Production Work

While my focus is mastering, I’ve had the pleasure of working on a variety of different projects. I love producing singles and EPs, a couple of which you can find below along with a description of how the band and I recorded the tunes. Additionally I’ve worked on scoring a few podcasts that you can find below as well.

End of Death - Hark! EP - Producer

This project is a Christmas EP from End of Death, a church collective in Vancouver, WA. My number one goal as producer of this EP was to bring a feeling of “real life” to the project that didn’t have a budget. Prior music released from the collective was intentionally very “in the box” using automated midi drums, sampled instruments, and a combination of software synths and hardware synths to great effect. This time around, we wanted to bring more of a “live” feeling, which came about from the groups previous effort “Broken King” (listed below). A handful of musicians crammed into my one room studio and we tracked 2 songs totally live, and did drums, acoustic guitars, vocals, and misc. percussion for 2 others that same week. One of my favorite things about this EP is that since it was made with essentially no budget, the musicians and myself became very involved in using our creative resources to get the most out of ourselves. The drummer on the project really pushed himself to be imaginative in reworking Christmas standards, the singer on “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” brought a super unique vision to the song, and the last track, Welcome To Our World will always be a personal highlight, as the four of us took an hour at the end of day 1 of recording just to give it a try. The two singers sat on the floor, guitar in hand, our drummer played delicately in the corner, and I played a vintage ‘80s synth through incredibly quiet studio monitors. If you listen carefully you can probably hear the hum of the HVAC. While these “imperfections” are things I’ve learned from and how to avoid since then, they are also the things I love to subtly integrate when appropriate, as every time I listen to these tracks they have a real sense of time and space. This EP was mixed and mastered by Evergreen Mixing.

Misc production notes

  • Drum sounds were primality from a stereo ribbon pair front of kit and an AKG C12 clone overhead. We did not use any samples which I was very proud of

  • The intro to Hark! The Herald Angels Sing came about from a voice memo that became unintelligible when sent through text

  • The only outboard gear I had at the time would have been a two channel Neve style preamp which would have been for kick and snare

  • Electric guitar on track 3 was added very last minute, about an hour before the mixing session. I was fairly obsessed with DI guitar sounds at the time

Tunahead - Box of Everything single -Producer

Tunahead wanted to release two new singles in 2022, Box of Everything and Working Too Hard. At this point I was no longer working out of the same one room studio we had worked in previously, instead working out of a more modernized studio in rural Oregon. We kept the same ethos from their first single, The Garage, working quickly to keep the energy alive, while getting to use all the things we had both learned since our previous time together. The singles show growth in Tunahead’s influences, some disco drum grooves with some Chili Peppers-esque rhythm guitar playing. At the time I’d been digging producer Gabriel Roth’s work, super minimal techniques focused on extracting textured performances. That came together in using a minimal drum setup and ribbon mics on guitars. Mixing and mastering on both of these tunes was done by myself.

Misc proudction notes:

  • No click track

  • All drums were through a Tascam m520 with a Shure SM7 overhead, RE20 on kick, and 57 on snare

  • EV 635As were used as stereo room and vocal mics - totally underrated mic

  • I broke a vintage AKG mic on this session. Sacrifices were made

  • Bass was DI through a Behringer sansamp which to my surprise sounded awesome

Tunahead - The Garage single - Producer

Back in early 2020, pre pandemic, PNW garage rock band Tunahead wanted to record and release their first single. The band crammed into my single room studio with the intention of recording mostly live and without a click to capture the energy of what they’d been doing at their live shows. I challenged the band to do minimal overdubs and work quickly in order keeping excitement high and attempt to document the uniqueness of their stage performance in an audio recording. Not every band can churn out a single in one day, but Tunahead can. I had the pleasure of mixing this track, and sent it over to Tyson Kingrey for mastering.

Misc production notes:

  • The band used a click track, but it gets muted about halfway through the song

  • Still not sure how we fit the 4 band members, plus myself and my dog in the old one room studio/storage closet

  • Drum setup would have been similar to Hark! - Stereo ribbons front of kit and AKG C12 clone overhead

  • Guitar amps were a Hot Rod Deluxe and Dr Z Carmen Ghia, bass amp an old Acoustic head if memory serves

End of Death - Broken King single - Producer

Back in mid 2019 I was tasked with producing a single for End of Death, a church collective in Washington. The bulk of the song was already written which helped me make the most of the considerable time crunch I had to work around. This single ended up informing a lot of the production elements of the Hark! EP, as it was recorded in the same one room studio just a few months earlier, and was the first time recording live drums in that space. Drums did prove to be a challenge in such a small room, but thanks to some creativity (like using an old Pearl kick as a floor tom, wild choices with a Pultec style EQ, and of course the expertise of an excellent drummer) we were able to get some fun results. While the sessions for this single did not include any “live” elements of a group playing and recording together, this single did give me confidence that I could use small spaces more creatively and implement “live” recording even in less than ideal circumstances.

Misc production notes:

  • The sequencer on the 80s Roland wouldn’t sync quite right so the intro took some finagling

  • I had finally recovered from my DI guitar obsession at this point, most guitars were through an AC15 or Twin Reverb

  • At the time I was into recording doubles and relatively little true stereo which I think was a result of listening to a lot of Mount Eerie around this time

We Have a Take Podcast - Theme Music

The We Have A Take podcast is Portland show documenting the Portland Train Blazers. This show has an incredibly variety of guests, from local fans to national sports writers, and the two hosts, Tara and Rose, provide great insight and always a laugh. They asked me to create a new theme song at the tail end of 2022 and, knowing they were fans of Dolly Parton and John Prine, I wanted to bring a slight Americana reference to track. I had a ton of fun with this one.

The Word Virus Podcast - Original Score

The Word Virus was a serialized science fiction podcast that integrated music into the show, thematically underwriting the season. I scored season one of this podcast primarily on my vintage Roland and Moog synthesizers and a variety of plugins. This was a super fun project to work on, as sometimes I was creating tracks that were very heavily influenced from games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, and at other times creating tracks that were completely original. Really fun ‘80s inspired score all around. I used my trusty Roland JX-3P and Moog Minimoog Reissue for most everything.

Kenny’s G League - Theme Music and Editing

Kenny’s G League is my personal basketball podcast covering the Rip City Remix, the minor league affiliate of the Portland Trail Blazers. The team is brand new to the city, so my goal with the podcast is to both cover the team week to week, providing news and interviews, and to help engage fans across the Pacific Northwest with the team. Branding for Kenny’s G League was done by local designer Basket Ghoul. I score the podcast and edit each episode.

Van City Church Podcast - Theme Music

I created the theme music for this podcast. My intention was to create a short snippet of music that did not have a sense of finality or resolution in order to leave room for a narrated introduction and outro. I created this piece of music using Roland sequencer and granular reverb plugin.