ANYTHING THAT HAS TO DO WITH MUSIC…

Soundz Good 2 Me Productions

History of Experience

FOR ME: Music isn’t a side gig or a weekend job, it’s a passion. It’s a way of life.

There was never a question in my mind that I would be a musician. It came to me as naturally as breathing. I have been playing music since I was 4 1/2 years old. I started on violin, then the accordion, then piano and organ. I was 9 years old when I landed my first regular paying job as a musician at an organ / piano store inside a shopping mall. In high school, (while still taking piano and accordion lessons), I joined the high school orchestra and learned french horn, trumpet, baritone and tuba. I went on to college and studied “Jazz Music-Piano Concentration”.

After college, I spent the next 4 years finding what I was best at. I spent the first 20 years of my life learning, composing, and performing, but there were still more experiences to be had. I started doing live sound and found that my ears were one of my best instruments. I got lucky and started working with Diversified Audio (a live music production company) and through them I got to mix some pretty big acts (Nirvana, George Michael, Mick Jagger, Isaac Hayes, etc.) and discovered I liked being behind the board. At the same time, luck continued to follow me and landed me a job at DJ International (a Chicago record label that specialized in dance and hip house / hip-hop music). DJ International was instrumental in the evolution of modern dance music. While there, I worked on almost every record that was released on that label. Not only was I playing on most of these records, I also started engineering records. After 3 years there, I moved on to Chicago Trax (one of the premier studios in Chicago) and became a staff engineer. 2 Years after that, I expanded my horizons to becoming an independently contracted engineer and music producer.

In 1997, my daughter was born and my studio life had to take a backseat. Again, luck followed me and I joined a well established “show band” as a keyboardist that played 160-200 shows a year. 6 years later, I went back to live engineering and music production but the market had changed. With digital audio workstations (DAWs) becoming affordable for the public, people that couldn’t afford studio time, could now buy a production type studio and record their songs. I bought mine in 1999…ProTools (a program I was already familiar with). This started making the big studios close their doors. Artists and musicians could now record their ideas themselves. But just because they can make the music, doesn’t mean they can mix it correctly. It was an easy transition from analog to digital and the convenience of cheaper and more powerful gear through the years made it a reality to squeeze a what was a $1.5-2 million dollar room into a basement or den for a fraction of the cost…and it sounds just as good (or better).

Chicago Trax “A” Room 1994

After the band and while building up my studio clientele again, I went back into live engineering. To this day, I still have house accounts (where I staff the venue with engineers). From those house gigs, I got hired by bands to be their sound engineer exclusively. I enjoy a good reputation as an engineer who cares about the show. I will admit, it’s hard for me to say what like more, mixing a rockin’ arena show or working on an artist’s song, a commercial or a personal instrumental. I love it all. The shows are immediate gratification but short lived. The songs in the studio are forever gratifying. I was very successful in live sound until COVID shut the world down. When that happened, my studio started becoming very busy with music for commercials and video gaming. After the first 6-8 months, things started opening back up and now I’m doing it all…live, studio, music production for songs, commercials, videos and movies. And now I’m doing everything I love. I am a lucky man!