Recording, Mixing & Mastering

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

A: Give as much information you can about your song / project. If your looking for a recording engineer make sure to let them know what type of sound you are looking for and do your best to get your recordings onto a medium at the best quality possible. If you're looking for a mixing engineer get your rough mix to where you like it and also submit some similar sounding reference songs that can be used to compare against your song.

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

A: Recording, Editing & Mixing. Only recently have I been doing small mastering projects.

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

A: As of right now (6/26/18) I'm inspired by music from Janelle Monáe, Esperaza Spalding, Seinabo Sey & Anderson .Paak. I'm also a big hip hop fan and producers in that genre that inspire me are Focus..., DJ Premier, Rockwilder & Mike Dean. As for audio engineers that inspire me, I would say Tom Dowd, Rudy Van Gelder, and my mentor Dave Darlington.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: If working at home I work "in the box" using UA apollo interfaces with Protools as my DAW. For monitoring I have a Dangerous 2bus+ and Dangerous Monitor ST with Equator Q8 speakers.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: I'm old school and tend to lean towards analog but within the last few years these plugins have been sonically getting so good that I'm now doing more work "in the box" which is great when it comes to recalls.

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

A: I was born and raised in Flushing, New York. When I was about 10 years old, a cousin gave me a Yamaha PSS-470 digital keyboard and I taught myself how to play. By age 11, my parents saw I had a love and talent for music and began paying for music lessons to supplement the music classes I took throughout elementary and high school. After high school, I studied at The Institute of Audio Research (IAR) in NYC where I learned the fundamentals of recording and mixing. Soon after graduating from IAR in 1995, I started my career at Bass Hit Studios on 23rd Street & 6th Avenue in Manhattan, which was later bought out by world renowned producers Kenny Dope & Little Louie Vega and became known as Masters At Work Studios (MAW). I worked my way up from intern to engineer, learning alongside some great engineers like Dave Darlington, Steven Barkan, Dexter Simmons, and Philip Pagano. During my time at MAW, I was honored to work on sessions with some of the best Jazz, Soul and Gospel artists such as George Benson, Tito Puente, Roy Ayers, Joe Sample, BeBe Winans, Eddie Palmieri, Luther Vandross, and Stefanie Mills, to name a few. Working on sessions with all these A-class artist gave me the experience and confidence to get great sounds while being calm, focused & professional in some high pressure situations. After 5 years at MAW, I felt I needed a change of pace and scenery so I decided to move to Los Angeles where I began to work as a freelance engineer at places like Enterprise Studios, Encore Studios, The Record Plant, Stagg Street Studios, and Sol7. Since moving to LA in 2000, I have had great pleasure working with major recording label artists and producers in the Hip-Hop, Pop, and R&B world such as Focus…, DJ Premier, Dr. Dre, Scott Storch, Rockwilder, Christina Aguilera, Mary J Blige, Marsha Ambrosius, Toni Braxton, Redman, Kanye West, Diddy, The Game, and Bishop Lamont. I truly enjoy working on music no matter what the genre; good music is good music and I always strive to get the best sound possible whether it be in a professional studio or home-studio environment.

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

A: My main client is Christina Aguilera and I have been her recording engineer for the last 17 years. I would say that's an accomplishment to be proud of.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I just finished recording Liberation with Christina Aguilera and currently looking for some other outlets for work.

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

A: I promise I will do my best.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: I love meeting new and talented musicians, singers, songwriters & producers. Another aspect I like is that you just never know what's gonna happen in a recording session, it's always something different and it keeps me on my toes.

Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?

A: Biggest misconception is that anything can be fixed. I can't stand the "we'll fix it in the mix" way of thinking. Get it right in the recording process and you wont have to "fix" it later. If your song & production is not complete the mix will sound incomplete.

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

A: None, what good would they be on a desert island? ;)

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: New York

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

A: Honestly, I would like to work with any artist that is at the top of their game and super talented.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Keep it simple, don't over produce it. If it sounds good, go with it.

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

A: I usually work on Hip Hop, R&B, EDM and Pop music but have worked on several Rock & Jazz projects.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Patience

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I bring a fresh critical ear with 20+ years of listening experience.