a client on the front end. I usually charge half up front, non-refundable, and the rest is paid on delivery. And that has worked really well for me in most situations.
01:38:31
Erik Peabody
um So, yeah, I mean, it's all over the place. Mastering is different than someone that just wants it mixed. um If there's a bunch of editing work that needs to be done, sometimes that'll be a separate fee.
01:38:41
Erik Peabody
um I would say the one the one big lesson about doing this work that I'm still having to learn and refine for myself is... making sure to try and account for everything up front so you don't end up in a situation that's going to negatively impact what you would promise the client, whether that's the pay rate or the turnaround time or anything like that.
01:39:07
The Jobs Podcast
You make a good point early on. You were talking about the different ways, you know, currency doesn't have to just mean dollar bills. There are other, there's other ways that you can get something of value, whether it's an experience or exposure, for example, but you probably have to weigh that to go.
01:39:14
Erik Peabody
Oh, yeah.
01:39:22
The Jobs Podcast
I'm getting lot of exposure, but there's no money coming in. So I need to kind of revamp things.
01:39:26
Erik Peabody
Yeah. And it it depends on your situation and where you are in your career and stuff. And like, you know, I mean, i I'll admit it. i do I do pretty well with my business. Like if if I was just on my own doing this, I would be able to survive just fine.
01:39:42
Erik Peabody
But the fact that my wife has a stable salary job is really nice because it means that the fluctuations with my ups and downs, you know, I'll...
01:39:48
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:39:52
Erik Peabody
I'll have a day where I'll hit her up and be like, yeah, a bunch of invoices got paid. i you know I pulled in like $4,500 today or something. But that's obviously not indicative of, that doesn't mean I make that money per day. you know That could be after three months of nothing coming in just because I happen to be between deposits and finishing up projects and stuff like that.
01:40:12
Erik Peabody
So you know having ah someone else that has a more stable employment situation, a more traditionally stable employment situation allows me to do this and it allows me to be more effective at my job too because I'm not stressing I'm not trying to rush through things to make sure I can get as much work done as I you know need to to pull in money that sort of thing um it's it's just very different for each situation and um It also allows me a bit more latitude to do things that I just think would be fun. Or, you know, if I have a buddy hit me up and he's like, hey, I'm, you know, i'm I'm putting out this thing and I just don't have any money, but what do you think?
01:40:53
Erik Peabody
You know, I can potentially look at it and be like, yeah, this looks like it's going to kick ass. I totally want to help with this. Yeah, let's just do this for free. And, you know, if there's money afterwards, we'll figure it out or something like that, you know.
01:41:04
The Jobs Podcast
Does your wife kind of know how things are going where if you come in and say we're having ramen for dinner versus we're going out and yeah, I know guacamole is extra but whatever my lady wants she gets kind of thing. Is that how the...
01:41:15
Erik Peabody
Leonardo tossing the bills for the guac. um Yeah, she's, um i'm I'm extremely lucky um with her. She's very open with communication, as am I, and that extends to finances and stuff. We um we were kind of fortunate in that, you know, we met up later on, you know, um in our early mid thirties.
01:41:36
Erik Peabody
And so ah I think that we both had a chance to you know, establish how the relationship was going to go as adults, which is nice.
01:41:45
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-mm.
01:41:46
Erik Peabody
And part of that was we just talk about the finances and I let her know where things are and, hey, so, you know, things are good right now or it's going to be fine. I've got this coming in or, yeah, I was expecting this to come in last week, but the person's dragging their heels and, you know, we it hasn't been the source of contention or arguing for us at all. And, you I've been very fortunate in that regard. She's a very practical person.
01:42:12
Erik Peabody
And being able to just talk about this stuff is nice. i You know, you see memes online, ah especially in guitar circles, you know, people talking, oh, I did this and I can't tell the wife for a while or this and that.
01:42:22
Erik Peabody
And it's great because, like I said, you know,
01:42:23
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
01:42:26
Erik Peabody
we we met through the same scene. you know Right above me is her office and she's got a whole wall with just a ton of Castlevania stuff. you know And so if I go to you know video game series, and so if I and talking to her and I'm like, look,
01:42:42
Erik Peabody
I know I shouldn't do it, but there's this guitar I've been looking at that I just, you know, can't stop thinking about. You know, she's usually like, well, you know, how, how unrealistic would it be to do that? You know? And of course there are times when she's like, maybe we shouldn't do that, but in general, it's, it's just wonderful.
01:42:58
Erik Peabody
And uh, I shudder at the thought of having to do it in a different situation.
Career Satisfaction and Challenges
01:43:04
The Jobs Podcast
It sounds like a healthy level of communication from where I'm sitting, and I commend you for that. I think that's where a lot of relationships break down.
01:43:12
Erik Peabody
Oh, yeah.
01:43:12
The Jobs Podcast
but
01:43:13
Erik Peabody
Now, keep in mind, it's real easy for me to portray my side of things, but no, she feels pretty good about it, too.
01:43:16
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:43:19
The Jobs Podcast
So one final question, and then we'll wind things up. If you weren't in your current career, if you weren't doing what you do right now, was there one other thing maybe years ago where you thought, I might want to do that?
01:43:28
Erik Peabody
Mm-hmm.
01:43:32
The Jobs Podcast
Just something kind of uncharacteristic or just totally out of left field that, you know, you know, wouldn't work in the moment, but yet you'd always kind of side-eyed it a little bit.
01:43:43
Erik Peabody
I mean, it's it's hard to say. I i was doing this stuff part-time for years, you know, around other jobs before I was able to, um you know, kind of step it up to my main gig.
01:43:58
Erik Peabody
And so, i you know, I've worked in a lot of different types of jobs, public sector, private sector, different shifts, you know, physical things and sedentary things and all that. And none of them were
01:44:10
Erik Peabody
you know, so objectively good. You know, I wasn't getting paid to test burritos every day or something like that, you know, but um I think that this was always what I had in that spot in my mind. Well, if I wasn't, you know, working at this law office or if I wasn't, you know, doing this records thing or something, yeah, I'd love to and'd love to work on audio full time.
01:44:33
Erik Peabody
And i was already... in my early 30s when this turned into my full-time thing. And at that point, I don't think there was anything else.
01:44:47
Erik Peabody
like as you know I mean, of course, as soon as I started doing this full-time, there was the excitement and the fear of like, oh man, this is great. And also, am I going to starve? um But by the time that you know kind of honeymoon phase faded to the point where it was you know just what I was doing and i potentially could have had something else start growing in my mind as the next, you know, grass is greener sort of thing.
01:45:09
Erik Peabody
I don't know. I still like doing this. I mean, I have frustrations with it. Of course, everyone does with any career, but I...
01:45:16
The Jobs Podcast
Oh, yeah.
01:45:19
Erik Peabody
There have definitely been times where I'm like, man, I can't wait to be done with this project or things are, you know, really rocky with this specific client right now. But it's never been to the point of me thinking like, God, I just don't like this. I just wish I was doing something else.
01:45:37
Erik Peabody
um And that's good, you know, and it could change with time.
01:45:40
The Jobs Podcast
yo yeah
01:45:41
Erik Peabody
But also, you know, I... I'm a grumpy old person now and I usually go to sleep at like nine o'clock and wake up early and, you know, I have my routine and that makes me happy.
01:45:52
Erik Peabody
So I think I'm less prone to start dreaming about something else at this point.
01:45:55
The Jobs Podcast
right one one question before we we wind it up and i'm just curious have you ever had anybody come in and your vocal that that does vocals and they sing and you're just thinking i'm not going to be able to salvage this this person has zero talent
01:46:00
Erik Peabody
Yeah.
01:46:13
Erik Peabody
Yes. And
01:46:15
The Jobs Podcast
you got to hide your body language don't you
01:46:17
Erik Peabody
no, I was, I was thinking of the best, best place to go from. Yes. ah
01:46:23
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:46:23
Erik Peabody
but Um, singing. Yes. Uh, any other instrument or thing like that. Um, I, uh, I had a situation a couple of years ago where i I had actually traveled out of state to help, um,
01:46:39
Erik Peabody
helped this band start recording their album. And ah when I got there, it became very apparent that um one of the musicians, though capable, had not been practicing.
01:46:51
Erik Peabody
um There were other factors involved too, but the you know the the takeaway was that we got set up and we were ready to go. And within a couple hours realized, oh no, no like this is just not going to happen.
01:47:00
The Jobs Podcast
Oh, that's
01:47:03
Erik Peabody
And In a situation like that, it's tough because you know you've flown somewhere, there's time booked, there's expectations, and you know that's that's its own thing. In general, I make a point of you know most of my stuff is remote. And so when I start talking with someone as early in the process as I can, i ask them if they would mind if I listen to what they've recorded.
01:47:27
The Jobs Podcast
oh that's good
01:47:29
Erik Peabody
it It just makes it better for everyone. And usually in those situations, if you run into you know the type of thing where, man, this person just can't play guitar or you know they can't sing or this, that, and the other,
01:47:30
The Jobs Podcast
Sure. Yeah.
01:47:45
Erik Peabody
It's A, no money has changed hands yet, thank God. So that makes it easier because I i hate having to you know change stuff up after that point.
01:47:48
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
01:47:55
Erik Peabody
But you can also you can address things on a granular level without... saying something like, yeah, I'd love to work with you, but you can't play guitar. um and And I mean, really, that's not the case, too. It's not that they can't play guitar. It's that there are these things that are causing problems.
01:48:12
The Jobs Podcast
Mm-hmm.
01:48:12
Erik Peabody
And, you know, realistically, the fix for those things might be to play guitar for another few years and get better. But I prefer to address that stuff on that graualle granular level and be like, yeah, I love the song. I think it's going to be great. But here's something I was hearing.
01:48:31
Erik Peabody
you know In the guitar lines, I was noticing that pretty consistently you're you know you're coming in before the beat or when you're you know you're doing these bends, it's not quite hitting the note. um And then you know we'll have the conversation. like I could go in and edit that stuff, but there's it's never going to sound as good or honest as you know honest as if you know, it was recorded that way.
01:48:53
Erik Peabody
How do you feel about taking a bit of time and trying to retract some of this stuff? And that's great because A, it keeps us in the mode of, all right, how do we address this instead of, no, this isn't going to work and there's some judgment attached to that.
01:49:10
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:49:10
Erik Peabody
And, you know, who knows?
01:49:10
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:49:12
Erik Peabody
I'm not, you know, God. This person could have just been having an off day when they recorded the guitar and yeah, they could retract it.
01:49:15
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
01:49:20
Erik Peabody
and then send it to me and it's great. Or they could, you know, use it as, you know, we might not do that project right then, but it, you know, could be that one little thing, whereas they practice over the next few years, they focus on that and get better at it.
01:49:34
Erik Peabody
Or it could make them go, well, yeah, you know, I'm really just not doing this how I want to and I don't want to put this off. Let me get my buddy, see if he can do the solo for this one. And then, you know, that's a great solution too.
01:49:45
Erik Peabody
um So yeah, there there are people that
01:49:49
Erik Peabody
are not as good as they want to be for the current project at whatever it is they're doing. But I think that it's frequently possible to turn that into, at the very worst, a neutral thing, if not a positive thing, as opposed to ah negative thing.
01:50:10
Erik Peabody
um i've I've worked with people that have submitted stuff to other mixing engineers that have been You know, one guy in particular, you know, he got back to him and, you know, said, this sounds like you recorded it out, you know, behind your garage.
01:50:23
Erik Peabody
Like, what the hell are you thinking with this? And it's like, dude, even even if that is how you feel about this stuff, like, yeah, I mean, have have some modicum of sense, you know, like, and yeah.
01:50:28
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah, be diplomatic about it, yeah.
01:50:34
The Jobs Podcast
Sure.
01:50:37
Erik Peabody
So there, yeah.
01:50:39
The Jobs Podcast
is Is experience something that, because I can see how if you don't know how to manage the egos and emotions and the the wants and the passions that someone coming to you thinking, my mom told me that I can sing really good.
01:50:54
The Jobs Podcast
And so I'm going to knock this out of the park. And then, you know, when they say, did I get that note wrong? And well, you got all the notes wrong. um
01:51:02
Erik Peabody
Yeah.
01:51:02
The Jobs Podcast
How you deliver that diplomatically and sensitively and maybe find solutions as opposed to just presenting a failure at their feet.
01:51:10
Erik Peabody
Yeah. um
01:51:13
Erik Peabody
Well, first off, I have the luxury of usually not being present when the stuff is being recorded.
01:51:17
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah, that's a big one.
01:51:18
Erik Peabody
So, yeah, I mean, it's it's not like I have to make that decision right then of, man, do I just let us keep wasting time on this or do I you know stop things right now and have this difficult conversation with someone?
01:51:31
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah.
01:51:31
Erik Peabody
um Outside of that, I try to let... I try to convey what I need to in very data-driven terms. Like, for example, if someone gave me ah recording and the vocal line was just every note was off, you know, I i might approach that on the front end and, you know, based on how I, you know, the sense I have of the person and how much their ego is wrapped up in things and, you know, this, that, and the other, i might just say like, look, you know, i
01:52:03
Erik Peabody
I think that right now we're not ready to do this and here's why, you know, but it's, I won't say something like the vocal just sucks or, you know, you're not hitting any notes. You know, i will try and give something more concrete. Like, you know, I've noticed with every, every time you go above a certain register, you know, we're hearing you slide up into the note and frequently you're overshooting and then coming down to it. And both of those things are really reducing how impactful this could be.
01:52:31
Erik Peabody
Or you know if I have a bit of time or if it's someone that I know is going to give me pushback on something, i'll um you know if it takes me 10 minutes to get the file from them and actually go through and take the first verse and tune it to where it should be, i can then show them, all right, so here's everything I had to do just for this thing.
01:52:51
Erik Peabody
And here's how it sounds as a result of it. And I think it would sound better if we got a recording that didn't require this amount of tuning after the fact.
01:53:00
The Jobs Podcast
Hmm.
01:53:00
Erik Peabody
You see what I'm saying? You know, that kind of brings them in as as a collaborator on how we fix a problem that I, as the professional, have been able to notice while they, not the professional, were unaware of.
01:53:01
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Yeah.
01:53:12
Erik Peabody
And that's exactly what they're paying me for. It's to help take what they're doing and make it as impactful as possible. And sometimes that means convincing them that it needs to be redone up to that point already, you know?
01:53:30
The Jobs Podcast
yeah
01:53:30
Erik Peabody
And it's their thing, you know? i I'm not the grand poobah of what makes music good. And i I know a lot of information about, you know, things I could argue objectively.
01:53:43
Erik Peabody
But even if someone gives me a vocal line or a guitar part, and in my mind, my first thought is, this is just horrible. you know, it's it's still a presumptuous thing on my part to just assume that that's not necessarily, at least in part, what they're going for.
01:53:58
Erik Peabody
So that's another reason I try to approach it that way is, you know, if if I, you know, show them the amount of auto-tuning I had to do and they're like, oh no, i've I wanted it to sound like Yoko Ono or something, you know, it's easier.
01:54:09
The Jobs Podcast
floor
01:54:11
Erik Peabody
Yeah, but I mean, you know, it's easy.
01:54:12
The Jobs Podcast
What a horrible example.
01:54:14
Erik Peabody
but I mean, hell, it demonstrates what I'm trying to say, though, doesn't it?
01:54:17
The Jobs Podcast
Oh, I mean, perf.
01:54:17
Erik Peabody
You you immediately knew what I was saying.
01:54:19
The Jobs Podcast
Oh, that was a visceral reaction. I'm sorry to any Yoko Ono fans out there, but good grief.
01:54:26
Erik Peabody
I'm not.
01:54:26
The Jobs Podcast
Sorry.
01:54:26
Erik Peabody
um
01:54:27
The Jobs Podcast
Oh, my goodness.
01:54:28
Erik Peabody
But, you know, still at the same point, it's it's easier to... to salvage things at that point and be like, oh, okay, well, if that's what you're going for, yeah, then we don't need to do any of this.
01:54:37
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:54:38
Erik Peabody
It's easier to do that than to be like, oh, well, then I'm sorry I said you sound like a dying wombat or something.
01:54:42
The Jobs Podcast
Right.
01:54:43
Erik Peabody
you know yeah Obviously, yeah you can't deescalate at that point.
01:54:49
The Jobs Podcast
So on the Yoko Ono example, let's go ahead and wind up this conversation. Eric, thank man. ah We've been talking for almost two hours, man. And I didn't even realize that I was such an enjoyable conversation. You are chock full of knowledge.
01:55:03
Erik Peabody
Well, i I sure know how to fake it at least, but I'm i'm glad you enjoyed the the conversation.
01:55:04
The Jobs Podcast
um Well, no.
01:55:07
Erik Peabody
I did too. it's um It's nice to get to talk about this stuff.
01:55:09
The Jobs Podcast
Yeah. Hey, if folks want to find you and and use your services or reach out to you, where can they find you?
01:55:15
Erik Peabody
Mm-hmm. They can go to www.vikunguitar.com. That's V-I-K-I-N-G-G-U-I-T-A-R.com. You can also email me at vikingguitarproductions at gmail.com because I still don't have a professional email address for some reason.
01:55:31
Erik Peabody
um And I'm also on various social medias, Viking Guitar. um But yeah, i the again, just the main things I do primarily for, you know, rock oriented music, metal and stuff. But I've also done jazz and blues and EDM and rap and trip hop and bunch of other stuff. But um post-production for ah musical projects, mixing and mastering.
01:55:53
Erik Peabody
I also do a lot of audio processing for music. independent voiceover artists and podcasts. So if you're looking for anyone to help with that sort of stuff, feel free to reach out. I'm happy to chat about it, even if it ends up being something that would be better suited for someone else. But as you can tell, I like just running my mouth about audio. So give me, give me reasons to talk with you about your audio project.
01:56:19
The Jobs Podcast
Eric, thank you so much, man. This has been a blast. I think a lot of folks are going to, they're going to be able to pull a lot from this if they're interested in your line of work. And hopefully they'll they'll reach out for for your services as well.
01:56:30
Erik Peabody
Well, even if ah i I don't get any leads from this, it's been great talking with you. i Like I said, I like talking about this stuff. And for someone that doesn't live in this industry, you've had some really great questions.
01:56:43
Erik Peabody
And i it's it's been a pretty comprehensive approach to this.
01:56:43
The Jobs Podcast
Oh, thanks.
01:56:46
Erik Peabody
And i I've enjoyed it, Tim. You know, i I've had a good time.
01:56:48
The Jobs Podcast
All right. Tim gets a little wood on the ball every now and again. So, uh, you know, all right.
01:56:54
Erik Peabody
Today was a win.
01:56:56
The Jobs Podcast
Thank you, sir.
01:56:57
Erik Peabody
Thank you.