Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Damian Rodriguez. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Damian, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Before audio engineering full time, I was a professional musician(guitar) live and in studios. I was also working on experimental music with Roland Perez on SeventyThree records. We handled all the production duties but my knowledge of acoustics and recording techniques were nascent. After several projects and really digging into ProTools, I was able to get into a studio as a “night” engineer. I was fortunate to be working 50-80 hour weeks for about 4 years. It wasn’t long before I went from live musician to all studio work. I got to work with great musicians and producers with varying degrees of perspectives on music and life.
Knowing what I know now, I would’ve started learning to play jazz then. I’ve been playing Double Bass for 8 years and more recently jazz guitar. This music has changed the way I think about production and capturing performances regardless of the genre.
Listening has been the most essential skill. I’m not talking about listening to audio. I’m referring to listening to the artist, producer, collaborator or client. Our jobs as engineers it to take a sonic vision and make it come out of the speakers. That’s hard enough to do when it’s your own vision so really listening to and empathizing with that vision to the best of your abilities will likely yield the best result.
I would say the only obstacle to learning more then was my over confidence but that didn’t last. As I learned more, I realized there was a lot more to go. So we keep going.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
After working at Discos Joey for 4 years with hundreds of projects, a latin grammy nomination and Tejano Music Award under my belt, I decided to start Zinc Media, LLC. My focus is audio engineering and production in music. I work on voice over recordings for commercials and mobile apps, film mixing, ADR, film scoring and custom music creation and production. I have worked with The Audio Enginearing Institute as an instructor for their Advanced Studio Lab for about 10 years now and feel fortunate to help others by sharing my knowledge and experience. I believe being a practicing musician and multi-instrumentalist has given me an advantage as an engineer to execute vision with technical ability.
Currently out of Zinc Media, I am proud of 2 Shymouth albums released this year as well as the project “Artifacts” by Brandon Jon McCormick & Shymouth. My musical tastes and projects are definitely eclectic but they all have a common thread of emotional honesty in performance.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Early in my audio engineering career while I still played in a band, I was working in Studio A and ran into a musician friend at the studio complex. I asked If he was recording and he mentioned he was visiting a friend’s band recording in Studio B. It had been a few years since we’d seen each other. He was 30+ years my senior and still gigging. He was pleasantly surprised I worked there but mentioned to me how he wished he would have gotten into audio engineering in his youth because now he “has to” gig. That has stayed with me over 15 years. It was inconceivable to me that one would be forced to play music to make a living and no other option. I quit playing live and took audio engineering even more seriously and with great appreciation. Once I felt established in audio engineering I returned to the stage this time as a bass player for Bekah Kelso.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
With over 25 years in music, I’ve experienced how this art form can be a soundtrack to the listener’s life and be a colorful bookmark in an artist’s journey. Every project, when revisited, transports me to that time it was created. I like making and sharing these sonic time capsules, especially with others.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.zincmediapro.com
- Instagram: @zincmediapro
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zincmediapro
- Other: https://linktr.ee/zincmediapro https://linktr.ee/shymouth
Image Credits
Main Photo – Ana Patricia Lozano Jazz Club – Chanda Day Brandon McCormick & Shymouth – Brandon Faucette