Clint Bennett lives in Los Angeles, CA and works in the film & television industry as a music editor. He’s recently worked on such films as Blade Runner 2049, Arrival, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Kong: Skull Island, Widows, Bad Times at the El Royale, New Girl & The Cabin In The Woods. He began his professional career in the 90’s San Francisco music scene playing in bands and working as a freelance recording engineer. The transition to the film industry began with his move to Los Angeles in 2000.
About this interview:
Clint chats with me about 90’s San Francisco, moving to LA, proving himself, persevering, union benefits, and not taking his opportunity’s for granted. Enjoy! -Matt
Kieron Menzies is a mixer, producer, and engineer based in Los Angeles. He was born in Toronto to a Trinidadian-Canadian family who eventually relocated to California. This is where Kieron became engulfed in music and began to pursue a career in recording and production. Over the years, Kieron has been a resident at 4th Street Recording in Santa Monica, Stiles Music in Portland, Sarm West Studios in London, Hen House Studios in Venice and The Green Building in Santa Monica. He has also been the main engineer, mixer and in-house producer for famed songwriter/producer Rick Nowels for many years. Some of Kieron’s notable credits include FKA Twigs, Nelly Furtado, Willie Nelson, Lykke Li, Ra Ra Riot, Alessia Cara, John Legend, Marina And The Diamonds, Miguel, Yusuf aka Cat Stevens, Dua Lipa, Kesha, and Lana Del Rey. He currently works out of his own mixing studio and continues to do production/recording gigs wherever the music takes him.
About this interview:
Kieron chats with me about working at a pumpkin patch, help from his godmother, working with Rick Nowles, meetings with music industry suits, playing scratchers and saving money. Enjoy! -Matt
Cameron Webb is a producer, engineer, and mixer who has worked with many artists most notably Motörhead, Sum 41, NOFX, Megadeth & Limp Bizkit. In 2004, he won a Grammy for his work on Kelly Clarkson’s album “Breakaway”. Cameron has been Motörhead’s producer and mixing engineer for over 12 years, since producing Motörhead’s album “Inferno”.
About this interview:
Cameron joins me to talk about being the best runner, honesty, hanging up on studio managers, letting flaws shine through, synchronization nightmares, Yo Gabba Gabba, and listening to artists. Enjoy! -Matt
Dave Nelson’s career spans over twenty years in the film, sound and recording industry. As a composer, sound designer and re-recording mixer, his work has involved an interesting mix of documentaries, features, shorts as well as albums, some of which have been nominated for Academy, Emmy and Grammy Awards.
About this interview:
Dave joins me to chat about Michigan, President Ford’s doorbell, seeing Jimi Hendrix, harmonica lessons with Taj Mahal, staying on the bleeding edge of audio & video technology, losing his studio, agreements, and Dolby certification. Enjoy! -Matt
Eric Kuehnl is a composer, sound designer, and educator. He is the Co-Director of the Music Technology Program at Foothill College, the Director of Partner Programs for Next Point Training, and also teaches at Pyramind in San Francisco. Previously, Eric was an Audio Training Strategist in the Avid Education Department, and a Senior House Engineer for Sony Computer Entertainment America. He holds a Master’s degree from the California Institute of the Arts, a Bachelor’s degree from Oberlin Conservatory, and studied composition at the Centre Iannis Xenakis in Paris.
About this interview:
Eric joins me to talk about college, the death of his father, the Burbank airport, when Masters Degrees come in handy, and 90’s Digidesign. Enjoy! -Matt
Beau Sorenson is a freelance audio professional (producer/mixer/ engineer) based in California. He also writes, records, and remixes music as Beaunoise.
As producer/engineer, He’s worked on multiple albums for Death Cab for Cutie, Bob Mould, and Superchunk, as well as albums for Tune-yards, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, Mac McCaughan, Mike Krol, Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, The Dodos, Sparklehorse, Field Report, Jars of Clay, Yellow Ostrich, Camera Obscura, and many more. I’ve engineered sessions for Chris Walla, Merrill Garbus, Tucker Martine, Butch Vig, John Vanderslice, Dangermouse, Ryan Hewitt, and Al Weatherhead.
While studio recording is Beau’s primary focus, He’s also composed and recorded soundtracks for films and podcasts mastered music for release, worked as a studio tech, taught audio engineering, and consulted on studio construction and design.
Beau spent six years as a staff engineer at Smart Studios in Madison, WI before leaving to work freelance. He is currently a staff engineer at John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone studios but he also works at other studios as well.
About this interview:
Beau joins me for coffee to discuss hardware stores, being kind, respect for studio owners, having patience, and getting out of town to record. Enjoy! -Matt
Working Class Audio #232 with Buddy Lee Dobberteen
Buddy Lee Dobberteen grew up in a small town in Michigan. He got into playing guitar at a young age and was always fascinated with music but never really pursued it because he was too busy playing sports. He did an electrical internship all through school and after graduation began doing side gigs wiring houses but had always dreamed of something more. In early September of 2001, Buddy joined the Marine Corps and went in as an infantryman. In 2002 he was deployed to the Middle East and soon after participated in the Iraq war. Three tours later, Buddy got out of the Marines and was labeled 100% disabled. After a series of events, he started the nonprofit Pathfinders Outdoors: His Little Studio & Mentoring. His goal was to help fellow vets via mentoring, learning audio and music as well as hunting and fishing together. Buddy and his team have had over 300 Mentoring Sessions since January 2019 and continue to grow and help fellow vets who require help.
About this interview:
Buddy joins me to talk about music and audio. Being a Marine, his three tours of duty in Iraq, coming home wounded, forming his non-profit for vets, thinking about suicide, teaching audio skills and mentoring. Enjoy! -Matt
Brendan Duffey is a 3x Grammy nominated producer/engineer who lives in Davis, California. He has engineered, mixed, mastered and produced some of the largest names in music in Brazil, working with such artist such as Daniela Mercury, Caetano Veloso, Lulu Santos, Kiko Loureiro Angra,50 Cent, The Mission, and many others. Brendan owned Norcal Studios in São Paulo, Brazil for a decade and now has a mixing and mastering facility in called Brendan Duffey Audio in Davis, CA.
About this interview:
Brendan joins me to chat about growing up in Davis, California, the impact of Sylvia Massy, the Banff Center, running a studio in Brazil, working with his wife, corruption, bureaucracy, violence, kidnapping, success, troubles with shipping & friends in the FBI. Enjoy! -Matt
Chris Shaw is a four time Grammy Award winning American producer, engineer, mixer, and musician. Beginning his career at Greene Street Recording, he quickly worked his way from his start as an NYU intern, to assistant engineer, to a position as a staff engineer working with influential hip-hop artists such as Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, Run-DMC, and LL Cool J. In 1991 he played bass with LL Cool J on his famous performance on MTV Unplugged (along with De La Soul, MC Lyte, and A Tribe Called Quest). He went independent shortly after and has since made records with Weezer, Wilco, Bob Dylan, Ween, Jeff Buckley, Soul Asylum, Sheryl Crow, Super Furry Animals, Death Cab For Cutie, Lou Reed, Bad Brains, Ric Ocasek, Cheap Trick, Neon Neon, Elvis Perkins, Guillemots, Joss Stone, The Meat Puppets, Nada Surf, Dashboard Confessional, and The Derek Trucks Band. He has worked on six of Rolling Stone’s “500 greatest Records of All Time“.
About this interview:
Chris joins me to talk about keeping your mouth shut, staying humble, always be learning, making mistakes and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Enjoy! -Matt
Ed Brooks has been making records since the dawn of time, well almost. Ed started his career producing amd engineering records in basement studios, working his way up into major studios during Seattle’s music explosion of the early 90s. He started full time as a mastering engineer 18 years ago. Artists Ed has mastered projects for include, REM, Pearl Jam, Fleet Foxes, Death Cab For Cutie, Courtney Marie Andrews, The Head and The Heart, Chris Robinson, and Noah Gundersen. He also plays pedal steel guitar in several bands based in the Seattle area.
About this interview:
Ed joins me to talk about working at Tapco, transitioning from tech to recording to mastering, staying cool in intense studio situations and 90’s Seattle. Enjoy! -Matt
Shani Gandhi is a producer, engineer and mixer residing in Nashville, TN. She has engineered for such artists as Dierks Bentley, Kelsea Ballerini, Alison Krauss, The Mountain Goats, Parker Millsap, and Sierra Hull. In 2017, she received a GRAMMY Award as an engineer for Sarah Jarosz’s folk album, Undercurrent, and was also nominated for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.
About this interview:
Shani joins me to talk about her journey from Australia to the US, earning trust, not over mixing, immigration, the dynamics of Nashville and making time for yourself. Enjoy! -Matt
Wesley Slover founded Sono Sanctus in 2011 as a means to freelance in music and sound design. He creates sound design and music for films, ads, apps, games, installations, and hardware with an emphasis on the intersection of sound and music. Some of his client list includes: Dolby, Spotify, Casper, Google, Facebook, the Atlanta Falcons, and Airbnb.
About this interview:
Wesley joins me to talk about the art & craft of sound design, scheduling, family time, the cassette tape guy, making stuff and church sound. Enjoy! -Matt
Rachel Field moved to Seattle from California in 2009 and quickly became heavily involved in the PNW recording scene. She has worked in several areas of audio production, and found her passion to be mastering. As Mastering Engineer she works on all genres, and with a wide variety of local and international artists such as Whitney Mongé, Fauna Shade, Old Coast, Jericho Hill, Ryme, The Fucking Eagles, The Baggios, Mouths of Babes, and Anomie Belle. Rachel also does freelance recording in several studios in the Seattle area.
About this interview:
Rachel joins me to talk about food service, customer service, reading people, riding motorcycles, getting sunshine and mastering. Enjoy! -Matt
Joe Finocchio is a musician and recording engineer (The Soft White Sixties, American Killers, Double Duchess, davOmakesbeats, The Family Crest) based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has spent the last 11 years making records in studios all over Northern California. Currently he resides at Santo Recording in Oakland and works out of his mix room in his Mission District apartment. Joe also works as a Production Manager for a Bay Area corporate AV provider called On Point Audio Visual.
About this interview:
Joe joins me to talk about his early struggles, the trust of mentors, skipping the intern process, working in corporate AV and not drinking with the band. Enjoy! -Matt
Frank Marchand is a recording engineer, mixer, producer, live sound engineer, broadcast mixer and Maryland native since 1976. He learned to play bass in his high school band in the late 70’s and was bitten by the audio bug when his band went into the studio for the first time to record some original material. He then attended a four year liberal arts college that had only one course in acoustics and four track studio that the director would not let any one use. After graduation he found work in a D.C. based mom and pop Hi-fi chain that specialized in selling blank recording media such as cassettes and blank video tape. Working up from the sales floor to the advertising end of the business he then landed a Front of House or House sound job at the now vanished Bayou in D.C. where he cut his teeth as a live sound engineer. After the stint at the Bayou, he then landed a job at Washington Professional Systems where he was the assistant to sound guru Greg Lukens and owner Robert Levin. It was while working at WPS that he came into contact with the Northern VA, D.C., and Baltimore studio community and started to freelance at many studios around the region recording bands on the weekends while being exposed to the latest in recording gear at WPS during the week. He decided to go freelance full time in 1990 and has recorded over 600 records and toured all over the world doing live audio work as well. He has owned or been a part of 4 different studio spaces through the years and still maintains a healthy touring schedule. Mr Marchand has worked on Grammy nominated projects, and Billboard Number #1 records during his career. He has worked with such artists as: punk luminary Bob Mould, Toured with Calexico and Texas Rockers The Toadies, recorded projects for New Orleans rockers Cowboy Mouth, Annapolis natives Jimmies Chicken Shack, Doom Metal founders The Obsessed, Blue Grassers Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen, Gospel visionaries The Reminders and Celtic creators of Celt grass, We Banjo 3. He is comfortable with all styles of music and has worked with many artists you have never heard of.
About this interview:
Frank joins me to talk about freelancing, live sound, recording in rehearsal spaces, adapting to acoustic environments, being a soccer coach, client repeat rates, and working on projects he likes.
Doug McBride is a man with many titles including studio owner, engineer, mastering engineer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, dad and husband. Doug founded and has run Chicago based Gravity Studios for over 20 years. He has worked with Izzy Stradlin, Veruca Salt, Smashing Pumpkins, Fall Out Boy, and many more. Doug lived in a treehouse in the Panamanian jungle for 3 months in summer of 1985 and he owns a beagle named Banjo.
About this interview:
Doug joins me to talk about running Gravity Studios, assisting for Steve Albini, 911, word of mouth, dealing with landlords and unexpected guests. Enjoy! -Matt
Justin Lieberman is a recording engineer and producer with over two decades of experience. Justin has worked with hundreds of artists on over 150 commercially released albums including Santana, George Winston, Roy Hargorve, Jonathan Richman, David Gray, Alanis Morissette, Les Claypool, Jennifer Nettles, Jackie King, Willie Nelson, Kronos Quartet, Ralph Stanley, Bill Frisell and many more. Justin has also worked on several films, countless radio and television commercials and has recently been focusing his work on score mixing for video games such as the recent blockbuster release Spider-Man.
Justin began his professional career in San Francisco at Toast Recording and then moved on to Different Fur Recording where he worked as a staff assistant and staff engineer for 7 years. In 2004 Justin began working at SF Soundworks where he met a producer PC Muñoz who introduced him to the Talking House Productions crew. Just joined the Talking House Productions team in 2006 and continued with them until the closure of Talking House in 2010. In April 2010 Justin joined forces with Willie Samuels and Cindy McSherry to launch Studio Trilogy. Justin served as co-manager and chief engineer at Studio Trilogy until it’s closure in December 2016 when he joined the team at Sony Playstation as a music engineer.
About this interview:
Justin joins me to talk about his journey from his early experiences at Prairie Sun to his current gig at Sony Interactive, commuting, work/life balance, Al Gore, mixing hundreds of tracks in surround and more. Enjoy! -Matt
Hans DeKline is a Grammy-winning, Los Angeles based mastering engineer. Since 2005, he has mastered thousands of songs & albums by artists such as U2, Pixies, Snoop Dogg, Touche Amore, mewithoutYou, Morcheeba, Veruca Salt, Lisa Loeb, Diplo, Jack Irons, James Fearnley, Candiria, Ritchie Ramone, Twista, Jesca Hoop, DJ AM, Papa M, Skating Polly, Gary Jules, Ninja Sex Party, Tim Finn, Ben Lee, JMSN, The Growlers, The Paranoyds, The Von Bondies, Partyshank, Jon Lajoie, Matthew Ryan, The Romantics, Steve Aoki, Pace Won, 825 Records & YOU!
Hans grew up in Tucson AZ where he started playing and singing in bands when he was 15. His early audio experiences started with using borrowed 4 track cassette machines to make mix tapes of hip hop and punk tunes recorded from vinyl. Hans would compress/eq and change level for each tune so that those tapes would play down like commercially released compilations. He didn’t realize it then but he was already starting his journey into mastering. Han’s played the role of recording artist by signing to Sony Work Group fresh out of college in 96 with his group Maypole. He toured for a few years opening for Wallflowers, Smoking Popes and Our Lady Peace. By 98 it all ended… and Hans ultimately transitioned to the studio side of things. After mastering a friends record in early 2000 and receiving many referrals as a result, Hans started what was the beginning of a love affair with mastering. By 2005 he was mastering full time.
About this interview:
Hans joins me from his home in Los Angeles to discuss his journey, communicating with clients, raising wolves, outside interests, and remembering to always ask what does it sound like?
“Artist” is the single word which best describes producer, mixer, composer,and multi-instrumentalist Butch Vig. Born in Viroqua,Wisconsin, his parents Doc and Betty exposed Butch to a variety of music and fine arts culture during his youth.
While attending the University of Wisconsin Madison, where he received a degree in filmmaking, Vig focused on experimental music composition – an area that would serve him well into the future. While at the UW, Butch jumped into the local music scene and joined the band Spooner as its drummer. Unlike most drummers, content to bang out the rhythms, Vig pursued music composition with the band and stepped behind the studio glass to shape the recorded sound as a producer.
After graduating from the UW, Butch co-founded Smart Studios and began producing and mixing albums. His perseverance as an independent producer in Madison carried far beyond Wisconsin’s borders, as artists from around the country began to hear the clear, edgy, hard rock sound shaped by Butch’s productions. His work with Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Smashing Pumpkins and Soul Asylum in the 90s has been hailed by music critics and authors who have placed his work at the top of the decades best recordings.
Additionally, Vig has created many exciting remixes for such prominent artists as U2, Beck, Korn, Alanis Morrissette, Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails. In 1995 Vig returned to performing and writing with a band he formed that goes by the name of Garbage. The multi-platinum, Grammy Nominated band has achieved worldwide critical and commercial success as it ushered in yet another new direction for rock music. Recently, Vig has produced critically acclaimed albums for Against Me, Green Day, and The Foo Fighters, winning a Grammy for their album “Wasting Light.” He was recently ranked #9 on NME’s Top 50 Greatest Producers Ever. In 2014, Butch produced The Foo Fighters HBO documentary “Sonic Highways.” In 2016 Garbage released their acclaimed sixth album “Strange Little Birds”. In 2018 Butch produced the soundtrack for Puppy Love, and he recently wrapped up production on the new Silversun Pickups album.
-Jim Berkenstadt
About this Interview:
Butch joins me to talk about growing up in Viroqua, Wisconsin, the trajectory of Smart Studios, one band leading to another, being diverse, vibe crushers as well as Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage. Special thanks to former WCA guest Justin Perkins for connecting us!
Don Setaro is a producer and engineer based in the Central Valley of California with over 40 years in the world of music and audio. Don is also is involved in live sound, owns a record label and has an extensive background doing studio installation and wiring.
About This Interview
Don Joins me at Highwire Coffee in Oakland, California for a chat about soldering thousands of cables, working on model trains for Neil Young, building studios, running a record label and his love for audio and making records.
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