The journey to resonate actually began for me in 1979, when I took a position as Assistant Engineer at Allen Zentz Recording in Hollywood. At the time, Allen was a well known Mastering Engineer becoming settled in his newly built facilities at 1020 N. Sycamore Ave. While Allen's mastering suite was up and running, Allen decided to build a recording studio in the rear portion of his space, and upon its completion in late 1977 or thereabouts, his first client was Michael Jackson, who recorded his first solo album, "Off the Wall" there with Quincy Jones and Bruce Swedien. My employment began immediately following the completion of that album, and I began assisting Quincy and Bruce on projects for Rufus and Chaka Khan and The Brothers Johnson. What a thrill and an honor it was for me to have worked with such luminaries during some of their most illustrious projects together!

During these early years at Allen Zentz Recording, I also assisted for noted Producer and Engineer, Harry Maslin, on several projects, among them Eric Carmen's solo album and the entire run of Air Supply's chart-topping hits. By the early 1980's, I had also moved up to become Studio Manager and Chief Engineer for the facility, and when Allen expressed interest in selling the recording studio portion of his business, I approached Harry about purchasing the business with me. The change of ownership took place on May 5, 1983, and on that date, Harry and I changed the name of the facility to Image Recording.

The early years at Image Recording were tremendously vibrant and stimulating. At that time, it was typical for Engineers to stay with their projects for both the recording and mixing stages, and I served as Engineer on projects for a wide variety of clients, including Barry Manilow, Night Ranger, Janet Jackson, Prince and further work for Michael Jackson and Chaka Khan, among many others. The studio was also gaining a loyal clientele of outside Producers and Engineers, and some of our most notable projects included portions of Guns and Roses' debut album, nearly all of their second album, "GnR Lies", and bits of their third release, "Use Your Illusion", all ably produced by Mike Clink, some of producer Peter Wolf's most creative work with The Jefferson Starship, R.E.M.'s "Life's Rich Pageant", produced wonderfully by Don Gehman, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Mother's Milk", produced by Michael Beinhorn.

In 1989, a recently transplanted New Yorker named Chris Lord-Alge came to Image Recording's Studio A, and with some early exceptions, he never left. During the ensuing years, Chris produced and/or mixed a seemingly endless string of hit projects for a nearly "who's who" list of the music industry's biggest names. As noted on our page about Chris elsewhere on this site, his years at Image Recording included playing host to Tim and Faith, Cher, Tina, Rod, Stevie, Eric, Sheryl, Whitney, Joe Cocker, Phil Collins, Kenny Loggins, Lindsey Buckingham and his tremendous collaborations with Green Day, including their worldwide hit album, "American Idiot".

Meanwhile, the early 1990's brought some of rap's early superstars to Image Recording's Studio B. Cypress Hill's first two albums were fully completed there, with DJ Muggs producing and B Real and Sen Dog taking the mics. DJ Muggs' Soul Assassins production group made their home with us for some years, producing House of Pain's first album there, including their venerable hit, "Jump Around", and the studio also hosted LL Cool J, Mellow Man Ace and Will Smith, among many others.

During the 1990's, I continued to record and mix projects for a tremendous variety of artists, including some of those listed above. Additionally, some of the projects I am most proud of from that era are my mixing work for R&B artists Rahsaan Patterson, Tevin Campbell, Shanice, and Meshell Ndegeocello and Latin stars Juan Gabriel and Miguel Gallardo. A partial discography of my work (allmusic doesn't seem to pick up all the credits) can be found here. Another one from Discogs is here.

As the Image Recording lease ended, I had a desire to build a bolder, more innovative facility elsewhere in the city. So, I opened resonate on my own in January of 2005, in the Media Center District of Burbank. I chose the name resonate because of its double connotation; from a technical perspective, musical sound waves resonate in air, thus creating music, and from an emotional perspective, great music then resonates with its audience, thus connecting what we hear in the air with what we feel in our hearts.

Upon opening in 2005, thanks largely to Chris' ongoing patronage, we hit the ground running, immediately handling projects for The Backstreet Boys, All American Rejects, Green Day, Hoobastank, and Switchfoot, among many others in that first year. Since then, Chris has continued to serve a wide cross section of the music industry, most recently mixing U2's single, "Window in the Sky" and their collaboration with Green Day, "The Saints are Coming", Celine Dion's most recent album and the chart topping Daughtry.

Resonate Studio B, recently opened in 2007, is now finding its own audience, as well. Most recently, I've mixed R&B projects for The Emotions and Deniece Williams, I worked with Erykah Badu on a live television performance, and we are doing a considerable amount of work for the various Disney franchises, including High School Musical, the Cheetah Girls, and the solo work of Vanessa, Zack, Ashley and Corbin.

Now that resonate is fully up and running, I am hoping to devote more time to my real love, contributing to great records, whether as Producer, Engineer or Mixer. It is also my hope that the coming years will see the formation of an independent record label headquartered at resonate, with publishing and licensing divisions to further our involvement with great music!

John Van Nest