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Issue #163
by L. Swift and Jeff McQ
For Ian, the path began when he decided to make a change.
“I was in Chicago just working kind of just a dead end job,” he explains. “And don’t get me wrong, I was doing well at the job. It’s just I wasn’t very satisfied in terms of my creative output, or that urge to, you know, be funny or entertain. I’ve been a fan of radio my entire life….I grew up with certain DJs like Mancow from Chicago, Dick Biondi was another huge one. But of course, there’s Howard Stern, Bubba the Love Sponge, you know. Even the old-timers, Wolfman Jack, all of that…And that got me kind of hooked on radio.”
Ian decided to look into broadcasting schools but quickly got discouraged at the cost. “Then I came across the Radio Connection,” he says. “I saw that instead of the more classroom kind of setting, it was a little bit more immersive. And I was extremely attracted to that idea…You get to go to an actual studio and meet actual people who work in the field, because those are the hands that you need to shake in really any career, the people who are doing it because they’re the ones who are definitely going to help.”
Jumping in with both feet, Ian decided to move to Las Vegas to pursue his new career in radio. He enrolled in the program and was placed as an extern with Radio Connection mentor Ransom Garcia at X-107.5, Vegas’ CBS radio affiliate. On his first day at the station, Ian knew he was in the right place at the right time. “Ransom…has been a veteran of Las Vegas radio for over 10 years now,” says Ian. “I immediately knew that I was meeting somebody I definitely should meet…Within the first five minutes of me talking to him, I could tell that we were on the same page.”
Ian’s timing was remarkable for another reason, as well: the station was saying goodbye to their morning team, David and Mahoney, the number-one morning show in Vegas for more than a decade. Ian got to watch this station adapt to a major change, and it led to opportunities for him to help out in the process, effectively giving him a crash course in radio.
“It was great to go in there and see a station try to keep the momentum going from that,” he says. “I helped Ransom…he was the head producer on the morning show that replaced Dave and Mahoney. It was called Marco and Jeetz, and it was just a wonderful experience. I did everything from learning the production side of it to, you know, I was on air a couple times with the guys, which was great. I even was out on the streets with Jeetz, helping out with his ‘Jeetz on the Streets’ segment.”
Ian made the most of the opportunity and quickly became part of the community. “I went in there and fully immersed myself into the culture of the station,” he says, “and found that it fit like a glove, to be honest…For me to wind up not only with a fantastic mentor, but at a fantastic station also, I could not have asked for a better formula there.”
That willingness to immerse himself couldn’t have paid off in a better way. As Ian approached the end of his externship and started looking for work, the station’s program director began helping him prepare. “He helped with my air checks,” says Ian. “I would go every week in there. I would send him a couple air checks, and he and I would meet every week and discuss things I needed to work on. For him to make time like that for me was definitely a gift.”
In the end, instead of sending him elsewhere, the program director hired him. Once again, timing played a role: David and Mahoney were returning to do their morning show at the station. These days, Ian not only screens calls and helps with production for David and Mahoney—he gets his own opportunity behind the mic, as well!
“I got that Monday through Friday, and then Saturday I get my own show,” he says. “So I’m on Saturday nights 7:00 to midnight, as well. So I’m definitely fully immersed in that station…For me to get an on air shift, and then on top of that become a member of one of the best morning shows in Las Vegas, is great!”
Ian uses the term “serendipitous” a lot when he tells his story. He happened to land in the right town, working with the right mentor, at a station that just happened to need extra hands. But despite what we often say, timing isn’t really everything. As Ian confirms, the key is to be present in the moment to take advantage of opportunities when they come.
“Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world where things are just kind of handed out to you,” he says. “You’ve got to work for it….I could’ve just went into that studio and just kind of poked around, you know, and not asked any questions or anything and I would’ve been right where I was before I moved. But fact is you have to go in there and you have to ask those questions. And you have to, ask those people’s names, and you have to shake those hands, and you have to show them that you are worth something, and the knowledge that you’re acquiring is going somewhere that’s going to benefit you in the long run…You have to go in there every day and you have to make your presence known.”
Ian didn’t just find himself in the right place at the right time; he also had the right attitude. Today, he’s reaping the rewards by working his dream job.
Right place, right time, right attitude. If there really is a formula for success…that’s as close as you can get to it.
RRFC: Can you tell us a little bit about how you got started in your audio career?
Jason Intille: Well, Omina was a band that I was initially in, and I was a bass player. This is back when I was 19 years old. I ended up being the guy in the band that went and bought the TASCAM 4-track to try and record our rehearsals and whatnot. You know, I had no intentions on being an audio engineer at all. From there, I just kind of got interested in it…My grandmother had a house that had a basement in it, so I set it up for our band, rehearsed in my grandmother’s basement, and I set up Pro Tools LE 6.0 with a Digi 001…I really just got it to record the band. When people found out that I had this studio, and I started getting random text messages and phone calls from other artist, ‘Hey can I go and record something at your studio?’… When that started happening, I was like, ‘You know, I should probably take some classes.’ Once I started school I really got interested in it…[eventually] got an Audio engineering certification and really just built a clientele from there. I had my first office by the time I was 23. I’ve been open for about 16 years now and I haven’t stopped.
RRFC: Awesome. So tell us a little more about Omina Laboratories and your studio—the gear you have, what you do, who you work with.
Jason: There’s actually two studios in here. I’m running full Pro Tools HD3 systems in both rooms. I actually just recently remodeled. Before, I was just specializing really in doing production and recording for mainly vocals. But the remodel that I did actually made my studios capable of doing bands, so I’ve recently been starting to do a lot of bands. But mixing and mastering is really where my specialty is…As for clients, I mean, I work with a lot of pretty big artists.
RRFC: Is there anything different when it comes to working in hip hop that you maybe approach differently than let’s say a rock guy would?
Jason: Absolutely. It’s like night and day. It’s one of the things that I preachto my students because one of the big questions that I get is, ‘Can you just teach me how to mix?’…What I can do is I can teach you to use the tools properly to achieve the picture you’re trying to paint. You’re never going to mix something the same. I’m not going to mix a rock song like I would mix a hip hop song. I mean, completely different frequencies, instruments, everything is completely different. But at the same time, I’m not going to mix this guy’s hip hop song the same as that guy’s hip hop song either?…I’m not going to mix an R&B singer like I would mix a hip hop artist… I’m not going to mix an E-40 song like I would mix 2 Chainz song, or a Wacka Flocka song, you know? Wacka screams when he’s on the mic, and E-40’s like, he’s got a little different flow to him. So yeah, when I’m dealing with levels and textures of voices, I’m always going to be mixing things different.… I can’t just say, ‘This is how you mix.’ What I can do is I can teach you all the techniques to paint the “tree” you just have to apply those techniques to paint your own tree, and it’s going to come out the way that you see it.
RRFC: What was your own school experience like, as compared to the Recording Connection approach?
Jason: When I do the interviews with the students, one of the things that I emphasize is that when I went to school, I had to go in a classroom with 50 other people. Half the time, I ended up leaving class not understanding everything just because I didn’t even have the opportunity to ask the questions that I wanted to ask. The other half of the time in the middle of class, the topic would just change because you got this person [saying], “Oh, well my home studio…”, “Oh, well this studio…”. Next thing you know the whole class is off topic…and you don’t even get to finish discussing what you wanted to discuss. My emphasis when I have my students come in is: “There’s not really a timeframe on this. We’re here until you get it. My job is to make sure you get what’s happening, and why we’re doing it this way…I want to make sure all my students get it.
RRFC: So when you bring students in on recording sessions, and they’re there to observe or assist you, how do they need to handle themselves so that everything goes off okay?
Jason: Generally when they come in, I have a place for them to sit right next to me and ask questions about what im doing in Pro tools… If I have a student that hasn’t gotten that far yet in the class and they’re sitting there… Trying to watch me work in Pro Tools is hard. I work really fast, so it’s kind of hard for them to take in what’s going on—
In that situation, I tune them into how I’m interacting with the clients…I [tell them], “Really pay attention to how I’m working with these people. You’re going to notice that I work with this client different than this client…There’s different types of people out there…You’ve got to deal with a lot of personalities.
RRFC: Do you have any students who are standing out to you?
Jason: I have a student named Roy [Velasco] that’s been here a lot…I know he’s considering going into the advanced program, but even though he’s finished the program, he’s still around here. He’s from Alaska, so he came all the way here to just to do the program. And he ended up linking up with a few artists, and now they have a band. They came and recorded their band. And I’m actually going to start having him run a few sessions here soon.
RRFC: So what can Recording Connection students do in order to make the most of the time that they spend with you?
Jason: There’s three different things. One is just doing sessions with me…sitting next to me, watching what’s going on, seeing how I work with the people. Two, I have two full HD studios here, so I encourage them to go to the other studio, work on their homework, work with a friend or make a beat. They have a full HD studio back there for them to sit and do whatever they want. Then the third would be that I encourage all the tutoring that you guys have on top of that.
Film Connection student Ian McShane (Columbus, OH), who apprentices with mentor and Executive Director, Scott Spears at Production Partners Media, is on-set learning how to get the right angle and setup on the Not So Late Show with Johnny DiLoretto.
Recording Connection grad and Pensado’s Award Nominee Paul Ramirez recently started his own podcast at Precision-Tune Radio in which he interviews pros and up-and-comers alike, giving them a forum to share their stories and provide insights on the craft. A recent guest was none other than Malik “The FreQ” Moore, member of Los Angeles reggae supergroup The Lions.
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