I’ve been living in Beijing for over a month now, trying to figure out how to blog about all that has happened here and what a dramatic shift it’s been living in China. There is simply too much to write about and not enough time!

So I’ll simply share that we’ve moved into our new home, and the new studio is now ready, looking great and sounding fantastic! It’s the best quality studio I’ve had in my 20 years as a music producer and sound engineer.

I’ll blog more about the studio soon. If your in Beijing, come by the open house:
Sunday, September 26th, 2pm to 5pm

Please contact me to rsvp to let me know your coming.

Happy Mid Autumn / Moon festival!

Today marks one more week before our big move to Beijing China. I’ve never felt ‘prepared’ and I still don’t.
I can still hardly believe we’re actually doing this to be honest, even though I know it’s the right thing to do for us.

I’ve been appreciating the luxuries and conveniences that we’ve had in Vancouver because we won’t have those things in China, but I’m looking forward to the adventure that awaits us there, and other things that will potentially improve our quality of life.

First thing I will be doing when we arrive is setting up the new sound studio with some equipment and cables that I had custom made in Vancouver that I’ll be bringing to make it functional so I can get back to work finishing projects that have started for my waiting clients. We also have to get some appliances to make our place livable, but our things won’t be there for months, so that should make life interesting.

I’ll miss our friends and family that we’ve enjoyed visiting with the last few weeks, but the calling for China’s strong, and I need to get back to work in the new studio.

I’ll be back to North America at least once a year or possibly every 10 months or so depending on how things go.
To get in touch when I’m outside the country, you can leave  a message on my normal mobile number, or use the new Pro Soul number: (213) 908-1284.
Email is best though, and you can message me for my new number in Beijing.

And remember, if you want to work on a project or visit, we have a guest room.

Very excited and curious about embarking on this adventure living in a totally new culture and environment.

We adopted Evan Binh Minh from Bac Ninh, Vietnam on June 17th, 2010 at the age of 6 months. Like most orphans, he was listless and quiet. But within only a month with 2 parents, his development was rapid, and he changed dramatically. Just look:

Here’s a link to the video if you want to share it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W04FnjG5TZA

This is a great example of the importance of children having a proper family care for them.

Over a relentless 5 year process trying to adopt an infant, I’ve learned that politicians, institutions, and even non profit organizations like Unicef around the world feel that it’s best children stay left abandoned in orphanages or foster care in their own countries rather than be adopted internationally.
That is no kind of life, and I think children deserve better!

But the diseased world we live in has much higher priorities right now than children… things like the stock market, military, and politics.

We recently took an incredible journey to one of the most beautiful parts of Vietnam, Ha Long Bay while we’re waiting for citizenship paperwork to be completed for the recent adoption of our boy Evan Binh Minh. It’s around the middle of the Vietnam and China ocean, where the red A is below:

We had a fantastic 2 day cruise on the excellent Indochina Sails. Their boats are very classic, in between a Chinese junk ship, and an classic wood Galleon ship. It was really incredible, kind of like being in a Pirates of the Caribbean or Lord of the Rings movie! It was our first cruise and we really enjoyed it, very luxurious, but cheaper than a hotel!
The bay is between Vietnam and China, and has hundreds of islands, caves, and exciting wonders, with lots of local fishing boats.

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Part of the tour of the bay included swimming in the warm, very salty ocean on a beach off one of the islands. It was Evan’s first time in the ocean, he was mesmerized!
Then, we were taking to a floating fishing village subsidized by the Vietnam government. Everything on water, including floating stores that came up to our boat with their wares, latched right beside us as we were travelling, and a floating school! It was truly unreal how these people live where they work. You can see all of this in the photos below:

Finally, we went to a cave called surprise cave that was a massive underground cavern inside one of the island mountains! There were even live bats inside that we saw hanging around, and since we were the first visitors to the cave in the morning, we got to see them in their natural habitat flying around the back of the cave! Evan was asleep and suddenly woke up inside this cave, I wonder what he thought? He seemed quite fascinated.

We wished it was longer and will definitely be back for a longer tour, as there is so much to see in this beautiful place, the photos give a tiny glimpse of what you see when your there. I highly recommend you visit this part of the world… Fascinating!

It’s fathers day, and I’m please to celebrate for the first time as a father to a beautiful 6 month old baby boy, Evan Binh Minh!

Evan first visit w Jarome

We just adopted him on the 17th of June from Bac Ninh, Vietnam. We’ve been waiting a long time for this, over 5 years, and I haven’t mentioned much about it because we’ve had so many failed attempts but we are very excited that this is now finally happening.
It’s such a joy to be with him and spend time and bond with him! This whole experience is been truly surreal and very exciting. He is a very precious boy.

Evan Binh Minh Sleeping - can't get over how adorable he is when sleeping!

Now we are submitting paperwork for the next 2 to 3 weeks to get his Canadian citizenship, passport and visa. While waiting for the paperwork we hope to visit some of Evan’s beautiful home country and go on some adventures together here.

Thanks for all your prayers, kind words of encouragement and support! It’s not over yet, so keep it coming. Would love to share more photos and internet we have, but internet here is very poor and unpredictable.

Evan first adventure with Felisha

In the howling wind, sleet and cold, Bahiyyih and I braved the elements to work in a very cold studio during a relentless winter in 2008 and 2009 to record her album ‘Take Me Home’.

Take Me Home is a spiritually inspired collection of songs to sooth and uplift the soul, taking us back to our true home. Although she wanted a very simple production, there are some diverse instruments such as Celtic harp and Oud.
Bahiyyih has composed some lovely melodies, and her angelic voice lifts the compositions to a truly heavenly place.

She talks more about her album on her blog posts here and here.

You can listen and find out more about the album on her website, and get it on iTunes or your favorite online music store.

Bahiyyih - Take Me Home CD Cover

As i mentioned in my last blog, I’m moving to Beijing China, and setting up a fantastic, world class studio there.
It will be called Pro Soul Studios Beijing, in affiliation with my record label, Pro Soul Alliance.

It’s large a 3 room facility, professionally built by foreign expertise flown into the country along with specialized materials to soundproof and acoustically treat the rooms properly. It has full false floors and walls with large air spaces for soundproofing, but still lots of light from tall windows.
There’s even a built in guest room and kitchen/lounge in the middle.

Here are a few photos, then I’ll get into the technical details below for the gear heads…

The studio is in a building in an area that is a cool artist live/work residence neighborhood with art studios, restaurants, a French bakery, and a nice lagoon:

The studio has a funky traditional Chinese courtyard style entrance:

The largest recording room, Studio B.
Tall soundproofed windows allow lots of light in, but no outside sound.

Entrance to control room and studio A

The control room, below, has a custom desk with outboard gear rack panels on the left and right, and a Mackie xBus 200 touch screen console. These photos are old now, fabric on panelling has been replaced:

Control room window with Mackie xbus console

Unfortunately I don’t have a great photo of Studio A, the main recording room, but it is a nice spacious room with lots of light from windows on one side:

The studio even has a guest residence upstairs, a kitchen, and large outside patio if you want to visit China to work on your music project:

On to the studio equipment setup. In addition to my existing range of classic analog and cutting edge digital equipment, the new studio in Beijing will have the following new equipment that will make it the most powerful, highest quality studio I’ve had in my 20 years as a music producer and audio engineer:

• A Mackie xBus 200 HD touch screen mixing console and computer controller capable of 192kHz resolution, configurable I/O via rear panel cards, penny & giles motorized touch sensitive faders & surround outputs.
• 2 RME Hammerfall PCI cards allowing 32 channel high quality digital audio /MIDI channels between the computer and the console with zero latency (no delays!)
• Apple Mac Pro 2.66 Quad Core Intel Xeon computer with 1.5 Terrabyte drive and 8Gig ram
• 2 LCD computer monitors, 22″ each
• Enhanced surround monitoring system with new mogami cabling and other small additions.

Mackie Xbus 200 mixer console and computer interface

The hardware mentioned will allow an incredible amount of flexibility in input and output routing, monitoring, and expansion as needed.
I’m arranging all the special cabling and other details required, and bringing equipment to Beijing from Canada to get the studio operational in the next 2 months.

I’ve put a huge amount of time, trouble and great expense to make this one of the best, top quality music and sound design studios in Beijing.
It wouldn’t have been possible without the generous support of some of my Beijing friends, you know who you are, Thank you so much!

The studio should be open for production by sometime in August 2010.

I expect to soon be booked full time months in advance in the near future, so please contact me now if you want to work on a project.
Check back here for more details and updates.

Yes you read that correctly!
In about two months will be moving to Beijing, China where, as anyone who’s been following my blog knows, I’ve been doing a lot of music production work lately.
I can barely believe it myself.

it started with the production of the talented Elika Mahony’s fire and gold album which eventually brought me to Beijing, where she lives, to work with her in April, 2008. Since then, Elika has been an amazing host for my visits and allowed me to use her studio for other music projects we’ve worked on and that I’ve produced for other artists.
Beijing was nothing like what I expected China to be. It completely changed all the perceptions I, and most of us have about China. Not only did I meet new friends, clients and very talented artists, but I really actually appreciated and enjoyed the culture. (but I guess that really started in Vancouver…)  I found that in a city like Beijing one really doesn’t have to go without any of the ‘western comforts of home’.  in fact the quality of life is significantly higher for many reasons.
But what was most strange was how much I missed China when I came home.  The last year sure has been a confusing time in my life…

Over the last two years, I’ve been fighting the calling that I should be there only working occasionally, but to make Beijing my home base.
The idea seemed totally crazy! But for various reasons such as Felisha’s love for China, and my acquisition of a world-class studio, as well as partnerships with top artists in China,  is very clear that I’m not only meant to be in Beijing, but that it is very possible to make that happen. So over the last year that’s what we’ve been doing, researching and planning relocation to Beijing by selling our home, closing my studio in getting rid of things that we will no longer need there.

I’ve received many confirmations that I’m supposed to be in Beijing as I’ve mentioned. A big one is that in China there is simply a high demand for an experienced foreign professional music producer/engineer like myself, and a lot less competition than a place like Vancouver, which has limited opportunities, lots of competition in the music industry, and extremely high, exponentially increasing costs of living.
China being a huge developing country has all kinds of exciting things happening. This combined with thousands of years of rich culture and yet rapid progress into the future makes it a very exciting place to be.

During our most recent trip to Beijing in January, the purpose was not only to do some work with existing and new clients, but explore the possibilities of living and working there, looking at home and studio options, visa, and other considerations. One of the many great confirmations that I received during that trip was the acquisition of an incredible world-class studio likes of which I could never afford in Vancouver. Everything fell into place that can only be described as divine confirmation that this was the right path.

I’ll blog more about my new studio  and residence very soon. For now, here’s the entrance:

in officially announcing these plans I want to assure all my friends and clients in that I will be back to Vancouver about every 10 months or so to visit and work. If you want to work on projects outside of this, our studio in Beijing has a guest room, so you’re welcome to stay, and I’m happy to fly you to Beijing at no charge to work together if you’re doing a full album or other significant project.

That being said I will sincerely miss all of you and my family, but as most of you have experienced, in Vancouver I’ve been too busy constantly working 6 or 7 days a week to ever really see much of my friends or family anyway. I’m really ready for a huge change in that regard, a change that will bring more desperately needed balance in my life!

This has been one of the most difficult decisions of my life, but I’ve taken enough time to know it’s the right one.

Last year, i had the pleasure of working on quite an incredible Chinese project with the renowned Beijing artist Jin R (pronounced Jing R).
It has recently been released in China, it’s called ‘T. Journey’

Jin R is a known world class Chinese chef, restaurant owner, and sublime improvisational Yang Qin performer and artist.
Best known for her Hong Kong and Beijing restaurants ‘Green T House‘, Jin R was recently flown to Vancouver to cook her incredible culinary creations for the VIP guests of the 2010 winter Olympics.
Many attempt to copy hear ideas all over Beijing if not the world, and she truly represents a new era of China.

Last year Jin R developed a new bath house called Green T House Living Bath House & Residence which has already won the Wallpaper* Design Award 2010 – “Best Spa” and “AsiaSPA Magazine Awards 2009 – “Best New Spa Design” and “Best Day Spa”. Jin R wanted to create a unique soundtrack for this spa experience that took you on a journey through ancient to modern China and beyond. She asked me to produce and engineer the album as well as do some sound design.
We discussed what the album would sound like, I played Jin R some sound effect ambiances, chanting, and other musical elements and she eventually became inspired to envision the entire album, with all the performers and instruments she wanted to be a part of the project.
It was quite a diverse selection! I told Jin R, “not only is this not going to be relaxing, but it will be very challenging to make it work musically!”
But she was determined to make it more of a journey, and felt the spa treatments would be relaxing enough, So we proceeded.

Yang Qin, Gu Qin, Chinese traditional opera, Shao, and Chinese percussion, it was an amazing journey for me into Chinese music and instruments unlike anything else I have done before. I blogged more about the production here.
I was amazed at how quickly she rounded up some of the most amazing talent in Beijing, many of which had never been recorded!

Amazingly, it all worked out and it’s an diverse and unique album, another product of the original and creative mind of Jin R.
I owe much thanks to the talented and lovely Elika Mahony for not only introducing us, but assisting us with this project and allowing us to generously use her studio.

You can’t buy this album though, only receive it as a guest of the Green T House Living Bath House & Residence! So make sure you visit when your in Beijing, China.

Jin R’s ‘ancient meets futuristic’ Yang Qin performances on this project reaffirmed that the Yang Qin is one of my favorite instruments in the world.
It’s hard to get a sense of the album from a small part, but you can hear an excerpt of the album below:

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