Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Zach Patrick. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Zach, appreciate you joining us today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?
The biggest lessons I’ve learned is being patient. One of the other jobs I have is at a gym working their sports integrated daycare called (Kids Zone). Working with kids can definitely be a very challenging task as kids don’t necessarily like to listen and or follow rules all the time. Not to say that all kids are bad but their are definitely a few bad seeds who give myself and the other workers a hard time. A few months ago a kid who wasn’t listening and finding it hard to follow instructions ended up almost throwing a tantrum because he got eliminated from one of the games we were playing. I noticed that he seemed very upset so I pulled him to the side and had a conversation with him about the shoes he was wearing since I know he’s into shoes and sneaker culture. I then talked to him and explained the importance of why we have rules here and that its to ensure kids safety and he ended up having fun the rest of the time he was there and followed all the rules for the rest of the day. I easily could’ve called his mom and told her what had been going on that day and said come get your kid. I was fed up too, but I wanted to make sure he understood that myself and the other workers were not against him and we just want to make sure that kids have fun and play safely. Situations like this have helped me learn to be patient and not try to find the easy way out. Patience has helped me as an audio engineer immensely. Since some of the rappers or singers I work with are still at the beginning stages of their journeys they don’t always know how to record properly or they may not know how to properly arrange a song etc. I will have to help them out or answer any beginner level questions they might have. It can definitely get annoying at times doing that and sometimes I’m not a fan of some of the music that’s being created. But my job is NOT to help them make music I LIKE, it’s to help THEM make music THEY LIKE and can enjoy at the highest quality. Thanks to patience I’m able to put my own ego and creativity to the side at times to make sure that the clients thoughts, ideas, and dreams can become a reality.
Zach, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I’d say my love for music in general stemmed from 2 things. The first thing being my uncle getting me an iPod mp3 player when I was about 5 years old. There was a lot of early drake music on there and other popular songs at the time, but it was something about the feeling that the melodies and harmonies gave me that I’ll never forget. Now whenever I hear old drake music its very nostalgic for me and gives me that same feeling I experienced for the first time as a kid. As I got older I was still a fan of music but I would only really listen to the mainstream music that was on the radio until I was around 13 and BET released a biopic on the story of the R&B group New Edition. After watching it and hearing the music they made I quickly became infatuated and started to “dig the crates” and explore music I had never heard before. Then once I was 15 I became enthralled with discovering old and new music. I also began rapping around that time. I wasn’t very good but it was something I enjoyed and had fun doing. Around 2020 during covid I decided I would make my very first rap album. It wasn’t all that great but it was definitely a cool experience. Later on when I would look for beats to rap on I wasn’t always impressed or would want some things changed about the beats, and when I would reach out to the producers they would want money for the beat and making the changes. Needless to say as a 16-17 year old with a minimum wage job I wasn’t making enough to buy beats. So I decided I would start making my own. For my first 6 months of making beats they all sounded pretty bad but I was obsessed with becoming better and eventually I started to enjoy producing more than rapping. Once I sold my first beat I knew that I could potentially turn this into a career. Then a few years later I got a job at a Soundvibe Studios which is a recording studio in Maryland and I was able to hone my production skills as well as audio engineering skills. I provide a multitude of services. I make beats for people, record and mix vocals, create short form content for social media, help write songs and I’m also able to lay down a verse for people interested in getting a feature. I feel as an audio engineer I’m able to help artists get there Ideas from point A to point B and make sure that the sound quality is to the best of my ability. most engineers do this though and some might be better at mixing records than I am. So I think what makes artists want to come back and work with me is the fact that I ask questions about what they like who they are influenced by and really make them feel welcomed once they step into the studio. It could be as simple as just asking how their day was and or having a bottle of water ready for them. I not only want to give clients the best work but also the best experience. I learned these traits from my watching mother and grandmother over the years so I gotta shout them out for indirectly teaching me the importance of good customer service. The thing I want people to know about me is that I’m more than willing to go the extra mile to help people reach their musical goals. Even if I’m working on my own music I wouldn’t ever want anyone including myself to come back a few weeks. months, or even years after releasing music and say I wish you would’ve done this better. I will always give it 110% every time the headphones go over my ears.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
After I graduated high school I was into making music but wasn’t to sure about making it a career option it was just a super fun hobby of mine. I ended up going to a community college for a year and majored in business. towards the end of my second semester I could feel myself coasting on auto pilot more and more and feeling detached from school and everything that came with it. I knew I wanted to drop out but I didn’t know what I wanted to do, what I did know is that I couldn’t sit in class wasting my time learning things like calculus which I would never use in life. So after long contemplation I decided to take a leap of faith by going to The Sheffield Institute for the Recording arts enrolling in the audio works program. This would ultimately be one of the best decisions I’ve made as I found myself more engaged with learning then I had ever felt in my whole life. I was able to get a certification which helped me land an internship at SoundVibe Studios first as a video editor then a job as a producer and an audio engineer.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
For me the most rewarding part is being in the zone and creating something new that you enjoy. Whenever I’m making a beat sometimes I’ll enter a free flow state where everything exits my mind except for what I’m currently doing. I frequently compare it to basketball, whenever I would perform a certain chain of moves without even thinking about it then shooting the ball and it feels like its going in as soon as it released from my hands. That’s being in the zone, It’s almost like you cant do anything wrong. In basketball it might be crossing up a defender in the corner then driving down the baseline and getting an and-one. In music it might be throwing a unique chord in the progression that somehow works and adding a different bassline that I wouldn’t normally use but its the perfect one. Then you blink yours eyes and 2 hours has gone by just like that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/therealzp
- Instagram: zoundzlikezp
- Youtube: ZP Beats
