YouTube University: Wavy Wayne on How to Become an Audio Engineer (Episode 81)

Make Music Your Business.

Wavy Wayne is a trained, professional audio engineer with more than 15 years of experience and credits with artists like Jim Jones, Future, Ashanti, Yo Gotti and Dave East. A Full Sail University graduate with multiple Pro Tools certifications, he took his lessons from studios and college classrooms to what he calls the global university of YouTube, where more than 100,000 people subscribe to his mixing tutorials.

In Episode 81 of The Career Musician, Wayne and Nomad cover how to become an audio engineer the real way: initiative, humility, studio etiquette, and running your skills like a business.

The music bug, and the engineer who inspired him

Wayne grew up in St. Louis playing percussion in marching band from second grade, then started rapping as a teenager when Nelly was blowing up and everybody in town wanted in. At about 15, he walked into a professional studio for the first time. The engineer's enthusiasm hooked him more than the rapping did.

Years later, at a networking event, that same engineer walked up and said, "Yo, you're Wavy Wayne from YouTube." He had been watching Wayne's videos. Now they work together. That's what a long career looks like: the people who inspired you become your peers.

Don't wait for anyone to hand you the internship

Full Sail had a career development program, but Wayne knew they were working with a thousand students. He didn't wait. Over spring break, instead of partying, he went to New York, walked into studios and asked to meet the studio managers: "I'll be graduating in six months and I want to come work here."

"I really did the stuff that the teachers were saying to do... Can I meet the studio manager? How you doing, I'll be graduating in six months and I want to come work here."

Wavy Wayne, 13:17

He saved his last financial aid disbursement for living expenses, enough for two months in New York, and moved. It took six to eight months of interning before he got a paid gig. He worked a day job on the side, slept at the studio some nights, and did whatever it took. Nomad's point: nobody is advocating for you at the start. You have to be your own biggest advocate, and drop "up and coming" from your pitch.

That day job, stopping strangers on New York streets to sponsor a child, taught him more than he expected: resilience, sales, and not taking a "no" personally. If you need ten yeses, you keep going after the first no. Whatever someone throws at you is about what they're going through, not about you.

Kill your pride and budget like a freelancer

His first steady work came from a studio manager who connected him with DJ Kid Capri, recording in his basement studio four times a week for about $100 a day. For anyone scared of moving to a big city, Wayne is direct: the worst that can happen is really not that bad. Get roommates. Get help if you need it. Kill your pride.

Freelance engineering income swings hard. You might make a few thousand dollars one week and a few hundred over the next six. So when a good session pays you a grand, you think about how long that grand has to last. Budget it.

Shut up and soak it up

Wayne met Jim Jones as an intern, cleaning up after his sessions. Two years later, Jim opened his own studio in Manhattan and called Wayne to be head engineer, six nights a week, 9 PM to 5 AM. That's where he worked with Future, Yo Gotti and more. Jim also made sure Wayne sat in on business meetings just to listen, and those meetings taught him how the game really works.

That habit of listening is one Wayne and Nomad both say the younger generation struggles with.

"If you just be quiet enough to let them let you stay in the room long enough, you will see something, you'll pick up on something, you'll hear something. That's where a lot of the gems came from."

Wavy Wayne, 29:21

The best advice Wayne got from his mentors: when you're an intern, your job is to make the assistant look good. When you're the assistant, make the engineer look good. The engineer makes the producer look good, the producer makes the artist look good. Never make someone above you look bad in front of a client, even when they make an obvious mistake. And in his experience, the biggest artists are never the jerks. Humility, straight from the ETHOS code, and Low maintenance / no drama, in a single rule.

Nomad shared his own war story: an intern who stood between him, the client and the glass for 20 minutes during a one-day, 30-cue scoring session. Wayne now gives interns a written list of how to act in the room. Make yourself small. Take up as little space as possible.

Respect the process before you hit "upload"

Nomad and Wayne agree that development belongs in the bedroom, before you ever release anything. At Motown, artists went through months or years of development before a record came out. Today you can download a beat, record on a cheap mic and upload it next to Jay-Z the same night. Wayne's analogy: nobody wakes up one day and calls themselves a doctor, but in music people do. Knowing how to make a beat doesn't make you a producer, either. That's programming.

On gear, Wayne's line is simple: it's the ear, not the gear. He started his St. Louis studio fully digital with a computer, a trusted pair of monitors and some acoustic treatment, and learned that less is more. He even stopped believing in vocal booths, preferring a quiet room with a little natural ambience, much like tracking in a big studio's live room with gobos.

Build evergreen content and run it like a business

Today Wayne's work is almost all remote mixing, driven by his YouTube channel. His process is professional: an inquiry form on his site, a quote, an assistant who preps sessions, a phone call with every client so they know he cares, and up to three revisions. If they're still far apart after three, he's honest: he's not the right engineer for them.

His YouTube strategy started in the classroom. As a college instructor, he didn't like repeating himself, so he recorded his lessons and sent links to students who missed class. He was inspired by Dave Pensado, never tried to go viral, and aimed for evergreen how-to content that would still make sense in five or ten years. YouTube is a search engine, he says. People go there to learn how to do something. He edited his first videos on his phone, and he dropped scripts because they made him sound stiff.

The business lessons hit home too. With brand partners, Wayne knows the value of his audience and makes the deal give and take. He uses QuickBooks, and Nomad has always hired an accountant. And Wayne's warning from experience: for years he was paid in cash, then couldn't show verifiable income for a lease and had to catch up on several years of taxes. Set up your LLC and business bank account, and pay your taxes. That's Make Music Your Business, the unglamorous part.

The takeaway

Wayne's final word: enjoy the process, and never stop learning. He is still reading books on mixing and questioning whether every mix is the best it can be. Both he and Nomad also shared that music saved them from wrong turns when they were young. Take the initiative, keep your mouth shut and your ears open, and treat your skills like a real business. If you're working toward your first big studio opportunity, start with the free Get the Gig guide, and find Wayne's lessons at wavywayne.com.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

Watch on YouTube or find every episode on the TCM Podcast page.