Producer, Mix/Master Engineer.

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

A: "Can you send us some more examples of your work closer to our particular genre or style?" I have tons and will always send ‘em over some more. Or they might arrive at the studio and ask: "Are there really guitars in all of those 80 guitar cases?" And I always reply: "No. We just enjoy collecting empty guitar cases." Then they ask: "So, can you play all 80 of them at the same time?" I always reply: "Yes. Of course I can." Or they may ask: "Do you really know what ALL of these buttons and knobs do?" And I like to reassure them with: "No, not at all. But I am getting better at guessing." My all time favorite question remains: “So, ummmm. Can we come in and just record a demo?" My answer to that one has been the same for 30 years: "Sorry, but we sold all of our demo gear last week. How’s about you just come in and we’ll do it properly for you on our real gear?" And many ask us, "What will it cost?" Before they have even told us what it is that they want to accomplish. Many ask: “Our bass player just bought Cubase LE for his laptop. Why would we use your studio and recording services when we can do it all ourselves now?” And the answer is: “Definitely do it yourselves. And then - after three months, you will hear what my first attempts sounded like back in 1990.” I believe that every artist and band should first try to make their own album together. That way, if the band are still on speaking -terms at the end of it - they will appreciate what we accomplish a lot more when they see and hear what we do here daily. And many will say, “But we can’t hear the difference.” And they’re 100% correct, because they definitely can not.

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

A: Know what you expect to have provided to you by whoever you approach. And then make sure to always let them know what that is. Regardless of how good any of us are at this - we can’t read minds. Even your GPS that knows every possible destination on this planet can not guide you to any chosen destination unless you type in some kind of address first. So please SPEAK to whoever you recruit. Trust me, you will find out very quickly UP FRONT if who you are approaching has the time to speak to you, or just to send you little badly-spelt one-line texts, only at their convenience. When you chat to them, always ask for examples of THEIR work. And it is not a 'test' to see if they have mixed a song just like yours before. You're asking for examples of the variety of work that THEY have done, so that YOU can hear the consistency of their audio skills and understanding over an assortment and collection of genres and musical types. Getting a list of industry names from them means zero. Anyone can simply send you a list of who THEY might, or might not have worked with in the past. But, if those BIG names on their previous credits won’t be working on, or be featured on YOUR song or album ... then they are effectively irrelevant to the conversation between you and this singular person. Listen to the examples of “their” work and definitely question them on how, with what, and definitely WHERE they created those mixes, or examples of THEIR work? If they don’t know. Or don't have the time for you and your project; don’t argue, because they probably don't. Just believe them and rather find somebody else whose work you like and make sure that it is indeed THEIR work and that they will be able to replicate this quality of work with what they have access to now. You’re not employing whoever they may have worked with over the last ten or twenty years. You're only getting THEM. So ask them what gear, effects, or tools they used to make their demo material? If they know, they will be thrilled to tell you. Ask them directly if that is how and where your project will be done too? Don’t assume that they will be doing YOUR work inside the same studio where they crept in and took a quick selfie of themselves sitting just to post at the top of their shopfront. Ask if you may Facetime them when they are sitting where they will be doing your work at whatever fair rate you agree to. There’s no logic to be paying anyone huge amounts to track, mix or master anything on their cousin's laptop in their granny’s basement with headphones, just because they once posed for a selfie in Abbey Road, Paramount, or Ocean Way Studios downtown Nashville. Remember also that this is an AUDIO industry. If they can’t make sound and SPEAK to you - you should probably keep looking. And listening. In short: Know up front what service you are buying from whoever you're offering to buy it from.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I have my own full-studio on location in Nashville that we use for tracking, mixing and mastering all of our projects. The studio was built on 7 green acres a few minutes outside Music City USA, with accommodation for those visiting to work on, or to complete their projects. I have a 3000 square foot studio with a 1300 square foot tracking room and a custom-designed control room that features a Neve 5088 console that is a dream to work on. It gives every mix that famous SPACE that it is best known for. Our boutique pre-amps include UA 6176's LA610's with 8 outboard Neve 1073-type pres, four API pres, four Trident pres and eight channels of Focusrite ISA110's. Output gear includes Manley Variable-MU, API2500's, Manley Enhanced Pultec, SPL Vitalizers with a selection of Lexicon, Sony, TC Electronic and Roland SRV-330 hardware reverbs. In the box I run 32 channels in-out on Protools Ultimate HD. I have two UAD Quad Cards with most of their plugins. A lot of Plugin Alliance, FabFilter, PSP, SoundToys, TC Electronic, Sonnox, WAVES, Softtube, Kazrog stuff and just about all the usual plugins running on a Mac Studio. As well as our Protools Ultimate HD rig, I also make use of Motu DP12, Reason 13, Cubase Pro 14 and Presonus Studio One 7. I have most of the iZotope, IK Multimedia, Melodyne pro stuff …. and you get the drift. Because of our big tracking room, we keep a Yamaha Studio kit set up for drum-tracks. There are also eighty guitars and a who’s who of most of the famous recording amps that people request for sessions. There is more, but that is effectively the pro studio that I own and work from in Nashville.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: As musicians and artists - we will never hear our own music as others will. Sadly, while others hear it and marvel, we only ever hear our mistakes and want to redo it again and again. Yes, like a super-cute girl redoing her makeup ten times before that special date with the excited young man that she already blew away from behind her laptop with just her charming smile. The job is already done. Why suffer over it further? The lesson (or tip) is to never be harder on yourself than those who will enjoy listening to your songs just as magical songs and not technical productions. More than often - we nail it on the first take. It is 'connection' and not perfection that captures and blows real people away. So, if you wanna know what your music really sounds like. Rather play it to someone who you trust and who GETS it, because they won't hear any of your mistakes - just the power of your amazing music! And ask them what it sounds like to them? Then believe them and let it go. Or find a producer that you can trust to work with. The "production tip" hidden in all that waffle is to stop redoing it, because it is probably quite amazing already. We are always too hard on ourselves in this process. Which is probably why we are the ones actually making great music and not just listening to it??? Ha! When music-production stops being fun - something has gone wrong and definitely needs to quickly be put back on track.

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

A: That we magically know what everyone else expects to hear, or wants from us without them ever having to say a word. Or that we can make changes to one thing in a mix that won't necessarily affect anything else. Oh ... and that we always make it all look so darn easy whenever we do it, ha!

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: Do you have anything to play me? Or will this be your first production? What you are expecting me to bring to, or add to this project? Is there anything on MY SoundBetter demo reel that rocked your boat? What do you imagine this song or project sounding like once completed? Why like that and not like YOU? Will it eventually be part of an album? Which unique, or original quality do you believe that your ideas have that separates you and them from the others already published inside this genre? How can I help you to get your own uniqueness, or novelty across to eager listeners who share your desire for something new to extend, or augment this genre in a fun and rewarding way? No two artists are the same. You are unique and we need to showcase this magical quality of yours that nobody (or very few other) will ever copy, or be able to compete with you on. We don't want you to move into your chosen genre as a guest in somebody else's room. We want to build/create a new room inside this genre with YOUR name on it. Yes, because you SOUND BETTER.

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

A: A fairly-famous blues guitarist recently contacted me and wanted to do a compilation-demo of some new acoustic stuff that he wanted to tour with, that is not as LOUD as his electric blues. We chatted and agreed that his new acoustic band would come into the studio for a few hours and quickly run through their new acoustic material, one song after another ... and we'd grab the best parts of it and edit a two-minute montage for him to send to booking agents and various tour managers. Yes, like a sampler with a few of their new acoustic songs on it to give the venues an idea of hat his "new sound" was. They came in. I mic’ed them up and said, “Go for it.” After an hour or so, they’d run through their entire acoustic set. They thanked me, packed up and left. The artist told me to get a basic mix and he’d return later in the week to select a few snippets (or sound bites) to edit together for the final “sampler”. When they left, I quickly got it all sounding good and sat and enjoyed their performance as I tweaked a few things ……. AND IT SOUNDED GOOD! So, I called him before locking up the studio for the night and he was leaving his afternoon gig downtown. I said, “Hey! You need to come over tomorrow and hear the songs, because I think that we have an album here.” “No,” he laughed. “We just need two minutes of the sh-t for the tour guys to send ahead for … are you still at the studio?” I said that I was. He asked me to wait there and he’d head past the studio in his gig-van on the way back to his house. Ten minutes later, he’s at the front door and I walk him through to the control room to sit before the console and here what we’d all captured that morning as a quick, casual run-through of their new acoustic setlist. “I’m telling you that we have an album here,” I told him again … and hit PLAY before he could argue. He sat transfixed through the first song. NO REACTION. So, I stopped the playback and asked what he thought. Yup. He was the fellow with tears in his eyes who just said, “Please play the next one. I had NO idea that it would sound like this. How did you KNOW? I mean, this is US, all four of us together just doing THE THING! How did you capture that? How did you know?” So, my “role” is often to just be there to capture the magic in the room, because the musicians sometimes miss it and …. maybe wanna do it again? Or only keep two tiny minutes of it? Today, that is his best-selling release. And it is nothing like his electric-blues that put him on the map. I am not on the recording. But, he was interviewed on blues-radio in Chicago some time later … and was all prepared to chat about his electric-blues career and the famous DJ just started the interview with, “MAN! What’s this acoustic release of yours, Man? None of us knew that you did this kinda bare-faced stuff! It just gets to your bones!” I am specially proud of that one. And now you know why. The magic is all around us. And sometimes you just have to be the one who spots it - and then reaches out and GRABS it to protect and preserve for everyone else to share with us.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Right now - I am answering questions for Sounds Better ;-) Okay, okay. I just finished a blues album and have started on another country-rock album. This morning, we quickly tracked a brilliant bluegrass session that will soon be an album. With a big room, we do tend to attract the kind of band who has to play together in one place in order to make it all happen easily and very comfortably for them. And a rather charming young lady from Kentucky called me last night and asked if I would record her boyfriend's song for him as a birthday present from her? They just left and I might even include his little song about her in my SoundBetter demo??? Now you'll need to listen to it and see if it made it near the end. All this as the mixes just keep arriving for me to do my 'famous' magic on.

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

A: All sorts. Blues, pop, gospel, rock, RAP, country, jazz or acoustic. Most of the artists that I work with assume that I am the best at producing their type of music. If it sounds great, then it will be great. And, regardless of genre, we would all prefer to hear an average band sounding GREAT, than to sit and suffer through two hours of hearing a great band sounding like a pile. I enjoy making your music sound great, so that it invites others to want to join you on an adventure inside it. To walk away with everything that you put into it, now dwelling in their minds forever. This is what will make YOU great, enjoyed, remembered and appreciated for sharing your creations with them all.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Studio experience. Practiced ears. And an understanding of what it is that makes a great artist, song, or album. Experience is basically just a long list of mistakes that we all HOPE to never make again. My experience can prevent you and your projects from making a lot of wrong turns along the path while ensuring a superior product without falling into the same predictable holes along the way. None of us are born experienced. We all earn it and should share it. Pass it along. Usually by making it all just look so easy to those without experience as they learn and earn it for themselves.

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

A: My promise is: I will always do my very best work for you with the best gear in the world. Or else I won't be proud of what we have accomplished together. I.e. If I can't add it to my show reel, then what's the point? All of us are only ever as good as our last project. And I need my most-recent projects to play to my next client to blow them away too. The artists, musicians and session-players that YOU definitely want to work with, are the ones who send you their standard demo and then say, "But I did a REALLY cool session yesterday that I want to send along to you as an extra." This kind of person is priceless, because they always know that their last job was their best. So if you're going to be their next job ... then stand back and get ready to get their VERY best work to date!

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Meet, or make contact with the artist or band. Make a time to chat and see if we are a good fit for their project. We offer to share some examples of our work if they don’t have any yet. They might share their previous tracks, or new ideas and song demos with us. If we agree to work together on an album, or a new song, then the next step is to get to work tracking. For mix and mastering projects, they will simply forward me their existing tracks to edit and mix. For new songs/albums - once a good soundscape (or backing track) is in place for the song, I then get the required overdubs and additions recorded approved and into place. The artist’s input and involvement in this process is essential before I mix it all out and send out any mixes for a thumbs up. With mixes approved, we then master and enjoy listening to our shared creation. I always offer my services remotely, but will always include an invite to the artist to be present in the Nashville studio throughout the process if they can make it. For most projects, on-site accommodation for up to four people is included at no extra cost.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: This is always an interesting one: Okay ... so .... unless we’re all going to stop sending DIGITAL files to one another via the internet - and go back to sending analogue tapes, or antiquated wire-recordings to one another in big envelopes using an over-night courier service again …. then we have all already agreed among ourselves to use the digital formats. Anyone bought an analogue reverb lately? There are bad analogue pieces of gear and bad digital ones too. Your ears can’t hear digital music, so any digital format will first have to be turned back into analogue sound by some kinda speaker for you to be able to hear with your analogue ears regardless of what format it was engineered in. There are tons of great outboard digital pieces of analogue and digital kit. Let’s just agree that out-board gear like Bricasti, Lexicon, TC etc are all digital pieces of outboard gear and not analogue at all. A few decades ago, our computers couldn’t process all these digital functions inside of them, so we ran from the digital domain in one box, went D-A into our digital rack-mount effects and came back into the box A-D again. Two additional conversions every time. Today we can process all of these digital processes “inside one box”. The multicore chips in our computers can handle it all now. But what about outboard analogue gear? Even if it is wonderful, you’re still converting D-A to shove your DAW’s digital audio into these analogue boxes and then running A-D to bring it all back into your DAW to be mixed digitally again. So, I have to ask WHAT analogue gear are people always claiming is better? 1073’s? LA2A? 1176’s? I work on a 5088 Neve console, so I love analogue bus-compressors and have a few great ones that no plugin can come close to emulating yet. Trust me, no one spends US$6000.00 on a Manley Variable MU, or drops $4k on an API2500 if a $19.99 plugin does the same thing. And a LOT of people will tell you, “But I can’t hear the difference.” And they are correct. Don’t argue with them, because they truly can not. Be polite and just pray that their listeners and fans can’t hear the difference either! You, on the other hand, may be able to hear and really feel and sense a HUGE difference when this gear is applied to your tracks. Yes, you will hear that off your digital copy that the analogue mixing man sends to you. (Usually as a low-grade mp3 to save whatever needs saving?) To me, it is more a case of “Analogue AND Digital” and not “Analogue OR Digital.” It just works for me. And tons of guys are mixing ONLY in the box and their product sounds every bit as solid and REAL as the product that the all-analogue junkies produce badly in million Dollar rooms every day. I have a Neve console and tons of analogue gear, because that is what works for me and my sound. We must all use what works and sounds best to us. Digital gets better and better almost every year. It’s affordable and has opened many doors to more genius and enthusiasm in our industry than $120 000.00 consoles and boutique analogue gear ever did. Make music and respect your tools and technology. And every new song and arrangement will sound better, whether analogue, or digital. No one ever asked Leonardo Da Vinci, or Vincent Van Gogh what make of brush or easel they used to create what we all remember them for. Though it is said that Da Vinci mixed his own paints from various mysterious compounds and elements.

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

A: I have been doing this for over 30 years. I was born into a very musical family and started my first band in high school and we performed a LOT well into our mid-thirties. We all played and paid our way through university and into some fun careers. We were popular and did very well as a band. So it was that, as a Biomedical Electronics Engineer, my next logical step in music was to open my first recording studio. That was back in the nineties. Loads of fun and I earned many coveted International Awards recording bands, film and TV soundtracks, adverts and anything that made a noise worth remembering. I immigrated to the USA in 1998. Bring me your best ideas and you may be amazed at how the world will hear and understands them.

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

A: Definitely. All future clients should listen to everyone else's goodies first, before they decide to try me. How else would they know if I am better or worse than any of them? I see a LOT of familiar, very-capable and brilliant faces already listed on Sound Better! Many I have worked with. Many I never will. No two of them are the same. In the end, the choice lies with the client/artist. If I am asked to do a project that I KNOW somebody else will do better - I will always recommend them to the client above myself.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Meeting other artists and musical people. And I have definitely always enjoyed sitting with the artist or band while hearing the finished product for the first time - and it makes THEM, or somebody close to them, cry. Or finally GET IT! And that question that so many of them ask me: "But ... how did you know?” Mind you - sitting alone in a sexy control-room while some wicked band does a private show JUST FOR ME from the other side of the glass, is a better job than herding spotty sheep too!

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

A: Our studio fridge full of food and cold drinks. Musically - and if they had power ... i) A Neve Console. ii) Neumann U87. iii) A Stratocaster. iv) An API-2500. v) A laptop with a DAW. And maybe an iPhone so that I could call for help??? Or order take-out??

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: If I had any, I'd tell you. I like to get to know the person behind the song, or music that I am going to be crafting WITH them. I like to get to a place of collaboration where we can relax and have fun creating something remarkable. I suppose my style would be “relaxed, but serious."

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

A: Someone who isn't trying their best just to copy somebody else. Why? Because we already have enough of that other type already and you are unique. And probably because it has always been very difficult to be something exceptional when one is trying so desperately to be just like everyone else. Mostly, I love working with those who trust me, so that I can bring more to the table. It is a very humbling experience when people trust us with what is most precious to them. Whether it is to walk their dog, babysit their kiddo, or to work on their best songs with them.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I am the safest bridge between your song and your listeners. I have a proven skill for hearing what is great about an idea, or a song. And I know how to bring your creation across to those who might need an ear-massage to also hear it like you and I already do. My goal is to get others to hear what you wanted them to hear. I provide that bridge. And decades of international experience to make it happen easily and confidently.

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

A: I have always been inspired by how George Martin worked with and guided The Beatles to do their best work. Also, how men like Bob Clearmountain worked with Bryan Adams to get THAT SOUND that we all know as Bryan today. In the end, I think that the greatest producers, arrangers and engineers served only to frame the artist's best work while not leaving too many of their footprints on those works. In the end - all great music comes from a collaboration and a few creative minds that collided somewhere inside one very special space.

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

A: Artists and bands contact me to arrange, book players, to track and produce, mix and master their songs and albums. Having one person overseeing the entire production process in one place that becomes familiar to them, seems to work very well. It avoids a lot of misunderstandings and miscommunications along the path arriving at the final shared goal. It also allows people to feel "at home", relaxed and comfortable during the entire music-making process. I do that for them. I like to work with friends. And to make new friends through the magic of making great music together.