Eyes and Ears
The early years:
I starting getting into music during my late elementary school years and into junior high. One of the first albums I remember playing over and over again was The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I thought it was amazing that a recording was able to ignite your imagination and transport you to another place, like reading a book but with sound. Neil Young's Decade album and Pink Floyd's The Wall were also early influences along with The Cars debut album, Queen records and Cheap Trick singles. I started playing the drums in 6th grade and eventually moved on to the piano. I wanted to write songs so I needed to learn chords right? And my friend was already playing guitar, so the keyboard was a good alternative.
My friends and I started a band around the 9th or 10th grade and boy could we jam! It was a lot of fun and a great learning experience as we wrote original material but also practiced and performed various cover songs including complex Rush & Yes songs. Good times!
I was recording much of our stuff at the time on an old Cutec 4 track cassette recorder. I remember the most accomplished recording I did on that thing was a cover of U2's "New Year's Day". It sounded great and I was hooked on recording sounds. After high school I went to Chilliocothe, OH to The Recording Workshop to learn the art of recording.
Professional career:
I got my first assistant engineering job when I was 18 at a small studio in Lawrenceville, NJ that soon moved to a new facility in Trenton, NJ. I helped gut the entire space, built the soundproof walls and ran the wiring. It was a ton of grunt work for little pay but I was building a recording studio! It was here I worked on the Poor Righteous Teachers famed Holy Intellect LP. A year later engineer/producer Jon Anthony from Philadelphia's famous Sigma Sound Studios brought a band in to record. After assisting him for a few days I earned an interview at Sigma. I became a staff "assistant engineer" and was on my way to working with and leaning from some fanatic engineers, producers and recording artist including; Joe & Mike Tarsia, Teddy Pendergrass, Patti LaBelle, Bell Biv Devo, The O'Jays, Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff and Phil Ramone to name a few. (Sadly both Joe and Mike Tarsia are no longer with us. I am thankful for the opportunities and education they gave me.)
At Sigma Sound I quickly started engineering sessions and tracking vocals for these R&B greats. It was here I did my first mix that made it on a major label for producer/writer/artist Gerald Levert. It was "Juices Flow" on Gerald's Groove On LP. It's here I gotta say Gerald was a great influence on me as far as producing and song writing. He was a fantastic song-smith and friend. He is greatly missed.
In the early 90's I was listening to a lot of indie rock bands like Minutemen, Sebedoh and The Flaming Lips and was able to work with Philly's indie faves, Strapping Fieldhands. By the mid 90's I mixed platinum albums for Keith Sweat, Joe (Grammy nominated), LSG (Grammy nominated), and somewhere in there got to produce, record and mix the mod-pop-rock Philly band The Interpreters. We did the entire album in London, England at Mayfair studios. What a great experience that was. The album received 4 stars from Rolling Stone magazine's David Fricke.
I went freelance and moved from Philly to New York City's Lower East Side around '98/'99 and bought my first Mac and ProTools system. For the next several years I worked with a ton of NYC bands and artists including; Tricky, Cyndi Lauper, Ambulance LTD, The Pleasure Unit and The Orion Experience (Gold). I also worked at many amazing studios in NYC; The Hit Factory, Sony, Electric Lady, Soundtrack, Right Track and Battery.
In 2006 I started editing video professionally for various projects; music videos, documentary style fund raisers, web pro-mos and feature films, TV commercials and web series. I think a lot of musicians find the jump into video a logical one. My years of audio mixing and developing my inner eye has definitely helped me edit video. I am an Avid Certified Pro Tools HD "Operator- Post Production"
More recently I’ve found my way back to my love of songwriting. I’ve been crafting my songs, co-writing and producing for other artists. This is where I shine- creating songs from scratch and FINISHING!
I’ve worked on songs garnering over 500 million streams.
To learn more about Ron and his Atlantic West Studios visit, Atlantic West Studios.com
