Certified Gold Pop Producer

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

A: I did a series of commissions as an Artist in Residence for Brooklyn-based Spark & Echo Arts from 2016-2019 - one of the songs that came out of this, Lightness of the Pines, is probably my favorite solo work. This is partly for personal reasons - I made it (secretly) for my mom in 2018, as she underwent cancer treatment. I also wrote, performed, arranged, produced, mixed, and mastered it in its entirety, with the exception of two hired virtuoso string buddies I recorded, so it feels like "me" more than anything else I've worked on (nearly all of which has been collaborative, my preferred creative mode).

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I'm producing albums for three independent artists, and writing / producing with three ongoing partners for a variety of artists and for licensing. I'm in pre production for a feature film score, and continuing to produce / mix all the Gregory Brothers / Schmoyoho songs and collabs. Lastly, I'm working on a new solo artist project featuring a heap of unrecorded songs I've written over the past decade.

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

A: I've gotten to know Travis Ference via Damian Taylor's Complete Producer Network - Travis is not only exceptionally skilled but also generous with his expertise, laid back, and incredibly sharp.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Digital! (this sounds crazy, coming from a throwback pop obsessive) The upside (usability, flexibility, functionality, precision) has come to outweigh the downside (sonic character) - the sonic differences are almost imperceptible thanks to advances in digital, and many of the best producers and engineers are fully in the box now. With the right personnel at the wheel, I'd take a skilled all-digital record over a less skilled all-analog record any day.

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

A: My promise to my clients is to bring my best work every day, follow through to completion, and never "mail it in" on a project. We have a finite number of creative opportunities in life - I believe in making the most of each one of them.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: As an endlessly curious creator, I love the variety in my workday - I might be mixing a trap record in the morning, orchestrating a string arrangement in the afternoon, revising a lyric in the evening, and tracking a full band the next day. There's never a dull moment - my goal is to get better every day at whatever I'm doing, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to wear so many musical hats during my career!

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

A: This varies widely, but one big one is: what's the process and how long does it take?! My answer is: it's different every time, there's only so much we can control, and the most important thing we can commit to is being honest and open to trying ideas. Some songs take an hour, some take a year (don't worry, that's a figure of speech - it won't take a year!). I like to keep our focus narrow, because music making is really just a series of a million tiny questions and solutions. To finish an album, you have to finish a song, to finish a song, you have to finish a chorus, and so on. As we move through this process, it's important to know that we're never truly "stuck" with that decision we made two days ago - paradoxically keeping this in mind allows us to move more freely and be less "precious" with every step. Creativity is fluid, and we're chasing a feeling together. Often that takes us outside our comfort zone, and sometimes we'll move toward things that seem scary... but that's where magic happens!

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: So many questions! I want the most complete picture of who they are, as artists and people. I love hearing what they're listening to and what they love about it. I love hearing their favorite shows, museums, cities, foods. I love hearing what they've made in the past, and what they like or don't like about it now. I love hearing what their sense of purpose is, and what they value most in life. Much of this informs our creative process, but also, I simply love hearing how differently different creators see the world.

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

A: I would say that the clearer they are about their own vision and goals for a project, the more seamlessly we'll be able to move forward together. Creativity is always exploration, and collaboration is always a conversation, so you never really see the end from the beginning. Having said that, thinking through your intentions at the outset goes a long way toward easing creative decisions and providing an anchor or beacon to guide a project to outcomes that can be as surprising as they are satisfying.

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

A: As a total gearhead, this is an impossible question - lol! If I must, I'll say: a Fender Tele, a Neumann U-67 mic, an Apollo Twin, a fully-loaded laptop, and a midi controller. I could make pretty much anything with those.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: I love big, kitchen-sink pop bangers. I love groove and feel. I love harmonic richness and inventiveness a la Beatles, Beach Boys, BeeGees. I love contrast and juxtaposition - shimmering / warm, organic / electronic, digital / orchestral, pristine / heavily distorted.

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

A: That simplicity is easy. A lot of hard work goes into making something sound simple.

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

A: I started off signing to a label in LA in 2008 as an artist, after touring the world in a pop rock band during college - signing a record deal kept me out of grad school for Economics. From there I was approached to start a retro pop/soul band, write a barrelhouse blues musical, score various short films / theatre productions. I won a few awards as a composer / lyricist and landed in NYC to produce a musical I wrote, collaborated on a few other musicals and an experimental opera, then veered back toward my first love: pop. I've worked as the Gregory Brothers / Schmoyoho's in-house composer / producer / mix engineer since 2016, and continue with freelance production, songwriting, and film composition. I'm also resuming a solo artist project in 2021, after a decade working exclusively on collaborations.

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

A: YOU! Because everyone has a unique voice and story, and together we'll make something we couldn't make with anyone else.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Feel is everything! Whether it's your vocals, hats, or kick, pocketing everything rhythmically is the key to a pop hit. And don't confuse "pocketing" with "quantizing" - pinning things 100% to the grid is the best way to take the life out of a production. Like everything else in music, your ears are required!

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

A: Top-40 type pop, hiphop, R&B, and soul

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Homing in on vocal and instrumental hooks - everything's a hook, whether it's your bassline, topline, or synth counter parts.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: A keen sense for drama or story, whether that's lyrical or instrumental. I'm always thinking, "what's the story we're telling, what's the journey of this song" and how can we best express and support that via every single part. All art is storytelling, and through it, humans discover something that can't be expressed any other way.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: It's new every time, BUT recently, I've enjoyed working out a killer melody and lyric over a sparse but vibey keys / bass track, BEFORE drums are added. If it stands alone in the sketch, it'll hit next level when the production is fully formed. If I'm just mixing, I start with drums and bass, then vocals, then everything else. If your low end and your vocals sit right, the rest is easy.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I have access to a fully-loaded project studio in Williamsburg, but more often than not (esp during pandemic) I revert to my lean-and-mean, one-stop-shop home studio in Bushwick, featuring a Moog Matriarch, Nord Electro, Arturia Keystep Pro 88, Fender American Pro P-bass V, Fender J Strat, 40s era Gibson Black acoustic special, Martin Mandolin, Roli Seaboard, Slate VMS, AKG C414, SSL 2+ interface, Apogee Duet 2, Focal Solo 6Be Monitors, Slate VSX headphones, 2 Audio Technica ATH M50x headphones, Beyer DT 770 Pro headphones, 700+ VST FX plugins and 2TB of instrument libraries, plus a few useful sonic oddities (e.g. Moog Theramini, Behringer Model D, Moroccan Qraqeb)

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

A: I'm most inspired by a mix of Top 40 (Murda, 40, Boi1da, Louis Bell, Benny Blanco, Mike Dean, Jack Antonoff, Tay Keith, Finneas, Illangelo, Ricky Reed, Ryan Tedder, Mark Ronson) Classic HipHop (Preemo, Timbaland, Pharrell, The Rza, El P, Alchemist), Electronic / Dance (Flying Lotus, Kaytranada, Bonobo, Hudson Mohawke, Clams Casino, Flume, Arca), and classic good feelin' pop (Beatles, Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Bowie, James Brown, Blondie, Bee Gees, ABBA, ELO, Nilsson, Sly, Smokey, Stax, Motown, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, the Meters). Also a light sprinkling of the sonically strange e.g. Scott Walker, Tom Waits, Jon Brion, Bon Iver, David Axlerod, Bjork.Mdou Moctar, Bill Evans, Scriabin, Coltrane, Ravel)

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

A: My work falls into two "types": 1) I receive a session with a bare-bones song idea, that I then flesh out into a fully realized production in collaboration with an artist (arranging, performing, recording, nailing a "sound" or vibe, tracking vocals, and generally mixing and/or mastering) 2) An artist and I start a song from scratch, maybe using one of my instrumentals as a song starter, and from there go through the same path listed above.