Akash Thakkar interviews successful audio professionals from every corner of the music and sound industries. From educators, performers, pop stars, game audio professionals, voice actors, composers, sound designers, plug-in designers, audio programmers, and everything in between, we dive deep into the business and mindset skills it takes to ”make it” in the worlds of music and sound.
Episodes
Wednesday Mar 02, 2022
Wednesday Mar 02, 2022
Most budding audio designers I see coming in to the game industry are so worried about finding work, that they tell everyone that they're a "composer/sound designer".
But, does being both things actually end up with us getting less work? In this episode, we cover why you should (or shouldn't) focus on just music or just sound design throughout your whole career.
Send me a message:
@akashthakkaraudio on Instagram
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 http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod
Wednesday Feb 23, 2022
Wednesday Feb 23, 2022
#24: Fryda Wolff has amassed hundreds of game, TV, and film voice acting credits in her career so far. You can hear in places like Sailor Moon, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Final Fantasy 7: Remake, Apex Legends, Fortnite, and so many other games, shows, and movies.
In this episode, we talk about her transition from sound design to voice acting, how to run a freelance voice over business, the lack of importance of social media, and so much more.
Find Fryda Wolff here:
Website: Fryda Wolff
Twitter: @freethewolfvo
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 http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod
Wednesday Feb 16, 2022
Wednesday Feb 16, 2022
It's super tough to find work as a composer... or is it?
It turns out, many of the woes that composers face in their careers stem from being completely invisible to people who want to hire them. In this episode, we'll talk about what you need to do to put on your visibility cloak so that you can start attracting tons of clients.
Links Mentioned here:
Send me a message:
@akashthakkaraudio on Instagram
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 http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod
Wednesday Feb 09, 2022
Wednesday Feb 09, 2022
#23: Lena Raine is an award-winning and BAFTA-Nominated composer for video games who has worked on projects like Minecraft, Celeste, Steven Universe: The Movie, Deltarune, Guild Wars 2, and many other projects.
In this episode, we cover the financial realities of being a composer full-time, finding your way in the game industry, and the importance of learning multiple skills to keep yourself afloat while building that artistic career.
Find Lena Raine here:
Website: http://lena.fyi/
Twitter: @Kuraine
Instagram: @Kuraine
Spotify: Lena Raine
Bandcamp: https://radicaldreamland.bandcamp.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 http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod
Wednesday Feb 02, 2022
Wednesday Feb 02, 2022
Can you build a game audio career, even if you live in a small town or live outside the US? In this episode, we cover exactly that, how to do it, and how you need to think differently about your approach to your career.
Send me a message:
@akashthakkaraudio on Instagram
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 http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod
Wednesday Jan 26, 2022
Wednesday Jan 26, 2022
#22: Unlike Pluto (AKA Armond Arabshahi) is a music producer, singer, and songwriter who has amassed hundreds of millions of plays of his songs, has had his music featured in commercials for Dell, and is known for releasing at least 3 ultra-well-produced songs a month for years at a time in multiple genres.
In this episode, we dive deep into what it's like to be a full-time creative, the highs and lows of releasing monstrously successful #1 hits, producing music when you don't feel like it, what it's like being the child of immigrants, and so much more.
Find Unlike Pluto here:
Website: www.unlikepluto.com
Twitter: @unlikepluto
Instagram: @unlikepluto
Spotify: Unlike Pluto
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 http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod
Wednesday Jan 19, 2022
Wednesday Jan 19, 2022
There’s a lot of great advice out there on what to do with your career, but very little of it tells you *when* you should execute on it.
Is it really a good idea to do a bunch of self-promotion when you have tons of clients? Is it a good idea to stop networking when you have no work coming in? Should you always be looking for work even if you’re good where you’re at?
The Four Seasons Method helps you know exactly where you’re at and what you should do at any given time. Just like we have four seasons in real life, we can break our career down into similar “seasons”.
❄️ Winter: no gigs are coming in, no work, no nothing. This happens to everyone and can feel hopeless.
🌧Spring: We have a little work, but it’s not enough
☀️Summer: We have TONS of work. Maybe even too much.
🍂Fall: Our work is done, the money has come in, and life is good.
Each of these “seasons” can last a day, a month, a year, or decades. What you do in each one (outlined in the post up above!) determines how well your next season will go.
In this episode, we dive into what you should do in each of these seasons, and how, exactly, you should spend your time.
Send me a message:
@akashthakkaraudio on Instagram
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 http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod
Wednesday Jan 12, 2022
Wednesday Jan 12, 2022
#21: Dallas Taylor is a sound designer, creative director of DeFacto Sound, and podcast host of the #1 podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz.
DeFacto Sound has worked with brands like Tesla, HBO, National Geographic, Cartoon Network, and so many others. On top of that, he and his studio produce Twenty Thousand Hertz, a #1 audio-focused podcast that takes at least 200-300 hours per episode to create.
In this episode, Dallas and I talk about running an audio business, how to choose your clients, why creating content online can be so helpful to us as audio creators, and so much more.
Find Dallas Taylor and Twenty Thousand Hertz at:
Website: www.20k.org
Twitter: @20korg
Instagram: @defactosound
Spotify: Twenty Thousand Hertz
Apple Podcasts: Twenty Thousand Hertz
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 http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod
Friday Dec 17, 2021
Friday Dec 17, 2021
We'll be taking a short holiday break until January 12th, 2022! New episodes will be coming out then!
In the meantime, I announced 4 new game audio courses for those of you interested in working as a full-time game audio designer! These will all be coming out in 2022.
First up is The Game Industry Professional, which focuses on the business side of working in game audio - how to get paid, how to negotiate, how to find work in the first place, and how to make a great full time living off of game audio.
Next, I'll be re-opening my course Step-By-Step Sound Design, which sold out in less than one minute last month. This is the course that will help you create great sound design, faster, with less randomness, and more confidence. This one is totally beginner friendly, as well.
After that, there will be Step-By-Step synthesis, which will teach you how to make great sound design from scratch using the synthesizer Serum. If you really want to know what you're doing in a synthesizer and want to stop just twiddling knobs, this will be for you.
And last up is Step-By-Step FMOD. If you want to be able to actually get your sounds into a game, this will be the course for you. I'll be teaching Unity, FMOD, and C# programming to help you be more flexible and confident on every game you work on by giving you the power to place your sounds in a game. No programming experience required here.
Just head over to bit.ly/soundbizpod to sign up for my newsletter so you can know when those are coming out
Wednesday Dec 15, 2021
Wednesday Dec 15, 2021
Most people think you absolutely need to live in a big city to make a living in music, sound, or just art in general. But is that true? Let's cover that in today's episode.
Also, this is a new format for me! Did you love it? Hate it? Let me know!
Send me a message:
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 http://www.bit.ly/soundbizpod