Orlando Gómez Psyches himself into a Job

Working in the music industry means you have to be flexible. You have to malleable. One day you’ll be asked to solve a seemingly simple set of problems, with a set number of potential solutions, and then next day it will be a completely different mine field.

Nevertheless, all of it matters. Long story short, working as an audio engineer requires flexibility and the ability to act quickly, to be results oriented and not afraid of hard work.

Orlando Gómez is exactly that kind of person.

Right from the start of his apprenticeship at Beacon Hill Recording Studios (El Paso, TX) Orlando showed mentor Alfredo Gonzalez that he was dedicated to learning and assisting as much as possible. In fact, Orlando decided to psyche himself out a bit by viewing his apprenticeship as a job. This enabled him to shift his focus away from getting overly preoccupied or nervous about ultimately getting hired. Instead, Orlando saw to it that he proved his worth every single day by building his skills, serving as an asset to Alfredo, and learning just as much as he could. Whether or not the end result would be a job at Beacon Hill, Orlando knew that by psyching himself out this way his proactive mindset would help him get into prime position by the time he completed the program.

Problem solving and a can-do-attitude ended up being two of Orlando’s biggest assets. He laughs, recalling a recent recording session which could have gone south if they had failed to pull together quickly: “We had this country band coming in and we didn’t know that we didn’t have enough channels for all the instruments they were playing. Right there in that moment, they took a break, a little break of about 15-20 minutes to eat lunch, and we had to solder in a whole patch bay and put it into a console and all of that stuff in just 15-20 minutes and it worked well.”

As for the clientele at Beacon Hill, the new studio is attracting great talent from all over the musical spectrum. Orlando says, “B.O.B. came to the studio the other day. There’s also this really popular Hispanic Christian artist named Marcela Gandara whom we work with. We work with a lot of really high profile acts and clients [including] advertisements for McDonald’s and American Express.”

When asked how he feels about his experiences with Recording Connection Orlando says, “I feel lucky that I got the chance to work with a very talented group of people. And, yeah I mean, people there are amazing. We all get along pretty well and the studio is very good as well. I mean, the acoustics of the studio are amazing, all the equipment, the size, the artists we get there and I just feel thankful that I got the chance to work with all of them.”

Well that chance has now become a full-fledged job.  Orlando has nabbed a full-time position as a staff engineer at Beacon Hill Recording Studios. Mentor and now boss, Alfredo Gonzalez, sees Orlando as a great addition to the team and says,  “He’s a hard worker, trustworthy, and super responsible. Even if he’s done with his job, he’ll stick around and make sure no one needs anything.”

You’ve got the right can-do attitude Orlando! Have fun working on those tracks!