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Cause aint nobody got time for Amateur's
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You're listening to locally produced programming created in KUNV Studios on public radio. KUNV 91.5.
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The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 Jazz & More,
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the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education. This is Talking with the pros.
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The pros.
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Like professionals. This is talking with the pros with me, Jess B. I speak to the professionals in the world of audio to gain an insight into what it takes to become a pro. Talking with the pros. Today we have Pauly. Thank you, Pauly, for joining us. Please introduce yourself.
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Hey, how's it going? My name is Pauly. I like to go by Pauly because my actual name is Paul and Paul is Paul sounds like wall or ball. So every time I hear my name Across a room or across a stage, right? I actually I can hear Polly a lot better. So that's why I like to be called Polly Yeah, I'm an audio engineer and I've been invited to Cummins podcast Yeah, Polly. Do you have a last name my last name? Yeah, my last name is Della Tori like it's from the tower and it's funny because People think oh, are you Italian and it's actually Italian or it's you know Honestly, it's fine. I just I just go Polly. Yeah, I'm Polly. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. I want a cracker
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Yes, thank you. Alright, Pauly, for those who don't know you, go ahead and tell us all about your background in the world of audio.
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Okay, my background in audio actually didn't start in the world of audio, it started in the world of music. I'm actually a percussionist, which is, when people hear that, they're like, what is that? That makes no sense. It's just a drummer, it's just someone that has a specialty playing instruments like a high-class setting right like Orchestra kind of a nerdy term too, and I'm a I'm okay with that whatever cuz I'm a nerd so anyways I started in music, and I was just so curious about and when did you start in music? I actually started in music Way before I like I was in middle school and I became a drummer. My coach actually at the time he wanted me to play football and I was like hey you know I'm gonna stick with drums instead. My middle school coach wanted me to be a wide receiver and I was just like you know coach I know I'm fast and I can run but honestly I want to drum because I got good I got good really fast. Yeah, and where did you go to school? Were you doing music during your education at all? I mean, I actually go back to middle school I actually I know that's kind of like why I talk about middle school But middle school is actually where a lot of things start off like kids start off to think Hey, what do I want to do for the rest of my life? Right, and then they go kind of you know, they either audition into a high school, right, like I did, auditioned to get into LVA, made it in. I just got very intrigued by music. It was such a special thing. Inspiration for percussion really is just, it started from drumming. I was so like, I was down. I heard a drum beat for the first time and when I actually, what really happened was I was given a drum set and then I was playing on it, my sister's boyfriend actually went to UNLV. So he went to UNLV for drums. So I thought that was cool, but I actually never really wanted to be a drummer. I like guitars. I like, because at the time, you know, rock was a thing, right? I was MTV. MTV was like kicking it with rock music and alternative music. So yeah, I just got super passionate about drumming once I started to feel it. Once I started to play the drums and I was like, wait a second, I can actually... The internal. Yeah, I can actually like do this. This is a thing that I could do. I don't suck. Like I felt, I
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learned the process of getting good at something. I'm definitely a fan of the rhythmic section. Gotta love the drums, gotta love the bass. They really, really keep it going. So in terms of audio, I know you're doing audio engineer, but take us into kind of like your first experience in audio. Okay. So like right now you're doing,
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I'm doing audio at Vicks. How did that all start for you? Okay. Like the process of becoming an audio engineer, you know, honestly started in college. It started here at Unovi. I didn't think I was gonna be an audio engineer until I realized that if I wanna make money in this world, do I wanna make money for the rest of my life being a drummer, being a percussionist, or do I wanna actually make money as something else, else right as an artist maybe or as an audio engineer and really to be honest with you audio engineering is something that just pays the bills for me I'm actually passionate about music and EDM I love electronic music that's my main main passion so I'm actually growing that on the side in audio engineering is like it's just paying my bills right now but how did I get into audio engineering it was here at school a guy here I was going to school with him and he was so passionate about just being good at things. And I was like, okay, who's this guy? I want to get to know this guy. Turns out he's a baseball player. And now he went from playing baseball at Dixie State and UNLV, and now he's actually a professor of audio here at UNLV in the recording studio. His name is Sam Friend. He's a really cool guy. I highly recommend anybody who's listening right now, definitely go check out the recording studio at UNLV in the music world, in the music department. I think it's BMC 160, right? Wow, I still remember that. It's funny. Yeah, so anyways, at BMC 160, check out the UNLV recording studio. Just go in there, meet Sam Friend. If you're interested in audio and learning more about how all this stuff works, go check him out. Anyways, didn't really answer the question though. No, you're good. I love the deep dive on everything. Go ahead and expand on that. Yeah, so anyways, him and I, we just really connected in school. We were going through the drumming program, the percussion program here and we were just bonding on a lot of different topics and things. Excuse me, I just I'm drinking seltzer water and it's making me burp right now. Yeah, period. Yeah, I know it's bougie. Anyways, him and I just started really connecting and I wanted to know more about how audio really, really works. And at the time I was actually in a rock band from high school. So I was getting audio equipment already I got my first audio console at 18 That was pretty cool
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All right
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So this was around that time where I was a freshman in college Just out of high school right trying to figure out what I want to do. Do I really want to be a drummer in? Professional percussionist or do I want to be an audio engineer and that's kind of how that started. It was really Yeah, it was a lot
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So did he have like some insights on where you could go ahead and like plug in like this is a venue that you need To check out. Oh, I know a guy
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Anything it's so funny cuz Sam Sam and I we were both students We're actually at this at this time. We're both learning about audio around the same time. He's actually two, I think he was two grades ahead of me. He was learning a lot all at the time and I was just picking his brain along the side. Alongside my schooling in drumming and music, really the catalyst for me to really pursue audio was, as a profession, was going to meet other percussionists. I was like, you know what, this is something, I don't know if I wanna do this for the rest of my life. I mean, I think it's awesome. They do great things, right? You go see a concert and you see these drummers and they're doing amazing things in this world and that's fantastic. Do I wanna be doing that for the rest of my life? You know, getting off gigs at 3 a.m.? I'm still doing that, but the cool thing about audio is you can work in any anything that needs audio, right? still working late nights obviously, but definitely definitely There's it's just such a broad world There's so many different avenues for audio and for work, right? And I think people that want to go in this profession. It's it's a great It's a great thing to go into.
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In terms of the musicians in that lifestyle, gigging and realizing the efforts that are put in, you know, music just doesn't happen. You have to invest in the practice and getting you locked in. And so when they show up, they may be getting compensation for their time and performance, but most likely it's just like exposure. So I think that's where the sad part of the industry of music and especially Las Vegas, I feel that there needs to be more of recognition for musicians here in town than rather just basing, oh, how many numbers can you get? How
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much bar pool can we get out of you? Yeah. So that's why I saw that while I was in college. I noticed And also to it's you know, I don't think it was them talking about drinking, but honestly it was It was just like do I want to be hanging out without those kinds of people or do I want to be? Kind of like a leader in a different sense You know like instead of just being you know part of a band and just kind of like this background thing, I want to be a leader still, right? So I'm taking my musicianship in that drive for music, turning it into becoming an artist. I'm actually, I'm a producer as well. I make electronic music. That's my main thing that I really want to make money at. Like I want, I want to, okay, straight up. I want to DJ at EDC, but when you're in the crowd and you're looking at the stage, the first question you're gonna ask is, okay, this is cool, but where, yeah, but no, but like, where's the DJ? Right? And then all of a sudden you look up into the sky and you're like, holy, that, there's no way he's actually skydiving into the stage or skydiving into backstage, right? And then I go on stage with a drumline and then use my drumline chops, use my drumming chops, use all of my percussion chops, and then drop really awesome dubstep, rhythm, like Excision and Illenium, but just on steroids. Yeah, that's kind of what I want, really. That's my main passion.
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I love that for you.
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Yeah, so, audio just pays my bills.
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Yeah, you know what, I just appreciate those who take the time to really understand the whole picture. So, you coming as a musician into the world of audio and doing audio engineering for support on a band and saying like I know what's gonna sound good because I have that musician ear, I've been there, I know what we're looking for and then you dial it in and you really you know just produce something for then the audience and not only that but making sure that the musicians are in good hands and that they're going to be taken care of because they're already performing, getting up on that stage and feeling, you know, that pressure that comes along with it. You're on back of the house, you're doing, running the audio and you're in the booth and you're in their hands at that point.
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Exactly. The crowd's in my hands, the musicians are in my hands. The entire operation is actually, if you feel that weight on your shoulders as an audio engineer, and more so than a camera operator, or more so than a lighting person, right? And actually, if you think about it, before people were consuming content visually, they consumed it through audio acoustically, without even any reinforcement from electrical equipment, microphones and all that. People just communicating through voice, through building a space, like a cathedral, to communicate long distances, a sermon, right? Audio has, I mean, just listening to things, vibrations, right? Sound waves were our first form of communication. I mean, right? I don't know. It's... I'm not of... I'm not super... I guess you could say like scientific on that. It's just... I went to school. Right. I love it.
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I love that you're applying yourself and bringing all that, your knowledge, on the audio field to support them. To bring in the audio. You know what? Sometimes I feel like when you come to listen to music and now listening to music in person is just such a gift and it's such an experience and it's such a time to enjoy music and when you have the audio lacking everyone's aware.
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I think it was Grammys or something, Billboard Awards, I don't know. But Adele was playing and everyone was like, what's this thing and something's happening. You could see her, right, but there was this, I think it was either a microphone that fell into the piano, I don't know exactly what happened, something happened. And every time the piano would hit a certain note, just the audio was off. Everyone could tell. You know, if at least the video cuts out or the lighting goes out, if you can still hear the performer, if you can still hear what you want to hear, you can still get that experience that you're looking for. So, audio engineers, really, no one really knows. Nobody. Like, the end consumer has no idea how much work really goes into audio. They have no clue, which is fine actually. I think, you know, when you're listening to your favorite song, if I don't want a song, a specific song, I'll just skip it, right? And skipping that song, that artist might have spent an entire year developing, right? Or something, or a long time. They spent a month, you know, it's ultimately working in the industry has taught me more so instead of, you know, I'm the kind of person that thinks about the end consumer, not thinking about, you know, my job and my role, per se. I want to really connect with the end consumer, the person that's consuming the product, the audience. It's important, and I notice that in the audio world and in any tech world, any world really, people get so caught up in the world that the disconnect between them and the end user, I noticed that happen a lot. And I also noticed that because it's such a competitive environment really to get a job behind an audio console, you know, having a lot of awareness as your role as an a1 It's key you have to have it if you want to secure a job and you want to keep that job you have to Know what great music sounds like or know what great speech and dialogue sounds like How to organize a show and run that show properly so that anyone who's paying hundreds, thousands, millions of dollars for that show that it gets across.
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Right, all of the inner workings that, even like come to the soundtrack. Like these things are happening before anybody sits down to enjoy it. So we're working behind the scenes, getting the audio dialed in, and even on the moment they go live and you hit the production time and the event starts, something can go wrong so fast. And then you're there problem solving, going back step by step through the channels, through okay the line scene, where the problem lies and just being so fast and quick on it because everyone's turning, flipping their head, looking from left to right, okay like who's gonna fix this and who's gonna fix this now? Because I just paid a bunch of money and I came to enjoy myself and hey Yeah, we're all working towards the same goal of wanting to bring that great experience. So I definitely love that you're passionate about the audience because there is often a disconnect in the world of technology when it comes to the end consumer. And let's just say, this is what it's all about. And bringing people, sharing with people the love of audio and getting them really excited so where they don't even realize we're there. But we're there, just loving that they're enjoying a great sound at the end of the day.
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And honestly, it's also part of job security also. Here's the thing is, is actually there's a lot of engineers out there that they'll just get a rough mix, you know, they know a lot about the profession, they know a lot about audio, but are they wanting to take that next step and try to make it sound really, really good, like the record, right? You know, ultimately it's such a competitive environment because there's only one seat behind an audio console and there's only so many audio consoles, right? And even when we're listening to the news shows, right? On a news broadcast or a podcast on line, right? On YouTube, Tik Tok, whatever. Um, all these teams that puts millions of dollars behind a project. There's only one man running the sound. Isn't that crazy? Like if you think about that, millions of dollars put into these massive projects, massive projects. Usually it's only one engineer at a console managing that portion of that project and obviously in a million dollar project there's multiple engineers with different skill sets that are very much the same but they're they're delegated to different tasks and You know Your reputation spreads quick because it's such a small industry so having having a great reputation is paramount right and That reputation is built by no matter what job you're on no matter who you're in front of what crowd you're in front of It doesn't matter if you're at a small tiny hotel, right, that's like two stars, and you're doing a band that's like a cover band, right? Or working at the Chelsea Theater for an original artist, right, and you don't even know that artist yet, but you have to run that sound board, and you have to make that crowd happy with the sound. The principle stays the same, your reputation spreads. And I'm noticing that. Actually, the way I got the job at VIX was cool because I didn't really expect it I didn't really expect a lot of this. I didn't even expect the stress. I didn't think it was gonna be this stressful Actually, that's good because I cared so much about it. I was so passionate about my role in my job Yeah and just Loving music in general from the gecko that a lot of engineers a lot of the best engineers best producers best Just a lot of super talented people are creative people. They're highly creative people, they're not super technical. They have the discipline to learn the technical side and to learn not just the technical side, the scientific side, learning the physics, learning the guys that make, who built the Madison Square Garden Sphere. That's a tremendously stressful project. It's never been done before. Holoplot is a new technology out of Germany. It's just, it hasn't been really tested here in America yet and it's about to be put on for big big productions here. And it's just, that's the crazy thing about this, that's the crazy thing about audio in this whole world of entertainment, production, anything that is content-based, it is just overwhelming. And you have to be able to take that stress. So my coach in middle school, I think about him a lot actually sometimes because I still think of myself more of an athlete than an actual musician or tech. I love athletics so much. People never actually, like, they think that I'm just like this nerd working my tail off to just be, right, just to be an audio person and, but in reality, I connect with athletes a lot. Yeah, I can see that in your physique and all that you do. I love
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that you're referencing your coach and the motivational support that he gave you and how it's still carrying with you to this day. It's definitely inspirational in terms of when it comes to the love of audio, you applying yourself. Like you were saying in terms of the Sphere, we're seeing new technology there. It's a music venue, so just like the productions that are going to go on there. I once was up on time not really excited about it, but now I'm just like, you're right there's just room for so much potential in this and I'm just wondering where they're gonna take it and where it's gonna go so in terms of future technology where do you see the world of
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audio going? I see the world of audio going similar to Elon Musk's Starlink I think that's what it's called it's bringing the internet right to remote areas. Audio can travel like that with something called ham radio right you can you can bounce audio off the moon and back it's pretty crazy I think that's really you know audio it's the future of it technical side or the creative side or just both or just anything like the future of audio man you know what that question is for the guys that are working on the actual tech. I'm talking about the engineers, the engineers that I think are a lot better than me. Because I'm just a mixing engineer, I'm somebody that's an operator of the console. But there's engineers that work on the tech, there's engineers that program audio, that go into AI-based audio, right? Artificial intelligence, these people, they may not be creative people, but they are the ones... AI is already, it's like it's standard at this point. You were seeing TikToks and Instagram Reels, you know, YouTube Shorts, trending right now with audio that's AI based, right? Like 11 Labs, for example. It's just, it's generated by non-human sources. And it's amazing. Oh my gosh, Adobe, here's the future of audio. Here's an example of that. It's already happening. You can take camera audio that is so bad, like really, really bad, you can still hear the voice somewhat, and it will actually mix that voice, and it'll apply AI-based compression, EQ, things that we know in the audio world, right? Gating and all that, limiting. It'll process the audio and make it sound really good. Adobe's doing that, right? So for anybody who's listening, I highly recommend getting into the world of AI now. Do not wait. Do not wait. Get into it now, because it's already breaking, you know, what we think is possible. And speech, right? It's altering speech right now. It's kind of scary how that's happening. I just think the future of audio is going into the world of AI.
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Yeah.
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It's really it, and it already has been for quite a while, right?
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Yeah.
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I mean, the world is moving so fast. Just the fact that we can go even faster, move quicker, be efficient. We're, you know, especially in the United States. We're about being productive, you know being progressive being Innovative and we're kind of the leaders in that so of course as soon as we can make a task That's usually 30 minutes five minutes We're gonna pick that up so that we can put more on our plate We love to not only learn but you know do more.
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Yeah.
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And it's a great thing and a great tool to help aid what we're doing, but I really also want us to keep our basics so that we know, like, we have this AI technology, but currently it's only so far, so, you know, we still have to, like, manually, you know, check its work. Right, yeah. But you're right, AI is really going farther in all of its abilities and potential in terms of your personal journey in the world of audio and audio engineering. Where do you see yourself in the future's time?
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Well, I see myself really, really pursuing my passion outside of audio. Because audio right now is paying my bills. It's so nice to be a creative person and also Have this technical knowledge to operate consoles like this and to make live sound happen There's obviously different industries, right? They're all contingencies for me. I want to focus on my Production my music production because the really ultimately I'm so I recognize my talent I'm like, I'm like, okay, if I got all this work and all this time and blood sweat and tears Invested into just learning an instrument and getting really good at that Audio is gonna pay my bills while I pursue this passion. I'm not the only one doing this actually there's hundreds of other guys and gals doing this and I think that It's it's extremely competitive. So I just I'm gonna do that instead I I love competition I actually won two state competitions in high school it's kind of funny how that works like I love competition because competition is really not with other people competition is with yourself that competition is every second every hour every every day every week every month every year right so I'm just I'm always trying to see, I mean I gave this advice actually at a lecture recital, it was kind of, I just made it up on the spot honestly. It was just never stop learning, never stop learning because if you stop learning in this world how fast things are moving, content, right? You will be left behind and that is not, you know, I don't mean that as a mean thing, I mean that as a truth, an undeniable truth that things are moving so quick with technology, things are being studied, there's students studying generative AI and right now there's classes for that, generative AI and prediction-based AI for financial institutions. It's just amazing how that's how, people are moving so quick and it's in the span of a couple months.
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Right and I love that you're going to go back to your home roots of music. Yeah. And really sharing your passion, all the skills that you've learned and applying those. Though other people are doing it, I think you'll bring a unique sound and you know there's not another Pauly F there and I can't wait to hear everything that
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you produce. Except for Pauly D. DJ Pauly D. Everybody confuses me with DJ Pauly D and that's fine. He's not just the DJ because he was on Jersey Shore. He's a celebrity. Yeah exactly and then I'll just tell people you know my actually it's funny I want my DJ name to just be Pauly it's just it's without the DJ and the D. It's fine I just that's kind of my brand is I'm not just a DJ. I want to revolutionize the way live sound, basically we go to shows and it's just stereo most of the time, maybe we might have some delay speakers set up, we will have delay towers at ADC and Coachella, you'll see these massive towers that are delaying the audio, right? But it's still a left and right source. I want to bring surround sound to live sound and make it cool and make it so that it's almost a standard like you go to a show and instead of hearing sound you know left and right you're hearing a source that is actually outputting different it's 7.1 11.1 crazy audio setups in live sound I think that'd be so cool.
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I love that this is happening, so again, I thank you and all the best to you, Pauly. And we'll be hearing you. I know you're going to do it. You're going to kill it. Everything you do, thank you for setting a new standard in the world of audio.
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Thank you. I want to do the best I can.
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Awesome. Thank you. I want to thank you so much for tuning in, and if you missed any of today's episode, you can find us anywhere podcasts are available, like Spotify, Google, and Apple Podcasts. Thank you for listening to today's episode of Talking With a Pose with me, Jess B. I love you, and I'll catch you in the next one. I love you, and I'll catch you in the next one.
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Bye.
Transcribed with Cockatoo