Craig Anderton

Craig Anderton is an internationally recognized authority on music and technology. He has played on, produced, or mastered more than 20 major label recordings, played guitar and keyboards on pop-music sessions in New York in the 1970s, played Carnegie Hall, and more recently, has mastered hundreds of tracks for various artists. A prolific author, he has written 26 books on musical electronics and more than a thousand articles for magazines like Electronic Musician, Keyboard, Sound on Sound (UK), Rolling Stone, Guitar Player, and several European publications. He coined the term "electronic musician," and in the mid-1980s he cofounded the magazine bearing hat name. He currently serves as its Executive Editor.

Anderton has also been a pioneer in the online community. His "Sound, Studio, and Stage" forum has been going continuously since 1995, amassing over a million posts. It's now being hosted on www.harmonycentral.com, where Anderton holds the position of Editor in Chief.

Known for his ability to demystify complex technical topics, Craig Anderton has lectured on technology and the arts in 38 states, 10 countries, and 3 languages. He maintains an active career doing mastering, writing, video production, mixing, and performing.

Ace Baker

A true legend in the world of live-sound engineering, Ace Baker's career highlights include serving as front-of-house engineer for Aretha Franklin, Sammy Hagar, Chickenfoot, New Edition, Bell Biv Devoe, Paul Gilbert (Mr. Big), Dead by Sunrise, Tower of Power, Sheila E., Colin Hay (Men at Work), and Bobby Womack. He also is the front-of-house engineer, tour manager, and production manager for Joan Osborne and tour manager/house engineer at Club Nokia (L.A.).

We also hasten to mention Baker's stints as front-of-house/monitors engineer for En Vogue; monitors for Bow Wow Wow/Devo's 2006 Halloween tour; twelve years as house engineer for House of Blues (Hollywood); six years as house engineer for the Hollywood Club; three years at Club Lingerie; a year at the Troubadour; a year at Nomads; two years at Club M; and three years at Madame Wong's.

Baker has so many credits that we've probably overlooked some. We're not sure even he can remember them all. But you can come to PreSonuSphere and ask him!

Fabrice Dupont

Fab makes records. As a writer, producer and mixer he has travelled the world in pursuit of what makes music great. Recently at his FLUX studios in the East Village of New York City, Fab has worked on tracks for/with/featuring Queen Latifah, Jennifer Lopez, DJ Colette, Isaac Hayes, Lucy Woodward, Shakira, Santigold, Freshlyground, Mark Ronson, Les Nubians, Musiq Soulchild, Toots And The Maytals, Bon Jovi, Marc Anthony, Sean Lennon, John Travolta, Ladysmith Black Manbazo, MAM, Kirk Whalum, Babyface, Brazilian Girls, Nat King Cole, Bebel Gilberto, and a slew of other artists.

The fairies of the Grammy Awards have had the good grace of smiling on his crib three times so far, once in 2004 with a win for the Toots and The Maytals Duets album and two nominations in 2011 for the Kirk Whalum Everything album featuring Musiq Soulchild. He also just won two South African Music Awards with Freshlyground for the Radio Africa album (Best Engineer and Best AC Album).

Bill Edstrom

Bill Edstrom is an author, audio engineer, and business owner. He is well known to PreSonus fans as the author of the Studio One Explained and Studio One Advanced training videos published by Groove 3, as well as many other training series. He has just completed writing a book titled Studio One for Producers and Engineers for Hal Leonard that will be in stores soon. He is the creator of Lilacwriter.com, an online cowriting tool for songwriters. Bill has a degree in Electrical Engineering, plays guitar and bass, and has decades of experience in all aspects of recording and sound reinforcement. A lifelong student and business owner, he is an alumni of Harvard Business School and the Berklee College of Music. When not writing songs or books about music technology, he enjoys taking ballroom dancing lessons and spending time with his wife and two sons.

Byron Gaither

A 20-year veteran of the music industry, Byron Gaither worked for industry leaders like Apple, Fostex, and Alesis before joining PreSonus as a Technology Evangelist. He’s toured the world as a professional keyboardist and has credits as an audio mixer and sound editor for shows on the History Channel and HGTV.

Johnny Geib

I have been a singer\songwriter for almost 30 years and have an extensive catalog of songs written and recorded in that time. I have also run live sound gigs and have been an assistant engineer on hundreds of audio projects in the last 15 years. I owned and operated my own recording facility for 10 years and enjoyed a very good business in that time putting over 80 local bands in my catalog as engineer\producer.

In 2010 I was struck by a throat condition called Dysphonia. It took my singing voice completely and left me with a very weak talking voice, enough to change my personal goals and begin teaching Home Recording to beginners and old analog converts alike. I have now done 100s of instructional videos, Live Internet Broadcasts teaching and instructing on all things from setting up your room to mic placement and mixing techniques.

The one consistency in the last 2 years has been my use of Studio One Professional (both version 1 and 2). All of my instructional videos and private training spots have been done using Studio One.

Having now started therapy for my voice issues, I hope to do more videos and live training broadcasts and, hopefully someday, sing a song or two.

Scott Harrell

Scott joined PreSonus in 2003, where he has coordinated how things work "on the computer side of our products," all the way back to the FirePod. He has been responsible for the design and development of the GUIs for all of our hardware products, as welll as for Virtual StudioLive and StudioLive Remote, and he continues to coordinate driver development with third-party developers. Scott works especially closely with the PreSonus Software team in Germany and with product manager Jonathan Hillman to set the direction and feature set of Studio One.

Scott plays "anything you don't have to blow into," including guitar, bass, keyboards, drums, and anything electronic. But he considers the computer DAW to be his main instrument, preferring to work in real time with loops, effects, and instruments.

Matthias Juwan

Chief Technical Officer, PreSonus Software, Ltd.

Matthias is probably best known for his freeware sequencer Kristal Audio Engine. Among others, he has been working on Cubase, HALion, Plex and the VST technology while at Steinberg. Matthias started what became Studio One, formerly code-named K2. He is the lead software architect of our codebase, taking care that all the bits and pieces fit into each other.

Brent Milligan

Brent Milligan is a producer and lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and three kids. He works mainly out of his own studio called Soundwerks. Brent has worked with Steven Curtis Chapman, Michael W. Smith, Seventh Day Slumber, Caleb, Josh Wilson, and Deluge, among others.

John Mills

John has been doing audio via the school of hard knocks for over 20 years. In that time he has held many roles. Starting as a drummer, (aren’t all good sound engineers exdrummers?), he moved on and held many roles as FOH engineer, monitor engineer, production manager, and technical director and now is a Vice President at Morris Light and Sound in Nashville, Tennessee.

John held full time positions in the Christian Music industry for artists such as Chris Tomlin, Shane and Shane, and Lincoln Brewster.

Two years ago, John was invited to be the system engineer and audio crew chief on the Kenny Chesney Tour. In January of that year, he accepted a Vice President role at Morris Light and Sound in Nashville, Tennessee, where he still manages the audio portion of the Kenny Chesney tour as well as developing and growing the audio side of the company.

John has a heart for equipping the next generation of audio geeks and loves to teach. You will see by his whimsical teaching style that he believes in enjoying what you do. “My Dad told me many times, ‘if you are going to do something, do it right or don’t’ do it.’ I think he was talking more about a “real job” but music and audio are my life, and I want it to be the best it can be. Whether it’s solving the acoustics of a space or mixing a band, if I ever stop enjoying this, I’ll have to listen to Dad because we all know, in this industry, it’s not about the paycheck!”

Rick Naqvi

In 1995, PreSonus founder Jim Odom sought a high-quality salesman to help launch the new company. He chose Rick Naqvi, then in his seventh year as the Recording Manager of Baton Rouge music store BeBop Music. Naqvi quickly became a key public face and voice of PreSonus.

In the 16 years since, the highly articulate Naqvi has been featured in countless interviews and in dozens of promotional and instructional videos, as well as maintaining a constant presence on our forums.

A long-time professional guitarist, engineer, and producer, Naqvi owns and operates a commercial project studio and continues to perform and record, affording him many opportunities to test new PreSonus products and to understand customer needs in multiple market segments. As a result, his input is instrumental in developing new product ideas.

Jim Odom

PreSonus President, Chief Strategy Officer, and founder Jim Odom is the company's visionary and spiritual leader, drawing on his engineering insights and music-production experience to create affordable, high-quality solutions for working musicians, engineers, and producers. Together with CTO Bob Tudor, Odom guides the company's strategic product and technology development. His leadership has helped bring the company from his garage to the forefront of the music-technology industry.

At an early age, Odom earned a reputation as a hot guitarist, and at age 20, he joined Lousiana's LeRoux, a legendary band that already had two Top 10 hits. Odom also worked in several major recording studios, engineering, producing, and playing guitar.

Today, Jim Odom continues to design PreSonus products and lead the company's strategic product development.

Mike Rivers

"My more than 55 years in audio started back in 5th grade, when I was the designated tape op of the school's prized Webcor tape recorder, cueing up the instrumental intro tracks for the chorus. The rest, as they say, is history. I'd show up at concerts with a microphone and tape recorder before anyone thought to object to being recorded, got a degree in electronic engineering, and spent the next 35 years working as a design, system, and government (that means "harass contractors but don't dare pick up a soldering iron") engineer.

"During that time, I got my audio fix by operating a part-time recording studio and remote-recording truck, recording many traditional folk musicians you've probably never heard.

"Following a short stint with Mackie, after retiring from the government, I'm finally really retired and free to record only what I enjoy, do live sound-system design and mixing for the traditional folk festivals that I love, and take on the occasional consulting project to help make the boat payments. I rarely use compression or mix louder than 85 dB SPL."

Lu Rojas

Born and raised in New Orleans, Lu grew up with a guitar in his hands starting at the age of 5. At 21, he put together a three-piece power trio called The Tritones that would go on to perform in concert with such artists as Eric Johnson, Allan Holdsworth, Steve Morse, John Scofield, and The Rippingtons.

In 1990 Lu won an award / grant as Jazz Composer of the year sponsored by Musicians For Music and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1994 Lu joined forces with local guitar legends Cranston Clements, Scott Goudeau, Jimmy Robinson, and Phil DeGruy to form the renowned guitar quintet Twangorama. After moving to Nashville, he got to work with such people as Kent Wells (Dolly Parton), Michael Davis (Dolly Parton), David Z (producer for Prince, Johnny Lang, Etta James, etc.), and Marty Williams (producer, Rascal Flatts). In April 2007, he returned to New Orleans and started working out of the Music Shed as a recording and mastering engineer. Finally in the summer of 2008, Lu decided to work independently, with such artists as Anders Osborne, Zebra, Raphael Saadiq, David Z, Colbie Caillat, Lifehouse, Natasha Bedingfield, Randy Newman, the Radiators, Blessed, Rebirth Brass Band, Fats Domino, Dave Jordan, Joe Krown, Belinda Butler & The Good Things (Australia!), Bonerama, Beatin’ Path, Roswell Rudd, Lorraine Hess, John “Papa” Gros, American Idol Rewind (Jay Weigel - producer), Tyler Perry’s “Why Did I Get Married” (Jay Weigel, producer) Terrence Blanchard, Gary Hirstius, and Ed Anderson! Currently, Lu is working on projects for Beth Patterson, Terence Higgins, John Fohl (Dr. John), and Andy “Sugarcane” Collins (blues artist from Australia).

Steve Savanyu

As Director of Educational Services, Steve Savanyu is primarily responsible for all aspects of training management, content creation, and educational support for Audio-Technica U.S.’s Consumer and Professional Products divisions.

An accomplished presenter and teacher, Steve has over 35 years of professional audio production experience in live sound, contracting, studio, and broadcast applications. In addition, Steve exercises his creative side producing videos and other interactive content for Audio-Technica’s Web site, YouTube channel, and trade show exhibits

Steve is recognized as an InfoComm Academy adjunct faculty member and teaches audio-production crses at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. An enthusiastic StudioLive user, he keeps up his live-sound production chops doing sound reinforcement for local community events as Buford T. Hedgehog Productions. His previous experience included owner/operator of Geneva, Ilinois, audio-video media production company Stonewood Studios and Director of Training/Commercial Market Manager at Dukane Corporation, St. Charles, Illinois.

John Storyk

John Storyk, registered architect and acoustician, is a founding partner of WaltersStoryk Design Group. He has provided facility planning, acoustical and systems design services for the professional audio-video production and performance community since the 1969 completion of Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios in New York City. John received his architectural studies from Princeton and Columbia Universities. As an independent designer, engineer, and principal of WSDG, he has been responsible for over 3,000 world-class audio-video production facilities, including studios, radio stations, video suites, entertainment clubs, and theaters. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Audio Engineering Society (AES), and Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and is a frequent contributor to AES convention papers and professional industry periodicals. John is a frequent lecturer at schools throughout the nation and has established courses in acoustics at Full Sail (Orlando) and Ex’Pression Center for the Media Arts (San Francisco), while maintaining adjunct professor status in Acoustics and Studio Design at the Berklee College of Music (Boston) and Stevens Institute (New Jersey). john.storyk@wsdg.com

Jon Taylor

Best known as Monolithent from the PreSonus forum, Jon Taylor got started in audio the old-fashioned way: He was a kid from a little town in Illinois who joined the U.S. Air Force and found spare time for karaoke. Taylor earned degrees from the Community College of the Air Force and Grantham University in topics ranging from aircraft maintenance, repair, and troubleshooting to computer-engineering management before establishing himself as a live-sound engineer. Eighteen years later, as the owner and lead engineer for Monolith Soundworks in central New Jersey, Taylor is still making it up as he goes along, mostly mixing sound for military events and local bands. He claims that all of his live-sound knowledge comes from error alone, not from trial and error, and although his clients are happy enough with his work to keep hiring him, he's glad the Air Force is kind enough to let him stick around.

Chris Tsanjoures

Chris is a lifelong audio guy and musician. After high school he decided to make a career of his passion by earning a bachelor’s degree in Music Production and Technology from Hartt School of Music. During this time he got involved with several regional sound companies and began to hone his chops as a live engineer. After graduating he toured as a guitarist/engineer for just under 2 years, until getting hired on by Rational Acoustics as Applications Support Specialist. Aside from his work at Rational, Chris is a member of the Foxwoods Casino Audio Department and regularly works freelance for Event Production Group, a Massachusetts-based sound company.

Bob Tudor

As Chief Technology Officer, Bob Tudor oversees all PreSonus engineering activities and evaluates emerging technology that could be used in new products. Along with PreSonus President and CSO Jim Odom, he develops the strategic direction of the company's products. He also manages PreSonus's relationships with third-party developers and vendors.

A child piano prodigy, Tudor studied electrical engineering at the prestigious Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and then studied music and music production at the Berklee College of Music. Tudor went on to create a long list of companies, products, and technologies. As one of the pioneers at Mackie Designs, he created the company's line of digital mixers, hard-disk recorders, and control surfaces. After leaving Mackie, he founded SaneWave, where he developed products for a wide assortment of pro-audio manufacturers.

One SaneWave client was PreSonus, for which Tudor helped define and design the FaderPort and the StudioLive digital-mixer line. That led to his decision to join PreSonus. Overall, Tudor has designed more than 50 products, including 20 "hits," and his products have garnered 5 TEC Awards and numerous other awards.