Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Bao Pham. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Bao, thanks for joining us today. The first dollar your firm earns is always special. We’d love to hear about how you got your first client that wasn’t a friend or family.
I remember branching out on my own for the first time, in my newly built studio and was open for my first day of business. I don’t remember being nervous, but confident that this could work for me as a new studio owner and audio engineer in my hometown. The first client I had was an artist that was accompanied by a deaf woman, and she paid for the artists’ studio time, about an hour. I can’t remember exactly who it was that came to record, but I took that as a strange sign from God that ironically someone who could not hear, paid for the first hour ever of me opening up. I guess it was a sign that even though she could not hear, she believed in her artist (which could have been her nephew). I never saw her or them again. It was something significant about that sign that made me believe that I could be successful in the Audio Engineering business.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
First and foremost, to separate me from others, is that I am an all-around creative. Not just a recording engineer, or mixing/mastering engineer, or producer. I feel that I bring a different perspective to help bring artists’ songs to life. Sure, I do these normal recording, mixing, and mastering services, but I feel that I provide insight on how they could approach putting out their music, helping them formulate their vision of where they could go in terms of branding and marketing and promoting themselves. Some listen, some don’t, but the separator is that I can feel and see where they are going, and easily mold their sound to give them the soundtrack to their destination, along with providing some vision and insight of where it could go and what they could do. Some may need more help than others, some may just be starting out or are seasoned, but they all have a journey, and I am happy to provide some safe haven to think and execute out their ideas and then have them carry on from there.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I’ve encountered alot of trials and made mistakes like any professional business owner, and even encountered the death of one of the biggest clients I’ve had. It’s always some type of pain, whether big or small, that everyone runs into. The way I kept going was staying consistent, somewhat unemotional to push through the difficulties, and focused on whatever I had to do to take care of my young family. My parents are also an inspiration, being that they were refugees from the Vietnam War and faced death, or extreme poverty, but chose to flee to better their lives in America. They went through the worst times imagineable seeing all types of things during the war. So for me, what I deal with is super small in comparison to them, and knew I could handle whatever was in front of me because they dealt with so much more. I always say, there’s always some one either better off or worse, to keep things in perspective, to keep going.
What’s been the best source of new clients for you?
Social media. Being myself, promoting my clients’ work if I worked with them, showcasing them and my own work with them, and doing the very best with every single client, because word of mouth does amazing when done the right way, along with social media.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://mixologystudios.online/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/turnmeupbao
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mixologystudios
- Twitter: https://x.com/turnmeupbao
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/reacademy
- Other: https://engineears.com/turnmeupbao
Image Credits
Timbaland, Jaycen Joshua (Hat), Dave Pensado (older man with glasses)