We recently connected with Christopher Alexander and have shared our conversation below.
Christopher, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
As an audio engineer and producer I first began my learning process by being curious and wanting to have fun creating music. Within doing that I faced a lot of trial and error which eventually sharpened my skills. Ive been doing music since I was 15 years old and what I will say is I wouldn’t have done anything different to speed up the process but what did help the paste in my journey was attending collage, and meeting successful audio engineers. Throughout experience over the years I learned that communicating skills is the most important before anything. Creating music is a service. A service to the artist and dealing with other artist daily of different personalities. So being direct and clear with whoever is involved with the song creatively, comprehending the vision of the artist is what makes the entire process special. What I have learn of the 8 years of professionally recording, mixing,mastering,and producing is that the learning process never ends. As technology constantly evolve there will be something new to learn. So I don’t believe I ever had anything in my way directly because its up to me to find the information.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
My name is Christopher Jordan Alexander but most people call me Chris Jordan or CJ. I was born and raised in New Orleans Louisiana and now live In Houston. My first introduction to the music industry was at 13 years old. I was an artist first. A rapper. My Uncle created his own label in the early 2000’s. It was at least 8 artist involved with this label including my brother. I remember seeing my brother write to instrumentals my uncle made to eventually record in the studio. I was too young to come to a studio session especially when they would finish 3 to 4 in the morning on a school night. One day I told my brother I want to write too!, but I only wanted to write one verse and never do it again. I just wanted to try something. Fast forward I write the verse and my mom finally allow me to come to the studio. We go to the studio and before I began the first thing my uncle tells me is ask the engineer questions. So I did and asked any everything I could think of. The experience was priceless. It was my first time in the studio and it was amazing seeing all the gear, what its like to create a song in a real professional studio and staying out late on a school night. I work at a Studio called Barron Studios and what I basically do as an audio engineer is fix problems in a song. Its stages to a song being created. First the music has to be created(drums, keys,etc). Next lyrics has to be written, then its ready to record. The kind of music is being made will determine when someone would need my skills and service. If the music has already been made then all the artist has to do is book a studio session and I would record them singing, rapping,talking to the music. The next stage is mixing and mastering the song. Once the artist is happy with their performance the next step is to make the song radio ready. Between mixing and mastering all is being corrected from balancing out levels, making the vocals sing the perfect note, editing and giving the song such a special sound and texture that it gives the listener an unbelievable experience. What makes the studio session special is understanding the vision of the artist. Taking time to understand the artist and their goals is what separate me from others. Im truly into music and always ready to make something new that can compete with top level songs of today. Also being able to execute exactly what the artist is asking for is what keep clients working with me. I think what I’m most proud of is the clients that started off doing music as a hobby but eventually became career driven. Keeping their passion alive no matter what. What future clients should know about me is I’m prepped and ready to work before you book a session and you should be too. I take what I do very seriously so I expect the artist to do so. We will have fun doing it in the process but the job will get done and I will push you to a level you haven’t been to. My goal is to make you a better performing artist and develop your sound at a high quality level.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
I think society will support something they care about so I think the most important thing we should do as creators is make them care.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Im constantly building my audience to this day. The best advice I can give is stay in the mix. Post,comment,like, share and make sure people see you weekly. What I learn about social media is most people forget about you if they don’t see you working because its a ton of others posting content when your not. Depending on how cool or creative your content is inspires clients to book because they want to have cool and memorable sessions with you too. On the personal side of things I look at social media as a job so it should be a cut off time from answering messages and posting period. Everybody has a life and too much time spent on social media can be mentally draining so always logout and live your life also.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thebarronstudios.com
- Instagram: @mixedbychrisjordan
- Twitter: @MixedBy_CJordan
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCONsqtD2spl1BK9ADxzeoNQ
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7Hs3rBrIl3uvSsKImBuun1?si=82f7f6b4be77413c Playlist of music I recorded, mixed,and mastered.