Songwriter & Producer

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

A: I was particularly proud of a project in which I collaborated with the band Two's A Riot. Their lead singer Alex approached me with a rough song idea which was very beautiful but was just a verse. We worked on the lyrics more, defined what the narrative should be about and then built the rest of the track around our framework. I felt like Alex' vision was never compromised and I managed to empathise with his thoughts and develop his ideas in a way that felt completely natural to him.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: At the moment I'm working on some music for an artist called VINCE and also on some music for an up and coming jazz singer in Cardiff. My film music self is just writing some music for Hell's Kitchen.

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

A: No

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Depends on the vibe.. I love bitcrushy, digital, angular, jpeg distortion just as much as valve-y, analog, mellow, VHS warmth - it's just important to define what we're after and then commit to that.

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

A: I'll always pay attention to detail and give you my 110%.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: The fact that I'm always presented with a slightly different task for each song and that there's always a new challenge in each project.

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

A: Could you make the track sound like xyz? - Yes! Can you send me stems? - Yes, dry & wet, anything you need Can you tune my vocals but without it sounding auto-tuney? - Absolutely Can we speed it up a couple of Bpm? - Yes

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

A: That I have a lava lamp and lots of plants in my studio.. I have neither - I do love candles though :)

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: Again, this depends at which stage of the song creation I'm brought in, but generally: When's the deadline? Which kind of vibe are we going for, and do you have any references? Shall we record live instruments?

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

A: Send me a song or ideas that your passionate about and I'll guarantee I'll be just as passionate about them as you are! I always think passion and excitement translates into music straight away :)

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

A: 1. Apollo Twin interface 2. 2 AKG C414's 3. Laptop with DAW & plugins 4. Sennheiser HD600 headphones 5. Midi Keyboard Make lots of nice lofi tracks with wave sounds and custom built wooden coconut percussion ;)

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

A: I was born and raised in Germany and moved to London to study music when I was 18. I did a Bachelor in piano and composition at City University London and a Master in Composition for Screen at the Royal College of Music in London right after. During my 5 years of studying I'd always worked in the film music industry on the side, assisting composers like Ilan Eshkeri and Ian Honeyman in LA. We worked on the music for projects like The Sims and Leaving Neverland. After I graduated in 2019 I moved to Salisbury to work as a composer for the film music company Gatehouse Music where I wrote music for series like Scooby Doo and Guess Who, Shera and Spirit Riding Free. I started freelancing in 2021 writing music for numerous Game Shows in the US and Docu Series like Man in the Arena starring Tom Brady. I've also been writing and producing songs on the side of writing music film. My first professional gig was writing a song called 'Shades and Shadows' for German soul singer Cassandra Steen. I moved on to helping with producing music for Tom Odell and have most recently been writing and producing for the British new comers VINCE and Two's a Riot.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: I'd say my style is a mix of Neo Soul and RnB in the traditional sense, blended with subtle sound design and a slightly cinematic edge when it comes to creating a narrative.

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

A: I'd love to work with D'Angelo because I'm super interested in his approach to song production and how he conceptualises his compositions prior to recording them.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: In funky music, make sure the bass note stops with the backbeat. Check out any funk band and you'll hear the bassist do this... this works for all kinds of genres and makes everything sound super tight.

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

A: I usually work on Pop, Neo Soul and RnB songs. Having said that though I also write music for film and TV and am constantly presented with requests for all sorts of music that I then go and produce. I've written upbeat music for gameshows, orchestral cartoony undrscores for animated kids TV, music with brooding, dark strings for drama films and quirky beats for adverts.. you name it :)

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: My strongest skill is 'empathising' with a song's mood. I feel I have a very good sense of vibe and character when it comes to music. I'm quite confident I understand songwriters' artistic vision when they play me a demo, and I'm usually quite good at translating the mood they are aiming for into production, arrangement and instrumentation considerations.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I pay a lot of attention to rhythmic and harmonic clashes and make sure to use them sparsely, only to create tension. I think the importance of rhythm and pocket is sometimes underrated in songwriting even though it makes a striking difference if it's done right. And there are so many ways to fix rhythm effectively, so it is always a very satisfying experience for both the client and me :) I'm also a sucker for word-painting through sound design and love underlining the narrative of a song with found sounds or soundscape recordings.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: This will obviously depend at which stage of your song creation process you get me on board but assuming I start from scratch this is usually my work process for songs: 1. Write lyrics 2. Write a melody to lyrics 3. Write the bass line, making sure the melody and bass lock 4. Write the drum part and then the harmony parts 5. Write backing vocal parts 6. Record any parts that need to be recorded (if it's all synths this might only be vocals, but could also be a whole band setup) 7. Finish up production 8. Mix & Master

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: Since large parts of my sound palette is synth based (using Keyscape, Arturia, Sylenth etc.) I opted for a very sparse setup to make sure I can move around easily. I have a very powerful Mac Book that I can take around with me to sessions. I usually record vocals with my Sure SM7B and track percussion with my AKG C3000 stereo pair. I usually track through my Scarlett Duo and rely on Acoustica plugins, amongst others, to give my takes some live-gear warmth.

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

A: There's obviously tons and tons, but some of my biggest inspirations are Max Martin because of his insane focus on simplicity and strength of musical ideas, Dirty Loops because of their attention to detail and D'Angelo because he ensures the integrity of the pocket throughout all parts and because of his backing vocal approach and production. And I could hardly answer this question without at least mentioning Quincy Jones once 👀😂... so there

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

A: The most common work I do for clients is arranging song sketches and producing them. Most people approach me with an idea for a chorus or some other even smaller fragments and I help them boil their material down into a nice song structure, arrange the instruments and backing vocals and add more production to glue it all together.