We had the good fortune of connecting with Artur W. Vienna and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Artur, how has your work-life balance changed over time?
I used to live a life where work was always my number one priority. When we first start out in the business, it’s easy to fall in the trap of taking every single opportunity just to build up your network, and while there are in fact some benefits to it, most of the times you will end up finding yourself working on projects that won’t result in anything.

I feel like today I’m more selective on the music projects I participate in. That allows me to have quality time with my friends and family and also take care of myself, physically and mentally. Working as a producer and audio engineer requires me to spends most of my days inside a studio, which as we all know is more often than not a very secluded place from the world, without windows and natural light, so I like to enjoy every second I have outside of it as well. Being under the sunlight does wonders for someone’s creativity!

With that in mind, I now limit my hours in front of a computer during the week and keep all of my Sundays free of work so I can enjoy time with my loved ones. I highly recommend it!

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I currently live my professional live as an audio engineer and music producer, but for quite some time I used to be part of the other half, hoping to make my life as a professional guitarist. I realized that playing for a living was not what I wanted rather fast, seeing that I had very successful musicians around me constantly talking about how playing for a living was not bringing food to the table.

As much as I loved my guitars, I decided to have them be a parallel project and work on something else in the music industry. I enrolled at Berklee College of Music where I found out what audio engineers were, and I very quickly got addicted to anything engineering-related. In five years, I went from nerding out about jazz scales and re-harmonizing to nerding out about electronics, AD converters, compressors and microphones. My life completely changed and since then I never want to go back.

It was definitely not easy, but I really invested my time on it. I was a kid that had mathematics and sciences very clear on my mind and all of the straight-forward stuff from engineering was very easy to grasp, but when I had to start dealing with discerning different frequencies I started to freak out. For a while I thought I was somewhat deaf, because my classmates would “hear” things that I could not hear – nowadays I know that some of them were totally faking it out – but eventually I understood that it only needed practice.

Today, I’m still early on my career. But I feel like I have a nice baggage of knowledge to keep going! I’m currently the founder of my own Record Label in Brazil, K.I.W.I. Records; I recently got awarded with BMI’s peermusic Latin Music award as the producer of Alice Macedo’s song “Te Levo Comigo”; and I just got credits on Stewart Copeland and Riky Kej’s album “Police Beyond Borders” as an audio engineer, after engineering all of the vocals of Grammy Award Winners Berklee Indian Ensemble.

That’s all I do during the night, though. During my days, I’m working at a Dubbing studio in Burbank, CA, trying to expand my knowledge even further and get involved with the movie industry. Who knows if in the next 5-10 years you might hear some of my mixes in your local movie theater! 😉

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I love Studio City! One of my favorite spots is Vivian’s Millenium Café for a nice brunch on Sundays. You can’t go wrong if you grab some Eggs Benedicts and a nice Latte!

For touristing, I’m literally addicted to the Getty Museum. The architecture and the art pieces will hold you there for an entire day for sure! Don’t forget to visit the garden as it is, in my opinion, the best part of the museum.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My shoutout definitely goes to my parents and my sister, who always believed in me and who stood by my side in the good and bad moments. I’m thankful because they are the reason that I’m living my dream profession today. Most people don’t know, but I had the fantasy of becoming a neurologist, and I followed that dream for a while when I had just graduated from high school. As I matured with time, I realized that it wasn’t for me and for some time I was lost and couldn’t find my purpose on the world. My parents were there helping me every day, having hours and hours of conversations, showing me that I could be anything I wanted if I wanted it enough.

Dear mom, dad, and Sosô, thank you so much for the unconditional love and support. I’m constantly renewing myself as a better and improved version of me, and that is because you guys taught me how to be resilient and persistent. Love you forever.

Website: arturwvienna.com

Instagram: @arturvienna

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arturvienna

Image Credits
Adan Santos Iago Emed Sofia W. Vienna

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