The most important lesson any up and coming audio engineer should know.

Now, I can get a bit more back on topic. I hope everyone is doing great out there, following your dreams and all that jazz. I was following mine the other day and one thing that continuously arises is this concept of a PLN (personal learning network). I, like many of you now didn’t know what a PLN was. It basically is the handful of websites, magazines, TV shows, or wherever you stay up to date on the topics that interest you. This also relates to us on a professional level, keeping our finger on the pulse of our respective industries. One site I frequent is www.mixonline.com, the online version of Mix Magazine. Mix is a professional publication focused on audio engineers and the like. There are always great interviews from legendary producers and engineers and they talk very candidly about their careers and tips for younger upstarts. I found one in particular by George Massenburg, legendary equipment designer and manufacturer, engineer, producer and educator. Mr. Massenburg is an advocate of innovation and the development of the very tools we engineers use to help usher the industry into the future. He greatly pushed the “use your ears” message in more ways than one. As he sees it, the gap present that separates the quality recording from the past and the newer volume war fodder is education. After all, how do you train an audio engineer? What is it an audio engineer does anyway? Well, first I have to very respectfully agree with Mr.Massenburg. I think listening in this day is a lost art. You don’t see young engineers going out to listen to GOOD musicians in different acoustical environments to receive that crucial audio training. Watching and listening are the two most important things a young, up and coming audio engineer needs to master… yes, even more important than signal flow. Signal flow is very important so let me just go ahead and get that out there, I don’t advocate ditching flow knowledge for being a wall flower. However, some of the most important lessons that can be learned go by in a flash and are lost forever. Critical listening in an appropriate, controlled acoustical space is the exact prescription an engineers ears need to sustain a long and prosperous career. Remember all of you engineers out there, our job is to capture audible brilliance from a talented artist, analyze and treat the audio so a listener ten years later from a different part of the world can audibly travel back in time and sit right in front of that artist, enjoying that piece of music. We really shouldn’t get in the way.

Negotiations and Deal Making in Entertainment

Recently, I spoke to Ms. Misty Wright, a friend of mine who is a freelance Entertainment consultant. She was kind enough to give me a few minutes of her time to discuss negotiations and deal making as it relates to her everyday dealings. Ms. Wright has assisted many top entertainers over her thirty-year career, and the tone that rings truest in her opinion is total unpredictability in human beings. Due to this phenomenon, a constantly changing approach to negotiating is needed to continue doing business at the upmost potential. I was told a bit about leverage and power in negotiations. Some new tips Misty had for me was to always believe, at least in my own mind, I have the power and ultimate leverage. This mental empowerment will project in your attitude when dealing with other professionals. I asked, “So if all or most professionals are practicing this method, doesn’t it kind of cancel each other out?” Misty giggled and said, “Yes, but remember that most forget.” That statement resonated with me. It is true; most professionals don’t continue to practice the craft of negotiating or the simple action and reaction scenarios that play out in most of those negotiations. The second major tool she empowered me with was the concept of status. Misty said, “Always remember how hard it is to build a solid reputation, and how quickly it can be destroyed.” This is also a very true statement because people that are worth dealing with are only going to deal with others that possess a solid reputation. In the real world, dealing with negative emotions or people that just seem to want to ruin someone’s day as soon as they roll out of bed is just a sad fact of life. She reminded me, “You are never forced to listen to B.S. so always deal in facts.” If you have a basis of factual information backing you up, it is hard to win against you. This is not a foolproof method because one does not exist. The unpredictability of human beings trumps any method you may try to adopt fully. The real answer is to be like silly putty. You are moldable, shapeable, and are able to transfer images from one source to another perfectly, but you are somewhat firm and have a shape of your own as well. When you are being pulled in every direction you are able to give in all the appropriate areas with out breaking into. This is the consistency you should strive for as a human that has chosen to constantly deal with other humans. Case-in-point, the best defense against getting burned is to be burned many times. Wow, life is tough, it is an ever changing, ever learning, every day reality TV program with the craziest cast of characters ever imagined. The only solace is the ending of the program, though it might not seem so, is truly up to you.