Sound Business with Akash Thakkar

Touring, Music Entrepreneurship, and Live Show Designing with Laura Escudé

#5: Laura Escudé is a touring musician, violinist, show designer, and entrepreneur who has worked with people such as Kanye West, The Weeknd, Cirque Du Soleil, Porter Robinson, Bonobo and many others. She also runs the Transmute Academy, an online academy that teaches musicians how to design their shows and play their music both live and over streaming platforms. 

In this episode, Laura and I chat about wanting to do everything, FOMO, running an online course and education platform, burnout, taking care of ourselves, and so much more.

You can find Laura and the Transmute Academy at:

Twitter: @thelauraescude
Instagram: @lauraescude | @thetransmuteacademy
Website: https://lauraescude.com/the-transmute-academy-links/

And if you're interested in making music and sound for games, I have a newsletter and free courses that will get you started, and help you find paying work in games. Just go to www.bit.ly/soundbizpod

Working in Games & Film, Being Rejected, and Helping Others with Austin Wintory

#4: Austin Wintory is an award winning concert, film, and video game composer who's worked on video games such as Journey, Abzu, The Banner Saga, Assassin's Creed, and countless others.

In this interview we talk all about pitching for work, building a full-time composition career, working in film, games, and concert music, being rejected for projects, and much more. 

Find Austin at:

Twitter: @awintory
Instagram: @a.wintory
Bandcamp: https://austinwintory.bandcamp.com/
Website: https://www.austinwintory.com/

And if you're interested in making music and sound for games, I have a newsletter and free courses that will get you started, and help you find paying work in games. Just go to www.bit.ly/soundbizpod

Loving Our Work, Self-Care, and Recording The World with Melissa Pons

#3: Melissa Pons is a field recordist and sound designer who is known for her beautiful nature recordings of wolves, rainforests, and natural soundscapes from all over the world. All of her albums are available on her Bandcamp page, including her most recent release Mata Atlantica, which is a stunning collection of recordings from Brazilian rainforests. 

In this episode we talk about Melissa's recording process, why she does what she does, dealing with bad clients, how to love your work, and keeping our creative work sustainable.

Find Melissa at:

Twitter: @melissapons1
Instagram: @melissagpons
Bandcamp: https://melissapons.bandcamp.com/
Website: https://melissapons.com/

And if you're interested in making music and sound for games, I have a newsletter and free courses that will get you started, and help you find paying work in games. Just go to www.bit.ly/soundbizpod

Saying ”No”, Choosing Clients, and Building New Skills with Disasterpeace

#2: Rich Vreeland (Disasterpeace) is an award-winning composer, musician, and audio artist who's worked on video games such as FEZ, Hyper Light Drifter, and Mini Metro, as well as films such as It Follows, Triple Frontier, and Under the Silver Lake.

Disasterpeace has released over FIFTY music albums at this point, and is always pushing what music should sound like, how it's implemented in his projects, 

In this episode we talk about saying "no" to great projects, what's next for his career, negotiation, dealing with rejection, seeking out novelty, and so much more. 

Find Disasterpeace at:

Twitter: @Disasterpeace
Instagram: @dzasterpeace
Bandcamp: https://music.disasterpeace.com/
Website: https://disasterpeace.com/

And if you're interested in making music and sound for games, I have a newsletter and free courses that will get you started, and help you find paying work in games. Just go to www.bit.ly/soundbizpod

Welcome to the Sound Business Podcast

#1: Welcome to The Sound Business Podcast! My name is Akash Thakkar and I'm a sound designer for video games with 11 years of professional experience. I've always been fascinated by people who manage to "make it" and create a full-time artistic career, so in this show, we're going to interview some of the top people from every corner of the music and sound industries and hear about their journeys to make it to the top.

We'll be interviewing musicians, composers, songwriters, sound designers, game audio professionals, educators, entrepreneurs, performers, pop stars, audio software developers, and everyone else from every corner of professional music and sound. We'll be talking about mindsets, business skills, rejections, transitions, and so much more. 

My goal with this podcast is to show you that there's no one path to making a killer living off of music and sound, and that anyone can "make it" given enough time and the right mindsets and skills.

Thanks so much for joining in, and I'll see you soon!