Dave Rosen: All right, I’m sitting here at Berrigan’s on Wednesday afternoon at the Music Industry Luncheon, talking to Eric Mayron. Eric, we’ve known each other for what, thirty years?

Eric Mayron: Wow. More or less. Yeah.

Dave Rosen: Jeez. So give me a really brief background of who Eric is.

Eric Mayron: I am a musician from a very young age. I went to a conservatory-oriented music department at a very tech-deep university, and I play music, but since about 1995, I have taken my technology skills—I’m a good troubleshooter—and applied them to serving the who’s who in the recorded entertainment business.

Dave Rosen: So what kind of work do you do for them?

Eric Mayron: I spec, troubleshoot, and build recording systems and virtual instrument systems that are based on computers.

Dave Rosen: So you’re a media technologist?

Eric Mayron: Absolutely.

Dave Rosen: Makes sense. What kind of systems? Are these Pro Tools?

Eric Mayron: Sometimes they’re Pro Tools systems. Some people use them a lot for recording. I have a certain block of clientele who are songwriters creating music on them, some are composers using a different kind of system, and a bunch who are music producers—ranging from beginners to mega, mega-platinum artists and producers.

Dave Rosen: When someone comes to you, do they have a pretty good idea of what they need, or do they need help figuring it out?

Eric Mayron: Sometimes they don’t know. If somebody comes to me and they don’t know, you talk to them and do a needs assessment to find out what they need. Everybody has an expert friend whose advice is always, “Oh, you just need this, you just need that.” People put complex problems on Facebook expecting a one-sentence answer, and it’s not like that. It’s important to recognize detail—if you’re detail-oriented and know where to put things in terms of what they need, they will be quite happy and creative on their systems for a long time.

Dave Rosen: So if someone is building a studio or building technology to do their producing or engineering work, that would be you?

Eric Mayron: Yes. In studios, I design bigger workflows. But it’s much simpler when you’re dealing with self-contained artists where it all has to be small because they need to be able to pick it up and go. So there’s a difference—some people like to go all deluxe, and some people need to go all small. Portable, fully equipped installation and portable systems for going on the road.

Dave Rosen: Absolutely.

Eric Mayron: I think the most important thing you can have is somebody who can speak in a sentient and calm way about the thing you need to do. There’s a lot of, “Dude, you gotta try this,” but that’s not really me. You and I have been doing this since hard disk recording and ADAT first came in, so there’s a lot of trends we’ve seen come and go. Unless you have somebody to guide you to the right stuff, you are at the mercy of your friend George at home.

Dave Rosen: True. And what about when someone works with you, they’re on the road, and they have a challenge? Can you fix things remotely? Is that part of what you do?

Eric Mayron: In fact, remote troubleshooting became a big deal for everybody. Way back before I was doing this, I was doing corporate MIS—what they used to call IT—and programming intake systems from remote locations in 1987, which was very hard to do using a program called Timbuktu. Later, I saw Ned Douglas using Timbuktu and another piece of software while working with Glenn Ballard and Dave Stewart.

Since then, we moved through different platforms. During the pandemic, there was a lot of work all over the world because nobody could leave, and people were excited to get work done on their computers. The consensus tool now seems to be a program called AnyDesk.

Dave Rosen: I’ll be honest, I’m a good tech. I do multi-camera live streaming and all these different audio setups. Without AnyDesk, I’d be having problems on my shows. But because of AnyDesk, I can take it as far as I can take it, and then dial in an expert.

Eric Mayron: That’s exactly what I do. Sometimes remote work is less convenient, but it’s not as upsetting as walking somebody through the process over the phone—which is what I used to do back in 1998, sitting on the phone for three hours with Paul Fox. Because we do remote work now, it’s not as personal as sitting around a studio together for eight hours, but I still make a lot of great interpersonal connections. People hate to have to call you, but they love it when you show up, and they love it even more when you leave!

Dave Rosen: Well, I hear that one hundred percent. And it reminds me to send some flowers to my technicians, because the guys who are remote are the ones saving your show. When you’re on a deadline, having that person who can AnyDesk in from anywhere makes all the difference.

Eric Mayron: Remote jobs are a big deal for all levels of people, whether you’re doing data entry, building systems, or troubleshooting.

Dave Rosen: So if someone wanted to hire you, where would they go? How do they hire you?

Eric Mayron: They would just call me. Usually it’s referral—I don’t advertise in general. I’m not looking—

Dave Rosen: Well, then I’ll tell you what. If you’re seeing or reading this now, you can reach out to me, Dave Rosen, over at Absolute Rentals and Absolute Media Labs, and I will get you in touch directly with Eric.

Eric Mayron: I really appreciate it, Dave.

Dave Rosen: All right, it’s been great talking with you.

Eric Mayron: Good, same to you, Dave.