I'm alone in my underground studio in a far corner of the building with my giant Styrofoam steak (yes, beef meat) reaching to the roof illuminating an extra red/pink shade brought on from the white neon lights. I keep getting asked why it's in my studio? Truth be told I don't know, it just showed up one day and never questioned it, but it was still fun to make up reasons for the sake of a good story.

The music director Brad calls me and says, "we need about 500 songs to all be about 3 minutes 30, give or take, I'll send you the weeks' schedules so you can work ahead".

The hung-up phone beeps make way to the standard ping email sound where I'm greeted with a list of quite possibly the most well-known songs of the last thirty years.

"I've got nowhere to hide these edits," I thought. It's one thing to edit general music, it's another thing to cut up the most famous songs of all time and expect no one to notice. Even people with the most severe Alzheimers can remember their favourite songs. They can't remember their own kids' names, but they can point out when songs are played wrong.

Song 1, Michael Jackson's Thriller. Track length 5:12
(Here's a 60-second version I made just for you, the reader!)

Most of the musical space had to go, the speaking part had to go (fun fact, in the original song, it’s the second verse of the poem we here, I actually have the first part which didn't make the final release of the song).
It was fine. People understand there are radio edits of songs.

499 to go.

1, 2... miss a few... 499, 500.

A couple were super tricky to make work. Usually, storytelling based lyrics, rock or changing tempo music and ones without repetition were just a pain... I wish I could remember which ones but yes, we made it through a couple of months later!

So in the year 2011/2012, if you listened to MIX (now known as KIIS) in Sydney or Melbourne, there's a good chance you heard one of my song edits.

If you haven't guessed by now, I indeed have worked in music radio at the top levels in Australia. I've always said "I'm like a graphics designer, but with sound" and radio, being sound, it's always been my job to make sound into what others want me to. I've had the absolute privilege to work with some of Australia's best like Hamish & Andy and Jonsey & Amanda Keller. I've even been invited to be the personal audio producer for stars like Kyle and Jackie O (I turned them down). I'm so grateful for my time when broadcast radio was at its peak.

What made my soul sing all these years was the different music and formats I got to be apart of:

  • Top 40 Hit Radio with 2Day/Fox

  • Adult, 80s, 90s 00s MIX/KIIS around Australia with ARN

  • Classic rock with WSFM/GOLD

  • Modern rock with STAR

  • Country with 2TM

  • Oldies with 2NM/2YOU

  • Asian pop like KPOP on SBSPopAsia, Bollywood on SBS

  • And the last several years, the great ABC including for RN, talkback and their classical music station.

A considerable part of my career is what's called 'imagining' which is a funny word for audio, but it's kind of between a commercial and a movie trailer with long or short pieces making you aware of something. The music you get to choose and use in those is phenomenal, it's one of my favourite tasks - sifting through hundreds of songs looking for the magic and the diamonds in the rough.

Then people like me transform them to a 'fit for purpose' like a musical makeover.

Why step up sound? Why dancers and dance teachers?

I've grown up in a dance household most of my life, In fact, that’s a picture of my sister at the top of the page. But being exposed to this dance world, something has not always made sense...

Why spend your whole life literally mastering perfection, yet the music editing is like an afterthought, a clunky, clumsy finish, a sonically inferior product. Orchestras are amazing, this does not apply to them, but most don't have live ensembles.

I've had this idea for a while - helping make the dance community better. I originally wanted to call this project 99 and 1 - because it's the 1 percenters which make it so precise... you are the 99% I've just always wanted to help you reach your full potential. So reach out if you'd love to embrace a new world of precision and time-saving! Let's see what we can do together.