The 2025 End of Year Recap: What Talking to 1,500 Audio Engineers Taught Me About This Industry
I talked to over 1,500 audio engineers this year.
Not casually. Real conversations. DMs, calls, back-and-forths that sometimes stretched over weeks. I wanted to understand what's actually happening out there—not what podcasts say is happening, not what gear companies market, but what mix engineers are actually living through.
Here's what I learned.
Human Nature Looks Different at Scale
When you talk to a handful of people, every response feels significant. A ghosted DM stings. A rude reply throws off your whole day. A great conversation makes you think you've cracked the code.
But at 1,500 conversations? The emotional weight of any single interaction drops to almost nothing.
You start seeing patterns instead of personalities.
Roughly:
About 5% became paying clients
Maybe 15% expressed genuine gratitude for the content
A solid 30% ghosted mid-conversation
And a surprising percentage—maybe 10%—responded with skepticism or outright hostility
There's a moment I can't forget from this year. Same day, within hours of each other: one person DMed me to completely berate me, question every one of my qualifications, and tell me I had no business doing this work. And another person DMed me to say my content had completely changed their life.
Same day. Same work. Opposite responses.
This Will Happen to You Too
Here's why I'm telling you this: if you're doing any kind of outreach—reaching out to artists, producers, labels, managers—you're going to experience the same thing.
You'll get ghosted. A lot. You'll get people who are rude for no reason. You'll get people who question whether you're good enough. And you'll get people who are genuinely grateful you reached out.
The distribution is predictable. It's not personal. It's the mathematics of human interaction.
When you understand this, everything changes. You stop agonizing over the one person who didn't respond. You stop letting a single rude reply derail your week. You start seeing outreach as a numbers game with emotional variance built in—because that's exactly what it is.
Small numbers create tunnel vision. Large numbers create clarity.
The Myth of "I've Got This Handled"
One phrase I heard constantly: "I've got a mentor."
Or: "I can figure this out on my own."
And look, I respect the instinct. Independence is core to how most of us got into this work in the first place.
But here's what I noticed:
Most "mentors" are giving advice based on a sample size of one—their own career, their own era, their own path. Some of them are subtly competitive with their mentees and don't even realize it. And many engineers who claimed to have mentors? When I dug deeper, they didn't actually have anyone. Just pride. Just fear of admitting they needed help.
The lone-wolf mindset runs deep in audio. But real growth—the kind that compounds—almost always comes from structured feedback, frameworks, and systems. Not just vibes and occasional advice.
We'll Buy Gear in a Heartbeat. Buying Help? That's Different.
This one fascinated me.
Engineers will drop $500 on a plugin without blinking. But ask them to invest in guidance, structure, or accountability? Suddenly there's resistance.
Why?
Because buying a tool doesn't threaten your self-concept. Buying help does. It forces you to confront gaps. To admit you don't have it figured out. To become accountable for change.
The result: most people avoid getting help until the pain outweighs the fear. They wait until they're desperate instead of investing when they're ready.
The Industry Is Less Open-Minded Than It Looks
I expected experimentation. Curiosity. A willingness to try new approaches.
What I found instead:
Deep attachment to old narratives
Reliance on overheard tactics ("Just post more on social media")
Minimal vetting of advice before adopting it
A desperate search for a silver bullet
A preference for free ideas over structured paths
People tend to anchor to the first advice they hear, not the best advice available. Once a tactic lodges in their brain—from a podcast, a YouTube video, a passing comment—it becomes gospel. Even if it doesn't work. Even if they never actually implement it.
The industry performs innovation publicly but operates conservatively in private.
Tactic-Chasing Is Everywhere. Strategy Is Rare.
Here's the pattern I saw over and over:
Engineer hears a tactic on a podcast
They anchor to it immediately
They call it their "strategy"
They avoid deeper work
They still don't implement it
They assume they don't need help because they "know what to do"
This is the psychological shortcut: certainty without effort.
But tactics without systems are just noise. What most engineers actually need isn't another tip—it's a framework. Accountability. A way to see their business clearly and make decisions that compound.
What This Means for 2026
All of this shaped what I'm building next.
I'm launching Hey Wav—a toolkit designed specifically for mix engineers to manage their entire business. Client tracking. Financial visibility. Workflow systems. The frameworks I've been teaching one-on-one, now accessible at scale.
The goal isn't to replace coaching. It's to give engineers a foundation they can actually use, whether they ever work with me directly or not.
Because here's the truth: most of the 1,500 people I talked to this year weren't ready for coaching. And that's okay. They were "pre-help"—hungry, inspired, overwhelmed, but not yet at the point where structured support made sense for them.
Hey Wav is how I meet those people where they are.
The Meta-Learning
Talking to 1,500 people dissolved a lot of illusions.
I stopped believing everyone would love my work. I stopped expecting every conversation to convert. I stopped thinking one tactic could fix everything or that people always act rationally.
And I started seeing real patterns. Real constraints. Real opportunities.
When you see enough people, you stop guessing and start knowing.
That clarity? It's the foundation of everything I'm building next.
Stay in the Loop
If any of this resonated—if you've been following along, if you've been in my DMs, if you've been quietly watching and wondering when to take action—here's how to stay connected:
Join the Hey Wav waitlist to get early access when it launches
Join my Instagram broadcast channel for real-time updates and behind-the-scenes thinking
2026 is going to give you new options. Make sure you're in the room when they arrive.
Thank You
I want to end with this: I'm genuinely grateful for all of it.
The people who became clients. The people who said my work changed their lives. The people who ghosted. The people who pushed back. Even the people who were rude—because they taught me something too.
Every single conversation this year shaped what I'm building. Every insight, every frustration, every moment of connection. You gave me a window into what this industry is actually going through, and I don't take that lightly.
Whether you've been following for years or just found me last week—thank you for being part of this. The love, the hate, the skepticism, the support. All of it made this year what it was.
And it's all fuel for what's coming next.
