Meet Aaron Krak

Today we’d like to introduce you to Aaron Krak.

Hi Aaron, 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 started playing music at the age of 10 when I got my first drum kit, from there I was heavily involved in school bands, marching bands, youth group bands, etc. Around the sophomore year of high school, I decided I wanted to make music my career, so I decided to go to Belmont University in Nashville and study Audio Engineering.

Throughout school and for about a year or so after graduation, drums were what I put all of my focus into. A friend of mine asked if I wanted to produce and mix a project for him, and I decided I may as well put my degree to work. From there, I started getting projects to mix pretty regularly, from friends, and eventually from strangers. Now mixing is my main source of income alongside drumming and touring.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I have a somewhat special story when it comes to obstacles, I was born with cholesteatoma in my right ear, which is a collection of skin cells inside the ear that can cause damage to your hearing. I had multiple surgeries on my ear to get them out and reduce the damage as much as possible, but it caused me to have major hearing loss in that right ear.

So, still to this day, I have very muffled hearing in my right ear, which, to be honest, isn’t something I think about all that often because I was born with it and I know nothing different, I’m completely used to it. It does come into play sometimes, like if I’m mixing on headphones, but it’s a big part of my story and I hope it can be inspirational to anyone with a disability of any kind.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a drummer and a mix engineer, and I like to split those 50/50 as much as I can. As a drummer, I didn’t take lessons for very long but rather taught myself with youtube and things like that. Having a degree in audio engineering, I’m able to record drums for people remotely and do the engineering myself as well. There is a lot of crossover with drumming and audio engineering, so I think that puts me at a bit of an advantage if I had just picked one or the other. But I love both studio recording as well as live touring.

As a mixed engineer, I’m still relatively young in my career, learning every day how to be better. I’m obsessed with the sonics of music… It sometimes feels like a spiritual experience when I’m mixing because it feels like I get to make all of these little pieces fit together to make the one big picture feel beautiful. I like mixing all genres, the indie rock would probably be the main one I do, but I’ve dipped into pop, Christian, pop/punk, and even some sound design for pictures.

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
I refuse to not try my best. If the artist is smaller, or I’m not getting paid a lot, I still feel like I need to give 110% of my skills and efforts to make the best product possible, whether it’s mixing or drumming. Everything I get to work on is a blank canvas, why wouldn’t I want to paint the best painting possible?

Pricing:

• At the moment I do $250 per song when mixing
• Drum recording prices vary based on if I’m engineering, or tracking in a studio.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://aaronkrak21.wixsite.com/home
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aaronkrak/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aaron.krak