Dibaj – The Traveler is my latest audio production. Singer-songwriter Sara/Dibaj had played a house concert years prior, and this song stood out. “This is the kind of song the world needs to hear, please record it.”, I told her. Time-skip, I had become an audio engineer, and she asked me to produce it. To get the sound Sara envisioned, we went for a full-on remote production: Acoustic guitar by Seed Holden in Zagreb, Croatia – Sara’s first choice. Violin by Joana Carvalhas in Valencia, Spain at Berklee College’s own studios – my recommendation for any remote violin work. Vocals were recorded by Sara at her own place, as she feels the most comfortable there. Then I added bass and electric guitar for a low-end foundation, plus pianos and piano-pads to achieve that dreamy folk vision. I mixed the song with the goal of landing it close to the reference songs that I had asked for at the very beginning of this process. Justin Colletti in New York City mastered The Traveler. My roles in this production: Producer, session instrumentalist, mixing engineer. Listen on Tidal
Jamie Collier – Scene By Scene (angry version) is an all-acoustic solo performance recorded at my home studio just after I had set it up. Luckily, Jamie – one of Berlin’s finest folk songwriters and live performers – came over to record a few songs with me. The tenacity of this man is unmatched, he went for a seventh version of this song after feeling he didn’t get the first six takes where he felt they could land. Listening to him from the desk, I had noticed a spur of frustration at the end of his last take, and suggested to really lean into it to unlock that angry/bitter singer-songwriter on stage energy. So he did, and this is what we caught. Recording other people is mic and cable work, yes, but what really matters to me is helping my artists find their moment. Just a little bit of mixing here, to preserve that moment rather than cleaning it up for a release. My roles in this production: Recording & mixing engineer. Check out Jamie Collier’s website for his albums!
The Night Gardener – Death By Wine is a singer-songwriter on piano with strings production. Full disclosure: The Night Gardener is me, my singer-songwriter alter ego that started me on the journey of audio production long ago. Death By Wine’s piano and vocals are the result of a live-streamed concert without a live audience during the pandemic, which resulted in a very clean take, uninterrupted by applause. A couple of years later I toyed around with midi-sequencing string arrangement, then combined the two with the goal of mixing it as seamless as possible. If this makes you feel something, I have done both jobs well. My roles in this production: Songwriter, live performer, midi-editor and session musician, mixing engineer. Listen on Bandcamp & Spotify
The Night Gardener – Paper Sky. A big production, a simpler one might fit the song better, but there were new ideas I wanted to try in this one. Acoustic guitar and vocals tracked in a one-off performance (okay, it was take two). Then lots of overdubs: bass guitar, pianos, a number of electric guitars and a choir made up by me pretending to be many people in front of the mic. In the mixing sessions I tried my hands on a lot of new tools and ideas, learned to actually hear compression and the costs of it. My roles in this production: Songwriter, performer, singer, instrumentalist, mixing & mastering engineer. Michael Klich, Zaricca and I also made a music video for Paper Sky – watch it here. Listen on Bandcamp & Spotify
The Night Gardener – Air is another live recording from that pandemic live-streamed concert. Just piano and vocals here, and it turned out exceptionally beautiful. Sometimes the strangest of life’s circumstances lead to something very special. After I had received the recording, I mixed and mastered it for a release. My roles in this production: Songwriter, live performer, mixing & mastering engineer. A video from that performance exists. Listen on Bandcamp & Spotify