Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryan Fulton.
Bryan, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My love for creating music began with my grandpa giving me his old acoustic guitar that I still have hanging on the wall of my studio. I never was able to learn how to read music but I taught myself playing by ear and picking out note by note of songs I knew. I still remember the very first song I learned by ear on that old acoustic, “Amazing Grace”! I eventually got better at guitar and got my first electric, then my second and third along with a few amps, then built up a decked out pedalboard… it was a slippery slope!
A good friend of mine was the bassist in a melodic metal band in my town, I had already been to one of their shows and loved the music and when he told me they lost the guitarist, I stepped in to fill the spot. It was during my time with this band when I discovered my love for recording and mixing. After recording our first album at a local studio and seeing the whole process, I decided to give it a try myself. It was a slow, rocky start but after watching countless how to’s, mixing the same song about 100 times and tons of trial and error, I was finally able to get to a place where I was actually satisfied with my mixes. It was six years of recording and mixing out of a small room in my house during nights and weekends while working my day job at the same time. I was working a job at an engineering firm as a 3D piping designer and over the course of those six years, began to realize that I had lost all interest and motivation for that job and had grown more attached and in love with the work, I was doing in my studio and made the decision to leave my job and work full time as an audio engineer.
Around this same time, my wife was also becoming unhappy with her job so we both sat down one night and made the decision together to follow our hearts and do whatever it took to be able to work at our dream jobs. Being a PHD graduate and heavily involved in the college level school system, her choice was to become faculty having always felt drawn to teaching. Since I would be working for myself with the ability to go anywhere, the plan was for her to apply everywhere she could across the US and where ever she got accepted, that’s where we’d move. After a lot of back and forth, dead ends and the feeling of constantly being in a state of limbo, we had almost given up hope. This is when she got wind of a campus in Denton, this little town we both had never heard of in Texas that was hiring, it was UNT. After applying, she very quickly moved through the process and in only a few months was finally given an official offer. This was it, this was going to be our new home, and we couldn’t have asked for a better place to live.
The music scene in Denton as been fantastic and has allowed me to grow my business faster than I could have ever imagined. From beginning in a place where I knew absolutely no one, to meeting and becoming friends with so many wonderful people and talented musicians and recording almost every day of the week in my first year! We are both so thankful for how everything has turned out and I encourage anyone to follow what truly makes you happy!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I suppose one of the biggest struggles I’ve had to overcome was when I first started mixing. There’s nothing more frustrating than when you can hear a sound in your head but don’t have the ability to create it! As a novice, I would pawn this off on not having the right gear or the right plugins but looking back, it really comes down to just being inexperienced. As with anything else, it takes a lot of practice, or hanging around people who are a lot more talented than you! Recording and mixing, for me, requires constant learning and adapting which is probably the most challenging part of the job. I once heard someone say, “As soon as you feel like you’ve made it, you stop progressing.” That really resonates with me and I live my life by that.
A huge challenge I’m facing currently has to do with the construction of my full-sized studio space. One of the main goals I set for myself was to have a dedicated studio space to work out of and we were lucky enough to find a place with an existing building already on the property. Refurbishing this building is a very costly and time consuming task, as with any studio build, but thankfully I have a very nice temporary studio space to work in until it’s completed.
Please tell us about Ayers Affect Audio.
My studios name comes from when I first discovered recording and mixing. I began working out of our home in a subdivision called Ayersworth Glen, that’s where it all started and consequently affected my life in a huge way. Also, because I love alliteration!
At my studio, I mix, master and can facilitate essentially any kind of recording needs. I really enjoy the production side of crating music and something I like doing when working with artists is offering arrangement, instrumental and writing ideas during the recording process.This isn’t always applicable but adding an extra instrumental layer or vocal harmony could give a song that extra 10-15% to help it really stand out. Becoming a temporary member of the band and treating each song as if it were my own, I believe, helps to get the best possible sound in the end.
Something I am very proud of is the impact I am able to make in the lives of the artists I have the pleasure of working with. My goal is to provide artists with a professional sounding track that will hopefully help them get opportunities to further their musical careers. I want to give everything I can to the music we create so that you have the best possible chance of achieving your dreams.
My mind and the way I hear and interact with music is what sets me apart. No two minds think alike and all audio engineers are going to have different influences and hear music a different way. These days we all have access to great quality recording and mixing equipment but to me, it’s the way you use those tools that really defines who you are and your unique sound.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
That would have to be spending time in Germany while my dad was stationed there in the military. It was a good three years of my life filled with tons of snow, beautiful country and a great friendly community of people. Being immersed in a foreign country like that at a young age I think helped me through high school German classes later in life.
Contact Info:
- Website: ayersaffect.com
- Email: ayersaffect@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bryanofayers/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bryanofayers
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