AES Student Blog

Tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from and what do you study?

I was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, but 3yrs ago I moved to Nashville to pursue my education and career in audio from Middle Tennessee State University. I’m currently working on my Masters of Recording Arts and Technologies at MTSU. I also serve as a graduate teaching assisting at MTSU and I run my own project studio called The Crooked Switch, where I freelance record, produce, and mix local artists. 

What initiated your passion for audio? When did it start? 

Like most audio engineers my passion for audio started with being a musician and having a love for music. Ever since I was a child I was always involved in music. I took piano lessons as a kid, I played clarinet and trumpet in my elementary school band, I studied music theory at a grammy winning high school (Neuqua Valley), and I played guitar and wrote music for a handful of rock bands throughout high school and college. While playing guitar, I became obsessed how things sounded. I was always fiddling with the settings on everyone’s amps, and I would leave shows constantly commenting on the quality of the sound. At the same time, my high school also had a small MIDI lab that it used for its music theory classes which was my first introduction to audio technology and the power it provided. Once I reached college I had enough money to buy Ableton live and an interface of my own. I was immediately hooked and knew that music production and audio engineering was what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing, and as they say, the rest is history. 

Tell us about production of your submission? What is the story behind it? What inspired it? How long did you work on it? Was it your first entry?

This song was inspired by a free release of some space themed samples by NASA. I’m a geek at heart and love outer space, so after sifting through some of these samples, I thought it would be really cool to base a song around the Apollo 11 landing. I was living in an apartment at the time of this song’s creation so most of my productions were done in-the-box using either MIDI, sampling, or DI guitars. This song was no exception. I work in both Pro Tools and Ableton live, but I prefer Ableton live for my own compositions and electronic based music that I make when I’m not doing production or mixing work for other artists. This song took a couple of months to create which is about normal for me. I wear many hats and juggle many balls, so I only devote time to my own productions such as this, when I have free time in my schedule, which is becoming much more rare these days.

What/who made you join AES?

I joined AES back in 2013 when I started school at MTSU. I had heard about their AES chapter through the departments website. I wanted to be as involved as I could in the audio community so it was a no brainer to join. I’ve been a student member ever since. In 2015 I also competed on MTSU’s mixing team during the AES Spring Mixer. 

Tell us about your favourite experiences at the 141st AES convention in LA!

As always, one of the best parts of AES is just being in the same room with so many like minded and talented audio professionals where the exchange of new knowledge is commonplace, new friendships are formed, and the opportunities are provided to talk about new technologies with your peers. Above all, I would say the highlights of the convention for me would be either making finalist in the recording competition, or listening to top producers like Greg Wells, George Massenburg, Darrel Thorp, and Al Schmitt, talk about their productions and recording techniques. I’d also never been to LA before so it was really cool just getting see such an influential and historic city that has had such a major impact on the music and entertainment industries. 

To hear Kyle's project, click here