Today we’d like to introduce you to Shalev Alon.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I am originally from Israel and started my way in music as a guitar player, I grew up on a farm in a small city in the middle of the desert my parents are farmers growing pepper in the Arava, they were very supportive in my passion for music.
A year before I have recruited to my service in the army I lived in Tel Aviv working with different artists on production albums and mixes. It is an obligation to serve in the army in Israel, so I had three years where I had less time to spend working on my craft as a mixing engineer, I was in the K-9 unit for three years.
After my service, I have study production in Israel mixing music for live shows. When I finished my service in the army I decided to study at musician institute, there I took the audio engineer program with emphasize on post-production.
After my graduation, one of my professors heard some of my mixing and recommended me to go for an interview at Remote Control Production (Hans Zimmer). I gained there a lot of great experience from amazing composers and engineers such as Henry Jackman, Allan Meyerson and more…
After four months at RCP, I contacted with the scoring engineer name Brad Haehnel and became his assistant. With him, I have worked on amazing projects such as The Lego Ninjago Movie, A Minion Short, A Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, Amateur, Forever My Girl and more… I had the great experience to record in some of the biggest recording studios in LA like Fox, Warner Bros, Sony.
Gaining all this experience gave another great opportunity, working for Walt Disney Imagineering, one job led to another. I was hired as one of the mixing engineers for the new Marvel Avengers Infinity War Live show that was showcased in Disneyland around the world
I had the opportunity to work with amazing music producers and composers from Marvel and Disney company like John Debney Matt Walker, Yaron Spiwak. These days, I am working on the new music for the new Star Wars Land. Galaxy Edge project will feature amazing new songs that will play in the famous Cantina from the Star Wars Series.
Has it been a smooth road?
Working in the music industry requires persistent. It took me eight months to get my first job. I sent emails, made phone calls, sent faxes for a very long time with no reply. I decided to go myself to studios one by one and knock on their doors bringing them my resume personally, and even then still didn’t get a reply.
After eight months knocking on doors finally, someone got back to me and gave me the opportunity. Then I had the chance to show how hard I can work and how passionate I am about my work.
I always say even if you have connections in this industry, a person can help you get in to the room, but only you can help yourself stay in the room. There are more struggles not a lot of people talking about. It is not the only struggle to get the gig; it’s also the struggle to keep the gig.
A lot of projects can be missed if you don’t communicate right with the team or you don’t choose your words right when saying your opinion. What we always need to remember is that we are working together for the benefit of the project only, when the team have the same goals the product will always come out better.
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I am a Mixing/Recording Engineer From experience I had throughout all the projects I mention, I found myself every time the youngest engineer in the room,so I always found myself learning and doing sound experiments with seniors engineers that has been through all the changes in the music industry and mostly all of them are known for many famous films and records who won Grammys, Golden Globe, and Oscars.
I believe that the combination between the old school’s method I have learned and the new thinking I bring to my mixes creating the new sound with the metro vintage sounds a lot of musicians are looking for these days. My job crossing a big range of skills set, mixing can go in a lot of ways. I had projects where I needed to mix orchestras and acoustic recordings and sometimes I needed to mix a record for a hip hop or a pop artist.
For the big-budget projects I also record orchestras, Bands and Small ensembles on big consoles, which I always like doing, there is no better sound than the real acoustic sound that comes out of an instrument. I always say to my clients that mixing is the step in the process where you need to improve the sound not fixing the sound. My job is to make the music a three dimension track where I emphasize the width the hight and the depth of it.
I believe that one of my big advantages is that I started as a musician myself which help me to mix the track in a couple of perspectives: as an engineer, as a musician, and as an audience. Mixing is like painting the music in different shades and give each instrument his own place in the track to create harmony between them.
Being a freelance in the music industry is not an easy job, working your way from a project to project require a lot of social work as well, I believe that a good partnership with your client is the key to a good product, after all it is a creative work and you need to be open with your colleague and feel free to bring new thought to the table. But what I think helped me the most as an engineer is that I just listen to a lot of music.
Since I am a little kid until this day I’m exploring new music styles and new songs just to listen for fun, so I always keep in my mind that music is about making someone else feel something.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and the least?
I remember when I first moved to LA, I was so fascinating by all the different music scenes in town, I checked out all the club and music bars in LA from Jazz, Bossa nova, fusion, forro, soul, rock, pop, blues, classical, EDM.
Because LA is the capital of entertainment you get to meet so many different people with a different perspective about music and with a different creative mind, so everywhere you go you see the best musicians in all the genres. And not only you get to listen to interesting stories from people around the globe, but you also can explore new music you never heard before.
The thing that I found the least favorite part in LA is that sometimes with all the amazing projects people do. There is sometimes a lot of egos involved, and I believe that ego does not working well with creativity.
Each person has it’s own thinking and ideas, and yes there should be some kind of hierarchy in the project, but we always need to keep in mind that we are doing a creative work and we should be open to change our decisions for the benefit of the project regardless of who was the one who brought the new approach.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8516030/
- Phone: 8188576717
- Email: topozizo@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samixing/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/samixing.alon
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1KgusPDjXZlfYB1p5gBlyQ?view_as=subscriber
Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
