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I'm particularly proud of these tracks that I have produced with one of my co-producing projects, Albany Park, as well as some of the tracks that I produced the instrumental, featuring other artists.
I was an executive producer and mixing engineer on the Flowers for the Living (Chicago-Artist Collective) Album "Bouquet of Beautiful", and I really enjoyed the result of this process during the pandemic.
There's also this particular ad that I really loved working on and was happy with the result. I ended up throwing some last minute vocals on that spot, and that is what won me the placement!
These days, I'm mainly a composer, producer, engineer for most of the projects I work on. I tend to program some drum tracks, keys, synths, bass, and layer horns on top (trombone is my main instrument). Most recently, I've been working on upcoming and unreleased records as a singer, which is where I started when I was younger.
I didn't come from a musical household, but we did have a few cassette tapes (eventually CD's). My favorite being Michael Jackson's "Thriller", which I would play over and over again! I was always singing and dancing, which eventually led me to musical theater. My parents acquired a piano when I was 9 and forced me to take lessons, for which I am now grateful. I was terrible at practicing technique, but I loved just playing random chords and absorbing the sounds. I think that eventually led to me being more of a producer/composer.
Eventually I wanted to be in the wind ensemble and jazz band, so I picked up trombone when I got to middle school because that was the instrument that was most needed. The people I was hanging around just loved talking about music and helping each other improve in our musical skills; your classic band nerds. Although, say what you will, some of those nerds are now Grammy award winning and/or nominated!
Throughout my life, I loved jazz, hiphop, and r+b, which were very influential in my tastes. Once I got to college (I started out at Indiana University and eventually transferred to a music conservatory in Berlin, Germany), I ended up enrolling in an ensemble that was part of the African American Arts Institute at Indiana University, which introduced me to the history of the soul and gospel music genres. From that point on, my life was changed. That ensemble, the "IU Soul Revue" was the most pivotal experience of my musical life.
My high school best friend Jameel Roberts (@jproof) was a huge inspiration and north star for me in my teenage years, and still is today. There are people that I met, like Lance Tolbert and Mike Burton while I was attending Indiana University that are doing great things and laid my musical foundation and taste (Tyron Cooper was the professor of the above mentioned ensemble). Roy Knauf, a Berlin-based producer who produces a lot of popular German acts was the one who sparked my interest in learning to produce.
People I haven't met that are my inspirations as far as your classic producers go, are Quincy Jones and Rick Rubin, but I'm inspired by a lot of artists/producers/composers that I meet along the way today, even right here in Chicago where I live.
Although I have the talent and the musical ear, I hid behind a lot of other people and shied away from digging into the DAW (I use Logic) for longer than I would have liked. I guess I would say I didn't handle rejection in a healthy way. Part of it was due to the obstacles presented by the changing of the music industry at the beginning of the streaming age.
Once I allowed myself to start doing the grunt work and learning from the people in my circles, I became more confident and started having people ask me to arrange, produce, and record for them. I started living into the role, and my surroundings started to change.
If I were to do things differently, I would have honed in on who was doing what aspect of the industry that I liked at any given moment of time, and just forced myself to be in those circles. Additionally, I would have learned more about the DAW, mixing, and engineering a little earlier.
A lot of people in the producer world know me as the "horn guy", so I'm starting to almost always incorporate organic horns on my tracks. I do pitch-shifting and some EQ tricks to help give the illusion of a full section when, in reality, it's only me. Other than that, my other analog synths, the Juno 60 and Moog Sub 37 are great.
In the box, the Soundtoys bundle is a go-to, as well as FabFilter plugins, Melodyne, and Vocalign Ultra. They are the best, in my opinion! I also like some WAVES compressor emulations, Valhalla Reverbs, and the Cableguys shaperbox suite for multi-FX. There are other little one-off plugins I use for mixing or mastering as well, but we don't need to go through all of my plugin addictions!
I would definitely suggest apprenticing early on, as close to the "greats" as you can get, in whatever your specialty would be. I would also find out what makes you unique, embrace that characteristic of yours, and run with it.
Especially in this era of AI that we are about to encounter, I personally believe that the uniqueness of the human touch and slight imperfection, is what will stand out from the density of "perfect" content. I'm hypothesizing here, obviously, but if I'm right, you heard it here first!
Living in the city, one inevitably has to do some mixing and creating with headphones at some point in the day. I have been using the Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro's, and prior to that Audiotechnica M50x's. For years I was using Sennheisser HD25's, which I still like, but I use those mostly for DJing.
I've noticed that with the Audeze headphones, I feel like I'm mixing in a perfectly treated room, where I can trust that the sound coming directly into my ears is true, even, and not compensated.
I've been using them for mixing and mastering on some tracks that I've been working on for myself, as well as a client or two. I really notice the difference by the time I get to the final stages of my mixing process and for the entirety of the mastering process. I still check my songs on different speakers, systems, and in the car, but that's more out of habit and neurosis. There's not much adjusting that I have to do after I use the Audeze, they’re usually 95-100% ready.
Artists may receive discounted Audeze product in exchange for interviews and opinions. Audeze does not solicit specific outcomes as part of any artist agreement.
