Their Story

Dustin Bannister is a Recording engineer from about an hour and half from St. Louis, Missouri in a town called Patton.

While still enrolled in the Recording Connection Program Dustin successfully opened his own studio called “Blue Creek Productions” in March 2013.

During his time at the studio, Dustin had the awesome opportunity to work with the Black Eyed Peas as an assistant to their production of Jayden Smith Smith’s tracks.

Dustin noted that the Phat Buddha studio was very hands on and that they worked on everything from reggae to hip-hop and rock. Rapper Nelly got his start at Phat Buddha. Dustin loves his ranch studio, and believes that it provides a different kind of creative environment. “It gets people out of the city,” he says. Ross Vanderslice was the one to originally inspire Dustin to open up his studio in the country. So far, Dustin has worked with two rock bands from St. Louis, “Seeing Seven” and “Sky Burnt White”.

“People are coming from all over to check out the studio.”

While spending time at Phat Buddha, Dustin became good friends with mentor Ross Vanderslice. Since Dustin has finished the program and opened his own studio, Ross sometimes comes in to hang out and help mic the drumset for bands. Ross and Dustin have discussed working together on future projects in sound design.

There is no doubt that Dustin is passionate about engineering and producing, but he has also expressed that he would also like to sell and make diffusers as well as other equipment for sales to other studios.

In addition to local rock bands, Dustin is also working with a Christian country group who are working on their album as well as a jazz musician who is working on an EP.
Over the summer Dustin had the pleasure of working with Nathan Patterson whose band is preparing to release some songs on the radio. Word of mouth has been his best asset, and so far so good. Blue Creek is getting pretty busy these days and they’re getting a lot of business.

Dustin enjoys working with all genres of music though he prefers the rock edge with a bit of country thrown into the mix. He grew up playing a lot of rock, pop, and country; he plays lead guitar, drums, and piano and has been playing in bands since he was a teenager. Dustin says that he would love to begin giving lessons in the future.