JD Feighner
Growing up in San Diego, music was always a part of my life. You might even say that my exposure to music has been longer than life-long. My dad played drums in bars and pubs where his step-dad played in dance bands. He was so young at the time, he had to stand behind the drum set because he couldn’t reach them if he was sitting down. Although my dad eventually became a physician, he had started out as a bassoon and conducting major in undergrad school and continued to play piano and sax in various dance bands his entire life. My mom plays flute and piccolo; and, her mom played violin in a variety of orchestras in the Portland area well into her nineties. As for me, I have played the piano, violin, trumpet, drums and both the electric and acoustical guitar. Also, there were the extracurricular school activities—performing in choirs, glee clubs, etc. However my interest in music really peaked when I became involved in production as a senior Physics Major at Colorado College. Somehow, I was cajoled into writing a uniquely, original composition for a fellow student’s senior dance class final. When I went into the studio for the final mastering of the piece, I was blown away. In fact, I was so fascinated by what was going on there, I ended up working at that studio for two years. After that, I opened a studio of his own, 1620 Studios, in Colorado Springs. I like to think that I have acquired an impressive mix of mic preamps and outboard analogue compressors, a ProTools HD 7 rig using a Digidesign control24 as its mixing interface, and, for monitoring, JBL’s LSR 32’s and LSR 28’s. A very high quality sound can be achieved at 1620 and I do the engineering and production personally. The studio has been used by bands such as A Novel Form, Ten After Eight, Bodycast, Step To Every Pit, Mamzers Dream, YESSURR, Young Deuce, Elision, Habitual, etc. to record, mix, or master their various projects. Working on those projects inspired my debut album as a performing artist. For this album, I have drawn on the various types of music that I’ve recorded as influence. The resulting album is very diverse and is set for release in the late fall of 2007. Entitled “Sundays at 1620”, the album actually evolved from random Sunday afternoon sessions when a group of musicians would join come to the studio and we would just jam together. Also featured on the debut album are Skye Lewis from A Novel Form, Kim Stone on bass, also Kajmir Royale from YESSURR and Christian Teele on drums.
