Jim Eberhard - Audio Engineer

For 18 years I've been working in the studio at Priddis Music, and have had the opportunity to work with many musicians, starting on an Alesis 8 track adat system. Technology has evolved over the years and we selected the Digidesign Pro-Tools system for our digital recording.  After using Pro-Tools for a few years, I attended a special school  (www.futurerhythm.com) in California to teach me several new processes, making my work more efficient.  By attending the school and passing the tests I was able to become a Certified Pro Tools operator from DigiDesign.  (http://www.digidesign.com)  As of Oct. 2009, there are only 11 certified operators in the state of Utah, and only 3 in Utah County.

I have been involved in the music most of my life.  I started taking piano lessons when I was 7 years old and shortly thereafter, started playing the trombone in the elementary school band.  My parents made me practice my musical instruments, but I didn’t complain too much.  When I was about 11 years old, I found an old reel to reel machine with a bunch of tapes and started to experiment.   I found I was to manipulate the sounds that were on the tapes by playing things backwards, faster, slower, and so on.

In high school I expanded my musical interests, learning to play the Tuba for the high school band.  I played with several All-State bands and participated in solo and ensemble festivals.  As a senior in high school I won the Sterling Scholar in Music in my division and got a one year tuition scholarship to any college or university in the state.  I also was invited to play in Washington D.C. for the John Phillip Sousa national honor band.  (Only 2 people from every state are invited to attend).

In college, after visiting a recording studio, I decided that is what I wanted to do.  I graduated from BYU with a B.A. in Music with an emphasis in Sound Recording Technology. At the time, we were still working with analog reel to reel tapes.  So I decided to write my thesis on why major universities needed digital recording workstations.  Soon after I graduated, BYU got a digital workstation.

After graduation I was having a hard time finding a job in the recording industry,working in janitorial and telemarketing.  One day I read an ad in the paper for a company that needed someone to operate their cassette duplicating machines with Priddis Music.  That was my door into the music industry.  A couple of years after starting to work for Priddis, the head engineer decided he wanted to go out on his own and so I stepped into the studio and picked up his duties.  18 years later and we're still creating the best performance music and original recordings in the industry.

I enjoy many styles of music and am excited to work with you on your next project.