Q: What do you record?
A: I mostly record vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, small acoustic instruments, and electronic instruments. My vocal booth is isolated (of course!), about 5' x 5’, and is very comfortable to record.

Q: Every studio is different, what sets yours apart?
A: My studio is best suited for singer/songwriters, hip-hop artists, and electronic music makers. Since it’s usually just myself working on any given project I have to ability to keep recording costs low. The location is also not in a congested area yet not too far from the freeway either, about 15 minutes away, with reserved parking.

Q: Do you offer any creative input or do you just hit record?
A: Depends on the client, I’m fine with just keeping quiet if that’s what you want but for some reason most of my clients have been asking me for creative input lately. Having a master’s degree in music composition and about 20 years of music performance experience in a wide variety of genres spanning from classical to pop gives me a rich background to draw from and offer good artistic suggestions and advice. There is no charge for awesomeness.

Q: What kind of gear do you use?
A: Firstly I think that’s it’s important to know how to use your gear before boasting about all the expensive mic’s, pre-amps, and plug-ins you have. I’ve done some very decent recordings using just SM-57’s and stock plug-ins! That being said I won’t rattle off everything I use because there’s a lot but some of my go-to gear includes: Neumann mic’s, Universal Audio pre-amps (the 610-B, LA-2A, and 1176 AE are some of my favorites!), Ableton Live for production, and Logic Pro X for recording/tracking, mixing, and mastering.

Q: I have a computer, can’t I just do it myself?
A: Of course! Bear in mind though that with all DIY projects you’re limited by the tools, knowledge, and experience at hand. Do you know how and why to use compression? Do you know why zero-crossings are important? How about dithering with respect to sample rates? I once had a potential client in my studio and he was complaining that someone had charged him $1,500 for a beat. I then pointed to a very small looking processor on my desktop and told him that particular piece of gear cost me $5,000. I then told him that my physical studio costs about a thousand a month. I think he got the point.

Q: But you make it look so easy! All you do is throw plug-ins on and use presets.
A: Hahaha, yes to making it look easy, no about using presets (usually, the ones I do use are ones I’ve created). Could you imagine going to a doctor and he’s sweating and pacing about the room, flipping through pages and pages of a book trying to figure out what’s wrong with you and working at 100% mental capacity. “You’ve got cancer, no, it’s spinal meningitis. Uhh, maybe it’s just a simple cold,” he guesses. You would be freaked out! Same with a recording or mixing engineer; we’re trained and have experience to know what to use for particular situations. Luckily we also have the advantage of people not dying because of our decisions.