Producer/Recording Studio

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

A: I produced, arranged, and orchestrated an album for Julie Craig and got to fly out and conduct a symphonic orchestra Budapest for the project. I’m extremely proud of the orchestrations on that album, and it was a thrill to watch them come to life under my baton.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I’m currently composing two “chamber” projects of my own—one is a multi-movement piece for chamber choir, rhythm section, and soprano saxophone that equates my own emotional lows with those of my injured and currently crate-ridden dog…, the other is an album for jazz quintet, string quartet, and drum machine about the life cycle of a forest, inspired by the Creek Fire in California last year. I’m currently producing an EP for Sam Hirsh that celebrates and pays respects to both our lineages from Black American music, and superimposes Sam’s uniquely beautiful spirit on the piano. I always have new songs in the pipeline for singer/dancer Blake McGrath. I’m very excited to be releasing the soundtrack to my score for the upcoming film, “Sleepwalk.” I’m currently producing a series of EPs for my fiancée, Divya Maus, that explore a wide variety of genres and vocal stylings that is really expanding my musical universe.

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

A: I have personally spent time at Blue Dream Studios and worked with Sam Brawner and Raquel Rodriguez and highly recommend them both. Alex DeYoung is my go to mastering engineer in Los Angeles and I highly, highly recommend him. Brent Somermeyer of Catadawn Studios in Denver is also an amazing mastering engineer and I highly recommend him as well!

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both. Together. I love analog sounds and warmth and distortion and unpredictability. I love a real piano. Midi saxophone is the WOrST. But I also love the ability to edit digitally. I love the sound of digital synthesis. I love being able to program digital delays and then throw tape emulation on something and sum it back through an analog summing box. It’s the 21st century and we have 64 bit programs and cheap 192 conversion. Why do we have to choose?

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

A: We’re going to love what we create, both of us!

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: The people and the camaraderie. I make my best music in collaboration. I love helping people tell their stories and love making friends in the process. The quarantine was a wonderful reminder of how important this is to me.

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

A: I do a lot of different things musically, and for better and for worse get branded as a jack of all trades. I know this is common in the music community, but I think the great misconception is that immediately makes you a “master of none.” So many of the skills I have in any one role are transferable to the other roles, and ultimately end up informing and enriching those other skills. For example, my intimate understanding of the frequency spectrum as an engineer and how I utilize EQ directly informs the voicings I play on piano and how they’ll best fit into a mix. Similarly, my background as a jazz musician directly informs the choices I make as an engineer because I have an affinity toward warm, analog to tonalities.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: -What are your goals with this project? -What drew you to me as a potential contributor? -What references can you provide to music that makes you feel the way you want your music to feel? -Are you open to thoughts/suggestions/queries outside of the scope of what I’m being hired for?

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

A: There are so many good people doing good work in music these days. I know how overwhelming it can be to find the right fit. But take the time and ask as many questions as you need to find somebody you can trust, and someone you vibe with. No matter how talented the provider, the quality of the product is always going to be best when the human component clicks first.

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

A: Phew…this is a fun/tough one. It changes constantly. I would have to bring my saxophone because it’s the way I express myself most authentically. But now we’re down to four pieces for a signal chain… I think a 251 for the mic, a really nice clean pre (for a nice colored tube mic, I LOVE my Focusrite Red One 500 series preamps), an LA-2A (the no brainer desert island compressor), and my Big Sky reverb pedal (I use this constantly for verb sends, delays, and have even printed full mixes through it to create some live, gentle evolution to my mixes…check out Kenton Chen’s “Broken” and Ryan Amador’s “Lost Friends,” both of which were mixed down through the Big Sky (apologies to Alex, my dear mastering engineer! Haha).

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: BioSoul is a beautifully hybridized flow between analog and digital spaces. We have a large tracking room that houses our Yamaha C7 piano and has fit as many as 16 singers for studio sessions as well as a jazz sextet (piano, bass, drums, three horns), a large iso booth (with natural light!!), and a huge control room that is tuned for immaculate listening but also has side areas for additional tracking. The control room also houses many additional keyboards, a Hammond A101 organ with matching Leslie, a Rhodes Stage 73 MkII, a Wurlitzer 200A, and many synths. Everything is patchable into a variety of preamps and hardware EQs and compressors, with the centerpiece of the studio being an 8 channel Tree Audio Roots Sr. sidecar. Everything then passes through the incredible conversion of JCF audio A/D into a Pro Tools HDX system (there is also a UA x8p for use in Logic/Ableton/etc). In lieu of a console, the controls are centered around a Raven MTZ touch screen workstation, with hardware effects ready to patch in within an arm’s reach. While most of the mixing is done digitally in Pro Tools (again, with lots of analog hardware compression/EQ/effects options), there are 24 channels of D/A that get summed through a custom summing box made by Josh Florian (JCF Audio) that gives an analog, big console sound to everything that gets mixed down at BioSoul. The studio also has cameras/screens in every room for visual communication between rooms, and all of these can be patched in with low-latency into a zoom session for remote recording!!

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

A: As a musician and composer, the voices that stir my soul the most are Brad Mehldau, Donny McCaslin, James Blake, Bon Iver (amongst many others). What they all have in common is a sense of “chamber music” regardless of genre that is both heightened and immediate at the same time. David Bowie’s “Blackstar” (in which Donny McCaslin had an integral role) is a prime example of this aesthetic. My personal hero and biggest career inspiration has always been Quincy Jones. He came at producing/composing as an instrumentalist, first, and the way in which that informed his musical journey regardless of genre is everything that I have ever aspired to!

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

A: While I end up wearing a number of different hats in the music making process, my greatest joy (and, hopefully, greatest strength) is in developing a sound for artists or projects. I care deeply about bringing heart and authenticity to music in any context, whether that’s at the piano or in the mix. I often am involved in the process from start to finish—writing, producing, engineering, editing, and mixing. I also do mastering but prefer to have other engineers master a project that I’ve been involved in from the start so we can have some fresh ears on it. Throughout the quarantine I developed a really streamlined remote workflow that allows for production, zoom songwriting sessions, live remote vocal producing, and mix sessions thanks to our wonderful friends at AudioMovers! At the end of the day, I care deeply about tailoring the experience of creating a song or an album to your personal journey and don’t want to simply replicate a process that worked for a previous client.

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

A: I started playing piano at 5. I started playing saxophone at 9 and have a degree in jazz saxophone performance and composition from USC’s Thornton School of Music. Even before college I was already starting to hone my craft as a producer and engineer, and I opened my first (albeit modest and DIY) recording studio straight out of college. So you could say I’ve been doing this for 25 years maybe…and professionally for 12+.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: The term “BioSoul” originated in me trying to describe my sound and my style. I am humbled to be a biproduct, student, and beneficiary of Black American music from jazz to Neo Soul to R&B, and the inclusion of “soul” is both a nod to this lineage, as well as a recognition of the vital role that human plays in music. The soul is what transcends through the speakers and connects me most to music. The “bio” part is a nod to my affinity toward organic, live, acoustic, analog sounds. Even in electronic music and pop music, I love to interlace these bio moments and feelings :)

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

A: I would so dearly love to work with Kimbra. I love her aesthetic, I LOVE her voice, and I love her passion. The way in which she hybridizes genres and makes them her own is so inspiring, and I love the raw passion that comes through in every corner of her music. I got the rare treat of seeing her acoustic trio a couple years ago, and all of those things came through just as clearly in the stripped intimacy of that show, and it blew me away that she matched the intensity that comes with her electronic, larger band performances.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Close your eyes and use your ears. There are so many incredible visual tools in the mixing/producing toolbox now, but I think we’re all too quick to lean on them. At the end of the day, it’s about LISTENING. This is a reminder for myself too. I constantly have to recommit to taking my hands off the controls and closing my eyes and letting my ears guide the process.

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

A: I typically work with music that has an acoustic component, even if it’s in the modern pop/r&b landscape. My background is in jazz and classical music and I love to bring elements of both into whatever I do. A lot of the work I do involves acoustic pianos, and also a lot of horn work (I’m trained primarily as a saxophonist).