A Journey of 1000 Miles

Begins with a single footstep, or something like that, so I'm finally going to start posting to my blog.  Basically I'll be posting updates about my work as a a music engineer, or my day job as a QA engineer for Universal Audio, working on new and exciting projects, or I might have an update about one of my own personal musical projects... it all starts to blend together really, but the basic common denominator is that I love producing music and tools to make music, and here is my story.

So a quick back story is that I've done a little of everything in the music industry (except make a lot of money LOL), I've been in bands, done live sound for all kinds of music, worked at a guitar store, ran recording projects, mixed, mastered, worked in the gear industry, etc.  Currently I've been finding a niche working on rap music, and I've been lucky enough to work with some great artists and some amazing music projects in this genre.

So here's an update on my most recent projects:

-This summer put out a collaboration project with BlacDaRippa called Blacmatik, which has some really cool tracks, including the San Jose Anthem, which got into some rap blogs and is beloved by many San Jose residents and artists...  we are working on a remix of this which will feature even more SJ rappers...  also this album features the single So Smooth, which features a verse from Mistah F.A.B., and the bass line is played by me ;-P

-I just got done mastering a mixtape from my #1 favorite rap group when I was growing up:  Totally Insane - Execution Style.  Just being able to work on this project was a dream come true, there were some sonic limitations which made my job hard, but just working on such great material was worth it.

-I got hit up for an interview from this online iPad music magazine, regarding my iMatik album, a personal project of mine which was an instrumental mixtape made with just an iPhone, and got a ton of press attention.  Turns out they need some extra content, and also turns out I'm working on an iPad album, so I'll be a regular contributor to this publication, and will be sure to post some links to articles on this blog.

-Also, I am about to finish up a personal project called "Backwoods", which is a collection of crazy instrumentals I started while I was living in what was basically a cabin in Santa Cruz.  It's a weird combination of electronic beats, acoustic and electric instruments, percussion, DJ scratches.... then everything is mangled to oblivion...  It just needs to be mastered and then I'll drop it at www.freematik.com!

-Oh yeah and I'm going to start vocal tracking for the iPad project soon!  I'll post more about this in my next blog update!

-Also on the mixing front, I'm about to do a whole mixtape for Chicago artist Touche Ole'....  looking forward to this project!!!


So as you can see I'll be staying busy for quite a while!  No wonder time seems to be moving so fast recently (or maybe it's those "funny" cookies I've been eating (LOL).  OK that was a lot for a first post, I'll try to keep the next post more reasonable...