Session Guitar, Bass, Studio

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: a 6-songed album titled A Sorry Sort o' Motley slated for release on June 1st, 2021. This time around I might require contracting services for more acoustic drums. So I think I'll get a proposal ready yesterday!

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Digital cause it l, uh, sounds better!

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

A: That its value really can't be measured by other things beyond money itself, and ahead of time! Depends on if you're asking friends from within the creative bird-of-a-feather circle or people looking for an alteration in flight trajectory, I think.

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

A: Older school Rock-n-Roll, mainly, with a more modern Blues sound strewn into the mix. A funk feel groove from years of playing bass finds its way into my compositions that really don't start out as principle in such. Where it's conducive to and doesn't alter or disrupt the song these elements I'll set as expressions of the whole.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: Today it's a modest one. All of my recordings with 3 singles and 5 albums released into the public as of this date comprising Discography have all been recorded on a Zoom 16-channel recorder. The difference b/w this unit and more expensive ones indiscernible as it's really about how you use your assets over amassing all kinds of equipment for the sake of spending or acquiring more. I'm running everything through my reliable Fender amp setup consisting of a 100-Watt Bass Rumbler and a more recently required 100-watt Mustang Rig. I'll utilize my JBL monitors when required but am running computers through them today. As sole artist for my band/brand, with the exception of renowned drummers contributing for me through e-remote studio and file-transfer sessioning, everything you hear, from bass to guitar, rhythm programmer to vocal and other percussive sounds, is the result of my own arranging and recording. The premium then is on keeping these up. Regarding DAW and Post/Creation Recording/Arranging I do some stitching from the Cubase platform through Steinberg. I haven't used this remotely close to beginning to learn what its limitations could be though, suffice to say. The bulk of my load spent right there at the recorder where instruments are worn as extensions to my board.

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

A: I've yet to build up a list of clientele as I'm only beginning to offer my services for contracting now. However in line with what I've done for fellow musicians in the past, informally or for arranged compositions, and in consideration of what my list of services today consists of, I'd say my most common work will comprise guitar and/or bass guitar recording sessions for their musical arrangements. I'd like to give back, in a sense, to other musicians by offering multi-track recording services for mix and mastering. I'd choose to concentrate my energies into these areas first off without furnishing a comprehensive list of other services I'd make myself available for (ie...song & lyric writing and musical arrangement detail). I do all of these for myself today and wouldn't mind helping others to fulfill their goals and quality of life, even, by lending forward my experiences, time and talent.

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

A: Hard to say with so many in this capacity and few in that. I'd say while under the gun and with time constraints hardly lifting we turned out a decent job at a nearby studio some years before I'd started recording for my own projects and compilations. The drummer and I knew the material however I exercised musician's prerogative to change some things up some as the bassist then. With red light on we cooked up a real winner and meshed wonderfully for the guy owning the copyright to the music worked on. This song had some sophistication to it and would've required an extra take or two. After laying it down once while reacting to our improv style thrown to it that day we turned out something that we got superstitious about in terms of any suggestion of retake or an altering of the song. Homerun and against the grain! Since repeated but you remember those earlier ones.

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

A: I've worked with one other from SoundBetter and had a really good experience with him. Drummer Nik Hughes of the popular band Bush and others played on one of my albums, 8 of 11 songs. He delivered what was hoped for and surprised with those elements I couldn't have known how to ask for. He was super cool and very reliable and beyond capable!

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

A: The best playing/recording possible and a guarantee of satisfaction before their investment in our arrangement can be finalised. Also that their time'll be valued for the duration of the project.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: When all of the individual components come together as though they were conspiring all along just to catch you up to where the finished composition alone exists. The sense of fulfillment is out of this world and teaches us a little about ourselves. We learn faith in the process finally here and then our commitments are emboldened by a fact in achievement.

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

A: I'll let you know later.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: Mainly what are their ideas and expectations for a given song, this I'd ask so that I can cater with a response that they'll be delighted in. I keep my headiness largely out of what I feel could get in the way of creating for them though.

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

A: Be as detailed as possible. Feel free to name what other music or feel from an artist might've inspired any given composition or body of .Wavs to be composed into one, this in addition to providing Charts if you already have a really solid idea of exactly what you're looking for from a provider. Lots of people, myself included, am impressed with the result in what I'd simply given for another to "have at it" without the Charts. Time and time again I find what I was hoping for and even that I'd gotten what I couldn't have known to ask for. The nature of the Consummate Professional who ever delivers more than what was on the jobsheet!

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

A: Only 5! The day I'd opened it up out of the box a whole lotta music happened! my Dunlop CryBaby Wah Pedal. My Ibanez RGA 8420, my Fender Strat, The Mustang 100W, and my multi-track machine. If willing to extend the list I'd have to bring along my record player and collection, and a cellphone where lots of my lyrics start! Where can I plug my Electric Generator into though?

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

A: Music and functions within the Music Creation and Recording is what I've always returned to. I haven't ever had a career path and won't be moving onto something else. I think at one point in time I told myself that I was through with music but even then during this short season I knew I was kidding myself. I've accumulated information on just how much there is to do in this industry since opening myself up to the public and understand now that there are many other spheres of concentration where we could be impactful and serving.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: I've been described recently as being a Stream-of-Consciousness type of player, or, an Improv type of guy on guitar. I'd say I bring brisk and even moody elements of expression to my compositions, like my lyrics serving as backdrop for my guitar, another characteristic to my style as once described in an on-line writeup, I have unconventional elements of expression that I think do something wonderful in keep my compositions varying, not too even and predictable and not quirky beyond the scope of what might shatter conventional melody or interweaving musicality, I think.

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

A: To go back in time to work with who I'd met at a National Record Mart informal luncheon. That would be Mr. Stevie Ray Vaughan whose manner of playing and even dress would make you think the towering musical genius stood 7 feet tall, thereabouts. I discovered differently that day. Why? He was influenced by the very early guys, they called that stuff Plantation Blues, I think. He comes along and in his articulate awe-inspiring playing and you hear traces of all of these guys, sometimes in the same song. But that can be said about a few others too. Where he took it too, however, was most impressive where SRV seemed to have revived an entire genre only by spurring on something required for the sake of guitar expression and Rock-n-Soul Blues. I like to think maybe something was in that handshake that day! Needless to say I draw an immense amount of inspiration from his commitment today.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Set your goals and keep them as itemized as possible right before your face, even in every room. This is as important as any production task is. The brain much like the world can feel like a battlefield sometimes so it is essential to limit your distractions so that you can exceed your timelines with remarkable results and still have something left over at the end of the day/week for whatever!

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Expressive guitar playing, I'd say. Then bass playing, arranging and recording and lyric writing.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: Some good quality and spirited playing and fine studio engineering here at Ely's Lights Borealis Studio Musica Raptura! The sense of pleasure derived from hearing your creation out there in the public sphere and studying analytics and streaming characteristics is unparalleled to any other in the sense of convocation. While working with, and soon on, others creations I'm convinced the same would hold true for contracting musicians who'd like to hear a certain element of timelessness to their intense creations. Something they could be proud of on their audio portfolio that they'd like to share with others.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Totally analytical at 1st with charts and pencil out, from 16 notes as constant in my brain splicing things by interrupting these instead of just cruising on 1/4 notes to later add to, along these lines. So I commit a lot to the work before I start taking jabs at it in my mind. I rework this hard-to-explain thing that sounds moreso Esoteric, and maybe it is. When I grab my instrument I'm so boned up on confidence from such a process that I can readily turn out my recording with ability to apply some revision type stuff while in flight, making for a really solid choice amongst variations.

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

A: I find immense encouragement and satisfaction from studying the habits and thinking of like-minded musicians who spiritedly commit their time and resources for the aid of other musicians and people in the music industry in general. "Head guys", maybe to call them, who speak of their musical conceptualisation and who find time to conduct and/or host interviews on Social Media and elsewhere as a way of mentoring others who follow in their paths. Also just really fantastic musicians who've mastered so much of their craft, this in itself a form of giving back as we watch on. The list is too lenghly and can be named on each hemisphere of the globe: Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Winter, Robert Johnson, Buddy Guy. There's Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Roy Buchanan, Steve Morse, on and on. Neil Peart of Rush a long-time source of inspiration and several other non-guitarists. My list comprised of mostly ax-men and ax-women musicians!