Welcome to Bay Eight.
I built this studio without knowing what the hell I was doing. I started as a young, scrappy wannabe producer and aspiring audio engineer eager to be seen and heard. I realized quickly that I needed to be around professional musicians if I wanted to grow. So, I got my first internship at a recording studio.
I had zero training. I had no idea how to record, mix, or use ProTools. But I showed up every day. To be honest, I wasn’t any good and I knew it. I felt scared and incompetent. But I believed that maybe one day, someone might notice me for something, and my life would change. The studio owners only knew me as the kid who cleaned the bottom of the toilet well (you know, the dusty part that no one ever cleans). I had no real plan. Back then, I didn’t know what I was good at. I loved what music did to me, and I needed to be close to it. That feeling—and a little hope—was all I had. But it was enough to keep me going.
“…eventually, things started to click. It was like compound interest; those daily failures became my guardrails, and the more I learned what not to do, the better I got at knowing exactly what to do.”
Over time, I got good simply because I refused to quit. I showed up every day. I made mistake after mistake. But eventually, things started to click. It was like compound interest; those daily failures became my guardrails, and the more I learned what not to do, the better I got at knowing exactly what to do. My skills grew. My confidence grew with it. And slowly, so did the opportunities. I outworked everyone and found myself in the chair behind the famed SSL board. I didn’t know how to engineer quite yet.
To this day, I’m still not sure why the studio owners took a chance on me. They assigned me sessions with real clients, gave me deadlines, and began trusting me with the same work they’d usually hand off to more experienced engineers. I didn’t feel ready. I didn’t feel qualified, and definitely not deserving. Honestly, I even tried to turn down some of the opportunities they offered me, but they wouldn’t let me. Maybe it was guilt; I had been working there unpaid for four years. Or maybe it was because, by then, I had learned how to do just about everything in that studio: booking sessions, cleaning, fixing things when they broke. I had become the Swiss Army knife of the studio.
There were more qualified engineers around, Berklee grads with stacked resumes, technical skills, and way more confidence than I had. But still, they kept pushing me into rooms I didn’t feel ready for. Looking back, I think they saw something in me I hadn’t yet seen in myself. But more than that, I started to see a pattern: when I was in the studio, good things happened to me.
Me and Dizzee Rascal in Studio
Since then, I have developed into a highly skilled, respected, and in-demand engineer. I had a major, successful freelance business with a loyal group of clients. I went Gold, Platinum, and then Double Platinum for my work on records. Even then, I lived with the fear of going back to being a struggling nobody. That fear pushed me.
I was relentless in ensuring that I didn’t lose the opportunities and privileges I had obtained. I picked up every call, took every session regardless of the time, the client, or the pay. I would sleep at the studios some nights. The days I didn’t, I was up, dressed, and ready early in the morning, just waiting for the phone to ring. Some days, no calls came. Sometimes I would go to the studio and just sit there. I knew more opportunities would come if I was prepared. If I wasn’t in the studio, those opportunities might go to someone else. My success was directly related to my proximity to the studio and my fear of losing it all.
“It wasn’t talent that moved me forward. It was discipline. It was obsession. It was fear of losing the progress I’d made.”
Me with Music Producer Tainy (left) and recording artist Xantos (right)
I tell this story as proof—from a kid who knew nothing about building a career in the music business, but who outworked and outlasted everyone around him. It wasn’t talent that moved me forward. It was discipline. It was obsession. It was fear of losing the progress I’d made. Because of this fear, I refused to give up when no one cared I was even trying. To be honest, even now, as the owner of one of Miami’s best recording studios, I carry this fear of losing it all. While I’m still dealing with how unhealthy this source of drive can be, it also got me to where I am now. I didn’t level up because I was the best—I leveled up because I was the last one left in the room when everyone else tapped out.
That’s the spirit of Bay Eight Studios.
This place was built for the ones who don’t wait around to get picked. For the ones who show up on the slow days. Who keep going when the inbox is empty, the phone is silent, and the doubt gets loud.
Because success doesn’t come to the most talented.
It comes to the ones who refuse to leave.
That’s the blueprint:
Show up. Stay sharp. Stay hungry.
— Matthew “Formatt” DeFreitas
Founder, Bay Eight Recording Studios
