Why Big Credits Won't Change Your Life

Speaker: 00:00:00

If I could get that one big credit, just one hit,

Speaker: 00:00:03

that would change everything, right? Right.

Speaker: 00:00:13

Welcome back, y'all. My name is Travis Farrantz, a Grammy nominated recording engineer mixer with

Speaker: 00:00:16

nearly 20 years of experience. And today I want to talk about what I've

Speaker: 00:00:20

learned from working on hits. More specifically, some of

Speaker: 00:00:24

the myths that I used to believe about having big credits. For the context of

Speaker: 00:00:27

this video, we should first define what is a hit. Younger

Speaker: 00:00:31

me would define a hit as being directly related to commercial success.

Speaker: 00:00:35

Did it go number one? Did it go platinum? Has your grandmother heard it on

Speaker: 00:00:38

the radio? Etcetera? Now, older me would define it a bit differently, but we'll get

Speaker: 00:00:42

to that later because the definition I just laid out is definitely the way

Speaker: 00:00:45

99% of us are going to think about this. The first myth is how

Speaker: 00:00:49

you get hits. A lot of people believe that once you work on one big

Speaker: 00:00:52

record that you just work on more and more of them until you're amongst the

Speaker: 00:00:55

ranks of the engineering greats. And although that is true to a

Speaker: 00:00:59

certain extent, it's not having the big credit that's going to

Speaker: 00:01:03

get you more big gigs. Because, for one, nobody can just make something

Speaker: 00:01:07

a hit. Nobody knows whether an artist or a song is going to resonate with

Speaker: 00:01:10

people. As much as labels and producers like to think they can make a hit,

Speaker: 00:01:14

it's just not possible. You can only set yourself up for

Speaker: 00:01:18

a chance of having a hit. And that is the secret to

Speaker: 00:01:22

working on big records positioning. The only way to work with big artists or get

Speaker: 00:01:26

big credits is to give yourself the opportunity to do so. When I started out

Speaker: 00:01:29

in studios in 2006, the obvious choice was to get a gig at a major

Speaker: 00:01:33

studio. Someplace you know is going to have big artists coming through

Speaker: 00:01:36

it. And although my early days as a runner at Capital did not get me

Speaker: 00:01:40

any big credits, they did get me the opportunity to land a gig

Speaker: 00:01:43

engineering for a producer. I remember the day he asked me to work for him

Speaker: 00:01:47

full time. He said something along the lines of, everything I do goes

Speaker: 00:01:50

number one. And initially I thought, wow, this guy's super

Speaker: 00:01:54

cocky. But I also thought, yeah, let's do this. So,

Speaker: 00:01:58

obviously, everything we did did not go to the top of the

Speaker: 00:02:01

charts, but most things we did at least hit the charts.

Speaker: 00:02:05

And I ended up getting my first number one album at 25 with a mixed

Speaker: 00:02:08

credit on the Hannah Montana movie soundtrack. Now, whether you think that's cool

Speaker: 00:02:12

or not isn't the point. The point is that it was a big deal for

Speaker: 00:02:16

me at the time. I was fully expecting to keep riding the hit train

Speaker: 00:02:19

long after that. And although I worked on a lot of fairly big projects, I

Speaker: 00:02:23

wouldn't see another chart topping album until four years later when I

Speaker: 00:02:26

recorded a few vocal lines for yours truly from Ariana Grande. So

Speaker: 00:02:30

I went from mixing to barely engineering. Definitely

Speaker: 00:02:34

not the progression 25 year old me was expecting. So to return to this

Speaker: 00:02:38

idea of positioning, the only reason I had any of these

Speaker: 00:02:41

opportunities is because I navigated myself to working

Speaker: 00:02:45

for or with people were working on projects for major labels,

Speaker: 00:02:49

big artists, movie studios, et cetera. That Ariana Grande album was her

Speaker: 00:02:52

breakthrough album. When we did those vocal fixes, nobody knew it would be a

Speaker: 00:02:55

hit, but all the right pieces were there for the potential. And

Speaker: 00:02:59

if you want to work on big records, that's the only thing you can do.

Speaker: 00:03:03

The second myth is built around what having big credits says about you. You see

Speaker: 00:03:06

it on Instagram profiles and websites, right? Platinum recording engineer or

Speaker: 00:03:10

Grammy nominated, and you think, wow, they must be so busy. Or damn, they

Speaker: 00:03:13

must be so good. It's nonsense. It's

Speaker: 00:03:17

just marketing. I did it at the top of the video to get you to

Speaker: 00:03:20

watch this far. And if you have watched this far, you should hit the subscribe

Speaker: 00:03:23

button. And while you're down there mousing around, try the like button out as well.

Speaker: 00:03:27

I can't. I can't. I can't do that. Seriously. Anyway, so

Speaker: 00:03:31

people advertise big credits because it serves a dual

Speaker: 00:03:34

purpose. For one, it is essentially marketing for new

Speaker: 00:03:37

clients, but new clients that are primarily not what I'm gonna

Speaker: 00:03:41

call music industry insiders. And I hate to divide

Speaker: 00:03:45

the industry like that, but it's the truth. A decade ago, I could

Speaker: 00:03:49

have said major label and independent artists, but these days there are so many

Speaker: 00:03:52

indie artists who are killing it that I had to come up with something else

Speaker: 00:03:55

to say. So that's what I chose. And by insider, I'm

Speaker: 00:03:59

referring to people that are in the major music scenes and are familiar with

Speaker: 00:04:03

a lot of the people in those communities. So if you're not an insider, say

Speaker: 00:04:07

you're a rock band from Nebraska, you recorded your own album and you want to

Speaker: 00:04:10

work with a really experienced rock mixer. Then you're going to go credit

Speaker: 00:04:14

surfing and you're going to find people that worked on records that you love. Now,

Speaker: 00:04:17

that doesn't mean that your record is going to sound like those records. So

Speaker: 00:04:21

this idea that a credit is going to somehow define the result of what you're

Speaker: 00:04:25

going to get is an absolute myth. What credits actually say about

Speaker: 00:04:29

you is way more in line with what the industry insiders take away from big

Speaker: 00:04:33

credits, which is that you can be trusted to work at a high level and

Speaker: 00:04:36

deal with pressure, deadlines, etcetera. These people know that everybody plays

Speaker: 00:04:40

a role in a project, so they aren't expecting your sound to be the sound

Speaker: 00:04:43

of your credits. They instead expect you to work with the team

Speaker: 00:04:47

to serve the music. Because big credits say way more about your integrity

Speaker: 00:04:51

and your personality than they do about your skill. And that is why engineers and

Speaker: 00:04:55

producers will and should advertise them onto our third

Speaker: 00:04:58

myth, big credits change your life. Now,

Speaker: 00:05:02

this is a tough one for me. As much as I want to say no,

Speaker: 00:05:05

I want to say yes as well. Because if you are positioning yourself

Speaker: 00:05:09

to have opportunities to work on big records, then I do think your career is

Speaker: 00:05:12

going to have the potential for an amazing upward trajectory which would for

Speaker: 00:05:16

sure change your life. But I still don't think that's going to be

Speaker: 00:05:19

guaranteed. Which brings me to kind of the point of this video.

Speaker: 00:05:22

Big credits don't get you big credits. People

Speaker: 00:05:26

get you big credits. So if you're doing great work and building trust with

Speaker: 00:05:30

great people who are all working towards the common goal of making an impact with

Speaker: 00:05:34

music, then I think you'll find yourself having some big credits.

Speaker: 00:05:37

And I air quotes that one because I think this is where we should redefine

Speaker: 00:05:41

what a hit is. Like I mentioned earlier, older middle aged

Speaker: 00:05:45

me has a different definition of hit. I wanted to get into recording and

Speaker: 00:05:48

mixing because I wanted to make music that people would hear and react to

Speaker: 00:05:52

the same way I did when I was a kid with a Walkman. And it

Speaker: 00:05:55

is likely that a percentage of those songs will be commercially successful.

Speaker: 00:05:59

But I guess that the bulk of them would not be billboard number ones or

Speaker: 00:06:03

Grammy winners. So for me today, a hit is something that has

Speaker: 00:06:07

an impact on people. It's a song that might exceed an artist's normal reach

Speaker: 00:06:10

or step them up a level. Maybe it gets them a label deal or a

Speaker: 00:06:13

huge sink. It could be a whole number of things, but the point is that

Speaker: 00:06:17

it resonated with people. So if you can define what career

Speaker: 00:06:20

changing big credits would be for you, and you're willing to work to

Speaker: 00:06:24

position yourself for those opportunities and then be accountable and follow

Speaker: 00:06:28

through when they arrive, then I think the myth of big credits changing your life

Speaker: 00:06:32

will be true. So if you thought this twist on big credits was interesting and

Speaker: 00:06:35

you want more recording studio career advice, then check out this video where I

Speaker: 00:06:39

break down every mindset and idea that has helped me in my career so far.