Luca Pretolesi: Certain things that we can do in the early stage of our career that have no cost for us, which is: our skills prove what we can, do versus buying marketing or buying heads or buying followers on Instagram. All this, you are buying/you're spending money, and then you're trying to artificially build something where if you put all your effort on your skills

Michael Walker: It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and it's only getting better. If you have high quality music but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

YYEEAAHH!! All right. I’m excited to be here today with my new friend Luca Pretolesi. I am looking forward to connecting with him because he has been able to work with some world renowned artists. He's been mixing and mastering for over 25 years now. He's had Grammy wins, multiple nominations, various other rewards. He has worked with Skrillex, Steve Aoki, Snoop Lion, received Grammy nominations across the board. He’s someone that really knows what he's talking about when it comes to mixing and mastering. Today is kind of an interesting time to be a musician as it relates to the tools that are available to us. I know a lot of people that watch this podcast or listen to the podcast are interested in creating high quality music, which is something that you are a genius at. So Luca, thank-you for taking the time to be here today. 

Luca Pretolesi: Thank-you. Appreciate it. It's funny, Michael, because you mentioned some of the credits and normally when I have podcast interviews, it's always throw the typical “because I worked with Drake”. So it's like Drake. It's always Drake #1. You didn't mention Drake. I say, okay, that's something new. You know like, Drake, Diplo, so you went more like old school like Steve Aoki, which I worked with in the past and I work even now, but it's awesome. How are you doing? 

Michael: That is awesome, man. I would say that’s probably just AI looking through your credits and like grabbing a few, but, oh man. That is incredible! I mean yeah, it's the real deal. So Luca, maybe to get started, could you just introduce yourself and share a little bit about how you got started and ended up working with artists like Drake? 

Luca: Well, it's a long journey. So one interesting fact, I think, about me in general is that I never, never in my life earned any money outside of music. My only job for my entire life since I was a kid was music related, which is interesting because I kind of started super, super early, and I did a typical 3 years of recording school and mixing school, and I did everything traditionally, but to be able to afford that, I was working on music during the summer. I was doing things. So it was gradual things going into production, then big passion, I think, instant understanding of mixing, and then mastering later. So to the point that, especially in Europe in the mid-90’s, there was a lot of good energy around music. I would say there was a good vibe around music in the sense that there was a lot of new stuff coming up from Europe that was just based on European taste. I would say I was a tastemaker in my own way. I was just doing things between production and mixing that kind of created a style. So from there, I relocated to the States and the early 2000’s, like 2002. I think I chose the best city for the music that I'm most exposed to, which is electronic music, and then I kind of grew up with this city. So there was like a big explosion of electronic music where Vegas was very center in the US in 2009/2010. I became friends with some of my now best clients, became best friends, and we kind of like, I think, developed and we raised the bar together. I did my contribution from the mixing and mastering side, and everyone kind of blew up at the same time. And then from there from being kind of like a one man band, became more like a business as a company. Now there’s 10 of us in 4 rooms and we work on like 500-600 songs a year from major labels’ deal, to big artists’ albums/singles. That’ll be the story, just being able to work on music that I really like, that I feel that I'm part of the production of a song with my mixing and mastering skills. That's what I do. 

Michael: Awesome. Yeah. So it sounds like what you're saying is that really, it's been a labor of love. It's been about 25 years of you crafting a style. 

Luca: Very organic, and then again, always starting with the right goal in mind which is: I do everything for, and I try to elevate, the quality of what I do, the passion. Then the business - it's kind of like a consequence. It will come. Well, the business part is something that is essentially the step 2. I now see something that I kind of disagree: A lot of people start with too many bullet points, write it down, and say: I want to achieve this and then this and then this, but then they raise the bar way too high from the beginning. In order to kind of achieve success, I need to mix this artist, this album. They're going way too fast to that point where they're not enjoying all the steps they take you there, which, in my case, which is like passionate, obsessed, and nerdy about the technical side of mixing. Then be creative, and then eventually, when some of those artists understand what you're bringing to the table/what you can do with them to elevate equality, then others will understand. And then it's a snowball effect at that point. 

Michael: So, it sounds like what you're saying is that one thing, especially at the beginning, is to not get too wrapped up in the outcome, and really focus on getting the process, and getting good and you don't necessarily have to do shortcuts. It's really just about digging in and being passionate and getting better one step at a time. 

Luca: Absolutely. For sure. 

Michael: Awesome. So one thing I'm curious to pick your brain on, you mentioned that you worked with Drake, and I know AI and music has been a particularly interesting development. I'm curious what your perspective is for an artist who's listening to this right now, who wants to create as high quality of music as possible, and let's imagine that they're willing to do it the right way, right? Like you mentioned, they're willing to kind of put their head down and focus on the things that are actually going to get them from point A to point B, and to focus on the process, but they also want to use the tools that are available nowadays. I'm curious what you would recommend that they get started with in terms of the foundation of building their music creative skills. 

Luca: Right. Well, I think first of all, there is one… I don't call “mistake”, but one shortcut that some of the new engineers are trying to do that I not necessarily agree, which is: I want to be specialized. I want to become a mixing engineer to work only on hip hop. This means: I don't need to learn everything else. I just need to try to mix a hip hop song. I kind of disagreed. I think there's a sort of foundation you need to create, regardless. So in order to be in-sync with another artist, you need to speak the language. So this means you need to have a little bit of music theory. You need to understand what a scale is. What a D note versus a C note is. Then maybe you want to understand recording. You don't want to be a record engineer, but then understanding recording will make you a better mixer. So then, yes, understand recording, so to record yourself. Then you want to understand an instrument enough to do, again, I want to play chords on a piano. I would say: create a foundation, and then from there you build. You build the base and then you go up. And then you get your niche, and then you just follow your niche. I think that's very important. Now, tools like AI and everything, they are fantastic utilities. They're fantastic tools. You don't want to trust a base what should be your instant on a tool. You want to just use that tool. So you want to use a knife to do something. You want to just use something to speed up the process or just to focus more, put more attention on something that is purely creative. So again, my point is: create a foundation, understand the culture of the business you're in, understand the foundation of your business, and then from there, use the tools and then eventually 5 years from now, we're going to have new tools. That's very important. There is a reason why I think, even with AI and everything, there is a business for people like myself and others. I know at least 10-15 like myself that I know between LA area and others where even with the I were busier than normal, just because theree is not only a brand association you want to record with, you want to work with an engineer that's credit, but because there is a human sensibility that it's something that connect us as a persons, not just as an artist. So again, use the technology, understand the foundation of your business, but then don't forget to be creative; to be you. 

Michael: Makes sense. Yep. So it sounds like what you're saying is that these are powerful tools and, similar to the past, there's been new tools every 5 years or so, and what it comes down to is that your creativity, and how you use the tools and your intention behind using the tools. The tools are great, but if you don't do the foundation, if you don't actually have the creative vision and the idea/the intention behind it, then the tools aren't nearly as important. 

Luca: That's very true. There's another point: normally, one of the typical questions to me is how you can work with this guy or the other guy. Why do I decide to work with you? Right? Normally there is something more than just the skills. Okay, I can mix a record well, but if I'm connected with an artist, it should be something that it's a pure connection that is based normally on the passion for the same culture. We are part of the same, so we are connecting on something. So what I’m try to say is: it's not only skills, it's also sensibility, empathy, understanding, trust. Some of the artists, actually my biggest client, they use my service, because not only I do good at what I do, but because they're on tour, they're like running a tour for like 4-5 months. For them to sit in the studio or micromanage a project is way too expensive, and also they don't have the right mindset. So there is a trust factor to have somebody like myself that I'm working next to them like a teammate in order to gain the type of trust, again, it's not just: “Oh, you're good.” No, I'm passionate, I'm very consistent on what I do till the end. So many aspects. So I think fundamentally, if you're a good person as a person, that's a great start. And then from there, great skills, if you've got good communication skills, so many other elements. But normally it comes very organic, all this. Then if something's not working, you can put your attention to improve certain parts of all this. 

Michael: That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So it sounds like what you're saying is that skills are obviously important, but equally just as important as actually the relationships, and how you show up and the trust that you're building in the network. Maybe we could go a little bit deeper into that because I'm sure you have a lot of people that reach out to you that are just sort of like: give me, give me, give me, or maybe like they want to be connected, like you mentioned, to certain artists. They might be wondering: how do I shortcut? How do I do this? Clearly, someone that gets to operating at a level that you're at, a lot of it comes with the networking and the connection and the relationships, the trust, like you talked about. So I'm curious, what you would advise for artists who maybe they're earlier on, maybe they haven't really established some of those root connections yet, but they want to do it in the right way. How did they show up in a way that allows them to organically build these connections without kind of turning people away? 

Luca: It's a good question. I think that there are certain things that we can do in the early stage of our career that have no cost for us, which is: our skills prove what we can do, versus buying marketing or buying heads or buying followers on Instagram. All this, you are buying/you're spending money, and then you're trying to artificially build something where if you put all your effort on your skills and what you do, something I recommend to other engineers like myself in the early stages, if you really, really like one artist, if you really feel that you can improve the quality of his production, thanks to you, they can get better sounding songs out, the best things to do that costs $0 is to reach out, a good percentage are not going to reply to you, but again, there is no cost to try, so you reach out and say: hey, I'm a fan of your song called So and So. I would love to send you my interpretation of the mix down of your song. Send me the stems and then keep it. If you like it, you might like it. Think about me next time you make a song. So now from the artist perspective, there is no cost involved, nothing to lose. The song is already out. You're offering to mix again to improve the mix and show you might have a different view of his song so next time you work on a song, he might think about you. He might say yes, because there is no cost involved. There's no cost for you, no cost for him, and then you're building a relationship on something that really matter for him, which is his song. So that's a great starting point. Not only related to the artists, if you can access to the artists, even labels or even manager. For them, it's so easy to say, why not? Let's try. Then the second suggestion is if they say to you: Hey, send me something that you work on. I want to hear it. Don't send one because if you send one, what's going to happen? If what they're listening, they really, really like it. They're going to say right away: Oh, wow, send me more. I want to hear more about you. If you're not prepared, if you say: Oh, I don't have nothing ready yet. They’re going to say: wow, you're not consistent. Now, if they don't like it, they might ask also, listen, I'm not sure about this. Send me another one. You still need another one. So my suggestion is: if you build your library of mixing, for example, of production to send to an artist, send one with the follow up and follow up ready to send. That's suggestion #2. Suggestion #1 is reach out and offer to mix his song at no cost as a test. Both, they have no cost for you because it's your art/it's your work. 

Michael: Super smart. Yeah. What a great way to provide value upfront without any sort of obligation or needing anything in return. That reciprocity seems like it always finds its way back somehow. 

Luca: There's the other point, Michael. If you tell them: I want to mix your new song. God. Now this guy has too much stress. Say, wait: I'm not going to trust. I'm not going to give stems of song is not out yet. I usually work with this guy wanting to go to that guy. But if you say: no, no, no, no, I loved your song so much. I want to do a mix of the song that is out right now, just for you to listen. This is more like say, okay, loved it. Let's do it. So, I would say the third part of this is: building industry support. It's way, way more important than trying to build immediately commercial support like from Instagram. Industry support is: you try to have other peers/other people in your industry become your promoter. So I support you and just go to others and say: you should check; this guy's really good. That part is harder, but then if you're able to do that, then you can multiply. Now, somebody say: you should check this,  guy's is good; his mix is really good. Now, when somebody gets this type of information from somebody else, it's way more believable then coming from you or your manager. You need somebody else saying: you should go for that to him. That was my story. Here, I start working with smaller artists, then eventually, one of the artists was producing for Diplo's label, Matt Decent, and Diplo listened to the track and said, wow, that's actually really good. I want to reach out because this guy did a really good job on somebody else's song. I want to see if he can work on my music. Then when I did that, it was just like one, go to the next one. There was no bullet facts of industry support first. For the first couple of years, I was getting support inside the industry, and then after that became on the surface, and then it went on the commercial level. 

Michael: That's super smart. Yeah. So it sounds like what you're saying is that referrals are a really powerful type of strategy because people trust other people that don't necessarily have the same incentive, way more than they'll trust you saying something yourself. I think a point that you brought up that is really important to go deep on, because what you're talking about earlier around marketing and sort of a tendency to want to, I don't know, boost your followers or boost your marketing without focusing on the actual product, it seems like probably the most important part of marketing in the first place, like you mentioned, which is actually having a product worth marketing and having something that's truly going to transform the people that are getting it. So it sounds like what you recommend is really focusing on that product. It reminds me of: Steve jobs was big on this, right? He's all about products. He's one of the best marketing people in the world, and he's all about just designing an amazing product, and when you have the right product, it makes the job of the marketing so much easier because you are doing something that is truly transformative. 

Luca: I agree 100%. Yes, yes. 

Michael: Awesome. Now, I know this is one of those things where every 5 years the tools evolve/they change. I don't know if it's just a feeling or what, but it seems like the rate of change is happening faster and faster, like that technology is sort of exponential. I'm curious, since you've been around for 25+ years doing this, you've been around for a lot of different revolutions. You've seen the tools come, you've seen them go, you've seen fear around certain types of tools. Are they going to replace us and whatnot? I'm curious how you would recommend artists… if the analogy is that it's sort of like catching a wave in that, whenever there's a big new momentum, it's like you're a surfer and you want to catch the wave. You can get momentum if you catch it. But you don't want to catch a wave that's kind of already passed. I'm curious if, at the time of us recording this right now, if there are any tools that you would recommend that artists really kind of aim to catch that wave that's currently happening, while keeping in mind that the most important thing is learning how to surf in general, and it's not just about this one wave. But at the same time, I'm curious at the time of recording this, are there any like really interesting waves and things that you think people can get momentum if they happen to be listening in this right now? 

Luca: It's a great question. And I think, yes, first of all, the answer is yes. I think we can access, for example/on regional music now? Way easier than before. Especially again, on my niche, on dance music, on electronic music, there is always a moment of hype based on music coming from a certain part of the planet. Now more than ever, it's Africa. So Afrobeat in general, it's huge. Now, if I'm thinking: if I tried to do this 25 years ago, how can I access music from indie artists that create tastemaker? They create something new and cool in South Africa. I have no idea today we actually can. So I would say technology research and be able to get exposed from music that is a small indie scene in an area of the world that can inspire you and just like you can develop from their new ideas. Again, I've talked about Africa because afrobeat is so fresh and so cool. They're building, essentially, around I would say some organic part of music composition and taste that in Africa, a series of subcultural general music. They're like rotating and expand from there. It's so cool. So that's one example. Same example I can bring up is from India. There was a moment it was like a lot of South Korea, in general. Now, Brazil is amazing, too. So what I'm saying is thanks to technology is being able to dig deeper on the cultural music of an area of the planet that for you that just travel to go there can be so expensive, so difficult, but you can just dive and do like thr3ee hours listening session of the coolest music of certain area that can trigger ideas. That's one. So it's actually easy. We're not talking about AI. We're talking about just digging deeper into Spotify playlists from certain areas of the world. Not crazy, but that's good. Second one, I think was in a, for a moment… I'm involved on the tech side. I come from a plugin company, so I'm involved in a lot of plugin development, but there was a moment where the trend, especially on the production side, was kind of like lead by certain plugins and then the plugin will make a song because now all we use that preset from serum. We use all this preset from sonic. So right now we reach a quality on plugins that essentially, you can optimize the startup costs of building a studio in an incredible way. You don't have to spend $250,000 to build a gigantic studio. If you invest more time on your skills to become a better producer/engineer, and with the plugin that we have today, we can really go far. So I would say it's a great time. There is no more a story of: Oh, sorry, musician, I need to raise money to get a loan for like $200k to build a studio. No. Build a room that sounds good, that translates well, invest in yourself and your skills on relationships, and connected to the music, and dive in and just get a culture of worldwide music. What's going on around the planet, as far as the music goes. So it's a great time for that. I think it's a great time to be able to quickly build relationships, connections, access to the best music in the world, get the best technology, and at a low cost, and something that never changes: build YOU. Put a lot of effort and energy on you as an individual. So I co-own a platform is called MyMixLab. MyMixLab has a monthly cost of a frappuccino. That's the cost of that. But then, with the passion that we're doing video where 170 videos on the platform, that represents what I'm thinking. So MyMixLab is video with a maximum 20-minute course. That 20-minute course is my experience of working on this desk. You see here, it just comes out with something cool, capture, put on a platform and let people access to do that. That's a part of what I'm thinking. So, you can access the best music at low cost. You can access the best educational site, the best tools. So I think it's a good time right now for not very expensive things, but they bring a lot of value. 

Michael: Absolutely, and what an incredible time to be alive. Imagine 25 years ago, having access to the resources that you have now that you're delivering through platforms like this, being able to literally like sit in the studio, sit next to you as, as you're mixing and mastering is just amazing. To recap what you're saying, it sounds like one of the biggest recommendations that you have is just for people to explore the worldwide culture and to listen to a lot of different styles of music, see what resonates with them. And ultimately, it does come back to you and like you have something unique; you have a unique style and it takes that exploration to sort of discover what it is that makes it unique. 

Luca: I totally believe that. Interestingly, we are in North America, where North America is big reference of music worldwide. I'm also Italian. When I go back to Italy, I listen to a lot of Italian music. They are taking some from the US, but here in the US, that's my point, we are taking influence from, again, Africa, India. Drake is very…. His music is very influenced from Afrobeat and Dancehall. And then other artists do the same. So my point is: let's make this a global thing where we're not locking a regional part. We just are taking and we are sharing, and then from there, we can just make something cool and unique. 

Michael: Awesome. So you briefly mentioned that you have a plugin that you've been working on. I was curious to hear a little bit more about the plugin or plugins. 

Luca: Yes, exactly. So we co-own a line of plugin with Acoustica audio, which is a company in Italy. Good friends. We own the technology. We have in-house developers, and also we are developer in Italy at Acoustica, and we have a series of plugins. Also we deal with other producers and artists. So in the past 5 years, I did plugins with Mike Dean, Greg Wells, Dave Pensado, Josh Goodwin with a lot of people. The way the plugin starts and finishes is essentially: I'm using different tools to achieve a certain result and I feel that I'm missing certain things on those tools. Then be able to build a plugin that allow me to combine on one, my tools, with additional something that I can’t find. So that's the part. So the plugin goes from saturation, to EQ, to compression, to imagers, but all those tools that make my life easier, and then I like/share with others and they make other people’s life easier as well. 

Michael: Awesome. Yeah. It definitely seems like plugins are similar to what you talked about earlier with having like tools, that's great to have tools, but also it's important to know how to use the tools. But if you do have the tools and you have the templates and you're able to kind of set things up so that you can show up, and it's all kind of set preset for you, it does seem like it just makes your life a lot lot easier. So I'm curious in your experience, obviously you've been doing this for a long time and I'm sure you've had some very positive experiences and some like challenging experiences and you've made mistakes, you've seen certain mistakes. I'm curious what you found to be some of the biggest mistakes that you've either personally experienced or artists and mixing/master engineers that you've connected with as well and listen to this right now, maybe could save them a little bit of a trial and error and a little bit of pain and suffering having to learn that mistake themselves. 

Luca: Yeah, yeah. Well, I see some of them. One is, in general, they take…. Music, first of all, it's a sine wave that goes up and down. Our business is not a flat line. When you achieve a certain result, it doesn't mean, necessarily, that now you are set for life. You'll find you are in a sweet spot and then you keep going forever. Some get very enthusiastic about the initial results; the return of the investment. Then there is an investment of financial investment or long-term decisions, like building a big studio. I do this because I'm doing okay. I'm more conservative. We build and we own a nice facility, but we did this running between small room around town around Vegas, and then we had a studio inside of a casino and then we finally bought a building, and we built a facility, but in a more conservative way, be more mature. When I was doing this, I was able to think twice. I see a lot of people get very enthusiastic and just like pull the trigger and go. There's also the fact that major labels: they're great, but then you need to be constantly relevant, and then they're gonna use you when you are in a position where they can leverage you. So it's hard for you to leverage them. So don't get too excited with early success. So my point is: build something that is sustainable, create a foundation, be conservative, and try to stay on a state of flow when you're working. If you have too many distractions or too many concerns, or if you're pulling the trigger on too many ideas too quick, then now you need to sustain those. So 1) is: make it in a way that it's manageable that you can build over time. Don't go too fast. That's one. Another one is about social media that sometimes, to me, it's a little annoying because I see over pushing one success. So people that are squeezing, squeezing, squeezing something good, and then now for the next six months, they keep pushing and bragging about this particular, right? This, from the outside, sometimes feels a little bit too much feel like desperate. Say, you are a credit in a good song. That's great, but focus on the next one. Focus to keep working. Don't overly squeeze this success to try to build a hype and bring more. Yes, let people know what you do, what you're up to, but don't exaggerate. Two different things. Both, they're like vision, like what I'm observing from looking from outside.

Michael: It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I mean, it seems like both of those maybe are two sides of the same coin in that it sounds like really the recommendation is that you have to have perspective to sort of understand that (what is the phrase) “this too shall pass”. It's kind of like a sine wave, there's ups and downs. So you see that when there's the ups whenthey happen, then people sometimes get really excited, enthusiastic and plan as if like, it's always going to be up, up, up, up, up, when you really do have to prepare for the ups and the downs. Got it. 

Luca: There was one case, in that regard, that's really about our company Studio DMI. So this year, we started Dolby Atmos Mixes. Well, now it was 2 years. We started Dolby Atmos Mixes. We built a beautiful studio, but then instead of keep pushing, we're gonna do the best mixes in Atmos. It's gonna be the best. We are the best. It's something that actually makes me feel uncomfortable even to say that. We worked so hard, and in one year, not me, I'm not an Atmos engineer, Rob, the worker in the Atmos room does that. In one year, we out here: U2, Daft Punk, Skrillex, everything in one year, and we let people know after we did this, this year. We're very proud of our work, but we never had the intention of squeezing the facts. It's like, guys, U2 are here in the studio! So, what I tried to say is we did the best job to build the best room. Rob did an amazing job to become an incredible Atmos engineer, and then we had U2, and then we did Daft Punk, and then we did more, you know? So, yeah, the story is essentially: put the effort to become really good and then eventually let people know what you do. Don't flip the things where it's all about pushing and pushing and pushing because it gives a weird feeling too when you listen to somebody who overly promotes, you know? 

Michael: It makes sense. Yeah. It seems like it kind of comes back to the point that you brought up earlier around how the best kind of promotion is when other people are promoting your product because it's so good, and the same thing applies to when you're over promoting yourself or kind of leaning too much into one success that you had, then you're not, maybe, spending as much time as you could be spending just getting better and providing more value, creating a better product. SoI'm curious, this is one of my favorite questions is: if you had a time machine and you could go back to yourself like 25 years ago and give yourself one piece of advice, what do you think that you would share for yourself? 

Luca: I think I made good choices through my career. Probably: be more selective and understand the amount of time and energy that you're investing with others. If those people are not in line with you, you can't force it. So one thing maybe that I did in the past that I would love to change if I can go back is: if you have the first feeling that the person is not in line with your vision, even if you like the person, don't try to force it because eventually, the person will go back to the old way. So it's probably better to make sure you are in the same mindset with people that you want to work with. From the moment you start, if you are forcing that relationship to make it work because you have empathy/because you like the person, eventually it's going to be an investment of time and effort that's not going to have a good return, versus invest more on you and then yes, if you need to build a team, make sure that is a foundation of the relationship first. If something doesn't feel right, you can't force it. It has to work on a more organic level, versus again, some mistakes that I made in the past was: I like the person but we are not in sync, but I'm going to make it work. I'm going to make it work. I'm going to try. You should be more selective. It's okay. You need to have my mindset, or keep going down my street.

Michael: Makes sense. Yeah, that's super valuable. So it sounds like one of the biggest lessons is learning how to trust your intuition and trust your gut, and if something feels kind of off, then you can try to force it, and sometimes in the short-term you can get around it, but generally it comes back and that's something you've realized that rather than forcing it, that you want to find that alignment from the start. 

Luca: For sure. 

Michael: Good stuff. All right. Well, man, it's been really great to connect. I always appreciate the opportunity to meet people like yourself who have built on the right foundation. I use this analogy a lot that when you plant a seed, then there's kind of this time horizon or like you have to nurture it, you have to let it grow, and at the beginning, like the roots are forming, you don't have to necessarily have the fruit right away, and eventually if you do the right things, you keep nurturing it, then the tree can blossom, the fruit can fall, but it is really helpful to be able to connect with people and when you see the fruits are falling, understand that there's a process that they went through and understand it is just about taking one step at a time. So, Luca, thank-you. Thanks for coming on here to share your experience with the community here. Last question is: you mentioned that you've been working on some resources to be able to help artists and mixing/mastering engineers to be able to improve their craft. What's the best place that they can go to connect more or learn more about the resources that you offer?

Luca: I recommend two places. 1) my Instagram. I'm so extremely active in my Instagram and also as a way to, for me, to go everywhere. mymixlab.com is our platform. It has also very cool and active Instagram account where weekly I give away little teaser of the actual courses on the platform. Again, the platform costs like $12/month. It was just to justify the fact that you are making a commitment to pay something. But the idea is to let new producers get access to idea mindset, not necessarily long courses with a big curriculum. It's just more like mixing idea/production idea. So I recommend to check it out. It's pretty cool. 

Michael: Awesome. Well, like always with the links on the show notes for easy access. There really is something about just about being in the room with someone like yourself that has put in the time, put in the work as a network. There's like an osmosis that kind of happens. So on behalf of the whole community, thank-you for sharing some of the wisdom/some of the lessons that you've learned. Looking forward to talking again soon. 

Luca: Take care.

Michael: Yeeeaaaah. Hey, it’s Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today, and if you want to support the podcast then there’s a few ways to help us grow. First if you hit ‘subscribe’ then that’s make sure you don’t miss a new episode. Secondly if you share it with your friends, on social media, tag us - that really helps us out. And third, best of all, if you leave us an honest review it’s going to help us reach more musicians like you take their music to the next level. The time to be a Modern Musician is now, and I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.