Be a good craftsman - Audio Producer Matthew Walker
Matthew left uni in 2009, right after the financial crash. Ready to find a way to combine his love for music and games, he started freelancing immediately, picking up small projects and commissions, getting involved with whatever he could outside of his full-time job.
But it wasn’t until 2016, after he was made redundant, that Matthew went freelance full-time. He had plenty of good contacts and some work in the pipeline, and things snowballed from there. As his clients grew so did he, and he began picking up referrals the more he got his name out there.
He doesn’t have plans to grow his business to be any bigger than him. He simply wants to be a good craftsman, he says, and he’s very happy that he’s able to provide for his family while doing work he loves.
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Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with audio producer Matthew Walker and Steve Folland
Steve Folland: How about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Matthew Walker: Sure. So kind of by default. So I graduated Uni in 2009, just when the crash was really picking up steam, which did us all great favours. I had a music degree, and the intention, of course, was always to go into music. At the time I was just doing composition. That was my jam. That was my thing. But I didn't really know what sort of fashion, what kind of colour I was going to paint myself in composition.
Matthew Walker: So when I had the epiphany that I wanted to combine games and music, I said, "Well, okay, I'll produce music for games." So you kind of continue down this rabbit hole of just trying to build some sort of ideas as to how you want to kind of go about yourself, and I started freelancing almost immediately.
Matthew Walker: I moved back to Bristol from Plymouth where I was studying and just got involved with lots of small projects, film projects, audio things, events, anything I could kind of get two hands on. But games was always the intention. That was the big goal. Those kind of smaller free projects graduated to small commissions, just small little things I could take a bit of pocket money away from.
Matthew Walker: Kind of fast-forwarding a little bit, I was made redundant because I was still working full time at this point. I found some jobs, all sorts of jobs really. But I was made redundant in a music shop when I was managing a piano showroom, because I'm a piano player. It was at that point, this is now like 2015, 2016, and I was thinking, "Well, when am I ever going to go full-time? What is the end game here?"
Matthew Walker: So I started to ask myself these kind of questions. As all the other team members were starting to pick up jobs, I was like, "Nope, I'm going freelance. I'm going to start giving this a bit of a punt." That was it. That was the push I needed in sort of 2015 or '16 to then go, "Right. I'm a full-time audio music person now. Let's see how this works." So it just kind of happened.
Steve Folland: So I introduced you as an audio producer, but at the time you wanted to compose for games.
Matthew Walker: Yeah. So music has always been my discipline. So I'm a piano player, vocalist, I play a couple of other instruments too. But when you work in games, there's much more emphasis on design. So if I'm composing music for games, I don't call myself a video game composer because there's such a design element around it. So I call myself a music designer, much you would a sound designer. You're designing sound effects which have to work in engine with the game. Music is very much the same.
Matthew Walker: So all these things combined sort of shape your job title a bit. Through games, I started doing more sound design itself, but also by default again, I then almost overnight became a sound recordist, because one of the dub studios I worked with wanted to produce a podcast. I was like "Right, okay, I need to figure out a way to record in a space that had zero soundproofing in the middle of a very busy development studio." I was thinking, "Well, how do you do this?" It had floor-to-ceiling windows. Thinking, "Oh my gosh, it's going to sound awful."
Matthew Walker: But after a little bit of research, I kind of discovered how to produce a very good recording in a space like that. Overnight, I was then a sound recordist, so I invested in some other gear, added that to my service list as well. All of a sudden there was another flow of income coming in from that. So you just kind of start to spread yourself a little wider but not thinner. So I started in music and graduated to sound, and now audio is, as I say, the sort of blanket term for it.
Steve Folland: So how did you go about getting your first clients? Not when you were doing it on the side, but I guess when you finally think, "Well, I'm going freelance," 2015. How did you get by?
Matthew Walker: Yeah. So I already had some really good relationships with the local developers and local filmmakers and other bits and pieces when I was doing it alongside full-time work. So I immediately had that to fall back on. So I had some people to talk to. I already had some other bits of work in the pipeline too, so there was a cushion there. So that was really comfortable.
Matthew Walker: I just kind of continued with that, and then it just began to snowball. As those collaborators, those clients, grew their small businesses too, so too did my workflow. I was getting more work from them. Other clients started to see that. For me, I've never really felt comfortable when the foot is not on the gas. You can't stop as a freelancer. It is very much a lifestyle choice that you choose to go down.
Matthew Walker: So I've always been just looking for opportunities, looking for ways that I can kind of just connect with people and build professional relationships and professional friendships. It's just kind of flown from there really.
Steve Folland: How do you manage all of those different projects? What does it look like for you? Do you have really busy periods where you're working on one thing and then you're over to another, or you run them all at the same time?
Matthew Walker: There's definitely a transition, and of course you wear different hats. So it's very much about being in a certain frame of mind. If I have a project, a more sizable project, which requires me to be purely just producing music, then that's all I'll do that day. So I very rarely kind of swap from one project to the next because I feel like I'm more productive if I've got one thing, one hat to wear that day.
Matthew Walker: In terms of managing multiple projects and multiple clients and multiple streams of work, calendars, Google calendar. Oh my gosh, I love a good spreadsheet and a Google calendar like no one's business. I don't know how I got by in those first 18 months to two years without dedicating a lot of energy to my calendar. So I'm really anal about it as well.
Matthew Walker: So everything is worded a certain way. Certain things are in capitals. Certain things are subtitled. Certain things are colour-coordinated. It's super, super tight. Without that, I would just kind of, I think I'd melt. I'd just implode because where I've got things organized in a spreadsheet in front of me, it allows me to just focus on the work because I've just kind of splurged it somewhere, and I don't have to remember that anymore. It's organized. It's in a sheet. It's in multiple sheets, multiple pages, and then I can just focus on the thing that brings in money at the end of the day.
Steve Folland: Obviously, you started out doing side projects. Is that something that you still continue to do now?
Matthew Walker: Yeah. I think side projects, for me, have always been really quite important, to be honest. Because when you're working to brief, as cool as it is, you are working to a brief, and there's a deadline, and there's a criteria that you have to fulfil. When you work on purely side projects, which could be with another collaborator or just your own thing, you're free of a brief so you can kind of experiment. You can express yourself, especially in music where there's a lot of emotion involved, where you pile thoughts and processes and emotions into a piece of music, for example.
Matthew Walker: All of that can be quite draining, and it's nice to be free of any strings sort of thing. So there's a few side projects that I'm currently kind of working on. I've got a solo piano EP/album, somewhere in between an EP and an album, which I've been working on for about six years, I think. I just haven't got around to finishing it, but that I'm really looking forward to because that's in a state now where it's looking like the end is in sight.
Matthew Walker: I've been playing ukulele for a couple of years, and I absolutely adore the ukulele. So I'd like to produce a ukulele EP as well. I'm currently fleshing out a soundtrack to a game hack game that I recently worked on called Sick Fighter. Basically, have you ever come across the term game hack before?
Steve Folland: Uh, no. Let's go with no.
Matthew Walker: Okay. So a game hack, there's loads all over the world, but arguably the largest is one called the Global Games Jam. In the space of a weekend or just under a weekend, you go from start to finish, and you produce a game in the space of that time. You hook up with people, you collaborate, you smash out an idea, and there's a brief again. The soundtrack that I did to that, it was really cool. It was a mega drive, 16-bit sounding thing. It was really funky. So I'm going to flesh that out as a side project too and see what happens with it. Slap it on Spotify and see if people like it. Just some other ones, again, very much music focused.
Steve Folland: How do you think those side projects benefit your business?
Matthew Walker: I think it's always good for, if I see people that I'm collaborating with or want to collaborate with and they're doing things in their own time, it's passion, it's real drive and they care about this stuff. Seeing that energy and that passion makes me want to work with people, and I believe the door swings the other way too.
Matthew Walker: Plus also it gives you something to talk about. So if you're ever struggling for a social media post or something, like you're creating really cool content and not only people can read about and learn about but they can enjoy, it shows activity. I think activity means busy for me, and people find that quite attractive. I certainly do anyway.
Steve Folland: Now, obviously I introduced you as Matthew Walker. Then I called you Matt, but actually you don't trade as that, right?
Matthew Walker: No, I do not. No. So, I mean, I used to. People who I work with do know me as Matthew. I don't walk around saying, "Hi, my name is SebAudio." That's just my company name, although that'd be quite cool. But ultimately I got to a point where I needed to go limited company, and I didn't really like, I don't know if I didn't like the idea of kind of slapping limited on the end of my name. But the first thing was that you've got the sleep guy. You know the guy who releases, he's a sleep expert. His name is Matthew Walker.
Steve Folland: So there's another Matthew Walker?
Matthew Walker: There is another Matthew Walker, yeah, who has had quite some large success with a book based on sleep. So I kind of wanted to distance myself a little bit from that. The idea around SebAudio is that, like many things, there's a real renaissance for board games at the moment. Working in games, we do that a lot. We play board games. We play card games. It's a great collaborative thing, and it's kind of chemistry and team building, and it's fun. There's a lot of banter, and it's awesome.
Matthew Walker: So I was looking for something that was kind of maybe tapping into that, and the only real board game outside of Monopoly when I was a kid I used to play was Subbuteo. I played a lot of football as a kid. My name before Matthew, my mum was close to calling me Sebastian, and I've always preferred that name to Matthew. Hence, why my wife and I have now given Sebastian as the middle name to our son.
Matthew Walker: So I was like, well, I like that, SebAudio. That's quite cool because it reminds me of Subbuteo. It's kind of cool. So that's just where it came from, and now it's stuck, and I love it. It kind of came out of pure thin air, you know?
Steve Folland: So how long have you traded as SebAudio?
Matthew Walker: So SebAudio is now in its second year. Before that I was just a sole trader, just as Matthew Walker. I think it was Matthew Walker Music Stuff. Then it was Matthew Walker Audio Stuff, and then it went SebAudio. So it came full circle when I then went limited company. Because by that point I gave myself almost a two-year apprenticeship just to kind of figure out how freelancing works. Was it for me? Could I adapt?
Matthew Walker: At the time I was engaged as well, and I knew that babies were probably just around the corner. I was thinking, "Well, we'll just see how this goes. Take it six months at a time." I'm now into my fourth year as a full-time freelancer, and it's going okay, so I must be doing something right. I'm talking to you, so things are going okay.
Steve Folland: How about the way you work? Do you work from home or an office?
Matthew Walker: Yean. I work from home. I think the end game, the eventual goal, would be to have some space. It wouldn't necessarily be a coworking space because in audio you need to control the environment, and that's really challenging to do when you're surrounded by lots of other people. So it will likely be down at the bottom of a garden, I expect. My garden, not someone else's. Just to walk up in a six grand shed and put it in the neighbour's garden or something.
Steve Folland: Darling, who's that man in the hedge?
Matthew Walker: I don't know. Don't know. He's just recording some sounds. Hey, I've been in a hedge loads, recording sounds, trying to get the perfect sound or something. Sound recordings, you'll find them everywhere. But no, I mean funny enough, we're considering a house move. So that is a consideration now for our next pad. Because our little boy is only going to get bigger, and naturally he's going to outgrow me quicker, I think, and he's going to need more space. So I need to maintain my space and probably move out. Just my work though.
Matthew Walker: But also I'm at that point now where I've been working from home for, this is my fourth year, and of course the sort of part-time years before that as well. I want the separation. I want to go to work, record, work, produce audio, come home, be a dad, be a husband and play games. Those are the things. And eat at some point. Those are the things I want to do at home.
Matthew Walker: But having said that, I love the flexibility of being able to be at home. Our boy is young, so I can quickly nip down to the nursery if I need. It's very convenient again to be able to work from home. So it's the perfect thing right now. But you can just see that in the future, it can't last forever because things are naturally going to be dynamic and change.
Steve Folland: So how old is your son now?
Matthew Walker: Almost 18 months. I think he's 16-and-a-half months. We're still at that stage where you're kind of going by the months and weeks almost. This is probably a conversation for your other podcast, Doing It for the Kids.
Steve Folland: Yes.
Matthew Walker: Which is another great podcast.
Steve Folland: So we talked about all the different sort of ways that you make your money. Are there any others that we haven't touched upon or that you've got lined up in the future?
Matthew Walker: One thing I really want to develop is more of a passive income. So I've been looking into courses and whatnot. I've grown a lot in confidence over the last three or four years, and I know a few things now. I believe there's an audience out there who would like to know how to record or how to produce a podcast or music composition or anything, anyone of the sort of services that I offer. I can break that down into a course and make it more digestible for somebody else.
Matthew Walker: So I'm really looking to kind of adventure down that pathway at some point. I don't need to at the moment. I've certainly got enough work on that'll keep me going for some time, and I'm confident in finding work when I don't have much on. But that would just kind of take the edge off because you know that there's a passive income coming in through a few sales on Udemy or something. So I'm just looking to kind of explore and see how that might be something to kind of open up a bit further down the line maybe.
Steve Folland: How have you found the business side of being freelance?
Matthew Walker: I mean, I'm a better sound recordist and audio producer than I am a business person for sure, because I don't have any training in that. Lots of freelancers don't. But naturally default says you're going to have to learn a few things.
Matthew Walker: So the first thing for me was that while I'm going to employ an accountant, I don't want to have to bother with accounts or anything. It's peace of mind to just pay someone, to have them submit my accounts. I'm very, very good with keeping data and receipts and numbers. I do that throughout the year. The thought of arriving a month or so before your accountants are due to them, scrum all these things together, scavenge like a vulture to get all these bits together, that is just stress I do not need.
Matthew Walker: I try to live as stress-free a life as possible. So I just find when you make a purchase, collect that data straightaway. Boom, done. Archive the receipt. It's done. Once you just copy and paste that process, when you get to doing your accounts, they're done already. You just send the details off to your accountant, and it's done. So that's the first thing I really wanted to do.
Matthew Walker: But in terms of growing the business, my intention is certainly, not at the moment, it's not to grow something into a Fortune 500 company, like several SebAudio Corp, overlooking the whole of Bristol or something. That's not the intention. The intention for me is to be a good craftsman.
Matthew Walker: I've always been quite inspired by my dad. He's a carpenter, and he's incredible with what he does. But my craft is audio production and music. That's what I do. I want to be good at that, and I'm in a really great position through hard work that people want to buy my services and have me produce that sort of stuff for them.
Matthew Walker: If it got to a point where I felt like, yeah, I've maxed out my current level, I need to do something more and I might want to hire an assistant or something, then again, I'll entertain the idea if and when it comes around. But right now it's not the intention. I'm very happy with how I am providing for my family, and that gives me a great amount of joy.
Steve Folland: But you said breaking your neck. When did that happen?
Matthew Walker: So the first time was 2002. Yeah, 2002, and the second time was 2003.
Steve Folland: But you said it changed your life.
Matthew Walker: Well, yeah, I mean, it's a huge injury. So, I mean, in many ways, as horrible as it sounds to say, I think if I was sat here in a wheelchair, that would almost be deemed lucky. The fact that I'm able to walk and run, I've since gone on to do, I think, five or six half-marathons, a couple of marathons, and they've all raised money for spinal injury charities. So it's like something like that, it adds a different colour to your personality, and it's something I wear as a badge of honour now because it's changed the way I look at things. It's changed my mentality completely.
Steve Folland: Does that change your approach to freelancing?
Matthew Walker: I think it changed my approach because I now kind of live under, not necessarily a cloud, but I live under an idea of, we live one life. There's a great quote which I came across only recently, and I absolutely love it. It was like, "The definition of hell is meeting the person you could have been on your death bed."
Matthew Walker: Now that sounds pretty dark, but that's something I really love. Because when I did break my neck, I was like, "Well, I've got one chance to do something, to do the things I am good at and enjoy the things that I do." I didn't want to just go somewhere, work and then come home and wonder what the hell happened. So yeah, it's now this badge that I wear, and it's a reminder. I have the scar to remind me.
Steve Folland: Now, if you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Matthew Walker: Try not to worry. We all do it. We're all guilty of doing it, but worrying gets you nowhere. It is the biggest drain of energy known to man. If you take all that negativity, all that anxiety and you just slap a positive light on it, you can achieve so much more if you just be positive and answer things with a really proactive attitude and just be nice to people and start conversations. Just try not to worry.
Matthew Walker: I used to obsess over if I would receive an email. Especially when I started out, if I received an email from someone who I was talking to about a job and I didn't get the response I wanted, I would just second guess everything. Literally everything. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? I'm not good enough. Imposter syndrome, duh, duh, duh, all the rest of it. I would lose sleep over that. I would lose sleep over that kind of way of thinking.
Matthew Walker: These days, I just don't worry about it. I'm very confident in what I can do. I would say to my younger self, "Yeah, don't worry. Do your own thing because you will get there."