I began my journey into audio in the days when analog recording reigned. My first recorder was an old Panasonic cassette recorder, the kind that if you were lucky came with a very low-quality external microphone. I obsessed over stories told through sound. One of my earliest obsessions was a record of Spider-man: The Invasion of the Dragon Men, which I listened to over and over, wearing deep grooves into the record. Around high school, I got involved with my brother’s band as an audio mixer and with my high school theatre department as a soundboard operator and sound designer.
Over the years, I learned recording and midi by working with bands while in the Air Force. I branched out doing freelance multimedia sound for web pages, including doing the music and audio for an Airshow celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Air Force, the Golden Air Tattoo. After the military, I studied writing and theatre sound at SUNY Oswego, where I developed a taste for small, intimate black box productions where I could play with sound and space.
After graduating, I moved to Buffalo, NY, where I started to pursue an interest in film sound. This led me to make a podcast to showcase my abilities as a sound designer and audio editor to use as a portfolio. The result, 1918, ended up getting attention from the podcast and audio drama communities (relatively small back then), and encouraged me to continue working in storytelling using audio as a medium
Today, I’m a field recordist, podcast producer, consultant and editor, and sound designer living in Buffalo, NY. I’ve been working in podcasting since 2008 and have over 20 years of experience as an audio professional (and many more as an audio amateur. My audio post-production company, Uberduo, sells immersive sound effect bundles dedicated to the exploration and reproduction of locations and props for film and audio fiction. My sound effect bundles can be found on http://www.asoundeffect.com and individual sound effects can be found at soundsnap.com.
One of my favorite projects is the 11thhouraudio.com/, an annual podcast event that challenges audio drama producers to collaborate in creating works of horror in the month of October. Collaboration, for me, is the best way to learn, hands-on, from mentors and peers. I pick up new ideas and techniques every year by working with new people.
I was fortunate to be selected as the dialogue editor for the Audible productions, Locke and Key and X-Files: Cold Cases, where I got to hear and work with a ton of huge voice and post-production talents and personal heroes, including Dirk Maggs, Kate Mulgrew, William B. Davis, and Tatiana Maslany.
I have had the opportunity to be a guest speaker at both CONvergence in Bloomington, Minnesota, and SXSW in Austin Texas, covering topics including voice acting, sound design, and making the jump from film to podcast fiction. My audio fiction pieces 1918, Intensive Care and A Prophets Guide have won Mark Time and Ogle Awards. In addition to the annual 11th Hour Challenge, my current podcast projects include sound design for The Once and Future Nerd and editing for The Activist Files for the Center for Constitutional Rights. I teach classes on sound design and podcasting at the Squeaky Wheel in Buffalo, NY and I really enjoy mentoring and inspiring others to create stories, whether fiction or non-fictional, through the medium of sound.
