Matts Bio |
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Transplanted to Queens, New York just seventy-two hours after his birth in Hollywood, Florida, The Studio at The Setai’s chief engineer and director of operations Matt Knobel says that joining the audio industry did no less than redeem a rebellious childhood. It then set him on an unpredictable path to a key creative and technical role in one of the most unique major studio openings in the country this year.
By his own admission, playing drums for bands in and around his high school barely kept the young Matt out of trouble. It was a program in recording and engineering at The Center For Media Arts, a local technical school, that helped him form long-term goals for the first time in life. Matt aced the program, although, typically, he did so maintaining a minimum of attendance – having already taken his first industry job at Manhattan’s legendary Media Sound.
There, Matt’s lessons commenced in studio operations and etiquette, along with the requisite hard knocks, at such top-flight New York studio hot spots as Media Sound, Platinum Island and Powerstation. Knobel then moved on to the cartage company Musician Express, which expanded his circle of contact to every recording studio in and around New York, as well as private artist-owned spaces.
Out of the blue, his career took a hard left when Dave Labolt invited Knobel out on the road as a keyboard technician for Billy Joel, who had completed his famed Russian tour and was proceeding to Australia, New Zealand & Hawaii. He spent his 20th year of life, Matt laughs, getting his butt was kicked all through the South Pacific.
The second stage of Knobel’s career began as an entry-level position at the then-startup jingle production company JSM Music. Both the job and the company experienced sudden exponential growth, and Matt became JSM Music’s chief technical engineer, not only managing the facility, but designing and overseeing more than $5 million in the construction of four fully-functioning world class studios and more than a dozen MIDI production suites.
At the same time, Matt’s freelance mix engineering career kicked off with his friend and mentor, producer Ben Wisch, working with such artists as Marc Cohn and David Wilcox. He continued to build an unthinkably diverse portfolio of jingles, and the necessary technical experience for everything from a hip-hop track for Budweiser, to the recording of a 60-piece orchestra for Visa. It was an album for Austin, Texas singer-songwriter Gina Fant-Seaz that would be Matt’s first co-production.
Then came a fateful request to spend a weekend to set up a ProTools system for Lenny Kravitz. Kravitz’s tech support group was actually unaware that they would need someone to run it after set-up. On his arrival early in the afternoon, Knobel noticed that there was not one piece of digital gear -- not a delay, not a reverb. To say that Kravitz’s existing studio and recording philosophy were “old school” would have to be the understatement of the year, or more appropriately, the decade. In this circle, even Neve EQ’s dating from the 1970s were referred to as the new high-tech gear.
When Kravitz himself arrived, he greeted Matt as: “Mr. ProTools wizard?” and what was at the outset a four-day booking became a ten-year friendship and collaboration that’s encompassed four consecutive Grammys for Best Male Vocal Performance-Rock, and sales of over 20 million records worldwide – so far.
The road with Kravitz has now led to Miami’s beautiful and serene South Beach. To a Studio built with the sum total of many collaborators’ career and life experiences: An untouchable level of state-of-the-art expertise, combined with the embrace of the timeless values and techniques of music-making, and, more than anything, respect and honor of the musician’s creative soul.
By his own admission, playing drums for bands in and around his high school barely kept the young Matt out of trouble. It was a program in recording and engineering at The Center For Media Arts, a local technical school, that helped him form long-term goals for the first time in life. Matt aced the program, although, typically, he did so maintaining a minimum of attendance – having already taken his first industry job at Manhattan’s legendary Media Sound.
There, Matt’s lessons commenced in studio operations and etiquette, along with the requisite hard knocks, at such top-flight New York studio hot spots as Media Sound, Platinum Island and Powerstation. Knobel then moved on to the cartage company Musician Express, which expanded his circle of contact to every recording studio in and around New York, as well as private artist-owned spaces.
Out of the blue, his career took a hard left when Dave Labolt invited Knobel out on the road as a keyboard technician for Billy Joel, who had completed his famed Russian tour and was proceeding to Australia, New Zealand & Hawaii. He spent his 20th year of life, Matt laughs, getting his butt was kicked all through the South Pacific.
The second stage of Knobel’s career began as an entry-level position at the then-startup jingle production company JSM Music. Both the job and the company experienced sudden exponential growth, and Matt became JSM Music’s chief technical engineer, not only managing the facility, but designing and overseeing more than $5 million in the construction of four fully-functioning world class studios and more than a dozen MIDI production suites.
At the same time, Matt’s freelance mix engineering career kicked off with his friend and mentor, producer Ben Wisch, working with such artists as Marc Cohn and David Wilcox. He continued to build an unthinkably diverse portfolio of jingles, and the necessary technical experience for everything from a hip-hop track for Budweiser, to the recording of a 60-piece orchestra for Visa. It was an album for Austin, Texas singer-songwriter Gina Fant-Seaz that would be Matt’s first co-production.
Then came a fateful request to spend a weekend to set up a ProTools system for Lenny Kravitz. Kravitz’s tech support group was actually unaware that they would need someone to run it after set-up. On his arrival early in the afternoon, Knobel noticed that there was not one piece of digital gear -- not a delay, not a reverb. To say that Kravitz’s existing studio and recording philosophy were “old school” would have to be the understatement of the year, or more appropriately, the decade. In this circle, even Neve EQ’s dating from the 1970s were referred to as the new high-tech gear.
When Kravitz himself arrived, he greeted Matt as: “Mr. ProTools wizard?” and what was at the outset a four-day booking became a ten-year friendship and collaboration that’s encompassed four consecutive Grammys for Best Male Vocal Performance-Rock, and sales of over 20 million records worldwide – so far.
The road with Kravitz has now led to Miami’s beautiful and serene South Beach. To a Studio built with the sum total of many collaborators’ career and life experiences: An untouchable level of state-of-the-art expertise, combined with the embrace of the timeless values and techniques of music-making, and, more than anything, respect and honor of the musician’s creative soul.
