Thank you for taking a look through the Portfolio Productions website.
I am a producer, vocalist, instrumentalist and songwriter, mainly writing rock, pop, soul, jazz, ballads and dance music. I play guitar, bass and keyboards and can program drums, synths and samplers to create any arrangement of voices.
As a producer most of my work is for songwriters who want to create a demo of their material to promote to the music industry.
Being a songwriter myself gives me a good background knowledge of how things should sound, how songs should (or more importantly shouldn't!) be structured and having had years of experience in recording and mixing I have a sound understanding of how to produce a song to get the best impact whether it is a screaming rock song, an energetic dance track or a simple piano and voice arrangement. I currently use Logic Pro, one of the industry's most renowned packages with desks from Tascam and Mackie.
I have a team of fantastic session musicians to perform on the demos I produce, but despite this, my production can easilly consist of just me programming the instruments, playing acoustic/electric guitars, bass, keys and vocals, then mixing, producing and mastering it to give a consice and personal demo of your material, having put in as much effort as if it were my own.
That kind of passion is important when you are paying someone else to demo a track for you and in doing all the hard work on your tracks myself, the cost of production is kept quite low.
These are two very important points when looking for a demo producer: Passion and Low cost. You don't want to be spending too much when just making a demo, it will most likely be changed later anyway, but going for a cheap producer often leaves you with a quick and careless production so the two points contradict eachother! However my prices are much lower than many around and I believe that I put an awful lot of passion into my work, if I don't think its good enough, the job aint done! Each track is only finished when my client is happy with it, if they are not, I do it again!
I have also spent many a late night working towards deadlines if my client requires a track fast, this is because I want to get it perfect and enjoy doing so rather than treating my work like its just a job!
I like to be quite honest with my work, if I think something isn't quite right in a song, I tell the writer and we try something else.
So why use an external producer to make demos of your work?
Personally, many of my own songs are fine but I tend to be too fussy about them, try to get them perfect, procrastinate on them, etc and they take much longer to finish off. Its the same for half of my clients, they can make demos themselves but they give the job to me so I can just get on with it! I can treat their work as if it were my own but without the procrastinating! I can produce their tracks quickly and efficiently to my own degree of high standard and it often pays off for the client. The other half of my clients write songs but don't play instruments and can't record. My demo production saves them time and money in buying their own equipment and learning how to use it whilst making all those mistakes we all made in the beginning!
The cost will of course depend on your project but I offer several flat rate packages for demo production ranging from £100 to £450 per track. Please take a look at the Quote Form above to get an idea of costs. If you require session musicians on your work, please enquire as their rates may vary.
Other recording work within Portfolio Productions includes Quick Demos for performer repertoire demos, Location Recording for function bands and larger performing groups and CD production to complete your portfolio.
Andrew Barrington provides our arrangement and transcription service when you need your music written out for recording session musicians.
I am also a trained Vocal Coach, teaching at several well known institutions in Bristol and I also teach guitar and Music Technology at a secondary school.
So if you think my work ethic may suit your project, please have a listen to the tracks on the samples page. These are only shortened samples at lower quality but our demo pack is soon to be completed that you will be able to order online. Otherwise contact me to discuss your project further.
