I swear I’m a lot nicer than that photo makes me look. The photographer insisted I didn’t smile, so here we are.

I’ve been making music, recording, mixing, and producing since I was 17. I’m in my early 40s now, so I guess that means I’ve been doing this for a while. I love helping people make music, and I’ve been obsessed with the way records sound for as long as I can remember.

As a kid, I would put on certain albums just because I loved the way the drums sounded. I couldn’t explain what I was hearing at the time, but I knew there was something about those records that pulled me in. Eventually, figuring out what that “something” was became my passion.

I first became seriously interested in recording after my band made one of its earliest demos in an unfinished basement, which is probably a familiar starting point for a lot of young musicians. Throughout the session, I kept thinking to myself, “I can do this better.” That thought stuck with me.

I started building a studio in my basement with my father and in 2005, I attended and graduated from the Sheffield Institute for the Recording Arts. While I had already started recording at home, Sheffield helped me quickly build a foundation in acoustics, engineering, signal flow, and the fundamentals of sound. It was my first opportunity to spend real time in a professional studio, and I soaked up every minute of it. I also found myself helping and mentoring classmates who were still getting comfortable with the technical side of recording.

Today, I work out of my private home studio in Baltimore, Maryland. Most mixing and mastering sessions are unattended, although I occasionally work with clients in person. For live drum tracking and larger recording sessions, I work out of Wright Way Studios here in Baltimore.

My own space is small and humble, but it is curated for exactly what I do. I use a hybrid analog and digital workflow, combining carefully selected outboard equipment with the flexibility and efficiency of a modern digital setup. It gives me the depth, character, and glue I enjoy from analog gear without slowing down the process or making revisions difficult.

The studio is built around Barefoot monitoring and equipment from Tegeler, Audient, Fractal Audio, Warm Audio, Friedman, Vox, Orange, Two Notes, and others. The gear matters, but only when it helps me make the right decisions and serve the song.

I had the pleasure of working on much of Teen Mortgage’s early catalog, beginning with their first EP and continuing through many of the singles that followed. That work helped lead me into larger projects, label releases, and, more recently, producing, mixing, and mastering for OttobarTV, the official YouTube channel of Baltimore’s most well known venue, the Ottobar.

I’ve also spent years playing in Baltimore area bands, including Mean Sea, Mojo Bozo’s Electric Circus, and aFREUDIANSLIP. I don’t play out as often, but I still love being part of the local music community and try to get to as many shows as possible. Staying connected to the people making music here keeps me inspired and reminds me why I started doing this in the first place.

At the end of the day, I’m still a musician working with other musicians. I know how much time, money, frustration, and second guessing can go into making a record. I also know the last thing you want is to work with someone who isn't as passionate as you.

My job is to help the songs hit harder, sound clearer, and feel finished without sanding off the rough edges that made them interesting. No overcomplicating things, no forcing your record into whatever happens to be trendy, and no pretending there’s only one right way to make music.

Just honest feedback, a lot of attention to detail, and a record that still sounds like you, only better.