I'm a very happily married, proud father, with the best job in the world! I get to produce and record music for a living! I've been doing it full time professionally for over 12 years now, and as a serious hobby for quite a bit longer.
I got my professional start at Triad Studios in Redmond, one of the largest studio facilities in the Seattle area. I worked as a staff engineer there for several years while building my own business up on the side. When my own business got big enough, I had to go independent, but still love to record at great studios like Triad when the space is needed and the budget allows.
Our son Matthew was born on August 1, 2004, and he has totally changed our lives for the better. I don't get nearly as much music work done as I used to, but I don't mind at all!
Click on "videos" under my picture to see a fun video I edited together of Matthew falling down a lot while learning to walk... all to the tune of a Prodigy song. I did this while beta testing a new version of a popular video editing program.
I LOVE all kinds of music. I come from a very broad musical background. My father was a band director, as was his father, and played multiple instruments and sung in and directed choirs as well. I play keyboards, and a touch of guitar, and trumpet used to be my main instrument all the way through college. But, I'm also a total computer and technology geek, so I fell in love with recording and producing music after I put together my first 4-track studio in college. It was the perfect combination of technology and music, the two things that I loved the most at the time.
My favorite part of the music production & recording process is mixing, and I'm very good at it! I've got a LOT of professional experience and a great combination of high-end analog and digital tools to put together the best mix. I think what makes me good at mixing is that I'm also a musician and I always put the music first! I don't have any preset mixing setups, or preset effects or processing that I always use. I listen to each song as its own entity and let the song dictate what is most appropriate to convey the musical and emotional message. I also don't try to do things a certain way just because it might be trendy at the time for that particular style. I want to make the song be timeless and not dated by certain production and mixing techniques, unless it is really the most appropriate thing for that song. To me, mixing is a very creative thing, and something that needs to be constantly practiced in order to really master, just like playing an instrument. I gave up trying to master any instruments so that I could concentrate all my time and energy on being a great recording and mixing engineer and music producer.
I've done mixes for a wide variety of artists from all over the country, many of whom I've never met in person. People send me their projects through the mail or internet to mix on a regular basis.
If you're a musician looking to take your music to the next level with truely professional mixing, then contact me through my DBAR Productions web site. I'm also set up to do surround mixing, which is good for those of you thinking about putting out DVDs with video and other content to stimulate sales.
I just finished a major remodel of my recording studio (August 2006). Check out the photos of the whole process on the DBAR Productions web site.
