Pro Story: Brian Bonifacio

Brian Bonifacio is a friend and one of the most talented engineers I have met in my long career. Always positive and supportive, he is an inspiration to me and many others. As always, he brings some seriously potent advice to the table with his story.

Brian's Story

I started out playing drums as a kid and loved music so much I wanted to be involved in making it. Buuuut, I hated practicing so I knew I wouldn't be a world class drummer. I took an interest in the recording side when a friend of mine showed me how he was writing music using MIDI and making insane, unlistenable industrial stuff that would make my ears bleed. I LOVED it. So we started buying gear and off we went.

Fast forward a few years in college and a degree in Music Technology, I was working at my college helping people in the labs and setting up equipment. There I met a drummer in a reggae band that need a dub mixer. I bought some stuff and joined the band. The bass player was an assistant at a Post Audio house in NYC and we became fast friends. So one day he was called by another company to move up the ladder and asked if I was interested in his old job. I went for the interview and got it that day.

I sopped up everything I could at that place and basically lived there for the next 4 years. Then I found some gigs on my own and have been my own boss ever since! I think the key to me making this my career was that I made myself available for every single opportunity to learn and make mistakes. Always come out of it know what you could do better and faster.

Surround yourself with people who know more than you and can teach you something you don't know. I have zero ego to this day. Ego gets you nowhere. And if you know how to do something, share it. It makes you know it better to teach it to someone else and then that makes a colleague that you can call on to do that gig when you can't do a gig (it's GOING to happen). Start a community of like minded and able bodied people to share gigs and thoughts with.

This is invaluable. This is the most important tidbit of info I have for you if you are just starting out: DON'T STOP. It will be really hard for a little while, but then it will get easier and you will see how all the hard work you did finally pays off. As long as you never stop, you WILL succeed. It worked for me.