Portland, Oregon-based musician and recording engineer Chris Finster is not one for mincing his words. Having gone from playing “badass riffs” as a young guitarist to being one of the most in-demand metal producers in his local area, he caught up with Headliner to discuss his work with Bridge City Sessions, his creative process, and how oeksound soothe2 makes his life considerably easier…
Finster has been recording himself on four-track since the mid ‘90s, but back then he surely could never have predicted the position he finds himself in now – as a full time mixer for live music platform and popular YouTube channel, Bridge City Sessions.
Bridge City Sessions was founded around the idea of helping musicians get their music heard through a live in-studio show. Finster and his colleagues set up the mics, put cameras on the band, polish things up in editing and post-production, and then promote the audio and video as much as possible.
“I do that week-in, week-out,” Finster tells Headliner. “We just did an online festival aptly named Bridge City Fest, which was 35 bands each doing 40 minute sets, mixed in something like a two month period. It was pretty intense, but pretty cool.
“I’m also working on my own record right now, and I’ve got a singer involved called Uta Plotkin – she was the singer of a local doom metal band called Witch Mountain. The way I’m producing it is more like Evanescence-style stuff, and it’s turned out better than I would have ever expected, so I’m stoked to put that out.”