This multi-faceted keyboardist, producer, composer, and arranger offers professional services for a variety of recording and multimedia needs.
It may be to create a new song to promote an aspiring recording artist, an emotional instrumental que for a dramatic movie scene, realistic orchestral string mock-ups for a pop ballad, or all else in between, DAS delivers polished music everytime on time.
Whether it's a collaboration in the recording studio, or painting the right mood for the score of your documentary, you'll find what you need here. Give your project the audio excellence it deserves!
Music always has played a huge role in this Georgia native's life. DAS (pronounced 'Daz') grew up on a steady diet of his father's old vinyl collection, listening to the Motown and jazz legends of the time such as The Temptations, The Four Tops and Miles Davis. In elementary and high school, his musical interests bloomed and he played the drums, trumpet, trombone and baritone.
Dana went on to attend West Chester University, in suburban Philadelphia, as a music education major in piano and voice minor, with a classical music curriculum. It is in college he honed his craft, becoming an expert in music theory, harmony and composition.
"This formal training helps me everyday as a producer because I am so disciplined when it comes to instrumental and vocal arrangements." Dana said."I'm very meticulous in recording and in taking a serious attitude in the quality of what I produce. I would never give anyone a piece of my work that I'm unsure of. If I don't feel 100 percent confident in what I've done, then I couldn't possibly expect anyone else to have much confidence in my product either."
Since college, his professional career has taken an impressive path. Dana worked as an apprentice for Bill Jolly, who was keyboardist and composer for the late jazz legend Grover Washington Jr.
"Learning from him gave me vast experience in audio engineering, arranging, production techniques, and something that no single textbook can explain to you, how to deal with people." said Dana, citing Quincy Jones, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Teddy Riley, L.A. Reid and Babyface, and Dave Foster as other musical influences.
Taking his skills to the next level, Dana has produced and mixed a full 14-track album by independent South Jersey artist Ashley Greenwood. He also has done two major label dance remixes on spec: 'Spanish Faster' by Geffen Records' alternative rock group 'Ringside' and 'Down Here in Hell' by Capitol Records' R and B singer 'Van Hunt'. Additionally, DAS has placed instrumental tracks with HARPO Productions featured in "The Oprah Winfrey Show." One other commercial production credit DAS has accomplished has been completing an Acid Loop library construction kit for Sony, entitled "Caliente"; released in 2008.
As an inspiring film composer, Dana seized the opportunity to score for an original independent film named "Behind These Doors", produced and directed by Wilfredo Manzano, for Manzano Productions in Philadelphia, PA. More recently, he has scored the soundtrack for Holding Court, an independent film documentary produced and directed by Ms. Sharia Walker.
Additionally, DAS was selected as one of the winners for the international Indie Gathering of Cleveland, OH "Madness" trailer film scoring competition in 2010. And again for 2011, placed sixth internationally at the Indie Gathering for his trailer score of "RedTail".
Behind the scenes, Dana uses a custom built computer running many pro audio applications, pro sample libraries, different hardware synthesizers and audio processing hardware for his production needs. This allows him to professionally arrange, record and edit any midi or digital recording project from his current Philadelphia home office.
But despite all the technological advances, he never lets the computer do all the work. "As beneficial as these things can be, I always remember that I'm a musician first," Dana notes. "All these devices can't make good music on their own. They're just tools to help me create what I do best, and that is music. The musical experience is more important to me than the tools that have created it. Of course a huge advantage that I have is the skill of audio engineering.
This gives me the best of both worlds by allowing me to first mentally hear how a song or composition could be arranged, and then having the technical skills to translate that into a post production mix and master.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
das.prd2@gmail.com
cell: 856.607.8947
skype: das.prd
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -