By: Andres F Pacheco 

Learn how 27-year-old sound designer and music engineer Felipe Collazos navigates the ever-changing music industry without giving up his creative spirit.

Defining sound art and what defines a sound artist is very challenging. However, my experience as an arts and culture reporter has shown me that the best artists share one thing: a creative spirit to find and print art in whatever they do. 

But following and cultivating that spirit is a challenging task. Creativity sparks the most with freedom, and it’s challenging for creatives to work jobs that make them feel that limit their creativity. 

And things get more complicated when the music and audio industry struggles. In recent years, America has witnessed massive layoffs in big players such as Sirius XM, Universal Music, and NPR. So, navigating the crisis while still thriving as a musician is a goal worth crediting. That is precisely what musician and sound engineer Felipe Collazos is doing, and his story sheds light on how other artists can do so, too.

From Bogota to New York

Felipe Collazos is a 27-year-old musician based in New York City. However, his immigration experience, like his journey in the music industry, has been characterized by transitions. He was born in Bogota, where he trained to become a musician. But after realizing that the training he could get in his home country was incipient then, he felt frustrated.

“I felt lost. I wanted to pursue music but didn’t know where or how to achieve what I wanted. One day, my father told me to talk to someone he knew about his career. I doubted how that conversation could change how I felt, but I hopped in the car and drove through Bogota to a stranger’s house,” says Felipe.

He met Javier Martínez, a Colombian music production industry pioneer, that day. As he walked into his house, Felipe saw a living room filled with instruments and records. “I saw a huge piano next to the window and a battery beside it. But a nine-foot analog recording console caught my attention the most,” he remembers. 

Seeing that console was so surprising that Felipe struggled to be part of his conversation with Martínez. One of the reasons might have been the historical nostalgia that the machine evoked. “It was one of the first analog consoles imported to Colombia in the 20th century, and the same reference music legends like the Eagles used to record,” Felipe says.

Admiring the console’s complexity sparked Felipe’s interest in learning how to use it. That day, he understood that his passion for music and sound went beyond music composition. Inspired by that, after achieving prominence in the Colombian market, he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, to earn his Bachelor’s at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, where he continued to master the craft of sound engineering and design.

However, like most artists, his path wasn’t clear, and joining the workforce posed a new challenge. Felipe moved to New York to work at a hip-hop production house. “I didn’t know a thing about hip-hop, and my expectations of the music industry were very different. I was trained to record music bands but found that most people nowadays don’t go to recording studios that often. I realized the scenarios that were embedded in my head were different in reality, and that kind of bummed me,” he says.

Refinding the Magic of Music

After realizing that hip-hop production wasn’t for him, Felipe started working for the audio post-production studio Yessian Music. There, he encountered a different style of sound engineering while working on films, shorts, and documentaries. High noon at the waterfront, or the 360 dining experience with Brooke Shields  VO for princess cruises, Tony Awards nominated Broadway shows, ads and docu-series like Hell’s Kitchen, and many more jobs for TV ads with highly recognized brands.

Felipe says that after the first project he finished, he realized “the immense amount of work behind the movies that I love. Experimenting with Foley and scoring was exciting. I was mind blown by the fact that every film and show I watched as a kid has an amazing sound design that compliments and balances the story.”

“We all remember the silly sound that the Flintstones made whenever they drove their car. Well, every single detail like that has to make sense and that is what people like me do: we play with sound. I learned that great sound design has the power to highlight stories without distracting the audience from the main plot. It’s a different type of magic that happens behind the scenes, and so being part of that felt incredible,” he explains.

As a trained sound engineer, Felipe has brought to the table the knowledge of a seasoned professional in Audio Workstations. And as a musician, he contributes with his creative ear to every project he is part of. As he says, “There are sound engineers and designers who are not musicians and musicians who don’t know enough to be sound engineers. And I believe the fact that I am both is what sets me apart in the sound industry.”

Felipe has since earned credits on countless award-winning and acclaimed productions, including films such as “Slide,” which was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Slamdance Film Festival, the Best Feature Film award at the Los Angeles Animation Festival, and the Best Animated Film award at the Big Apple Film Festival and Screenplay Competition. 

Recently, Felipe started working for Plush NYC, the studio in charge of the post-production of films like Terrifier and the publicity of Broadway shows like Back to The Future. We’re excited to see how his work influences Plush NYC.

Published by: Holy Minoza