Producer, Remote M&M

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

A: Engineers can make bad quality musicians sound great. Now, I don't mean bad musicians, what I mean is... A drummer that has trouble staying with the metronome, or changes a certain part each time. A bass guitar with old strings, or any kind of guitar.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: For a full setup, digital. Analog just has too many costs to maintain, and I personally don't have the knowledge for things like a tape machine. For certain things in my studio, analog. For example, I generally run my microphone into an outboard compressor, into my interface.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Currently I'm working with a band called Forager. We're in the production phase of the project, and I will be doing mixing and mastering for them as well.

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

A: I will find a way, and I get things done. If I cannot provide something that you need, I will find a way to. If I don't know how to do something, I will learn to.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: Its definitely producing a product that contains emotion, a product listeners truly feel.

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

A: What can you do to make my vocals pop? There's tons of techniques and tricks to make this happen. We could do two takes, duplicate one or two, heavily compress those, and distort them. We can blend these tracks to really make vocals stand out. Can you record live drums? Unfortunately not at this time. Currently I'm planning a gofundme to help with the equipment costs. The home I live in has a room that will be dedicated for live performances. For now I am using Matt Halperns Get Good Drums sample pack. This is a multisample pack, meaning as you change the velocities on MIDI notes the sample changes too to maximize humanization.

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

A: Search for a provider that matches you. When I say matches you, I mean great chemistry, great to work with, someone you trust, and believe in.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: I generally edit while I produce, if there's an artifact in the guitar tracks I notice, let's take care of it then and there to avoid possible loss of time due to retracking in the future. If the vocalist is overloading the mic, he'll have to just take a step back. Overall, almost doing a bit of editing AND mixing while producing.

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

A: I generally do the full record production process, production, editing, mixing and mastering. I also provide musician consulting, how to market yourself, how to build your fanbase, where to go for distribution, etc.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: Drums, Rhythm Guitar, Bass Guitar, Lead, and Vocals. This is the general Framework of one of my sessions. For updates I utilized google drive, or private soundcloud sharing to maximize client convenience.

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

A: The first thing that comes to mind is the Zoom H2n mic, which is a great go to mic for just about anything, my Mac, my Propellerhead Balance interface, the Micro MIDI keyboard, and finally my M-Audio monitors.

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

A: I was in the Marine Corps for four years, I've gone to school with Berklee College of Music, studying music business, audio production, and mixing and mastering. Right now I'm a government contractor for my day job, and I'm currently working with my first official client Forager (Check out my portfolio).

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Distort your vocals. Take a track, duplicate it, add a simple distortion effect, Pro Tools has the sansamp, blend this in with your vocal track, this adds great harmonics if done correctly.

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

A: I'd really like to focus on indie, metalcore, and post hardcore artists.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: My studio is completely at home inside my house. I have all the gear and software for a full production, excluding live drums. For live drums I'm utilizing a sample pack from get good drums. Please see my portfolio for a demo of this. I am expanding in the near future to support live drum tracking.

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

A: I've learned a lot from Kris Crummett and Joey Sturgis. I spend a lot of time listening to their clients, Issues, Dance Gavin Dance, and learning their engineering techniques.