#151: Mastering Work-Life Balance in the Music Industry: Insights from Grammy-Nominated Mixing Engineer Travis Ference

Ever wondered how to boost your productivity or become a top-notch mixing engineer? Struggling with imposter syndrome or trying to find that elusive work-life balance? Tune into episode 151 of the Inside The Mix podcast for answers and insights!

Discover the secrets of balancing a high-octane career with personal well-being from Travis Ference, the Grammy-nominated recording engineer and mixer behind hits from Taylor Swift, Imagine Dragons, and Ariana Grande. Join us as Travis shares his unique approach to managing a jam-packed schedule while working just three days a week. Learn how he sets boundaries with clients, prioritises time off, and leverages time-tracking to boost productivity. Gain invaluable insights into harnessing the first hour of a mix and overcoming imposter syndrome, while emphasizing the power of mutual support within the industry.

Ever found yourself burnt out from chasing opportunities that don't truly excite you? Hear personal anecdotes that shed light on the journey of exploring diverse roles in the music industry. Understand the importance of finding your passion through real-world experiences, from recording rock bands to working on pop and hip-hop vocal sessions. Learn from the host's reflections on career satisfaction and the critical nature of seizing opportunities before time slips away.

Redefine what success means in the ever-evolving music industry landscape. Discover how balancing professional and personal life can lead to greater fulfilment, especially for freelancers. Understand the benefits of working fewer days with enhanced focus and passion, and how implementing Parkinson's Law and time-blocking can supercharge your productivity. Finally, navigate the challenges of comparison within the audio industry and the importance of supportive peer relationships. Tune in for practical tips and profound insights from a conversation that champions both professional growth and personal happiness.

Click here to follow Travis Ference:
https://www.travisference.com/
https://www.progressionspodcast.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@progressionspod

Click here to listen to Logic Pro Mixing Tips for Synth-Pop Producers, Artists, and Musicians: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/logic-pro-mixing-tips-for-synth-pop-producers-artists-and-musicians/id1757373462

Chapters

• 0:22 Balancing Work and Life in Music
• 13:42 Exploring Music Industry Career Paths
• 17:44 Defining Success and Time Management
• 24:46 Navigating Success and Peer Support

Transcript

Travis Ference: 0:23

You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, Mark Matthews.

Marc matthews: 0:28

Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician, producer and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place if you want to know more about your favorite synth music artists, music engineering and production, songwriting and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing and mastering music for over 15 years and I want to share what I've learned with you. Hello, folks, and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. If you are a new listener, make sure you hit follow on your podcast player of choice and, to the returning listeners, as always, a huge, huge welcome back. So on the day that this episode drops, my new limited series podcast, logic Pro Mixing Tips for Synth Pop Producers, artists and Musicians, is officially 24 hours old. It dropped 24 hours ago. So once you're done with this episode, click the link in the episode description and learn more about that limited series podcast. It's all entirely free, you can listen to it on all podcast platforms and you can watch the videos on my website, synthmusicmasteringcom.

Marc matthews: 1:33

So in this episode, I am joined by Travis Ferentz of the Progressions podcast, and he's also a Grammy-nominated mixing engineer as well and we discuss many things in this episode related to productivity and getting ahead in the music industry. So Travis shares his thoughts and opinions on balancing personal life with professional life and how he manages to get everything done in a three-day work week. And he stresses the importance of client boundaries and also, really importantly, it's okay folks to take time off. Travis then delves into the importance of tracking our time and how that can lead to us being more productive. He then shares his thoughts and opinions on red flags and deadlines project deadlines. Travis then shares his thoughts on defining success and time management, in particular Parkinson's law.

Marc matthews: 2:28

We then discuss the idea that the first hour of a mix, those broad strokes, are what the listener hears and that's why that first hour is pivotal to the success of a mix. And then, to wrap things up, travis shares his thoughts and opinions on overcoming imposter syndrome and, importantly, why we should be supporting and championing our peers. So that's enough for me. Let's dive into my chat with Travis Ferentz. Hello folks, in this episode I am very excited to welcome my guest today, grammy-nominated recording engineer and mixer and creator of Host of Progressions Success in the Music Industry podcast, travis Ferentz. Hello Travis, how are you?

Travis Ference: 3:14

And thank you for joining me today. What's up, Mark? I'm stoked to hang today. This will be fun.

Marc matthews: 3:19

Yeah, man, I'm excited for this one. I'm always excited more than usual to get other podcasters on the podcast.

Marc matthews: 3:26

I love getting other podcasters on because it's quite interesting and the chats we have before and after are really good as well yeah, yeah straight away, I get tongue-tied with my introduction there with with your podcast name straight away, and we're just discussing that off air about getting uh, getting the intros wrong or slightly messing them up. But hey ho, so I'm just going to read through your bio here for the audience listening, in case they're not aware of you. So, based out of Los Angeles, much more glamorous than where I am, his work can be heard on multiple number one albums and numerous gold and platinum records. Some of his credits include Taylor Swift, imagine Dragons and Ariana Grande. That's quite a list. He's also the creator and host of Progressions Success in the Music Industry podcast, get it right this time, and his YouTube channel dedicated to equipping music professionals with the tools and mindsets they need to build their careers. And we were just discussing off-air what you've been doing with your YouTube channel of late and it's quite exciting stuff with the quality of your videos you're putting together, man.

Marc matthews: 4:32

Yeah, yeah, really, really good, as, again, we were discussing off air that YouTube is a tough nut to crack and can be quite a cruel mistress for want of a better way of putting it as we well know. So in this episode, we're focusing on defining success and staying focused in the music industry. So my first question is about balancing professional and personal life. So, as a Grammy nominated engineer and also a parent as well, can you maybe talk about how you manage your workflow and productivity? What tips do you have for other music producers or music professionals who are trying to balance their professional and personal lives, especially with someone like yourself? I know there are countless out there listeners with kids or similar commitments.

Travis Ference: 5:12

Totally Well, let me give you like a give listeners, like a two second rundown of my career. I'm 40, so I'm getting old. But I came to LA like 18 years ago, came up in Capitol Studios traditional studio, like you know working all the time, working overnight. Phone rings go straight to the studio, left there, worked for producer same thing. It was like long days all the time, six days a week. Never knew it was going to go on. Ended up going back to Capitol to work as a staff engineer, continuing the you know the 60, 80 hour weeks that I think you need to do in the beginning because you learn. It's where you learn your skills and you learn what you like to do and what you don't like to do. Uh, and then you know, eventually your priorities change a little bit. I met my wife, I now have a two-year-old and I have managed to find this way to don't tell anybody but I work three days a week.

Travis Ference: 6:10

Oh, and yeah and it and uh, and in those three days I do mixes and do, uh, the podcast, like you mentioned. So, yeah, it's probably one of the hardest things outside of being a parent. Learning how to balance your time in the music industry is probably one of the hardest things you can do because, like we all love it, like I'd sit here for 18 hours and mix until, like I physically hurt and my wife and kid are like beating the door down. But that's not, um, you know, that's not how I want to live my life every day. So if you want, like you want tips I don't know if there's really tips to give you about how to balance, but I was thinking about it and the first thing that is going to be really hard to stomach for a lot of people is to set boundaries with your clients, boundaries with your clients. And there comes a time in your life where you can get away with that. When you're 18, 22, straight out of school, if you did school or whatever, you want to work all the time. You don't have responsibilities to family or children or anything like that, and so, yeah, you can get out of bed at 11pm when somebody calls you and go to the studio, but that eventually, you probably don't want that to be the be the way you function.

Travis Ference: 7:31

Uh, so I found, with the birth of my daughter, um, if anybody wants to learn how to um balance their time, I suggest having a child. Uh, but it is like an immediate mindset shift of like okay, how can I balance all these things that I love, because now you have this extra responsibility? That is like crazy hard. Anybody that's a parent knows how hard it is, but it's, it's amazing. So, uh, you know, I was scared when we were expecting my daughter because I was going to take a paternity leave. The same way, my wife was going to take a maternity leave. We were both, uh, you know, working for ourselves. So we chose not to work for like six weeks and I was like that's it, that's going to be the end of my career. Nobody's going to call me, and everybody that reached out while I was on paternity leave, I just sent an email and said, hey, I'm not working right now. I just had a kid taking six weeks. I can do this on X date. And nobody walked.

Travis Ference: 8:27

And that was the first time where I was like when people want to work with you, if you're clear with the boundaries you would like to have, they will respect them, because ultimately you need those boundaries to be your best self, like if you want the best mix I can give you, or you want me to be the best in a recording session. To a certain extent, we need to respect what I need to do that or what you need to do that. So boundaries is a tough one for people to stomach, but it is possible to set boundaries with clients. So that's one I guess you'd call it a tip. Yeah, I'll go with that. Yeah.

Travis Ference: 9:05

And then another one that has really changed the way I do my business is to understand your time, and this one's super nerdy. So if you're not super nerdy, I think you should still do this, but if you're super nerdy, you're going to be into it. Just like track how long it takes you to do things for three, six months. I mean, I do it every day. Whatever I'm doing, I'm running a timer and you learn how long it takes you to master a song, how long it takes you to mix a song. You can I have a spreadsheet where I can like spit out an average. Like I know, on average it's going to take me six hours to finish a song. Sometimes it takes 14, sometimes it takes one.

Travis Ference: 9:46

But if I block out six hours in my calendar probably going to be done or very close and by doing that, by understanding how long it takes you to do a job, you can take more work, deliver on that work, and I completely lost my train of thought. And, um, I completely lost my train of thought like but you can take more work, you can deliver on that work and be accountable to yourself and make time for yourself. I know how many mixes I can do in a week and I don't overfill my week, and that the clients don't know why they're getting what you know. You told them they could have, but that leads to delivering for people. So that's my kind of my reason you should track your time. It also helps you understand how much you should get paid if you understand how long something takes. So, but it's challenging, very, very tough, very tough.

Marc matthews: 10:42

Yeah, two great answers there, and what you said right at the end of the second one with regards to tracking. I was going to mention that about if you know how long it takes to do something, then when it comes to setting your rates, it gives you a good indicator of what you should be charging, particularly if you're going to be doing it per project, because then you know exactly what.

Marc matthews: 10:59

Well, not exactly, but you've got a rough idea of what you need to be charging for a mix, for a master, a production, whatever it is you may be. So you've got two things there. You've got boundaries, which I think are incredibly important, and tracking as well, and tracking in particular. I do that a lot. I do it outside of music as well. I mean tracking finances, tracking time. If you've got a particular goal, if you're going to run a marathon or something like that, I'm tracking all the time.

Marc matthews: 11:22

At one point it got a bit overwhelming and I had to dial it back a bit, and so that's what I was doing, because I was just like, oh man, this tracking business is like a part-time job for me now, so I had to wind it back a bit. But what you mentioned there about boundaries and with your clients so you mentioned about how you took that six-week paternity and you had the clients sticking around because you were clear, open and honest. Basically, yeah, when you're setting boundaries with the clients any clients in particular are there any red flags that you look for right at the beginning of that sort of client for whatever better way of putting it acquisition process.

Travis Ference: 11:59

I wouldn't really call any of them red flags, but you do find that everybody wants everything immediately until you ask them what their deadline is, you know, and that's really kind of how I judge whether somebody actually has a deadline. If I'm like, what's your upload deadline? And if they say that their upload deadline is their release day A, I already know that they're probably not great at releasing their music because they're releasing stuff on the same day and not getting into the pipeline. Or they say they don't know. And then I'm like okay, so then if you don't have a release date, you don't have a upload date. Why do I need to do this tomorrow?

Travis Ference: 12:42

I mean, I don't say that, but you can kind of get to the bottom with that question of like, what's your upload deadline or what's your mastering date, and that will always kind of widen that window, because then that person, that client, has to they have to think about themselves and be like, oh, I don't, I don't have a release date. I guess I can wait three weeks if I want to work with you, you know. But um, but yeah, if they do have a deadline, I do find that a lot of people reach out with that deadline. And if you're an artist and you're listening, that is it. That is so helpful to quote service provider is if you say, hey, I would love to have you master my record, I need it on this day, and then I can just look at it and be like, honestly, no, but maybe hit up this guy or this person, and so that's kind of. The only red flag is when somebody is making up a deadline for no reason.

Marc matthews: 13:37

Yeah, I'd roll with that and I've experienced something similar and every now and again I'll get a phone call from somebody and I've had it a few times. I think I had one, last month actually, where an individual rang me and they said they wanted to record vocals, um, pretty much in in a couple hours time, and they gave me an exact. I know, and they gave me an exact. I think it was a couple hours, might be two or three hours, and they gave me an exact, the rundown. They're like it'll take an hour, um, and I want to record vocals. And I think they also said but I need you to provide the backing track. I was just like okay, so three, I know, I know exactly.

Marc matthews: 14:07

And I was just like hmm, right, I don't think this is gonna work um but yeah, yeah, so I know exactly what you mean. So with dead, uh, with deadlines and timings and whatnot. So, yeah, excellent stuff, what you said right back at the beginning.

Marc matthews: 14:20

I'm circling back right now, so you said you, you spent 60 to 80 hours a week. You did your um, your time, basically for want of a better way of putting it again in the studio environment to learn what you do and don't like. What was it that you didn't like during that period? Yeah, I've been in the industry. I've been in a recording studio environment.

Travis Ference: 14:39

Well, I think the way I phrase that isn't exactly what I meant. I meant that, like when you're first starting out, you should take every gig you can get your hands on, because you never you never know where the where your path is going to lead. Like you might think that you want to record rock bands and then you take a gig working for a film composer and then you're like holy shit, film music is really fun.

Travis Ference: 15:04

Hopefully I can swear on your podcast yeah um, and then if you hadn't taken that gig that was outside of your realm, then you would never have known that you ultimately wanted to be an engineer or mixer for a composer.

Travis Ference: 15:18

So I think, when you're early on, you should, you should take on, you should, you should take everything because you need to experience it, because you think you know, you go through an audio program or a music school or you take an online course. However, you ended up in music. You, uh, you think you're going to do a specific thing, but you really were just given a bunch of tools that you can then take to your career and decide how you want to use them, and so I think it's really important to experience a lot of things. It's like back to having a kid, like when my daughter gets older, if she wants to try softball and soccer, like I want her to try all the things that she can try to see where those interests are. And I think the beginning of your career is a lot like that too. You need to try everything to see what you really are passionate about.

Marc matthews: 15:59

Can you remember did you try something and you were like you know what sod that. I never want to do that again. I definitely.

Travis Ference: 16:07

I did a lot of songwriting sessions for pop, hip hop, the pop genres R&B, hip hop, anything that's like you know, vocal over a track, and I really I was very fast at Pro Tools and I really enjoyed doing it.

Travis Ference: 16:22

I was really good at it. But eventually I just hit the point where I was like I don't, I don't, I'm not interested in recording vocals anymore, and that was like a saturation point. But I did realize that, like I don't enjoy this the way I used to enjoy it. I mean, I was able to basically swipe through Instagram while doing like a vocal session and I was probably faster than 90% of people while I wasn't even paying attention, and it's a horrible thing to say, but like that's that's when I knew that recording vocals every day was just not exciting to me anymore because I was I was half checked out, still doing the job. But you know, uh, so you have to be aware of those things in your career because you can get stuck doing something you know on these paths you can go down, you can be making money and having a career and getting credits, but then, like, if you take a step back and reflect on what you're doing, it might not be what you want to be doing.

Marc matthews: 17:17

Yeah, most definitely, and I think time will quickly pass by as well. And then before I'm not saying you're going to run out of time, but we all do eventually getting quite dark with the podcast here, but um yeah, time does pass quickly.

Marc matthews: 17:29

Before you know it, you've missed those opportunities most definitely so moving on to my next topic, which is defining success in the music industry. To get away from that darker side step I was going down, success in the music industry can mean different things to different people. For some it's winning awards, while for others it's simply enjoying the process of making music. Right, can you talk a bit about how you define success for yourself and how that definition evolved over your career?

Travis Ference: 17:57

You know, my current definition is to just do what I want to do. It it's been a it's been a long road to to have freedom right. That's kind of kind of where I'm at, like if, if I don't want to work for a week and I want to go off with my family, I want to be able to do that. And we all know that that's really hard as a freelancer in this industry, because the roller coaster is real you can make the most money you've ever made in one month and then the following month basically make zero. And so that's my definition of success is to be able to take time out of my day to do a podcast, to do my own podcast, to hang out with my daughter and not be putting off client work.

Travis Ference: 18:44

And when I sit down to do the client work, I'm excited about it. It's music I love to work on. It gets 150 that like half ass swiping through your phone, like I don't want that in my life at all. Every project I work on, I want that to be just the most fun I can have at, you know, with that moment. And so, yeah, my definition of success right now is is freedom to do what I want, and that's not very music related, but I think that's probably a goal that a lot of people have, and sometimes I have it, sometimes I don't right.

Marc matthews: 19:20

I think that's a perfect goal, mate, and it's something I strive for as well, and I think you just need to enjoy what you do. You enjoy what you do. And I think it goes back to what you said right at the beginning there about having the three-day work week as well, because I suppose it could be quite easy to just think, oh, I could take on another two days worth of work and have more money come in and blah, blah, blah and do all that. But actually it depends on how much you value your time and where you want to spread that time as well and how you want to invest that time. And if you're doing those three days as well, you've sort of got that honed in. You know exactly what you can do in that time, and then, when those three days come around again, you're going to be really excited to take on those projects, like you said, and you're going to give it that 100 plus percent. So totally with you on that.

Travis Ference: 20:05

There's a. I jotted this down. Make sure I remember Parkinson's law. Are you familiar with Parkinson's law?

Marc matthews: 20:09

I'm not no go ahead.

Travis Ference: 20:10

Okay, so this would have been the third tip that I forgot about in the beginning. We talked about time management. So Parkinson's law is and I believe I have it correct is that the work will expand to fill the allotted time. And so when we had my daughter and still, you know so I dad three days a week and I work three days a week. That's what I do and that's why I work three days a week. And then my wife does that. Because we both work for ourselves. We have that freedom. We're fortunate for that. Is that because we both work for ourselves, we have that freedom, we're fortunate for that.

Travis Ference: 20:47

But she takes a nap. So I know I've got like an hour to two hours on my dad day, right. And so I started to realize like if I come out here with no distractions, come out to the studio it's in my backyard and just have the baby monitor on, and know that I have an hour to two hours, I can get a crazy amount of work done, because I've defined the limits of that work and I don't think it means and I'm not doing worse work, it's just a more focused work and when you have those time restrictions like having a child who's young, that needs a lot of attention. You realize how much you can do in four hours, and so I think, when you don't time block or you don't respect your, your time, and you don't understand how long things take, they'll, they'll, they'll go on forever. You know, I, if I don't give an end time or an end date to a mix mix for 20 hours, I'll do it for four days. Uh and so, yeah, yeah, that should have been in the beginning.

Marc matthews: 21:43

I was going to say it's a very good one, and what you said right at the end.

Marc matthews: 21:46

Again, I was going to mention about a mixing and deadlines for mixing, because you're exactly right and I have this discussion frequently on the podcast and when I do produce a Kickstarter episodes and whatnot as well. With regards to mixing and mix iterations and the amount of mix versions that producers and artists, mix engineers, are doing purely because they haven't set a deadline or they don't really know how long it should be taking because they haven't tracked it right, which goes back to what you said earlier no expectations, yeah 100 and you'll just continue on indefinitely.

Marc matthews: 22:18

Then you get the, then you get to the point of diminishing returns and then it becomes a bit of a soul suck in that respect.

Marc matthews: 22:25

So yeah, that 100% makes sense and you are right. I mean, if you give yourself like three or four hours, I think right, or three hours, let's say I need to do a static mix for this, got to get it done, then I'm going to move on to the mixing process, however long that may take for you, because you've tracked it and you know how long it should take, set that deadline and move on. So it makes perfect sense. It really does, and it's a great tip to circle back to that original question with yeah.

Travis Ference: 22:49

Well I was going to say.

Travis Ference: 22:50

There's another thing I've found in these like short bursts of time that I had to work is that I can get a mix done.

Travis Ference: 22:59

Let me rephrase that I can get a mix approved faster by doing these short bursts, because every time you sit down I'm not going to be done with the song in that hour and a half that my daughter's napping, but I'm going to do that four or five times during the week and all of a sudden, every time I sat down, fresh perspective, full focus, and I find that you know we're getting mix two, mix three approved instead of mix five, mix six by the client.

Travis Ference: 23:26

So the thing that I've kind of adjusted in my work scheduling is I don't give people a mix date, I give them a mix week, and so I work on something, you know, two or three songs throughout the whole week, bouncing back and forth, and so I'm always kind of you know, two or three songs throughout the whole week bouncing back and forth, and so I'm always kind of fresh and self-revising, and so they get that mix on Saturday night. Or sometimes I'll email and be like I really want to listen to this on Monday morning. Sorry, it'll come in, like you know, noon Pacific time, and it's a much better starting point than crushing something for 18 hours because your ears get tired 18 hours I find that I get to about hour three or four and I'm just like I just lose objectivity and then Totally yeah.

Marc matthews: 24:10

And then I'm like I need to take a break. But I think once you get beyond that, you can just get lost in the weeds of the mix and then it goes back to what I said earlier and what you mentioned there about diminishing returns and then, yeah, it all makes perfect sense and I think it's a, it's a key point for the listeners of the podcast, because that idea of revisions and I see people on television, they've done like 20 revisions I'm like I don't know what are you doing at this point like yeah, yeah, I've been there, yeah, yeah, it's that classic, is that vocal? I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring it up by 0.5 of a db in this particular bit. He's like no one's really gonna notice that, but yeah it's like it's such a fine like.

Travis Ference: 24:47

Let's be honest, so the first like hour you spend on a mix or hour and a half, that is like everything that happens in that first hour, assuming you're well prepared and you can just sit down and work uh, that's what the listener's gonna hear are thoseprepared and you can just sit down and work. Uh, that's what the listener's going to hear are those broad strokes and you know. And then the next couple hours, the only people that are going to hear that are going to be you and the producer and the artists, the people that are like really dialed in. And then those hours after that you're almost just satisfying yourself with shit that nobody's going to hear. Or you know, uh, satisfying the artist who wants to hear the vocal up a 0.3 DB, which we all know nobody like it. No, you can't hear 0.3.

Marc matthews: 25:31

Okay, we're not going to hear it.

Travis Ference: 25:33

Yeah, it's going to be the same. Uh, so, yeah, I mean, it's that that beginning where, like the broads, that's what the person, the human consumer, is going to hear, is the big moves, you know. So, you know, going on for 18 hours is trouble.

Marc matthews: 25:48

That is a fantastic soundbite for the episode. What you said there about the first hour beat, those broad strikes, are what the audience are going to be listening to, probably on their mobile phone as well.

Travis Ference: 25:59

Yeah, that's what my mom hears. Yeah, exactly, she's phone as well. Yeah, that's what my mom hears. Yeah, exactly, she's like it sounds good. I'm like okay, cool, I just started. My mom does not come to the studio, but that's what she would hear if she came in.

Marc matthews: 26:09

Yeah, yeah. No, that's great. I think that's a fantastic soundbite and clip for the episode, so I'll make a note of that because I really like that. With the interest of time, I think we'll move on to the sort of final question here, and this is sort of deviating a bit from what we were just discussing. But it's all about sort of comparison and supporting each other within the audio industry, and I think what we're doing as podcasts yourself being a podcast host as well is pivotal to this. So it's obviously highly competitive and it's easy to fall in the trap of comparing. I've got one self into my notes, so I never say that one self comparing yourself to others. I don't know what's going on with that. Can you tell our audience how to stay focused on your journey and avoid peer jealousy and, in particular, sort of that imposter syndrome?

Travis Ference: 26:54

Yeah, so I think a lot of it comes back to the earlier question where you're talking about success, right. So, like when I started in this industry, it was a kind of a different era, which makes me feel particularly old, but like I thought that I would be a runner in a studio, I'd become an assistant, I'd become an engineer, a producer would pluck me out, I would work for that producer, then I'd be a mixer, then I'd mix hits and I would do that all by like 25, right. So then when you have this like really specific mold of success that's that's kind of being defined by maybe your idols or or your peers or people that are like just ahead of you, and you don't hit those metrics, it's really defeating my 20s, despite the fact that you know, I was working on big records, I was working with big artists. I was always dissatisfied and I was always jealous, like if my friend was the engineer on something cool and I was the assistant on something cool. I was pissed that I was the assistant on something cool and he was the engineer on something cool, and it's. And that's not the way it should be, because it all of that negativity is coming from the fact that you are not willing to define what your own success is. Like it it wasn't. It wasn't enough. What I was doing wasn't fulfilling what I thought I should be doing, and so I was disappointed.

Travis Ference: 28:16

And so I think that's where this comparison thing, which is even like, escalated to another level with social media, you know, and it's just like everybody has a great gig. Like you know, I worked on Taylor Swift's Red re-record. I did five songs on that. I don't work with her anymore. I don't have like, I'm not going to make a record like that next year. You like that? So the thing that people put out there and like, really like, will hold, is their look what I did. That that's like one of their moments. It's not what their whole life is like.

Travis Ference: 28:52

So to compare yourself to you know, a friend or an idol and be like well, shit, like all the, everything they do is awesome. They don't. They also have gigs that they don't like. Everybody has gigs they don't like. It's just that social media you put that like perfect version of yourself out there. So I think that makes it even worse for people that especially people have grown up with social media.

Travis Ference: 29:13

But but we should all be supporting each other. Like if your friends are getting a gig and it's a cool gig, like fuck, yeah, like support them, tell them how cool it sounds. You know, assuming they did a good job. Don't lie to people, you know, and that's another thing is like having a group of like honest peers where you can be like there's something wrong with this mix, can you help me out? And like, if your friends are just, yes, people, that's not going to be helpful to you. You know you need like let's push each other. Everybody should be pushing to get better. Uh, cause, the people that you're like coming up in this industry with, like the local bands that you're recording or the the smaller artists you're mastering for, or whatever, those people are going to grow, you're going to grow with them and everybody's going to come up together. So being jealous and comparing yourself and getting frustrated, it's just not worth it. I don't think I answered the question, but that's my rant.

Marc matthews: 30:10

No, it's all good stuff and I've said this a few times on the podcast. With regards to social media and it echoes what you said there about you're only really seeing what people. It's that positive element, right For the most part, that you're only seeing what's gone well. You're not seeing all the the grunt work and everything else. That it's kind of like a duck, isn't it? You got the legs under the water going crazy. If you're watching this on youtube, you can see my hand like these duck leg movements underneath.

Marc matthews: 30:34

Trying to put all this together, I think it makes sense.

Travis Ference: 30:37

I'm gonna roll. It's good. It's a good visual. I like it.

Marc matthews: 30:40

Yeah, um, so it's kind of like that. And yeah, with social media, you are only seeing what they're seeing. And, again, with that supportive element, what you mentioned there about supporting each other, even if that individual is working in the same remit as you, so they're another mix engineer, mastering engineer doing the exact same music of you. It's not to see them as competition, it's to see them as a pair and champion that pair, because I think what's the phrase? It's, uh, rising tide raises all boats, or something along those lines. Yeah, something like that.

Marc matthews: 31:09

Yeah, yeah, I'm full of them today, so it's, it's something like that. But that that's it in essence, isn't it? You're like, yeah, you sort of like you mentioned there, you're, you're raising together. So it's important because I I've had this conversation on another podcast a few weeks ago about the imposter syndrome and the comparison and stuff, and I wish I could go back in time now and tell them to listen to this episode, but obviously I can't. That'd be great, but no, it's fantastic advice and, again, something that the listeners are going to take a lot from. So, travis, I think this is a good opportunity now for you maybe to give the audience listening a bit of a run-through about the service you provide and also a bit about your podcast as well.

Travis Ference: 31:52

Yeah, I mean I'm a mixing engineer. I do some engineering, but really I'm a mixer. Now it fits into my lifestyle, like we talked about. And then I do a podcast called progression success in the music industry. Uh, it's. It's got some technical tips.

Travis Ference: 32:08

You know I'm I'm come from an engineering background, so it gets nerdy. But really it's about career growth, creativity, like I want it to be a broad palette, I guess to to help people build what they want. Because that's what I found in my career is that I wasn't given the tools to create the career I wanted, like I kind of touched on, I was just assuming I would be on this path and like I would do the thing. Your career is not going to be like that, and so I want to give people the tools to define their own success, to build the career they want, whether that's making hit records or just paying the bills or just recording bands on the weekend for fun. So it's called Progression Success in the Music Industry.

Travis Ference: 32:52

It's on all the podcast platforms. It's on YouTube, youtubecom at. Progressionspod would be the place I would prefer you to go. Social media is at ProgressionsPod on everything. My personal engineering is at TFerence. I'm not going to spell it, but it'll be maybe in the show notes and shout out to Mark for doing a podcast. For anybody that's listening that doesn't know how hard a podcast is man, it is hard, and so Mark and I are. He's going to come on my show in a couple weeks, yes, so I don't know when that'll be out, maybe some. I don't know when this is coming out, but maybe come over and you can get an intro to my show listening to to your friend mark. Uh, because we're gonna have a good hangover there too yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to that.

Marc matthews: 33:37

Uh, it's gonna be a good shot, as I mentioned right at the, having another podcaster on the show. We can sort of bounce off each other, because you start podcasts with this idea of generating content and creating content and sharing your knowledge and helping people, and then you realize shit, there's a lot of work that goes into putting out a podcast on a weekly basis.

Travis Ference: 33:57

It's a lot. It's a lot.

Marc matthews: 33:59

Thankfully, ai is helping remove some of those time sucks that you get from creating a podcast, but it is worth it in the long run. But yeah, it's a lot of fucking work for what a better way of putting it but it's worth it.

Travis Ference: 34:13

And the problem is is it ends up to be a lot of fun and you're like well, I'm not going to stop. I need to figure out how to make this work, because I love doing it. I love doing it, I love doing the interviews and meeting people, like that's the thing is. It's like growing your music community without the intention of begging people to work with you.

Travis Ference: 34:32

You know, like that's kind of one of the problems with networking is people are like hi, my name is Travis, well, can I mix your record? Well, no, that's stupid. It's like it's about. Networking is about having friends in the music industry and sometimes they're going to cycle work back to you.

Marc matthews: 34:42

Sometimes they're not, but you have friends that are on the journey I've noticed that it's people, individuals that I spoke to right at the beginning and it's only a couple of years later. Then they're like actually, mark, can you do X, y, z or you know, or they reach out to people, um, who you may never have been able to have a conversation with prior. And I've had this with the podcast before, like when I've had certain guests on and I would have reached out to them in the past without having a podcast, thinking what do I say to start this conversation. But it's kind of a nice way to to, as you say, to network, get to know people and build a rapport, and you can just talk shit, as I'm doing right now on a podcast episode, and then people listen to it and they enjoy it, which is great.

Marc matthews: 35:30

But going back to what you said earlier with your links and whatnot so this is a very long way of me saying this they will be in the episode description for the audience to go and listen to your podcast and also find out more about what you do as well. So that will be in the episode description and I am looking forward to coming on your podcast as well. So that'd be another great one and a great listen for the audience as well. So head over to Travis's podcast and look out for that episode, which will be dropping at some point. Travis, it's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you today. It's great to have you on the podcast. Yeah, uh, we'll do it again sometime. It's always, as I say, it's great having other podcasters and engineers and whatnot on the show.

Travis Ference: 36:10

so and I know the audience support each other and and and hang out. It's more it's.

Marc matthews: 36:14

It's fun, it's fun, we've all been on the same adventure, so it's cool exactly, and also you get another podcaster on the show. You're almost guaranteed they're going to have a good microphone as well, which is always good when it comes to editing, so that always helps. I've had some shockers in the past. I'm not going to name names, but yeah, it is a good help. Travis, I'm well aware you're a very busy guy, so I'll let you go Enjoy the rest of your day and I'll catch up with you soon.