Joshua Eagan
Occupation:
drummer, producer
Official Website:
http://www.myspace.com/studiosticks
Background:
Joshua Seth Eagan was born in Las Vegas, Nevada where he began playing professionally by the age of 12. The fourth son of jazz pianist Rudi Eagan, Eagan had constant music in the house. Eagan’s earliest memories were of great musicians hanging out at the house like Sarah Vaughn, Count Basie, Marty Paich, Victor Feldman, Louis Prima and Sammy Davis Jr. Watching his father perform frequently on The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show intrigued Eagan and made him want to pursue music. Eagan has been privileged to study with premier musicians in a diverse range of styles. These teachers included percussionist Mark Barnett, Ray Porello, Tony Murillo, Mark Craney and Kenwood Dennard. During this period Eagan cut his teeth in the studio with future greats Mark Slaughter, Kristine W. and Daniel de los Reyes.
Eagan began touring nationally and gigging in his hometown of Las Vegas, playing major productions shows and doing sessions. After many years, the only logical move was to relocate to Los Angeles and pursue studio work. After a healthy amount of dues, Eagan firmly established himself in the Los Angeles studio scene.
One day Eagan was tracking for a project that David Paich was producing. Paich brought Eagan into Steve Lukather’s adopted studio The Steakhouse. Eagan and studio owners Rick and Lee Bench became close friends immediately. Eagan has remained part of The Steakhouse for over 10 years now. His Studiosticks musical facility is located on the top floor of The Steakhouse where Eagan now produces many new artists. Over these last 10 years Eagan has performed on sessions with Pink, Candyman, Tim Armstrong, Sky Sweetnam, Bernard Fowler, Kristine W, Bobby Kimball, Jean-Michel Byron, Masami Okui, Nate Tao, Jeff Millar-Sax, Steve Lukather and Billy Sheehan. Additionally, Eagan has performed on various soundtracks and movies.
Joshua Eagan
Eagan on M-Audio Hardware: “Studiosticks is my studio where I track live drums and percussion, as well as do full artist production. One day I lay down drum tracks and the next I do vocals and guitars, so versatility is vital. One room is a dedicated live tracking room, while the other is a control and editing room. I use the Octane preamp to record my drums via ADAT Lightpipe into the ProjectMix I/O. I also have a mixing board that runs into the eight line inputs of the ProjectMix, which I use for all of my other tracking. I find that the ProjectMix is the heart of everything, running Pro Tools M-Powered along with other M-Audio plug-ins.
“I also use the Oxygen61 and Trigger Finger for triggering samples in the other computer that I use for sounds. I have a FireWire 1814 interface, which I connect the outputs of into the ProjectMix when I am tracking virtual instruments. I like having two different systems that are separated—it keeps things running smoothly for me. I also use the Black Box Reloaded when I want something different on guitar because it has a really nice vibe to it.”
Eagan on M-Audio Software: “The endless possibilities of Pro Tools M-Powered make life much easier for me—I can really explore my creativity like never before! I’ve done virtually all of my records in Pro Tools and so far everything has been a lot easier, not to mention much faster—which makes record companies and producers much happier! It took just about every piece of M-Audio gear to pull off a recent tracking session with Danny Reyes for DrumJungle. We pushed it to the limits due to the extensive amount of ethnic percussion needed. It was intense, but I must say that Pro Tools M-Powered held up like a true champion. In these situations, we cannot afford for anything to go down, and I was so impressed with the software reliability—very solid!
“I especially love Wizoo’s WizooVerb W2, what an amazing reverb! It’s so realistic, especially to my ears—it makes my drums sound like a million bucks! The factory presets are wonderful and can be tweaked to sound exactly what you are looking for. iZotope’s Ozone 3 mastering software is also amazing—I love it for my mastering needs because it is extremely versatile and musical. I must say that the M-Audio plug-ins are used much more than most of my older gear because they are sonically superior!”
His songwriting process: “I think a song is a story, and everything should make that story better, without distracting from the lyrics. This has always been my approach as a drummer and producer. Less is always more!
“I first start with guitar and usually find something I like in the way of a hook. I tend to find a hook first, and then work backwards. There is something that will usually stand out melodically in my head, so the rest is just a matter of filling in the blanks. I love new technology because of how convenient it makes things when composing—I can finish things in hours that formerly took days to accomplish. I can lay down drum tracks in minutes, and move on to tracking the rest of the instruments before I’ve made it through my first cup of coffee. Having the ProjectMix and Octane makes the tracking process easy and fun.”
Why M-Audio? I am not a total tech-head to be honest—if something is too difficult to use I just skip it. M-Audio has made this process very easy and painless. If I encounter a problem, I call the office and they have me back working within in a few minutes, which is awesome. M-Audio has made musicians re-think the process of recording music. With great products at a great price, anyone can now produce extremely professional music without breaking the bank. M-Audio lets the world hear music in their heads!”
