#16 - Capsun ProAudio & Splice Creative Director: How to Win as a Sound Creator and Why Quality is Crucial for Success: Jay Pulman

I always want to build something where it's exciting enough that people are interested because of what I've created as opposed to how can I tack on a strategy at the end of this to make it interesting. I'm still listening to what's coming out on Splice on almost a daily basis. I'll spend a bit of time partly because I, you know, keep tabs on what's going on. But also, there might be a kick drum that I need that I don't have yet, which is ridiculous. No, I mean, I've got tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands at this point of sounds. There's a sense of cynically talking about empathy and looking after yourself and balance, but it's generally said by people who are already on the other side who didn't do that to get there. If you're not constantly putting out content, music, something that you're relevant, it is useless and it will just grind you down. Yeah, I hate that. I hate it. I hate put out as much as you can all the time. Just focus on you. Hey there, what's up? Welcome to episode 16 of Before The Drop, the show that brings you advice for pursuing a career in music and for those who are waiting for the chorus to drop in their own careers and lives. My name is Azodi and in this week's episode, we are very fortunate to have Jay Paulman. Jay is the co-founder of Capsun Pro Audio and the creative director for splice sounds slash splice.com. Capsun Pro Audio have created sample packs such as low fire soul and future beats, bedroom beats and low fire hip hop, low fire love songs, Latin stacks, there's so much. I appreciate you for listening to this episode and if you are a manager, artist or brand and would like to work with me, hit me up via azodimusic.com, please rate and share this episode with anyone you feel needs to hear it. What was the craziest thing you ever did as a kid or teenager? The craziest thing I ever did. Well, I'm not going to start by incriminating myself. Understandable. There was a fair amount of stuff that I did. I grew up with my parents working a lot and I was lucky to have a lot of time to be out of my friends when I was probably too young to be doing so. So, fair amount of crazy stuff, I probably won't go into details. All right, okay, fair do's best. So, what were what were you like at school then? So, at school, I did do better academically than I probably had any right to. I wouldn't say I'm lazy but I always kind of had a problem with authority and that led me to probably not trying as hard as I could have done. I was always that kid that could do better if I applied myself. So, always causing trouble. But I went to a pretty strict school up until I was 15, 16 so I was able to get pretty good results. But yeah, I always had a bit of an issue with authority which I don't think is necessarily changed and there's good parts to that and not so good parts to that as an adult. Take some time to learn to control the good parts of it and use them to your advantage rather than just mess up all your own opportunities I guess. Whereabouts did you grow up in the country? So, I grew up around whatford like outside Northwest London. My parents kind of bought and sold some houses, lost some houses, recession and all of that. So, I moved around a fair bit and then moved into London when I went to uni to study music. So, I was a uni in Ealing in West London. Good group of people who are also making music. Kind of was a big part of the grime scene at the time and I guess as the first initial start to dubstep or kick and off and all that, I was kind of living in the middle of that scene whilst I was 18, 19, 20. So, it was a good time and then lived around different parts of London. Most parts of London I guess and then ended up in Brighton when I was like 22. Did you start out initially say as an instrumentalist or did you go straight into production or sound design early on? Well, I had some piano lessons as a kid and I was one of those kids that I really enjoyed playing the piano but I hated practice. So, I think that's mostly everyone unless I guess you're same as me, unless you're naturally really good or I guess it's the same thing you're studying, right? I enjoyed the play and I enjoyed music. I hated practice. So, when I was about I guess 12 maybe, got an older brother who's like eight years older than me. I think he had some really early music production software on an early desktop PC. I don't even remember what it was. You know, it might have been fruity loops downloaded offline wire or an early Q base or something like that. I remember using Microsoft sound recorder to kind of, but yeah, I started out with that and just playing around with sampling and kind of when I didn't know what any of it was, you know, getting break beats without really knowing what break beats were, chopping parts out of my parents' records, my dad had a pretty good record collection. So, you know, when I say sampling, I mean, recording from one of those stick microphones that used to come with desktop computers, set it to the speaker of the high-fi or, you know, mini high-fiers and just putting vinyl on top and chopping bits. So, yeah, I kind of started without any intention just playing around with it. It was a hobby. It was something I was into, but hasn't really changed had, you know, as into it when I was 12, 13 and I literally haven't stopped since that point, like no time off from having wanted to make stuff. What were your kind of influences initially? Like, who are you listening to at the age of around 12, 13 when you started doing all the sampling? You see, so it's a tough one this because, you know, the influences question because, like, my parents were music fans primarily, right? They're not, you know, I don't think they'd consider themselves big music people, but they're people that grew up as fans of music. And my parents really like to dance, right? They used to go out to clubs. They used to go out to dance. They still do, like, they're people that are into music, which is kind of nice. It's that kind of pure take on music, where it's not any deeper than just being fans. So, there was there was always music in the house, but I don't remember, you know, it being something they really talked to me about, it was just kind of in the background. And then alongside that, when I was, I guess 13, 14 was when, like, garage in the UK was really kicking off. So, and I was in Watford and I mean, if anyone knows Watford and just outside of London or kind of on the outskirts of Greater London, Watford was a city with a couple of big clubs. There was a lot of legendary garage club nights that started in Watford. There was under 18's raves and all that. So, I grew up right as UK garage was becoming a thing and where I was living happened to be one of the hubs for it. So, one of my mates, Pete, one of my good mates at the time got a set of decks. He was the only one out of us who whose parents, I think, could afford to get him decks. And he had, he had a set of really basic decks and we went out and, you know, we'd pull all our money at the weekend and go and buy two new records as a record shop in Watford. We used to go down to Central London, like Black Market. These kind of legendary record shops and it was new music every week. So, we'd, you know, be buying 12 pound pieces of vinyl with two dub plates on them maybe between six of us. So, like, influences wise, I don't know if it was particular artist, you know, I could go through, but there was a big range of like music that was in my life anyway. It was music on a radio, but there was also this underground music that was coming up that was kind of a culture that was around us and we were obsessively into, to be honest, it was a big part of my life at that time. I used to MC and DJ. I was in a crew, like, we were playing, we're going into London and playing club nights when I was 14, 15, playing playing and like legit, legit venues in Kings Cross and that when we were 14, 15 years old. So, like, that was a, that was a big part of my influence coming up was garage and also drum and bass and bass line music and just all of that, all of that UK music coming together, jungle was still very much a thing at a time. So, yeah, it was a whole, it was a whole mix of things. I remember how impactful that was because I was, I was brought up in a very small town in Surrey, but you would have the school year. And I don't know if you remember back then, but I, I feel we're roughly around the same age, but I remember back then everyone used to be much more segregated with their music tastes. Yeah, what, yeah, the other metal kids and the garage and all that. Yeah, so I kind of, I kind of crossed over because I had friends on both sides. I used to play a lot of sport and that was the kind of, that was the thing that brought those groups together, right, was like, if you, if you were a sport kid or like, wherever it was, it kind of mixed those groups together. So, I was kind of into like some of that new metal and stuff at the time and I went to some big gigs and so I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't completely divided by those lines at the time. Yeah, yeah, I remember it was, it was a time where everyone would be segregated, but you'd have half the school year that were really into garage and you had everyone who was into the biggest chart stuff at the time, which would have been Craig David, Daniel Beddingfield, MC Luck and whatnot. And those would be really popular. But then the other half of the year would be all the kids that listened to new metal. But at the same time, I felt that they were crossing over because they were using the same sort of instrumentation as DJs would be because they had guys doing the decks within the new metal sound. A lot of those kids that like, you know, now I have, you know, friends when we were older and like, actually, we were all listening to a lot of the same stuff because there was so much cross-over that you weren't really aware of and there wasn't the same like micron issues as you have now with, like, you know what I mean? It's just, it is, it was split by like music, but you were still consuming like what was available in the front of HMVL Virgin or something, you know what I mean? It wasn't, you weren't really in that much of a control of what music you were finding, you weren't building your communities around it, you were still getting chart music, ultimately. Yeah. What a time, man. I remember that time very well. So a straight-out question that I'd love to ask you because you're clearly very established and very skilled at what you do in multiple areas. I guess it wasn't always that way. So I'd love to ask you, like, was there anything you just absolutely sucked at and had to be learned the hard way and what was it? Yeah. Well, I mean, I appreciate you saying that. I mean, the point of this question right is I still feel like that about a lot of things. To what you said before you asked about school and kind of how I was, like, this is exactly what I'm talking about with. I'm someone that I enjoy learning stuff, but I enjoy it usually by working it out myself as opposed to, you know, reading the manual or necessarily going through the steps that I need to learn it, which, as I've got older, is realized is not necessarily the best way to be. You can ride your luck a lot if you have some talent and you can get away with stuff, right? If you've got a good ear, especially in music, but you reach a point where you want to be able to be better at things or you don't necessarily want to have to look to other people around you to help you at every step that you don't want to do. That's something that opens up as you do better and you know, if you're lucky enough to be able to, like, build out a team and for there to be value in you not doing everything, but up to a point, you've got to kind of do everything yourself. So I've never been particularly good or interested in the technical side of making music in mixing, in understanding, you know, the science and maths behind compressors and EQs and multi-bands and all this stuff. And like, it's a running joke with people around me that I work with that I'm very, you know, twist all the knobs and see what happens as opposed to really looking into what I'm doing. And I mean, I've been doing it long enough that I think I've got a pretty good grasp of everything just through, you know, sheer hours put into it. But I definitely say it's a blind spot for me. I almost resent learning some of the technical sides because I am someone that is obsessed with the art part of it. And, you know, without it sounding kind of cringy, that's always been the most important part to me was just making what comes out. And I felt that being too technical would take away some of that, you know, or I'd be thinking, I'd be thinking in different terms when I was making, rather than just creating what I wanted in the moment, worrying about the mix or, you know, recording. I still record a lot of my vocals or whatever, like on my phone now, because it's the quickest, easiest thing. And I'd rather be in the moment than setting up a mic, getting ready and set up. Now, as I say, like, over time, if you're lucky enough to do this professionally, your time becomes more valuable. There are things that need to be right. And sometimes that's about, you know, just grinding out and putting in the time and learning. And sometimes that's about building out a team of people around you who are good at what they do and can support you and allow you to have the time to really put yourself into you are and what you're making. But yeah, that's definitely the blind spot for me is the same as ever. I kind of resist learning because I just want to be in the moment. Yeah, I completely agree with you. And that's exactly the same as me because I feel that that moment that you're talking about is very finite and limited. And you have to roll with it as quickly as possible because it does have a time limit on it. I also feel as well, if you start trying to go too hard on theory and technicalities and setting stuff up, it's almost like it restricts your creative mind a bit and it is harder to produce something in general. Yeah, I mean, I kind of went through a period when I got really, really busy when I, um, we first started the sample company, Capson Pro Audio and it really started becoming something that was real. You know, by real, I mean, it was paying rent. It was starting to make money for people around us that were working with us and you know, it became, you start getting responsibilities, right? Whether you want them or not, you start getting responsibilities. And there's a big positivity in that because you can actually potentially change the course of your life or at least not after work for someone else or do, you know, a job that you hate, which is what I was doing before that. There's a point at which being professional for yourself or taking responsibility for the things you don't want to do is the same thing is supporting yourself and being in the moment because by getting the job done, you don't want to do making sure you've got, you know, some kind of structure around answering the emails and making sure that you're good on that side. So as to know that you have a day free or two days free or three hours free or whatever it is, like that ultimately that's also your responsibility, right? To make the time for yourself to be able to not worry about what the process isn't just create. Responsibility becomes more enjoyable when by getting the things done you need to on the business side of this allows you the time to be the artist you want to be. There's more motivation to get those things done. Right. Yeah, that does. That's a great piece of advice there. To give people context who are listening, I first heard of you actually for a mutual session drummer mate, but I remember that you did have a full-time job to support Captain Pro Audio in your career. Like how long were you building your career before you could actually pack it all in and go full-time sound designer producer? Well, I mean, I won't let me since I was a kid, it was what I was going to do one way or another. You know, that's I had no backup plan. I was going to make music, whether that was as an artist or a producer or whatever, that's all I've ever cared about doing. So it's always been the plan and everything else in the meantime has felt like in the meantime, right? It's just jobs I'm doing. I never committed to any other career, I never really learned any other skills. I did music at college in uni, which, you know, was as much because there was nothing else I wanted to do. I did well at college in uni because I was, you know, I actually found out that I really cared about this thing and I was really, really into it and a lot of other people who were at college in uni were doing it just because, you know, it wasn't having to do a levels or whatever. And that's no knock on them, you know, I just, I was obsessed with it by the time I was 16, so I was fully ready to go. You know, I was I spent my early mid 20s working in Brighton and working in a coffee shop, worked DJing at pubs and clubs for, you know, cash under the table and I was I was still doing that when I got into making samples. You know, I was releasing music. I started the Capsum projects, you know, you under the artist name Capsun, I guess about 10 years ago. And SoundCloud was was kicking off, so I was putting bootlegs and tracks out and I released with some labels and, you know, just put out some samples that were going to be a free kind of full of community pack of sounds, you know, my own sounds, which ended up being my first sample pack that came out via loopmasters. And it wasn't until I found out there was some money in this thing. And you know, bear in mind I was doing everything I could in music, or at least everything I thought I could at the time, not really making any real money. It's just drinking money at the time. It wasn't making any difference to my circumstances. So as soon as I found something that was real, I kind of put more time towards it, more time towards it. And then it made sense to start a company more so that they have more control. I didn't want to just be working for someone, you know, basically going back to just being fully freelance, wanted some control around it and to build a brand around it. So it was, it wasn't until I was 26, I guess, 26, 27 that I was able to just do music. But even then, you know, it's still touching go. It was, it was down to us on a week to week basis to keep working to actually establish anything real. That's awesome. So it's not even like even though you technically made it, it was still incredibly uncertain and unstable at that point. I mean, that's that that's also just starting a business, right? I mean, I didn't know any of this at the time. This is this is all hindsight. I was just rolling with it. But, you know, had I started any business at the time, you've just got to try and make work and most businesses don't and music is a very, very difficult world to try and start a business in, especially in an industry that you don't necessarily know. So we cheated our way through that by putting in way too many hours, by just trying to outwork everyone, which is, I mean, it's a whole another subject, but we'll get onto that. So correct me if I'm wrong here. But from what I kind of remember back then, I feel that the sample pack that really kind of blew everything up was the low fire, so on future beats. And I believe that was even before splice.com was public. So with, is that correct so far? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Cool. So could you actually break down what part of that creation process was intentional and sort of planned? And then what were the parts that kind of remained out of your control slash lock based, what do you say? With the story of that pack, there was a couple of packs that I'd done before that, which were artist packs. You know, I have my name on them. They weren't just genre packs. They were my sound. They weren't necessarily artist packs because I didn't have, you know, a lot, a lot of releases out there. I wasn't leveraging my name at the time. I didn't really have much of a name. I was, again, like in a niche scene on SoundCloud, really, I guess, starting to build a name in sound design and samples. But I'd done a couple of packs before that, which were a similar sound, which had done really, really well on on loop muscles. I think one of them was number one for like a year or something, which we didn't expect. They didn't expect. That was, you know, that's ultimately what led us to starting the company was I want a bigger piece of that. And if we can do that, then I, you know, I want, I want to be able to build something off of that, not just have one royalty check that comes in long term. So when, when I was building out that low-fi soundfuture beats pack, it was probably the most, is the most personal of any sample pack I've made apart from. I made one a couple of years later, which was kind of the sequel to it, which was low-fi love songs, which really was a project I did because I really wanted to. It wasn't for the sake of a big release. It was a project for me to create something. Low-fi soundfuture beats was a culmination of everything I'd learned up to that point. I'd just hit my stride with drum design, actually being able to create drums from scratch that I would use as opposed to feeling like I was, you know, getting away with these being all right. They're actually finally at the point where I felt that I would use these in my music. And I was, I was, I was making music out of the sounds that I was making. I guess that that was one of the key things was up to that point. A lot of sample packs had been people's either, you know, what was left on a cut in the floor, left overs from album tracks, songs that didn't go anywhere. It was people putting their B stuff in, right? And from the beginning, I was putting my A stuff in based on the fact that I felt like I can, I can wake up tomorrow and make more. Like not because, you know, this one, this could be a hit and therefore I can't put this in this sample pack. I just figured I'm doing this every day. I'll just make more tomorrow. And you know, I make that thing tomorrow rather than rather than the stuff I've already made. So that was all my best stuff. There was a stuff I was making at the time I spent like a month and a half solid making that recording drum machines. We bought a bunch of toy sims, a bunch of live recordings, vocal recordings, just everything we get our hands on. And it's when we hadn't, you know, basically no budget. This was, we were lucky enough to be in a studio at that point. We had a small room, a few of us were working out of in Brighton, but we didn't have a load of gear, right? This was still what we'd managed to put together at that point. So it was pretty low-fi anyway. And I think the low-fi thing was as much a result of the equipment we had as a stylistic choice, right? Low-fi at the time had not really blown up in terms of, you know, low-fi has just been back hip hop rebranded essentially. But that, that aesthetic that is kind of YouTube 24/7 low-fi hadn't really become a thing yet. I think actually, you know, this pack was a big part of a lot of the sounds that went into that genre or at least that, you know, the kind of spur off of that genre. But we didn't design it that way. Low-fi was partly to cover up the fact that a lot of it was recorded on phones. And some of it was recorded on super high quality equipment. But a lot of it wasn't just because I was, again, it was in the moment and I was experimenting. So I designed it as much as I could. The sound of it, the vibe of it was designed, and I was very happy with the musicality of it and the size of it and the scope of it. The success of it was not designed. You know, within samples is very, very difficult to be able to predict success. You can do everything you want around it, but ultimately it's kind of the same as dropping an album. It's, you know, you can be happy with the package, the artwork, the sound, the presentation, the rollout, all of those things. But ultimately, whether people resonate with it or not is, there's a lot of factors that go into that. It's timing. It's, you know, how that music sits in the current landscape, especially with samples. If you hit something on the way up in terms of a sound, you know, like an evolving sound, then there can be more of a, more of a life to that pack because it can evolve with the sound and it's still relevant. Whereas if you're, you're doing something that is already established, you might hit it and have a big hit, but it only lasts a couple of months. So it's a combination, right? But it's, it's similar to releasing music. You can do everything you can and be happy with all of it. And ultimately, you're still putting it out there to see if it resonates with people. Wow. Okay. That's a lot to unpack there. So basically, you did the best piece of work that you could with the current equipment that you had and budget and time and energy and team. And that was all within your control. But at the same time, the stuff that remained out your control was marketplace timing, how it was going to sit within the market and just generally, like, how people are going to resonate with the quality of work that you put together. Yeah. I mean, look, the longer I've been doing this, you know, I do this at a different level, 12 was then that's, you know, I think five or six years ago that that pack actually was released, I think, kind of lose track of time on this. But you can, you know, you can control a lot more if you have budget. You can do full rollouts, especially if you have an artist attached to a project. There is a lot more you can control and the more, the more specialist knowledge you have about this, you know, I'm, I'm not in marketing. I can build out what I think works for me, but I'm not in marketing. This is kind of what is what I was saying before, right? It's like, ultimately, at some point, you'll reach a point where you need other people who are specialists in what they do, who you feel are the best of what they do. So you can add more to a project and you can increase the chances of its success. And again, like, you know, for more budget you have, but there's also diminishing returns as well. It's, you know, it's a sample pack. It's not a weekend album. So, you know, I mean, this, there's the point, there's a point at which, you know, you, what you throw it needs to make sense. Awesome. What is a common misconception of being a sound designer? Well, first of all, I don't see myself as a sound designer. And that's also as being respectful of professional sound design within film TV. You know, there's a whole world of pro sound designers who are working in a completely different area. There's a lot of crossover between sample creation and sound design. I'm a musician and a producer that creates sounds primarily for other people to make music with, you know, in that, in that part of what I do. And I, I see it as creating inspiration as opposed to creating tools. And both of those things have equal value. And I've done both in the past, created a lot of content for native instruments back in a day, like for, you know, created entire machine expansions, created sounds for Akai. I did the demos on the NPCXs and the touches and the kits for those, you know, there's all these stuff that people don't know that a lot of that is more sound design. Right. Sample creation is more inspiration. So I guess, you know, the misconceptions around it are probably the barrier to entry in terms of I considered it to be something that professionals do when I started. And I found out very quickly that it's just regular people making sounds. But there is a, there is also a cut off point in that, right? Which I think anyone can make samples. If you understand some of the rules, I won't go fully into it, but, you know, once you get into this professionally, there are a lot of rules around what plugins you can use, understanding end user license agreements, understanding, not just ripping sounds and recycling them, you know, just taking some drums and pitching it to 70 times and calling it your own. There is a lot of grey area in that world. And that's a lot more established now, kind of, you know, people understanding what is original and what isn't, especially with, you know, platforms like Splice. When I got into it, it was very wild west. It's just people selling zip files where you didn't know what was in it until you bought it. I remember those days. Yeah. I think there can be a misconception from both sides, right? That like starting and getting into it is just a matter of doing it, just making stuff, putting it out there. And if people like it and buy it from you, then you're doing the thing. But at some point, if you want to be a professional, there is a fair amount of learning and time to put in. And again, there's across over into being a real professional sound designer that I think people maybe don't understand until you're fully in this world. Right. Okay. Imagine you are speaking at an event. And the audience producers and sample creators who want to do what you do for a living, what honest and direct advice would you give them in, let's say, three to five points? In this world now, and again, like, it's a different world to start in them when I started in. It's very difficult to just get onto platforms, right? It's difficult to get in front of the global audience because they're established groups now. You know, it splice is something that most producers either use or in the studio with someone else who's using it or are aware of, right? So it isn't just a matter of being able to upload content and sell it. I say the starting point is thinking about your brand. And that's not from a business perspective. That's how would you like to be perceived? What excites you about the things that you use? You know, like what is the world you want to create for people that they want to dive into and you're expecting them to be excited about? And whether that's the sounds, artwork, branding, the name, whether you're creating education as part of that or whether it's just you putting your sounds out there, you know, are you creating low amounts of exclusive content that's high quality? Or are you going to be a mass content company that you want to make as much as possible and touch every genre? There are worlds for both of that, but it's I think easier as an independent whether you're one person or you're a few people working together to establish a small brand, think about the values of what your brand are and find your community for that. And maybe that's already the community you're in, right? If you're in a scene and you're particularly working within a style of music that you're into, it kind of comes down to as simple as what would you want to see? Like start reverse engineering the things that you like. The cool thing about sounds and samples is we all inherently have this thing as much as we say we might not at a certain point that we still check for new stuff all the time. Like I'm still listening to what's coming out on Splice on almost a daily basis. I'll spend a bit of time partly because I keep tabs on what's going on. But also there might be a kick drum that I need that I don't have yet, which is ridiculous. I've got tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands at this point of sounds. I've been collecting sounds since I was a kid. I've got this massive library of things that I've bought, traded, whatever, but I still check for new stuff because I still think maybe I'll hear something that's going to spark me to open my door and make something. So kind of reverse engineering some of that, the reasons why you feel like that and then building your brand on top of that is the easiest way to jump past either a lack of budget or a lack of connections or the difficulty of breaking through to a mass audience. Start small build a small community around what you're doing. Make sure you concentrate on the quality of what you're doing. I think this is still the same answer. So we say the first point is to build a brand and to create a community or hang out in communities of stuff that you think is you and interesting. And then second, you would say to have quality. Yeah, and by quality, what I mean is when I started out making sounds and so on, pause, as I say, it was something that I wanted to just keep going because it was the first thing in music that made any real money and the idea was just to fund me continuing to be an artist and make music. I had no interest in making big money or samples. I just wanted to buy my time back so that I could be making music rather than having to work a job to fund, making music. The quality part of it came from I didn't want to get found out as not being a professional or that somehow we would screw it up by not having high enough quality that people wouldn't, but there would be no longevity in it, right? So it was more so trying to sustain this thing continuing as being real by focusing on every single micro part of the content we were making, every single sound being the highest quality, the naming, the file naming, the metadata, the normalizing, the fades, that every single thing you can do on a sample to make it as perfect as possible outside of the creative value of it because we felt like that was the best way to sustain it was protect ourselves by making sure everything was a highest quality. What we didn't know at the time was the industry wasn't doing that in general, you know? We focused on ourselves and then as we began to grow, we found out that we were creating much, much higher quality than what we thought the inverter commas professionals were doing because they were just banging out as much content as they could because that's how the market worked. So I just think there's a lot of value in early on, whether it feels like it's not necessary or people aren't paying attention, if you have an end goal to build that community, start with focusing on quality early because believing the success of this thing, right? It becomes real, you build that audience, more people will see the things you made when you started. So it's worth focusing from early on quality and every part of that that you can control and that doesn't cost money, that cost time, that cost your attention and your focus because those are the things you can control that more often than not, the bigger industry players that you think would just be doing those things aren't because they're focusing on volume. So those are the things you can control early. Wow, okay, that's amazing. And what would you say the last point to this audience? Enjoy it. I know that's kind of a cliche with this, but genuinely enjoy it. You make a lot better music when you're enjoying it and that's the same for samples. Trust me, the sample grind, if you're in that world, can also be a killer for creativity because you're creating on spec, you know, over and over and over again and you've got to be able to enjoy the process because you're not out here starting a company drop shipping stuff, right? You're not selling electronics on drop shipping, you're selling creativity and inspiration and if you're not enjoying it, it won't show through. Those early projects that I made, I was fully in it, right? That was me creating albums, that was me creating songs and then, you know, giving them away as part of those packs or selling them as part of those packs. If you're not enjoying it, it tends to show through on the music and ultimately you're selling a creative product. So if it's not creatively good, you're actually doing yourself with this service by if you're rushing through and creating as much content as possible, but you're not really enjoying it versus creating less content, super high quality that you you want to be able to play it to people and then be like, I can't believe you're putting this out as samples and maybe some of it you don't, maybe some of it you hold back. But I couldn't agree more. They're saying that I always tell people in tutorials and you know, community stuff is like having fun because it will get you through the real tough parts of the process and the grind as you mentioned, but something else that I've read recently from a Robert Green book, which I've actually been saying and he kind of reiterated in the book, but impatience is probably the worst enemy for creativity because then as you said, you end up rushing it, you get slapdash, the quality suffers and it is about learning every aspect of the process and being really good at every aspect of the process, which does not come if you're impatient. Right. Yeah, and yeah, when you think about the brand you want to build, you want to build something where people want to come to you rather than you begging them to come to you. Like I always want to build something where it's exciting enough that people are interested because of what I've created as opposed to how can I tack on a strategy at the end of this to make it interesting to people and having the patience to build less products. And by the way, I will say this, the kind of language I now use around samples, products, content, all of that is the world I live in now at the overall industry level. I generally speaking, using words like product and content for this exact reason of this being music. So you have to have some kind of divide in your brain between music, you and business, you. But yeah, it's kind of the same thing, right? You've got to think about it as music when you're making it and then switch into your business brain when you when you need to then put it out there as a product. Right. Okay. So I do see you guys collaborating with other creators. What would you expect from another sound creator before considering how you say working relationship with them? It's much of what I've just said. If someone comes to us, generally at this stage, we are working with people that have some prior experience, just because when we limit the amount of releases on Capsome Pro Audio. But if someone presents themselves in a professional way, I mean, this is real basics, right? If I get an email from someone that is formal but informal, it's a good presentation of what they do. It's straight to the point. There's some links to work that's relevant to what they're saying. You know, if someone sends me an email and says, "Oh, you know, I'd love to do a sample pack with you and just sends me a track of theirs on Spotify." That's great, but I'm not a manager. I'm not a publisher. I'm not a label. I'm interested in can they make all the sounds within that song? So it puts the owners on us too. And I'm not answering like these emails, "Can" is a label manager that deals with a lot of this now. But in the past, it was, you know, I don't want to have to go back and then ask the questions. If this is great, but are you actually making anything original? Can you send me links? Can you send me relevant information about who you've worked with before? So genuinely, it's the basics. And if someone gets the basics right about the presentation, then we respond to everyone. But if someone just sends me a drop box link with some random songs and says, "I want to work with you," which happens on about 10 times a day at this point, it just won't get through. And that can be a shame, right? Because that person can be just as talented, but these are real basics of cold cooling anyone. Yeah. As I saw on your website, that you have been the creative director for Splice, which is just Tans Down Awesome. And you know, Splice have changed the industry in such a monumental way. They they innovated, you know, they saw gaps in the market and they created a great amount of jobs for people. So in your working relationship with them, what do you feel is expected of you at that level? And how do you deliver on those expectations from the company? Capson Pro Audio, our company was acquired in 2018 by Splice. So Capson Pro Audio has been a part of the Splice family for almost four years now. And at the same time, a couple of other leading sample companies, sound design companies were acquired. So sample magic in the same year as Capson Pro Audio. So as part of selling the company, I took on a role of creative director. So within that role, we initially were building out a creative team at Splice. So Splice was distributing and partnering with a lot of content, but not creating a lot of content. And when I say creating content, a lot of that content is still working with freelancers in the industry. That's not taking jobs away from those who are creating samples and sample packs. It's more so actually giving them the possibility to work directly with the platform as opposed to some third party labels. We still partner with a lot of third party labels, but, you know, they have the possibility of working directly with the platform rather than taking a cut of a cut via a third party company. So it's actually a lot of the same people and a lot of new people put funds in place to be able to reach out to more creators, especially more musicians who weren't traditional sample pack creators as producers. So actually, you know, working directly with musicians and a lot of that is doing the admin stuff, the boring stuff, putting in a process, putting in a process for a team so they can work with musicians, building the guardrails so that it's easier to work with musicians and be able to guide them through the process in a way that, again, they can focus on the creative part and make sure they're getting a deal and understand the deal and the rights around their sounds and the release. So part of my role has been establishing that with the team as someone who's been in the industry from the outside as an independent and it was building out a way that spliced work directly with creators as in-house content. And then beyond that, as I say, it's been coming up to four years since the company was acquired. So I also work as the senior creative strategist at splice. So I work with the exact team, the leadership team, on the overall strategy of the company. In terms of, you know, what that means for me, I am essentially the voice of the creator and a lot of those conversations, the kind of default custodian historian of the sample industry having worked with a lot of and just the audio industry and music as well. So being where all those hats and also still have experience and contacts in all those parts of the industry, audio, sample, the music industry itself. So just to make sure the brand is relevant, that we're serving the creators in those different areas and that we're building products that are innovative and kind of unpointful them because splice is ultimately a tech company. So is making sure that the right people are there to work with engineering and product on who are on the creative side to make sure that the needs of the users are being served in the best way possible as musicians and also as users of splice. Right, okay. Awesome. You see me, you see me dropping into work mode, right? Yeah, the language of a shift completely, didn't it? Yeah, yeah. That's really interesting, man. So off the back of that, actually, I'd like to talk about it and we did touch on this earlier. But yeah, we had a chat a few years ago and something to stuck out in that conversation I had with you is that I remember your sort of thoughts on certain toxic work, hustle culture and certain thoughts and certain, let's say entrepreneurs. What parts of that toxic, hustle, culture, mentality do you disagree with and how would you actually improve them? It's a difficult one for me because as I as I hinted at earlier, I did most of those things for quite a long period of time. I'm very aware of the fact that the main thing that got Captain Pro Audio off the ground other than I am lucky that I have talent in the first place. That puts me in a position I'm well aware of in the first place. It's a lot more difficult to build this and not naturally being able to just go do it. So based on that, it was our time and being able to be in a position where I was DJing at pubs and clubs. So I was doing that like four nights a week, cash and hand, which gave me my days. There was also a period as well to be honest that I wasn't working because of mental health reasons that I was sort of semi doing music as much as I could. But I was just making enough money to scrape by whilst living in a shared flat that was cheaper at a time as just a room and a flat. To be able to have the time to put all of that towards music, towards what became a sample company. The problem is is that I didn't really have any goal to be happy at the time. I was just trying to make something work. I was just trying to over everything else make something happen that would move me forward in my life because I'd reached a point where 26 I thought I was past the point where I should have already done what I was going to do in music. I think all of us go through that and I think probably people who are much younger now are going to go through it even more. It's going to come even earlier. You're going to hit 20 and be like, fuck, I'm past where I'm supposed to be to make this happen. It's already too late. I got to 26 and I was at that point, which is part of the reason why I threw everything at the sample thing, but I wasn't focusing on being happy. I was just focusing on making it work. The reason it's difficult is because had I not put in the hours and been unhealthy and when I say hours, genuinely was working seven days a week, doing a lot of 24, 36 hour days, staying awake once a week. I was staying awake all night working in the studio three and that's not just throwing that out there. Anyone around me knows that was really what I was doing and I don't say that as a positive. It really screwed up my health. I've got a bunch of health stuff now, stomach issues and stuff that are most likely off the back of drinking a lot of coffee, drinking too much and going pub to studio and not being very healthy and looking after myself. It's a trade-off, right? I don't know if I can say now whether I do it differently, but I can say the elements of now being in the position where I'm comfortable and my life is probably better than I deserve it to be. There are elements of it. I can't enjoy because of some of the fallout of having pushed so hard during that period. I think the balance is not pushed enough and I think there is guilt that is promoted without it being said. I think it's unrealistic to give people the expectation that you should be kind to yourself, you should have balance, you should look after yourself, you should focus on being happy, but a lot of people who didn't do any of those things to get to where they are. Only it's personal choice. I don't think there's an answer, but I just encourage people that if you go down the route of wanting to grind it out, which by all means, you probably have to in some elements, depending what it is that you want out of this. If it's the business side, then you definitely do. I know plenty of people who work in the music industry and the audio and tech industry who aren't musicians who grind out constantly because that's what's involved. If you want to be a musician and an artist, some of that asshole culture is not helpful to your creativity, you can't grind your way through making the best music possible because it's music at the end of the day. You might make the best music you've ever made on a random day where you sit down on a Sunday morning and you make something in 20 minutes of the best thing you've ever made. It doesn't necessarily take you three weeks of grinding it out, so I just think on business, fine, make your personal choices, consider balance, do what's good for you and your family and the people around you, but when it comes to music, you've got to fight to protect your mind and your creativity when it comes to this because it isn't about grinding it out. It's about allowing yourself to just make it. Right, and so right now in your current situation, how do you manage the work-life balance now? I don't. I didn't work any of this stuff out. This is the point, right? It's like I didn't work any of this out. I'm still trying to find balance as well. As I say, I'm lucky enough to be comfortable that I could take more time to just live my life and I don't because I have it instilled in me that I need to do more. Whatever I'm doing, I need to be doing more, I need to be creating more, I need to build more of a legacy. All those things, and that's both creatively and now business, which wasn't the thing that I was particularly concerned about originally and I'm still working on it. I think that's my issue with it, is no one has the answers and it comes down to happiness and if you're unhappy doing things, you've got to weigh that up against what the results are. The answer is, I haven't worked it out and I would never say I have. Working progress. Yeah, always. All right, Jay, thanks so much. I'd like to wrap up this podcast with a few questions that I'd like to ask all the guests. What is the best piece of advice you have ever been given? It's going to sound like it is business, but it's not. I was told by someone who I consider a mentor who's kind of been there and done it. The catalogue is everything. That sounds like it's music industry, but really it's just what you create, right? It's your legacy. It's the body of work and I just think that focusing on your body of work as a person, as opposed to just what's right in front of you can be really useful because it's less pressure on the thing you made today and less pressure on the thing you released three weeks ago that now seems irrelevant and you have to be on to the next thing. Just think about what you're creating over time and it works from a business sense as well. Trust me, you know, catalogue is everything. You're building up your body of work over your life, but it's good for having context that it's not just today that matters. It's over time what you're building for you and hopefully if it's music, you're family and all of that. Okay. And to counter that, what's the worst piece of advice you have ever been given? Put out as much as possible all the time. That's how this works. That's advice that I've been told many times over by people and I don't think it's true. However much people tell me it is still now on a daily basis that if you're not constantly putting out content, music, something that you're irrelevant, it is useless and it will just grind you down and there's no winning, right? Because it doesn't matter what you put out, it will never be enough if you think that you need to be constantly putting out something and if you're comparing to other people. So focus on you, block that stuff out, be sensible, be professional about your work, be accountable, but also I want that Lee comes back to having fun and enjoying it, right? Because if you're not, you're not going to be putting out good work. So yeah, I hate that. I hate it. Just focus on you. Jay, thanks so much and absolute gold mine of information. It was great having you on. Appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me.