Life & Work with Mac of Los Angeles / OC

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mac.

Hi Mac, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’m from Fort Worth, Texas, and graduated from Dunbar High School. I’ve always lived where music and engineering meet. After Dunbar I studied Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Oklahoma. Even then, what I really wanted to understand was sound: why some mixes feel huge and alive and others feel flat, even when everything is technically “right.” Why and what made certain songs so captivating?

A lot of what I know, I learned hands-on. In 2018 I started as a runner and assistant engineer in Tennessee. In 2021 I studied audio engineering at Musician’s Institute in LA, then did a six-month intensive at 1500 Sound Academy. That same year I started learning under Rance Dopson and later assisting Paul Jackson at Volume Studios before sustaining injuries in a car wreck. I’ve kept learning from Rance ever since the day I met em. I’ve also had the honor of having Young Guru as a mentor since 2015.

Since then I’ve worked across a lot of different rooms. I produced “Estoy Aquí” for Santa Fe Klan on his Blanco y Negro album, and “Hey (Do It Again)” and “Dreamin’” for Jayson Lyric. I also contributed to an Emmy Award–winning NFL short film. I DJ’d for the opening act on part of Pouya’s FAT Camp Tour, and I spent a stretch running audio at a church. Every one of those taught me something different about how people actually hear music and fed me on my quest to go down as one of the greatest.

That question of how we hear and the car accident and not being able to work in the studio is what led me to start AXYZ Innovations. Mixing is spatial. We place sounds left and right, high and low, near and far. But the tools we use mostly show us meters and lines, not space. So I combined my engineering background with what I’d learned behind the board and built AXYZ, a psychoacoustic spatial mixing plugin. I’m the founder, sole owner, and lead engineer. I built the core of it, from the audio processing to the licensing system, and I work with Sam , who helps on the visual rendering side we honestly have became friends. AXYZ is available now at axyzinnovations.com, and I’m putting out updates based on feedback from engineers using it.

Giving back matters to me too. I taught audio engineering at the HAS Center, working with inner-city youth. A lot of those kids were where I was: curious, talented, and without a clear path in. Showing them that a kid from Fort Worth could build a career and a company in this industry meant as much to me as anything I’ve worked on.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No, it hasn’t been smooth. The hardest stretch for me came recently, when I lost my job and got in the car wreck and couldnt produce and engineer withiut crippling pain. Finding steady work again was harder than I expected, and it changed a lot about my day-to-day life all at once. I have found it hard to keep up with the long hours with severe pain so I haven’t been able to lock in with my mentors like I want and I’m constantly having a surgery or procedure for the past few years.

This past season forced me to slow down and look hard at where I was and where I was going. I kept building AXYZ through it because it was the one thing that was fully mine. No one could take it from me, and every day I worked on it was a day I was moving forward, even when everything else felt stuck.

It also made me more resourceful. I’ve taken on whatever work I could find to keep things going. I’ve learned not to wait for the perfect situation before I build. I’ve also learned that setbacks don’t erase what you know or what you’ve done. They just test whether you’ll keep going.

I’m still in it, honestly. But I’m more focused now, and clearer about what matters.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m an audio engineer, producer, and the founder of AXYZ Innovations. My work sits right where sound and technology meet. I make records, and I build the tools I wish I’d had while making them.

A lot of how I think about production comes from my time learning under Rance and being around 1500 or Nothin’ since 2021 and all the trial and error years before. Being in those rooms completely changed the way I see a record. My philosophy now is that space is an instrument. The room around a sound, the gaps between elements, and the moments where nothing is playing are all choices, just like picking a drum samples or a chord. Space gives a song its shape. It decides what hits, what breathes, and where your ear goes. Once I started hearing it that way, I couldn’t go back. I stopped asking only “what should I add?” and started asking “where does this live, and what does it need room for?”

That’s really what I specialize in: space, and how sounds sit next to each other in a mix. Every engineer knows the feeling of a mix that’s crowded. The kick and the bass are fighting, the vocal is getting buried, and something just isn’t breathing. Most tools make you hunt for those problems by ear and by staring at meters. I wanted to see them.

That’s what AXYZ does. It’s a psychoacoustic spatial mixing plugin that turns every track in your session into a 3D planet. Where a planet sits shows its pan, its frequency range, and its depth. When two sounds are fighting over the same frequencies, AXYZ shows you exactly where they’re masking each other. Then you can fix it with the built-in EQ without leaving the plugin. If space is an instrument, AXYZ lets you see it and play it.

What I’m most proud of is that I built it. I’m a self-taught engineer from Fort Worth, and I went from running errands in studios to designing and coding a professional audio product myself, from the sound processing to the licensing system behind it. One of my favorite moments was when people I’d never met started finding AXYZ on their own and reaching out about it. That’s when it felt real.

What sets me apart is that I come at this from three directions at once. I have the engineering background to build the technology. I have the studio experience to know what engineers actually need in a session. And I’m a painter, so I think about mixing visually: color, space, balance, how things sit on a canvas. AXYZ is really all three of those coming together. I want to take that further with art installations where people can walk into sound and experience it as something physical.

What matters most to you?
I’m still trying to find my way but I would say, first, keep faith. There will be stretches where nothing seems to be moving, and that’s when it matters most. Believe in what you’re building even when you can’t see the result yet.

Second, be impatiently patient. Want it badly and push every day, but accept that real things take time. Don’t sit around waiting for your moment. Work while you wait. Learn the next skill, finish the next project, get better in the meantime. When the door opens, you want to already be ready.

And always do right by people. Treat the janitor and the CEO the same. I started as a runner, so I know what it’s like to be the person nobody notices. The way you treat people when they can’t do anything for you says everything about who you are, and this industry is smaller than you think. Your reputation walks into every room before you do.

Pricing:

• AXYZ Intro: $49 one-time license (8 planets)
• AXYZ Standard: $99 one-time license (16 planets, full 8-band EQ with masking suggestions)
• AXYZ Pro: $149 one-time license (uncapped planets, one-click masking cuts)
• Limited-time sale running now: up to $50 off every tierLimited-time sale running now: up to $50 off every tier
• Free trial available at axyzinnovations.com

Contact Info:

• Website: https://axyzinnovations.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/axyzinnovations/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@axyzinnovations
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/ohthatsall_mac/