ALUMNI IN ACTION
Mastering Harmony
By Julia Halprin Jackson
Grammy Award-winning audio engineer and music producer Bill Hare got his start in the music industry during his time at San José State.
The view from Bill Hare’s Milpitas recording studio is impressive: the second story porch overlooks the Diablo mountain range, hills turning green in the late winter rain, with a smattering of blue sky speckled in white clouds stretching beyond the horizon. From this perch, Hare can see the valley where he grew up, as well as the towering buildings of downtown San José, where he launched his career as a studio musician, audio engineer and music producer while taking courses at San José State University.
The view inside his recording studio isn’t too shabby, either: the sound-sealed room features custom-made ceilings and walls that jut out at odd angles to ensure minimal echo. The room swims in instruments, from acoustic and electric guitars to basses, cellos, violins, mandolins, Chinese zithers and a Greek bouzouki, a long-necked stringed instrument with a fretted keyboard.
Even though musical artists can now access recording tools on their smartphones and computers, Hare’s specialty is finding creative ways to make the discrete parts of a song or track come together seamlessly. So while musicians record live in the studio or email him audio files to review, Hare’s true instrument is the mixing board at the producer’s desk in the room opposite the studio.
“Mixing and mastering is like doing a jigsaw puzzle,” says Hare, who studied music theory and bass performance at SJSU in the early 1980s. “Pieces don’t fit as well as you would want them to, so you’re filing and shaping each of those so the final picture appears to be seamless.”
“Producing, mixing and mastering music are such specialized crafts. It’s like any art; good producers can be recognized by their own sonic fingerprint because they have their own way of doing things. People come from all over the world to work with me because I have a certain aesthetic that works with their particular sonic goals.”
“Good producers can be recognized by their own sonic fingerprint because they have their own way of doing things.”
— Bill Hare
Bill Hare with his Grammy in his Milpitas studio. Photo by Jim Gensheimer.
Crafting a career
The origins of Hare’s musical DNA go back even further than his time at San José State. As the son of a musician, his passion for music of all kinds — especially jazz, pop and rock — started at home with his parents and siblings. Perhaps even more powerful than his family’s talent was their unequivocal support of a musical life. His first professional gig was as a last-minute substitute for the guitarist in his father’s band, The Aggregation, at age 13, and he never looked back.
“My mom always called herself the ‘ultimate stage mother,’ because she was very supportive — always buying us instruments as kids,” Hare recalls. “We got a lot of music support from my dad, and my mom was always there, making sure we followed our dreams.”
While at San José State, Hare studied with the late Music Professor Dwight Cannon, who is credited with creating the first jazz major in the California State University (CSU) system; bassist Frank Tusa, who performed with jazz trumpeter Chet Baker; and composer and professor Randy Masters, who introduced Hare to bassist Carole Kaye, widely recognized as one of the most prolific bass guitarists in pop and rock music. Hare says these mentors helped him start a successful – and sustainable — career as a studio musician while still in school.
“I see my time at San José State as a very important stepping stone,” says Hare. “It enabled me to begin working as a studio musician at 20 years old.”
Not long after, he partnered with his mother and another studio musician to buy out an established recording studio in San José — a leap of faith that evolved into a four-decade career recording music, serving as a studio musician, training generations of fellow audio engineers and recording artists, and earning a Grammy Award in 2011 for his work on composer Christopher Tin’s “Calling All Dawns.”
The view outside of Bill Hare's studio. Photo by Julia Halprin Jackson.
A framed Pentatonix album cover adorns the wall of Bill Hare's studio. Photo by Julia Halprin Jackson.
His success is evident on the walls of the studio, which feature dozens of album covers, photographs, cards from musicians, show programs and other evidence of his more than 70 appearances on Best of A Cappella Albums (BOCA) and more than 100 Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards (CARA) nominations and wins, making him the world’s most awarded individual contemporary a cappella producer. His experience producing collegiate a cappella choirs is detailed in Mickey Rapkin’s 2008 book, “Pitch Perfect: The Quest for Collegiate A Cappella Glory,” later fictionalized in the blockbuster “Pitch Perfect” films.
Throughout his career, Hare has worked with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, Mickey Thomas of Jefferson Starship, over 100 university vocal groups, and artists from dozens of countries, from Australia to Zimbabwe.
Though he has worked with countless internationally-celebrated a cappella groups, perhaps the most recognizable in the U.S. is Pentatonix, a quintet that originally formed while competing in NBC’s The Sing Off, a competition show to which Hare contributed his expertise.
As recording technology has evolved throughout the years, Hare’s investment in his business and craft has shifted to meet the needs of his clients. Regardless of which machinery is in his arsenal, a few important tools remain the same. He says that perhaps the best quality to have as a music producer is the willingness to collaborate and experiment.
“At San José State, we learned that music is more about the interaction with others, and what your music means to them while also listening to what they have to say,” he says.
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