We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Aidan Roberts. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Aidan below.
Aidan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?
My journey as an audio engineer started as a very creative and fulfilling passion, where I studied the different processes and techniques that were used to make records sound a certain way. Every time I had a new band or new genre, I would spend all day trying to find creative ways to get the artist or band closer to their sound. However, once I became more involved in the music industry, I started having doubts as to why I would choose audio engineering as a career.
The music industry is a very uncertain and unforgiving web of labels, companies, corporations, and artists trying to find a way to monetize sound. There are many people who will try to exploit the art and labor of artists, producers, engineers, bands, stage hands, photographers, videographers, managers, the list goes on.
Another factor to consider is the inconsistent income of making lots of money one month, and then very little the next. Finding employment can also be a challenge due to the high competition and even higher expectations put upon you to be the best at what you do.
To summarize, these problems are not unique to the music industry, but to the whole arts industry as a whole. But these issues are commonplace in the music industry. I would love to be able to afford healthcare, save up for retirement, have employee benefits, afford rent and groceries comfortably, and not have to work every single day of the month just to afford rent.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I’ve always loved music and was a musician very young. I started playing piano when I was six and played for several years until I started playing guitar in 8th grade. When I was in high school, I joined my first serious band and gigged every week or so playing blues, funk, and soul music. When I graduated high school, I decided to get into audio engineering and fell in love with making records. I went to college studying audio production for three years and during that time, built a recording studio in my parent’s basement where I regularly recorded bands and made records. After having several albums worth of music released, I decided to start looking into working at an established recording studio. I ended up becoming an intern at Colorado Sound Studios and decided to drop out of college to learn the trade first hand while I had the opportunity. As I was there, I worked as hard as I could for the opportunity to become an official audio engineer. As I worked hard, I got my first real taste of the music industry and the reality of what artists have to go through to make sustainable income. Once I became an engineer at Colorado Sound Studios, I started making less and less art due to the high demand for projects needing to sound industry standard and people who don’t take their art seriously. I also want to make it clear, there’s nothing wrong with wanting your art to sound professional. But as someone who’s spent so much of their life trying to make art and be creative, it takes a lot of the creativity out of a very important part of the music.
In this industry, discipline is everything. The only way to really strive in the music industry is to find a way to practice what you want to do every single day. I can say with confidence that a large part of why people choose to work with me is because of my professionalism and work ethic when it comes to making art. So far, I’ve spent five years in a row working in and out of recording studios and making records happen and, most importantly, learning and getting better. I feel very blessed to be able to work hard towards making something and still find new ways to do it. I’m not entirely sure where I will be in the next five years, but I know that I will always be making records.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
A lesson I am currently unlearning is the lesson of “always say yes”. Many creatives have this mindset of always saying yes to as many opportunities as possible regardless of how useful they may be in your career. This lesson is not only unrealistic but also dangerous for someone’s mental health and well being. Yes, an entrepreneur’s mindset is essential to succeeding as a creative and saying yes is important, but the sheer amount of work that it takes to accomplish something like making a record, or memorizing 20 songs, or marketing yourself to your audience, or booking shows, or budgeting for your band, or making content… There is so much to do and so little support for anyone to make these things happen. It’s important to say no to certain opportunities because there is truly no end to the workload and the best thing you can do is say yes to the opportunities that will support you.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I wish I started my business LLC much sooner in my career. Tax write-offs help so much, especially when you’re purchasing expensive audio equipment for your business.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://coloradosound.com/832-2/
- Instagram: @aidanrobertsmusic
