I was born in Vienna, Austria in 1969. Years passed by fast - so in the meantime I gathered more than 25 years of experience in recording, mixing and producing music in many different styles - classical chamber music, large orchestral stuff, big band, jazz, fusion, rock, pop, indie, hip hop, electro, prog to heavy metal…..

...acoustic & electronic music - analog and digital recording technologies..

I started out in “real studios” with tape machines & large format mixing consoles, different recording areas, lot’s of different microphones and funky outboard gear to create new exciting flavours.  

The art of creating records has changed in a radical way over the last decade - most work is done by one person  and it´s computer at home these days, many recording studios have closed down and a lot of engineers suddenly didn´t have work anymore - so everyone who wanted to carry on had to reinvent his art, and tools to craft the work, and find a new way to provide experience and craftsmanship - and  survive... 

The turning point for me was a project by a good friend of mine - which I really wanted to do, but there was no budget to rent a studio... So we started doing it at home - which is nothing to write home about now in 2017, but was quite a challange back in 2002 - with an Apple G4/400, Logic, a few Plug Ins and my pair of Studer Speakers as the only “professional studio gear” in this setup. We spent long days bouncing Kick Drum tracks and other stuff - going back and forth, because CPU power was so low, that we never could hear the whole song with processing at once and had to imagine how it would sound if all the components we crafted would be put together in the end. But we finished the album, which turned out to be BPM (Bozzio/Preinfalk/Machacek) “Delete and Roll” which I still like to listen to today. So I had to accept, that it was possible, to do an album this way with acceptable results and started to adapt this workflow to my habits step by step over the coming years. Being an absolute “Equipment Snob” in my younger years, I continue working these days quite happy with DAW´s and Plug In´s - most of the time at home - after a - not so pleasureful - period of getting accustomed to those new techniques, which - thanks to restless development - got a lot better in terms of audio quality and attitude in the last few years! In the meantime, I have to admit, that I would not want to change back to the old days, because I learned to appreciate the advantages of these new working methods - which at last give me more artistic freedom than ever before! Today I can choose the projects I want to work on just by flavour not budget - and I can work on a mix until I´m completely satisfied - without any time pressure, because there are no more huge studio fees to be paid!

Quite often, I get asked by (mostly younger) folks, what gear I use…. Most of the time, I look into dissappointed faces, when I reveal, that I’m not an “equipment romantic” at all… Honestly speaking, I don’t believe in “magic boxes” (and I had most of them at some point or another in my career). There are tons of emulations of analogue gear on the plug in market - and most of them work as well, or even better, than the original units - but more reliable, and in (almost) unlimited quantities. And what’s the point in cloning imperfect hardware anyways - to me innovative designers like Vojtech from Melda Production, who are bold enough to leave the beaten path and raise the level of tweak ability  and creative freedom to unknown heights - are much more interesting…

I would describe myself as a maniac perfectionist - restless on the edge, always looking for some new ways, to push the limits a bit further - explore new horizons....

Like Albert Einstein once said: “a day without any new development is a lost day”

Music is my passion - and I don’t like compromise and mainstream in any context of my life - so of course not in my work, either...

Influences:

Starting out in the 70's I grew up listening to Jazz Rock, Progressive Rock and some Heavy Metal - later on I discovered Jazz (whatever this term means these days...) and contemporary classical music. 

Basically, I like many different styles of music, as long as they´re interesting, progressive, exciting and well performed - unique in some way, or another.

My “album for the island” would probably be Frank Zappa´s “You can´t do that on stage anymore Vol.2 - The Helsinki concert” - breathtaking music and the most amazing band, ever, at peak performance.

For connoisseurs of a premium mixture of diametral intelligence, satire and bizarre humor, I´d also strongly recommend the book “Frank Zappa - In his own words”

I don’t like to be categorised for any specific style (except my own, of course), and what I like best is diversity, constant development - morphing different styles - to create something new.

One of my best friends often likes to quote “We´re here on earth to fart around” - which absolutely seems to make sense in some context - but on long terms is by far not enough for me - so I´m constantly searching for a less abstract personal purpose to fart around on planet earth in the presence, because the past is gone forever, and the future - who knows.....