He’ll lend you an ear: Local sound engineer turns ideas into music

If you want to make music in Iowa, Jon Limmer is someone you want to know. For nearly a decade, he has been working as a sound engineer for The Sound Box, 1044 Mt. Vernon Road SE, Cedar Rapids. The Sound Box records any genre of music and sound for film, TV and radio.

The 35-year-old from Fremont, Nebraska says his work at The Sound Box goes beyond the technical side of recording and mixing.

“Being an audio engineer, you have to be a counselor in a way, or like a psychiatrist, because people are showing their vulnerable side and that they are used to, more often than not, only doing this by themselves or with their close friends,” Limmer said. “So all of a sudden, they’ve got some guy that they’ve never met before that’s recording them and preserving it for the rest of their lives.”

Limmer is an expert in breaking down walls and making people feel comfortable. He’s personable and easygoing, but meticulous, even obsessive, in his craft. For example, he mixed and mastered over 300 songs in 2024.

He said his drive comes from wanting to prove the child version of himself right — that he can be a great sound engineer and producer.

“My favorite part of what I do is that feeling that you get when somebody is getting ready to leave their session and they say, ‘Oh my God, this sounded better than it did in my head,’” he said.

The road to music production

Limmer produces music under the name The LayZ Otter. The road to becoming The LayZ Otter started in high school when he met a friend who became like a brother to him.

“He would just start rapping, and I don’t know why but there was just this spark that hit me that I wanted to be the guy that made the music that he rapped to,” Limmer said. “I don’t think there was any other time before that that I felt like I wanted to make music, but like, instantly fell in love with it.”

The friend struggled with substance use issues and left town to rehabilitate.

“I just had this feeling and I told him, I said when you get back home, I’ll be on your front porch with a CD full of beats,” he said.

Limmer kept his promise.

“And we started rocking from there and learned how to record, started mixing songs and then I realized that I loved it and and I wanted to do this the rest of my life,” he said.

Three years later, Limmer studied audio engineering and production in Minneapolis at the since-shuttered Institute of Production and Recording.

“It’s like the School of Rock, like you’d walk down the halls and you’d see kids leaning up against the wall playing guitar or with headphones on writing down lyrics or people in computer labs that were just banging on keyboards or in the performance room banging on drums,” Limmer remembered. “It was pretty cool.”

He met his business partner Richard Schultz in his first few days of classes. After college, Limmer moved home to Nebraska. In 2015, he got a phone call from Schultz that changed his life.

“Richard calls me and says, hey, the studio is ready. I need you here. You’re the only ear I trust,” Limmer said. “I said okay, I packed up my life and quit my job and moved here, and the rest is history.”

Now, Limmer sees between eight and 12 clients a week. He spends most of his time at the studio, leaving to sleep and shower.

“I didn’t ever think that becoming a business owner was going to be a part of it. It just kind of fell into place,” he said.

When you hear a LayZ Otter track, you’ll hear Limmer’s producer tag, a child voice actor from the UK asking, “Is he a LayZ Otter?” Producer tags are a calling card so that listeners know who created a beat.

The LayZ Otter name has its roots in Limmer’s college experience. At the time, Schultz had a record label called Out The Trunk Records, or OTTR. Limmer had joked that they needed a mascot. So, Limmer’s brothers created a cartoon otter that they used on promotional materials for concerts that Limmer and Schultz put on in Nebraska. The otter disappeared until last year.

“I’d really just been focusing on engineering, mixing, mastering... I fell in love with production again and it’s like, I gotta start a company and do this the right way,” Limmer said.

Finding a name was the hard part. On his birthday last year, Limmer pondered what to call his company.

“And I stayed up until like six in the morning, and the last thing that I thought of was, oh at least I’m not lazy, I’m doing some work.” Limmer said.

The word lazy sparked an idea that stuck: The LayZ Otter Productions.

Limmer has expanded LayZ Otter Productions to include artist management. Currently, he manages seven artists: Buukilo, Dstreetmc, Ncee Wav, Druss2x, Nickwit2ks, ahnd the duo Trap Garage Mafia.

As a manager, Limmer starts by making sure artists’ paperwork is filed correctly so they get paid from every possible revenue stream. He also works with artists to set goals and create release and marketing strategies.

“And then the ultimate goal is to get them booked consistently for shows on a regular basis and then start a tour,” Limmer said.

In between his work at The Sound Box and managing artists, he’s putting together his own album.

When Limmer started to make music, he emulated Dr. Dre. Today, his music is a melting pot of hip hop, pop, R&B and funk.

“I’d say that now the LayZ Otter emulates everything that I’ve come across musically in my life,” Limmer said.

His take on the Iowa Music Industry

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Iowa’s music scene has become more interconnected in recent years, and Limmer has been witness to that.

“Now there’s people from different genres and different areas of the entire state that have become friends, that are talking about working with each other, and myself included,” Limmer said.

A significant catalyst for networking among Iowa musicians was the creation of the Iowa Music Awards in 2022.

That year, Limmer won Engineer of the Year at the Iowa Music Awards. Additionally, The Sound Box took home Studio of the Year. Since then, Limmer’s been recognized by the IMAs for his work as a producer and served as a member of the academy.

Limmer said he would like to see more local support for the Iowa music scene. This can be streaming and sharing music, attending shows, buying merch and supporting venues.

Showing up for the shows you want to see is critical. In his experience, Limmer said that some venues make it difficult for hip hop artists to book shows because the genre has a bad reputation.

“There’s so many talented hip hop artists that belong on a stage, and some of the places, they’re kind of gatekeeping, and they’ll pay a band to perform. They’ll charge a hip hop artist to perform,” he said.

This isn’t just happening locally; Limmer said he experienced this in Nebraska as well.

“That’s the other thing, education has to be there for the artists to speak up and ask for the money and tell them what you’re worth... and if you can show them proof that you’re going to bring in 100, 200, 300 people, then they’re going to be more willing to pay,” Limmer said.

He wishes people outside of the music industry understood how much money and time goes into being a musician.

“Everything costs money and like studio time, buying the beats or hiring a videographer... people that are making this music are not only putting their heart and souls into it, they’re putting their whole entire wallet into it.”

Comments: bailey.cichon@thegazette.com