Testimonials

I'll summarize my process in one word: conversation. Music is communication. You and I will build a common artistic language, batting ideas back and forth, trading favorite songs, movies, books, art, designers, & influences, and through our exploration, something new will emerge: your sound. Your song. Fully realized.

As a pop producer, writer, & mix engineer, I’m committed to one thing: delivering a production you love. Bring me a minimal song sketch and I’ll elevate it into the best version of itself. As a full-time professional for 15 years in NYC & L.A. I've been fortunate to play many different positions (including signed artist & award-winning composer). Versatility and endless curiosity are my biggest assets.

We’ll outline clear deadlines, deliverables, & pricing. I won’t work on a project if I don’t believe I’m a great fit. As such, I’ll be clear with you about what I can & can't do.

I started off signing to a label in LA in 2008 as an artist, after touring the world in a pop rock band during college - signing a record deal kept me out of grad school for Economics. From there I was approached to start a retro pop/soul band, write a barrelhouse blues musical, score various short films / theatre productions. I won a few awards as a composer / lyricist and landed in NYC to produce a musical I wrote, collaborated on a few other musicals and an experimental opera, then veered back toward my first love: pop. I've worked as the Gregory Brothers / Schmoyoho's in-house composer / producer / mix engineer since 2016, and continue with freelance production, songwriting, and film composition. I'm also resuming a solo artist project in 2021, after a decade working exclusively on collaborations.

My promise to my clients is to bring my best work every day, follow through to completion, and never "mail it in" on a project. We have a finite number of creative opportunities in life - I believe in making the most of each one of them.

As an endlessly curious creator, I love the variety in my workday - I might be mixing a trap record in the morning, orchestrating a string arrangement in the afternoon, revising a lyric in the evening, and tracking a full band the next day. There's never a dull moment - my goal is to get better every day at whatever I'm doing, and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to wear so many musical hats during my career!

This varies widely, but one big one is: what's the process and how long does it take?! My answer is: it's different every time, there's only so much we can control, and the most important thing we can commit to is being honest and open to trying ideas. Some songs take an hour, some take a year (don't worry, that's a figure of speech - it won't take a year!). I like to keep our focus narrow, because music making is really just a series of a million tiny questions and solutions. To finish an album, you have to finish a song, to finish a song, you have to finish a chorus, and so on. As we move through this process, it's important to know that we're never truly "stuck" with that decision we made two days ago - paradoxically keeping this in mind allows us to move more freely and be less "precious" with every step. Creativity is fluid, and we're chasing a feeling together. Often that takes us outside our comfort zone, and sometimes we'll move toward things that seem scary... but that's where magic happens!

So many questions! I want the most complete picture of who they are, as artists and people. I love hearing what they're listening to and what they love about it. I love hearing their favorite shows, museums, cities, foods. I love hearing what they've made in the past, and what they like or don't like about it now. I love hearing what their sense of purpose is, and what they value most in life. Much of this informs our creative process, but also, I simply love hearing how differently different creators see the world.

I would say that the clearer they are about their own vision and goals for a project, the more seamlessly we'll be able to move forward together. Creativity is always exploration, and collaboration is always a conversation, so you never really see the end from the beginning. Having said that, thinking through your intentions at the outset goes a long way toward easing creative decisions and providing an anchor or beacon to guide a project to outcomes that can be as surprising as they are satisfying.

I love big, kitchen-sink pop bangers. I love groove and feel. I love harmonic richness and inventiveness a la Beatles, Beach Boys, BeeGees. I love contrast and juxtaposition - shimmering / warm, organic / electronic, digital / orchestral, pristine / heavily distorted.

A: That simplicity is easy. A lot of hard work goes into making something sound simple. Or as Sondheim said, “Great art hides its effort.”

Feel is everything! Whether it's your vocals, hats, or kick, pocketing everything rhythmically is the key to a pop hit. And don't confuse "pocketing" with "quantizing" - pinning things 100% to the grid is the best way to take the life out of a production. Like everything else in music, your ears are required! (as is your heart, as cheesy as it sounds)

A keen sense for drama or story, whether that's lyrical or instrumental. I'm always thinking, "what's the story we're telling, what's the journey of this song" and how can we best express and support that via every single part. All art is storytelling, and through it, humans discover something that can't be expressed any other way.

It's new every time, BUT recently, I've enjoyed working out a killer melody and lyric over a sparse but vibey keys / bass track, BEFORE drums are added. If it stands alone in the sketch, it'll hit next level when the production is fully formed. If I'm just mixing, I start with drums and bass, then vocals, then everything else. If your low end and your vocals sit right, the rest is easy.

My work falls into two "types": 1) I receive a session with a bare-bones song idea, that I then flesh out into a fully realized production in collaboration with an artist (arranging, performing, recording, nailing a "sound" or vibe, tracking vocals, and generally mixing and/or mastering) 2) An artist and I start a song from scratch, maybe using one of my instrumentals as a song starter, and from there go through the same path listed above.