Before you made it....

[farjedi]

Hi Tony,

I'm interested in how you got into engineering (had a quick google but couldn't find anything)..
I'm also intrigued at how much natural ability you had for mixing or how much you've had to work for your considerable talent. My own experience is that each year I can hear improvement but it certainly has taken a long time because I couldn't class myself as having a natural ability, I just really want to do it.
I wonder if you ever thought you wouldn't achieve your goal and also what were those moments where you reached the next plateau of understanding your art.

..cheers...adam

[Tony Maserati]

Originally Posted by farjedi

Hi Tony,

I'm interested in how you got into engineering (had a quick google but couldn't find anything)..
I'm also intrigued at how much natural ability you had for mixing or how much you've had to work for your considerable talent. My own experience is that each year I can hear improvement but it certainly has taken a long time because I couldn't class myself as having a natural ability, I just really want to do it.
I wonder if you ever thought you wouldn't achieve your goal and also what were those moments where you reached the next plateau of understanding your art.

..cheers...adam

Dear Adam,
humm, there should be considerable blahblahblah out there from a google search which will give you my background....

I went to Berklee College of Music and graduated in the first class of Music Production and Engineering. Prior to that, I had been doing live sound and recording as much as I could of my own bands, and others.

Very early on it was clear to me and my friends that I was a much better engineer than I was a guitar player or song writer. I began focusing all my energy on becoming the best I could at the craft of engineering.

While at Sigma Sounds in NYC as an 'teaboy' I was given some great opportunities by terrific engineers like Glenn Rosenstein, Jim 'Doc' Dougherty, Lincoln Clapp and John 'JC' Convertino, to show my stuff. They started to depend on my abilities, to make them look good and were instrumental in convincing management and clients that I could do lower level engineering gig with confidence.

I chose mixing because I was enamored of guys like Bob Clearmountain, Bruce Sweden and Roger Nichols, and their ability to create an 'emotional environment' within the songs they mixed. They were also the guys making the most money in the buz at the time (hello). Most of the guys who were aspiring engineers at the time, wanted to work on the rock stuff. Conversely, I sought out the R&B and early Hip Hop acts because I dug their energy and drive.

To most in the business at the time, because we weren't recording live drums and used MIDI and synthesizers widely, we were thought of as hacks and quasi engineers. My nature told me these 'hairband' engineers would eat their words.

I was right and the R&B/HipHop community embraced my professional outlook and directness. I embraced their spirit of rock and roll and entrepreneurship.

humm.. i don't even know if that jives with past answers...
but what the heck, that's the way it looks today.
t