We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Tom Waltz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Tom below.

Hi Tom, thanks for joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

Intro
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Making a full-time living from music has been a rewarding journey filled with many twist, and turns, challenges, and surprises. I’ve always seen myself more as a music enthusiast, or fan, more than a business person, so the initial hurdle was figuring out how to turn my passion into a sustainable career that can be financially viable.

I spent a couple decades, starting with putting together a small recording studio when I was in my early 20’s, to sustaining a solid career in the music recording industry that has lasted through today, and beyond.
Along the way, I was lucky enough to work with a wide range of notable artist that included Wu-Tang w/Cappadonna, Marky Mark (Grammy Nom) and his brother Donnie Wahlberg, and New Kid On The Block, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Extreme, Bobby Brown, Peter Wolf & Magic Dick (J.Geils Band), Max Roach, D.J. RJD2, Clinton Sparks (Lady Gaga, Rick Ross), D.J. Logic, Gang Star_Guru, DJ, Premier, The Skatilites, James Labrie/Dream Theater, Mike Mangini, (Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson) Kenya Hathaway …and many more, in addition to many, many up, and coming artist.

Along the way for a few years in the late 90’s, I was asked by a local community arts college to write the curriculum for a recording arts associates degree. The college then hired our studios, and staff to teach the class’s in, where the classes were mainly scheduled for weekday morning till early afternoon, and then the studio would run regular sessions in the afternoon till late at night.

That being said, the music industry is a tough business, I imagine like running any other business, but it’s a bit more personal and you have able to negotiate the territory with highly creative artist on a daily basis, so like anything, you have to be committed, and produce positive results, and prove yourself on every project.

I think part of the trick to running a business that you enjoy, and that generates a decent income, is that you’ve got to be good at managing your time, as well as money. Reinvesting to grow as needed, and as you go. Prioritizing stuff that going to make the biggest impact.

Like being successful in any business, it takes a combination
of having vision, energy, and passion for the business/field
that you’re committed to.

How I Started
———— History & Process

From an early age, music was always around. From always being played on the stereo in the house & car, going to concerts, ..to my parents having me take guitar, and piano lessons at a young age (probably to keep me busy _ i had five brothers) .

My older brother who is 2 years ahead of me was pretty influential because he was into more cutting edge music that introduced me to some great artist, guitarist, and bands that I looked up to, and tried to learn from, and emulate.

I had started taking guitar lessons down at the local music store when I was around 12, and after a couple years got asked if I’d like to teach there when I was 15, so that was was really the start of making money in the music business.
I could hear a song, and learn the chord progressions, and solo’s by ear, so the students were psyched to be learning whatever song they liked. I also showed them scales, and music theory, as well.

I taught guitar lessons through high school, and a little beyond, and had branched out into teaching privately at home, so I
was able to cut out the middle man, and make twice as much $ from half my cliental, all the while playing in cover bands
here, and there. I didn’t see too much actual income from the playing live aspect, but it was great fun, and a great learning experience.

During high school, I also dabbled in recording, and production, and had an interest in how records were made.
From the money made from teaching, I bought a couple used small tape decks, and experimented with recording, and over dubbing in the basement.

After high school, like most people, I was faced with the decision of, what’s next? It took a year or so, before I decided
to apply to theThe Berklee Collage of music in Boston. I decided to go there because a few of my favorite musicians
like Steve Vai, Vinnie Colaiuta, Jan Hammer, Al DiMeola, and John Scofield went there.

Berklee was good for me, because I had gotten a work study job at the college music hall/theater eventually running lights, and sound monitors for national touring acts with some of the artist that I worked with, being ones that I used to listen to growing up as a kid, so it was a nice to rub elbows with some of the greats at the time like, Ray Charles, B.B. King, Allman Brothers, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan etc.

The collage’s engineering department at the time focused some of its curriculum and study on how to integrate computers in the recording, and production process.

Computers were really starting to come online then, which changed the way how music was recorded edited, sequenced etc. It was a whole new ball game using and integrating a hybrid of analog tape machines & mixing consoles with the new digital recording frontier. It became way more technical, but at the same time it let you do non-destructive editing, vocal tuning, time aligning etc, where this stuff was hard to come by or non existent in the analog world.

Anyway, learning, and utilizing this new cutting edge technology is what I believe really helped propel my career, along with being around like minded people, and some of the most talented up and coming players, producers, and engineers there was.

After going 8 straight semesters without taking the summers off, and graduating early, I transitioning into a serious pursuit of a music career, and invested in the necessary recording equipment by taking out a 90 days same s cash $3k loan. This included buying a multi-track tape machine, audio console, and studio monitors.

The goal was to achieve the high-quality recordings needed for radio airplay, vinyl, CD, and streaming.
I set up a small recording studio in a 1 bedroom basement apartment using the bedroom, as the control room, and the living room as a live/performance room. Within a week of setting up the semi crude studio, I had recorded a few tracks for a band that I really didn’t have much confidence in because they recorded song parodies, which were recreations of currently famous songs with the lyrics rewritten, and sang in a comical manner.

Surprisingly, one of those tracks received heavy airplay in major rock radio markets in L.A., N.Y.C., and Boston. This early success gave me the confidence to promote my recording service further, starting with grassroots efforts like posting flyers at music stores, venues, and music schools etc. Funny enough, the original band heard the song on the radio and sent a cease and desist notice to the band. In the next month there was a write up about it in Billboard magazine, which created national press which equals free publicity.

Anyway, after the first year, and as the business grew, I reinvested profits into upgrading equipment, and expanding the studio to a 800 square foot commercial space in a great location. Within a couple years, we expanded again taking over 5000 more square footage in the same location. The multi-room facility housed 2 full state of the art recording studios, a mastering studio, a CD duplication facility, a graphics department, tape storage room, and a couple offices.
This commitment to continual improvement is what propelled my journey through the music industry, ..eventually working with some great major artist, who sell, and attract millions, winning multiple local music awards, getting music placed in TV shows, and movies, and getting nominated for an album of the year Grammy.

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.

What I do…

There’s basically four steps to producing music for national & international release. “Writing the songs”, “producing & recording the musicians/vocals”, “mixing the songs” to balance the individual elements, and then “mastering the songs” to get the best translation across a very wide range of playback systems for release.

I’ve spent countless hours, days, and nights in the recording studio producing, recording, and mixing for artist, but what I’ve transitioned to, ..and mainly what I’ve done for the last 14 years is called Mastering music for many artist around the world.

Mastering starts with, and is mainly done with a great, and trusted monitoring playback system. Very high quality equipment, such as, equalization, and compression, and very good outboard gear, converters, and computer software. And of coarse the engineers ears have to be very good, in order to recognize what is the most engaging sound to achieve for the end listener, since it is the final step in the music making process before the music is released to the public.

Mastering is taking the final mix, after the artist has recorded and mixed the song/s, and giving them the final polish.
Making the songs translate great across a very wide range of mediums, like streaming, music video, CD, Vinyl, clubs radio, and TV broadcast etc.

It’s gotta sound great wherever, and whatever it’s played on, that includes: Car stereo, Club system, Radio, Earbuds/Headphones, Home stereo, Boom boxes, Phones etc. The songs have to blend in with the best of the best, with the best audio quality, and fidelity possible. It has to sound great, and blend in with other songs that are in heavy rotation, and getting major air-play.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

What I really like about what I do, is that everyday there’s new and different challenges when working with many different styles of music from artist all around the world. It’s a universal language,, and can communicate with many, so making a sound that connects is paramount.

One thing that I’ve seen over the years, and sometimes with up and coming artist that put out a exceptional product, is that sometimes then don’t really take the time to market, and monetize it. That’s were the rubber meets the road. Often, you have to spend just as much time, and energy networking, branding, and selling as you do creating. It seems there’s a lot of people that love the creating process, but really don’t bother much with the selling process.
What I found helps with that, is to set, and achieve small daily goals, .. knock them out while keeping the bigger goal/s in focus.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

To tell the truth, I’m not a big social media nut (there’s just not enough time in a day), but you do have to establish an online presence. And social media/internet, besides “word of mouth” is one of the most beneficial forms of marketing there is because it’s mostly free, and attracts a world wide audience.

After I sold my multi-room studio, and built a mastering studio
I started getting involved with “online music forums” that are dedicated to music recording, production, and mastering professionals, and up and coming artist, and engineers alike.

Forums can be a great online community to congregate and talk shop. Check up, and keep up with current trends, and keep in touch with what, and how others are doing.

Some of the forums are moderated by very successful producers, and engineers that have worked on a wide range of hit records, so they had a great audience built in.

The more you can engage with the forum members, and even offer advice, is a plus, ..just like putting up meaning full content on your social media pages. Developing an online reputation of helpful, and great consumer relations is a must, where you really need to gain the consumers trust, which in turn, turns into great online word of mouth, where someone will recommend your services to other people because you took care of them, and tried to exceed their expectations. That’s what counts most, ..especially when you’re in the service industry, or really any industry. Never taking things for granted, and proving yourself every time.

Contact Info:

• Website: waltzmastering.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waltzmastering/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/waltzmastering
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-waltz-72099610