Producer | Mixer | Guitarist

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Making music sound better! I love working with great artists and having the "OOOOH" moments when recording music. Those little pockets of good vibes do a lot for a project.

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

A: Catch the Maniac's first album was a feat. It was my first time working with live drums and I wanted to see how good I could make things sound without using samples and a lot of parts on that album make me feel great about my drum tracking.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I'm almost done tracking a hip hop group I'm a part of before moving onto the mixing and promo phases.

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

A: Not yet, but I'm psyched to meet more people on here!

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: While both are good, I prefer analog. Digital is getting incredibly close to producing the nuances of analog gear but it isn't there yet. As much as I'd like to ignore the slightly better sound of a tube amp over a line 6 helix, i can't help but recognize it sounds a bit better and feed into my own gear addiction haha.

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

A: I will do whatever it takes for you to be satisfied with your project!

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

A: It's mostly about if my schedule lines up with theirs so they can come record haha.

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

A: That it's just a hobby, probably. But I'm here to make a living!

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What do you want this project do for you as an artist? How many instruments are present in your group? Do you need live drums? What's your budget? What's your timeline?

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

A: Be serious about your craft. The more seriously you take music as a profession and your band as a business, the more effort you can put into the actual moneymaking aspects of your career. Music is definitely supposed to be fun and about good times, but they don't call it music /business/ for nothing, ya know?

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

A: 1. My PC 2. My AKG 240 headphones 3. A Universal audio Duo interface 4. My Michael Kelly Element 5 bass 5. One single sand-colored guitar pick

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

A: I've been recording and mixing for over five years, but have mostly worked on my own music up until now. My studio opened in November 2019 so I want to hit the new decade hard and get some music out there!

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: If it makes you cry or makes you wanna punch someone, I can probably getcha there haha.

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

A: Definitely Gojira. They inspire a lot of what I like about music with massive breakdowns and nontraditional song structure.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Adding synth lines underneath your bass tracks can really help beef them up!

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

A: Mostly metal and lo-fi hip hop stuff! I worked with a few rock bands and acoustic singer/songwriters and I love it all the same! I don't really have a ton of experience with electronic music production so that would be cool to try out sometime.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Guitar recording is my bread and butter. I've been playing guitar for over 10 years so I am really fast and really good at getting great guitar tones.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I have a pretty weird perspective given that my two favorite genres are lo-fi hip hop and metal. I like to experiment with nontraditional songwriting structures in metal because more standard riff salad kind of songs don't connect with me. I like music to take me on an emotional journey and I encourage artists I work with to pursue that.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I start by sitting down with a band and learning more about their project. I wanna know their why. Is it their first song? Is this gonna help with tour promotion? Knowing the ins and outs of why a band does what it does is incredibly crucial to giving them what they need. After everything is signed, I would record the instruments (usually drums first if there are any) and simultaneously be producing. I wanna work /with/ bands and give feedback on what I think can make their songs succeed. Then I into the mixing and mastering phase, working on one instrument at a time and leveling them all out and tweaking later.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I have a pretty simple set up right now. I'm working out of my spare bedroom, but have all the tools necessary to make a great record. I have loads of guitars because that's my main thing, but I'm slowly amassing a fleet of studio gear.

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

A: Joey Sturgis for sure, like he's an absolute legend and produced a ton of my favorite records. Tyler Larson is another big one from his extensive djent discography. Andrew Wade also gets right where I wanna be, doing pop punk and metal bands.

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

A: I mostly do rock, metal, and hip hop recording, mixing, and mastering. I don't get very much in the middle haha. I do soft chill music and then banging rock songs.