We were lucky to catch up with Troy Cruz recently and have shared our conversation below.

Troy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

In May of 2021, while working full-time at Northwestern University, and completing my Masters of Sound Arts & Industries, I made the decision to dive into the freelance audio world. Graduation was approaching that following August, and with no jobs lined up, I chose to leave my stable job in the middle of the Covid19 pandemic, I had enough savings for a few months of rent and was prepared to either make it in the audio field, or go broke. Quitting my stable job was the biggest risk that I have ever taken. My strategy was to spend all of my time trying to acquire freelance audio work, and ensuring that if I acquired one, I would be available to take it. Through a mix of passion, hard work, and a bit of luck, I was able to slowly build my audio career over the past three years, avoiding the need to return to traditional full-time employment.

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.

I call myself a Multimedia Audio Professiona, working freelance across various audio fields. My work includes recording, mixing, and mastering music and film at a recording studio. I work as an AV tech at a museum in Chicago, focusing on live sound, I teach location sound at Northwestern University, edit, and mix multiple podcasts, and handle video editing for companies offering online courses. On top of this, I engage in numerous one-off projects from my home studio. I take pride in my multidisciplinary approach, offering clients a holistic perspective on their projects. I believe that it is my job to ensure that the client is fully satisfied with the final product. I leave my ego out of the projects I take, and strive to fully understand, the bring the clients vision to life.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

When I graduated from school, I felt that I had the technical skillset to succeed, but I did not have the clients. This was on of the hardest tasks for me to achieve. I foolishly thought that If I was just really good, then I would be able to find clients easy. That is not the case. I found over time that reliability, and being a joy to work with is much more important than your skillset. This was a hard pill to swallow for me, as I had always placed the highest importance on technical skill. In reality, the people you are working with in this field care about the final product, not how you achieved it. People want to work with people that they enjoy working with. Over 90% of the jobs that I have gotten have been referral based. My reputation has grown through word of mouth, and putting out good work with people who are excited to share it. I don’t shy away from any job, if there is something that comes to me that I am unsure about, I will read and learn, and talk with other professionals in the field until I am confident that I can do the job. This has helped me gain the reputation of the person that can do everything. It isn’t that I know everything, its that I make the effort to dive into projects that I am unfamiliar with, and do my due diligence to learn the right way to do it. I would not be where I am now if I did not have this mindset.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I consider the audio field to be an incredibly creative industry. We are constantly making creative decisions, even if we are not the creators of the art. The most rewarding part for me is the absence of hard and fast rules that lead to different solutions for every project. I come from a classical music background, which felt like the polar opposite. Digging deep into the piano pieces I was learning, trying to play them exactly as they would have been played during the time period was draining to me. It did not feel like I was expressing myself through those pieces. When I started my masters, I thought I wanted to be a film composer due to my background, but seeing the expression in sound design for film, and mixing for music, I quickly ditched that idea. I felt the most free when I was sound designing or mixing. I felt that I could make decisions because I wanted to and no one would come in and tell me I was wrong. Even though we all have different tastes in what something should sound like, there is no right or wrong. Every project I work on with a different client is a completely new set of challenges that have completely different solutions, and I never do the same thing twice. This sort of constant troubleshooting helps me learn how to be more creative, and continually help me hone all of my skills.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://trcsound.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trcsound_/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troycruz/