Guitarist, Mixer, Producer

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

A: Rob Brian, a fantastic session drummer who played with Simple Minds, Goldfrapp and...

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

A: That I will do the best I can. Every time.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: If you make a living with something you really love it never feels like a job. It's very satisfying to work with so many different people and different genres and music.

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

A: Could you maybe play this spacey pedal steel like guitar sound on this song as well? Yes, I can!

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

A: Maybe a lot of people think too much about equipment and how things are done. In the end it's just about how it sounds in the context of the song. "It's all about the performance", you hear a lot. But before the performance there is the idea, the creativ process. And that's maybe the most important part. When to do what, and why? If that makes sense :)

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: How can I help your art? It all depends on the circumstances.

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

A: Maybe being meticulous in preparing files, being honest in giving feedback. For me there is very little ego involved. It's all about the clients vision.

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

A: Lately I watched some Youtube videos of Tom Bukovac, a great session guitar player from Nashville. His little improvisations really inspired me. Mixing and production wise, a lot of the time when I find something very interesting it turns out that Shawn Everett was involved:) And of course, to this day I have no idea how Nigel Godrich makes these wonderful sounding records.

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

A: Once a friend gave me a call. He was playing that evening with his band Dead Skeletons at SO36, a quite famous venue in Berlin. He asked me, if I could spontaniously record the concert. I said, sure, packed my laptop and a small converter and tried my best. I recorded the whole concert, drums, bass, 2 guitars, keyboards, sampler, 2 vocals on 12 tracks just with a line check. It was a fantastic concert and within the next days I mixed the whole thing on my lovely RFT desk and sent it to them. Years later I recorded a band and the drummer told me about this wonderful record he was listening to all the time. It was this spontanious live recording. It turned out to be their best selling record and I still love the sound and the music.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Just preparing the release of "Jaguar", a song I wrote and produced with ELZAA, mixed by Rob Kirwan.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Whatever works for you.

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

A: Coffee machine, my little Framus acoustic from the 50s, SM57, Laptop, Chandler RS124

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

A: I started as a guitarist. I moved from Munich to Berlin 2001. I played in several bands, got introduced to the studio world while recording albums with Super700 produced by Gordon Raphael (The Strokes) and Rob Kirwan (Hozier). I liked it so much that I decided to learn this craft. I made internships at Berlin's Planet Roc and later at Assault & Battery with Flood and Alan Moulder. It was such an honor being a huge fan of them. I ran my studio K2 out of Funkhaus Berlin, the former GDR broadcast, before moving all my gear to the south of France in 2018. Since then I'm running Pink Moon Studios in the middle of the beautiful nature reserve Languedoc.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Maybe on the melancholic side, but hard to say.

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

A: There are a lot, of course. At the moment maybe Alice Phoebe Lou, because she is really cool.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Try to make decisions based on emotion. Be a fan. Don't judge. Have fun.

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

A: Singer/Songwriter, Indie-Pop, Indie-Rock, some Jazz

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Hopefully my taste :)

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I thing I'm quite sensitive to the artist's vision. I don't want to put "my sound" on a production. I try to enhance what's already there and find out in collaboration what is still needed. I can help with writing, lyrics, arrangement, playing different instruments and mixing.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: There is not really a "typical". It all depends on the situation, the project. I figure it out with the artist.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I work in a hybrid setup using Cubase or Logic as a DAW. I use an old RFT MP4084 mixing desk, in which I insert different outboard gear like Chandler EMI Compressor, Joemeek SC 1.05 or different analog delays and reverbs. The desk has great sounding passive EQs and a ridiculous amount of headroom, which I use as a kind of limiting. I have my beautiful live room miced up to run stuff through. It's a fantastic glue.

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

A: I record and produce bands and artists. Usually I play some instruments (guitar, percussions, bass, synths, a little bit of drums), arrange with them, record and mix. I also mix records, I haven't produced or recorded.