'Have patience and pride' Grammy-winning Mix Engineer offers advice to musicians

Here Neal offers Mandy News readers some insight, personal feelings and advice on working in the music business.

Before we move onto advice, what do you do?

I mix records and I am also a record producer as well.

Tell us about your Grammy win.

Winning a Grammy is a lifelong dream. I used to always watch the Grammy awards. As a kid I always dreamed of winning one of those statues and being up on stage. So just having that dream come true was pretty amazing. Even if it happened one time -- and of course, my career’s not over yet but just having one is an amazing feat because most people don’t get to win one.

Some people only have one but yeah … I’m looking forward to someday winning another one.

Tell us what it feels like to do what you're doing for a living.

I really enjoy it because I get to meet creative different people from all walks of life, creating all genre’s of music and I don’t have to punch a clock. It’s not like a nine-to-five job.

There are long hours but I don’t mind it because it is a creative atmosphere and it doesn’t feel like a pressure cooker of a regular job where you have a boss looking over your shoulder, making sure you are doing something every second of the time at work. I just love the looser atmosphere and being around creative people.

And what are the greatest challenges you face?

The only challenge is to make sure the client to is satisfied and that the consumer loves what you do, what you create. What comes from your own thought process, you just want to make sure that the audience enjoys what you’ve created. That’s the only thing I can think of right now.

And what specific advice would you give to those aspiring to go into this field?

My advice is to have a lot of patience and to have pride in having your own sound because it takes patience to really have your own sound. A lot of people want to make it quicker by copycatting what’s going on out there now but that doesn’t guarantee longevity.

You have more of a chance of having a longer career by having your own sound.