Greg Veryard spent ten years in telecoms management. He worked his way up, managed teams across multiple locations, and by his own admission felt dead inside for most of it. The money was okay. The job was not.
Then in 2019, in the same week, he was made redundant and had his shoulder broken. He called it the best week of his life.
That combination of events gave Greg something he hadn’t had in a decade. Time. And the push he needed to finally make the career change into audio engineering he’d always wanted but never quite found a way to reach.
I knew it was the only opportunity I was ever going to get to do something different with my life.
He didn’t waste it. He stopped going out. Stopped drinking. Started exercising. Downloaded a free version of Pro Tools and started learning from scratch. He had a year’s worth of bills covered and nowhere to be, and he used every bit of that time to prepare.
Then everything changed.
He’d already approached George, the owner of 80Hz Studios at The Sharp Project in Manchester, and been told honestly there wasn’t much he could offer without studio experience.
Now, with this change in circumstances, Greg rang George and made him an offer. Six months of his time, for free, every day, to learn. George said yes.
He turned up to his first session with his arm in a sling.
What Greg does now
Six years later, Greg is a full-time audio engineer and sound designer at 80Hz Studios. He also runs his own freelance operation, Good Vibration Sound Design, alongside it.
He records bands, podcasts, voiceovers, ADR, and audiobooks. And when he talks about his work, he uses a phrase that doesn’t come up much in conversations about jobs: it doesn’t feel like work.
He’s doing work he genuinely loves.
He’s thoughtful about who he works with. Not every project is the right fit, and he’s honest about that. When he talks about the bands he chooses to work with, the word he uses is invested. He wants to care about what he’s recording, not just deliver a file.
That instinct, to do the work properly, with the right people, for the right reasons, is probably what makes the work feel the way it does.
The conversation
In this episode of Media Music Now Conversations, Greg talks about all of this and more: the career change, the six months for free, the psychology of working with artists in a studio, AI in music and what it’s actually good for, the EU AI Act and compulsory content labelling coming in August 2026, why the description of a music track matters more than the track itself, and the honest reality of freelance life.
No scripts, no agenda. Just a real conversation about what working in this industry actually looks and feels like right now.
Watch or listen to all episodes via the Media Music Now Conversations page.
Greg can be contacted via his website: gvsounddesign.com
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