Recording Connection mentor Gregory Hainer on Vibe and Flow

Recording Connection mentor Gregory Hainer is an interesting case. Usually our Recording mentors work primarily in the music industry but Gregory has made a successful career for himself in music as well as film, television, and video game entertainment as a music composer, voice over specialist, Sound FX designer and mixer on numerous projects including: Plants vs. Zombies 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Guild Wars 2, Prince of Egypt, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, We Were Soldiers, Dishonored, Black Hawk Down, and many more.

Gregory does most of his work from Scorpio Sound, his boutique studio located in the Hollywood Hills. His unique skills-set, talent, and setup enables him to do work larger audio studios can’t. “From a client’s perspective, I own the studio, so there is no middle management overhead to worry about because the owner/operator is also the creative head. This means I have the freedom to choose to spend a little more time with my clients in order to get things perfect versus having to be out of a studio by a specific time.” Specialty might as well be Gregory’s middle name. “I get quite a few calls for the most unusual or difficult to design stuff that many in-house teams can’t quite seem to pull off convincingly,  such as creating sounds for creatures, magic spells, sci-fi effects, light sabers and the like. But I will also get the occasional call to do the less-fun direct stuff like cleaning up poorly recorded production audio from a film, or digging out inaudible archival dialogue from excessive background noise.”

On top of working in the film, TV, and video game industries Gregory also takes on Recording Connection apprentices and teaches them about both the industry and the craft of audio engineering. When asked what he looks for in terms of apprentices Gregory says, “Because I work with a wide variety of clients and personalities, I have to be able to get along with musicians, celebrities, actors, producers, marketing and business suit types. The gaming guys are different from the independent film people and they in turn are different bunch than the record industry folks. Some students are able to blend in and relate to any of my clients. Others are better fit just for video game clients, and may need training before I would let them sit in or work on a session with a film director… So in summary, I am really impressed by an apprentice who is able to flow smoothly with any vibe in the studio while being themselves and not too eager to impress… and even more so, what impresses me is an apprentice who shows on time and is respectful of others and studio equipment. Just good old punctuality, consideration, honesty, and integrity.”