About 10 years ago I started engineering (it is now 2004). Until that time I had worked as a bassplayer (both e. bass and upright) after having studied bass at the Rotterdam Conservatory. I was playing as well as kinda sorta coproducing  a demo in a studio in Den Bosch, Soetelieve Studio's. I really liked it, so I stayed as an assistant. It was a great place to learn and get some experience. Especially from Robin Freeman, a very experienced engineer, I learned a lot. As well soundwise, as how to guide a session. In Soetelieve I had the chance to be hands-on really fast, and do my own projects. I new absolutely nothing then, but my intuition turned out to be pretty good for engineering. I guessed my way through the first couple of sessions, but I mostly guessed right, which is a good confidence boost. I left after a couple of months, hoping it would be easy to find another place. No such thing. And, in retrospect, righteously so. Then I thought I was pretty good, but I really wasn't. A typical beginners mistake. Especially when assisting it often seems like the engineer is doing little or nothing at all, and you start to think: Hey, I can do little or nothing at all too. Except when Robin did it sounded great, and when I did it sounded like crap. Anyway, during those couple of months in Den Bosch I found out I really liked engineering, and I knew where I was heading.

The period after that I tried freelancing, mostly for the artists I was working with as a player. Besides a few things in smaller studio's, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. Thanks to a couple of seasoned engineers, like Robin Freeman and John Kriek, who invited me every now and then I got to see a studio from the inside during that time. Eventually I decided to send out résumé's. That landed me a sort of steady freelance gig in Willibrord Studio's in Veenendaal, then a very busy studio. After a few months I heard about a studio in Hilversum, Studio 88, looking for a main engineer. I went by immediately and got hired. By that time my knowledge was getting there, but I still had little experience and I was in desperate need to build up some mileage, and 88 was perfect for that. A place where I could do a lot of projects as main engineer, day after day, trying to make no mistakes and gradually building stamina, concentration, ears and sound. After a year I quit, but I still went back often, as a freelancer this time, to work there, as well as in Willibrord. I was still playing as a bassplayer a lot then.

The main studio's however kept their doors shut, but I was starting to get ready in case I would get shot at it. I also went to Oxford, England then to train on a SSL console. All the major studio's in Holland had and have a SSL-console, and being able to operate one is a prerequisite. Eventually Tjeerd van Zanen called me to sit in for him on a session in the Wisseloord Studio's. It went well, and from then on it got easier. A lot of work in Wisseloord, and from there in place's like Fendal Sound, Bullet Sound etc.. Check the list if you like.

Studio work still is the bulk of what I do, I enjoy it just as much as 10 years ago. And I think that is really the only reason to do and pursue this work. I can't think of another one anyway. The days are long, the pressure can be high, no insurance whatsoever, it's hard to maintain a social life, wife and kids need to be very patient, etc..

But, every now and then, a mix sounds truly great, or you're doing a session with 50 players and it's going really smooth, or you're in a 50,000 seat stadium, recording a DVD safe and sound, or you've made that singer sing/sound better than he/she ever sang before, or you're in Armenia, mixing a open-air show with 200 people on stage, and 20,000 in front of it, and the wind is 4/5 beaufort, and you're doing front, monitors, live feed for the radio/TV/satellite uplink, all from a halfass system, and with virtually no soundcheck and you manage to still squeeze something out of it , or you all of a sudden can make that song work in the mix, and then, then it is truly satisfying. Then it is the most rewarding job in the world. To me not different from playing. Those rare occasions where 1 and 1 add up to be 3 are a thrill, equally in in playing as well as in engineering. And it's that thrill I do it for.