Smashing acoustic guitars

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Too many projects to keep track of

Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?

A: Paya Lehane

Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?

A: Started studying guitar at 6yo (33 years ago), graduated from conservatoire and university at classical guitar performance, founded a band, moved to London, won some awards and started working with top artists from around the World.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Atmospheric finger style.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Guitar playing with attention to detail and atmosphere.

Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?

A: I’ll do my absolute best to make sure you are happy

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Diving into new songs and figuring how to make them better, playing amazing instruments, listening back to what I’ve done and hearing back that the client is happy

Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A: Look for someone whose music speaks to you, provide as much direction as you can come up with and don’t doubt your intuition

Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?

A: Four really good guitars and a knife

Q: What type of music do you usually work on?

A: Slow atmospheric instrumentals or fast upbeat songs.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: AKG C414 XLII microphone to Neve88rlb preamp to Apogee Ensemble converters.

Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?

A: CastleFest Collective: Hope is the Thing with Feathers. More than forty musicians (including some of my heroes) in seven different countries making an album remotely together to support financially our favourite Dutch festival during the pandemic break. On top of playing guitars and co-writing some of the songs I’ve actually initiated, organised, produced and mixed the whole album (and got an award for it).

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both!! Analog for great and full sound from the source, digital for precision and infinite options still wide open once seeing the big picture

Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A: Question: Can you do this? Answer: Yes.

Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?

A: Michael Jackson for his perfectionism

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Don’t hesitate to abandon a subpar idea, use the saved time to come up with a better one

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Atmosphere, energy, texture, beauty, new interesting ideas

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I gather as much info from the client as possible to make sure we understand each other about what the track needs, analyse the track for structure and chord progressions, form a general idea based on the song and directions from the client and start recording what I feel should enhance the song the best. Experimenting with different ideas and polishing the performance until I am happy with the result. If needed I then edit the guitar track, double for stereo if requested and send over for revisions.

Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?

A: Mike Dawes, Martin “Youth” Glover, Sona Jobarteh, Jim Morrison, Michael Jackson, Billie Joe Armstrong, Sting, Rodrigo y Gabriela, John Butler, Jeff Lang, Victor Wooten, Béla Fleck, Jaz Coleman, Tim Henson,

Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.

A: Adding atmosphere, energy and texture to existing tracks with the acoustic or classical guitar.