Produce/Arrange/Instrumentate

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

A: I promise to give you the best production I humanly can, at the fairest price.

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

A: I just recently finished a project on here for an artist who provided me with a demo and basically wanted the entire song reworked. She gave me plenty of freedom and communicated with me very closely. It came together very quickly, and I think it sounds pretty great. She was happy with it as well.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I'm working on a project of my own, a little bit at a time, combining Trip Hop, Soul, and 70s Progressive Rock.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both. Both have their strengths and weaknesses. I like to utilize them for their respective strengths.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: The music obviously.

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

A: Not sure. I've never paid much attention to what people's conceptions are when it comes to what I do. I just do it to the best of my ability.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: I usually ask questions as they come up because a sincere, unique, one on one work dynamic is the only way to really get the best results when working with someone, especially when it comes to creative projects.

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

A: Communication is key to getting the best product I can provide for you.

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

A: I don't have much more than that now.

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

A: I've been doing it for about 20 years I think. It's hard to remember. I don't know that I've had any discernible career path.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Classic

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

A: Doesn't really matter to me as long as they're sincere and talented.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Authenticity should take priority over trends. Trends change. Authenticity is timeless. Play instruments yourself. When everything is quantized it takes away the feel of the groove.

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

A: I usually work on Trip Hop, Neo Soul, and Indie Electronic type stuff. But I also have experience producing folk and rock music as well.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Arrangement/instrumentation

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I bring a certain warmth and realness, and a certain depth that's both soulful and cerebral. I can help bring a certain timelessness to your sound while remaining true to your vision as an artist.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: I generally start with a drum groove and keyboards just to get a foundation. If the piece I'm working with already demo vocals I'll build the dynamic of the instrumental around that. If the artist doesn't have a fixed chord progression for the song, I start building harmonies (often subtly layering sampled analogue synth or mellotron) to accentuate the vocals and the dynamic of the song. Next usually comes bass, then guitar, again focusing on elevating the role of the artist I'm working with in the song. If requested, I then start building string arrangements. I can do sampled orchestra, or very intimate violin arrangements of as little as 1 violin, and various stages in between. I work with the artist at all of these stages to make sure we're on the same page every step of the way. If I click with an artist, the process goes pretty quickly.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: It's pretty simple really. I've got a Fender Deluxe Hot Rod amp, a guitar, a bass, a partial drum kit, a midi keyboard hooked to a laptop with loads of VSTs and sampled instruments, and a tape machine. It's not the most high tech state of the art facility. But It's all I need to make high quality, warm, real, and soulful sounding music.