Recording Connection mentor Brian Frederick
Driven by a passion to innovate and enrich the world through sound, Recording Connection mentor Brian Frederick is the co-owner of
Hybrid Studios in Santa Ana, CA and teaches the Ableton and Pro Tools programs, both beginning and advanced.
Brian stays busy helping great sounding music become realized as an audio engineer, mixing engineer, music producer, and artist. Along with business partner Miguel A. Vasquez, Brian is also the co-owner of Stacks FX, a pedal-based boutique effects company. Speaking of the vision behind the venture, he says, “What we’re trying to do is create unique pedals, unique effects that people haven’t done yet.”
Stacks FX pedals, featuring effects like overdrive and temelo, have caught on with a number of artists. Stack FX Fuzz Gazer pedal can even be heard on the Foo Fighters’ Grammy-winning single “Run” and appears elsewhere on the same album (
Concrete and Gold).
Brian’s path of coming up in the industry as an audio engineer is one he strongly recommends for those with the right temperament. After spending a number of years recording local bands he landed a position at a very wellknown Los Angeles recording studio where he worked with artists like DJ Quik, 2 Chainz, WG, DJ Mustard. That also led to work with Isabella Summers, better known as Machine of Florence and the Machine.
Brian says the time he spent as an audio engineer helped him to learn a lot, simply by being in the room with some of today’s biggest producers:
“Because I was an engineer, I got to see behind the curtain how these guys worked and their approaches, then adapt[ed] that to the way I produce. It increased my efficiency and my skillset as a producer exponentially to be in a room, not with someone thinking I was competing or trying to steal their tricks, but instead, I was there to help support whatever it was that they were doing.”
Brian believes putting oneself in service of the producer, the artist, and the song is paramount. For him, when it comes to engineering, there’s no room for ego, or looking to put one’s mark on a track. Instead, he advises newcomers to listen, deeply, to the song at hand, saying, “Just shut your brain up and listen with your earballs, and feel. What is it telling you? Then ask [yourself], ‘What does the song need?’”
A number of the apprentices/externs whom Brian has mentored are hard at work building their careers. Recent graduate Luke Davies and his band
Of Limbo got signed to a management deal and are going on tour throughout much of the U.S. and Canada. Matthew Serafino, who started Recording Connection “not really having many production chops” just finished an EP. Recording Connection grad Mike Wiener also just released a couple of eclectic sounding EP’s and is now delving deeper into vocals. And aspiring music producer Matthew Barth, a graduate of both the Pro Tools program and the
Ableton program, regularly comes to Brian with “six to eight beats a week.”
With so many of Brian’s former externs actively making their ways in the world of music, it’s no surprise when Brian tells us growth comes in the doing: “For every two hours you spend with your mentor, you should be spending 20 hours at home every week. Go to the open mics, go to the bars, go find shi_ty musicians and make shi_ty recordings.”
For those willing to go the distance, Brian says he’s right there to help them grow and realize their goals:
“I take very seriously when someone comes to me and says, ‘I want to do this now.’ If you’ve decided to make that decision and you’ve committed financially to go and take the time to learn this, then I am going to match you and exceed your passion for this to help drive you and motivate you. That may be by pushing you to practice more at home or giving you extra assignments that might not necessarily be in the curriculum, but will help you achieve what you want to do…
If this is what you want to be and there’s nothing else you want, then there shouldn’t be anything else you’re doing… Your dream is to be an engineer or producer. So live and breathe being that until you are that.”
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