My primary instrument is guitar.  I became obsessed with a guitar when I was about 5 years old.  I guess I have Lawrence Welk to thank for it.  My parents watched The Lawrence Welk Show every Saturday evening and I especially enjoyed when a guitar number was being performed.  I remember thinking as a young child - I'm going to play guitar one day. There was never any question in my young mind about that.  I remember begging my Dad to buy me a guitar when I was 7 years old.  He promised that he would if I took 2 years of piano lessons.  So I did.  Not much choice if I was going to get that guitar.  I wasn't too fond of piano lessons but 2 years later my Dad was true to his word and I got my first "real" guitar at age 9 from my Uncle's Western Auto store in Swansboro, NC.  I was beyond ecstatic.  Within a couple of years I was writing my first songs.  Today, I have quite a nice collection of guitars.  The photo to the left is a few of the main ones I use to record with.

​Though it's small, the photo on the lamp table is of me with a toy el cheapo guitar I got for Christmas 1965.  There's a big smile on my face!  I was a happy little boy.

Hot weather is here to stay for a bit and what a great time to get out on the water and do some sailing!  Thanks to Captain Jim Sheegog and his boat Shamrock, we enjoyed a beautiful evening out on the sound and into the Atlantic Ocean outside of Wrightsville Beach, NC.  The trip began and ended at Trails End Road in Wilmington, NC.  The Shamrock is docked at the Trails End Marina.  I was able to get a couple of different sound effects as we traveled including the sound of the engine running and motoring through the sound that is available below to listen to.  We met some nice people, a couple from Kinston, NC and another couple vacationing from Boston.

To learn more about the Shamrock, check out Jim's website.

This sound will be available for purchase on AudioJungle within the next week or so.

We've been busy in the studio producing various music tracks including Indie folk/americana music.  Below is a sample of one of our new tracks that features acoustic guitars, ukulele, whistle, bells, accordion, bass, drums & percussion.

Available for purchase on AudioJungle as "Upbeat Indie Folk".

​Take a listen!

Our library of music is growing and we're adding some World Music tracks including Tropical themed backgrounds and now some Mexican/Latin music.

​Take a listen to our latest (soon available on AudioJungle as "Mexican Fiesta Fun").

I have been enjoying producing several tracks with a Tropical Latin feel in the last several days.  Most of those tracks include instruments such as Steel Drums, Marimba, Acoustic Guitar, Ukulele, Bass, Drums & Percussion.  I decided to slow it down and produce an easy listening Tropical track using primarily Nylon Acoustic Guitars and Ukulele.

​Take a listen to my Tropical Love Song (available for purchase soon on AudioJungle):

I spent the afternoon producing several Pop Up Ding sound effects.  These types of effects are extremely popular and are always big sellers.  They are the kinds of sounds you hear all the time on videos and games but you don't really pay much attention to them.  

​To make my Pop Up Ding Sounds I usually start with a whoosh effect and then add a popping sound I created using....my mouth.  Yep.  A mouth popping sound.  And then I typically add some sort of bonus effect to give it some punch and a distinctive sound.  I'll adjust volume levels and EQ for each layered sound and then Mix it all together in Logic Pro X on my iMac.  After mix down and normalizing the effect with WavePad I'll import it back into Logic Pro X and add a UAD loudness plugin to make it "pop" (pun intended).  Then I use WavePad to remove the front and end dead space and create a 96Hz 24Bit wave file.

Take a listen to a few of the sounds I made today:

To capture the sound of water slowing dripping and getting a "leaking water" sound effect I set up a wet dishcloth over my triad-orbit boom and slowly poured water into the cloth to get the sound of water dripping and leaking slowly.  I used my stereo Sennheiser MKH 8040 microphone pair along with my Sound Devices Mixpre 6 to capture the sound.  This is an amazing combination that records so quietly and with such professional quality.  In the end I was able to mix several different sounds including taking a rain track I had already recorded, adding a cabin room plugin sound (using Altiverb 7) to it so it sounded like it was coming from outside and then mixing in the new leaking sounds.  It came out great!

Take a listen to some of the dripping sounds below.

We have been producing various Podcast background music tracks the last few days including some Bossa Nova Jazz tunes.  These are short intros or logos that are perfect for using with Podcast.  Most of our Jazz tracks include electric guitars, electric bass or upright bass, electric piano, drums and percussion.  The Gretsch Country Gentleman guitar in the photo to the left is the guitar we use for our Jazz tracks.  What a beautiful guitar with an amazing mellow sound. 

Take a listen to the sample below.

One of our favorite voice over artist is Patt Noday.  Patt has provided Apple Hill Studios many voice overs through the years and we're grateful for the way he has shared his talent with us.  We recently completed a recording session with Patt and we couldn't be more pleased with his performance.  Thanks Patt!

​Patt is known for appearing in many well known films including Leatherhead, Home Of The Giants, Deja Vu, Empire Records, Domestic Disturbance, Cherry Falls, What The Deaf Man Heard, Super Mario Brothers, Sleeping With The Enemy, Eddie, Weekend At Bernie's, Radioland Murders and many more!

Learn more about Patt Noday.