Brian Frederick. Photo by Sander Roscoe Wolff.

Brian Frederick is the owner and operator of 3 Pt. Studios, a professional music production facility in Long Beach, where he has engineered and produced tracks with local luminaries such as BuskerFest winners Tall Walls, Bearwulf, Mr. Moonshine, Avi Buffalo, Spare Parts for Broken Hearts, Fathers & Suns, Riot Stage, Brooke Lee Catastrophe, Ponderosa Aces and countless others.

He and Miguel Vasquez co-own Stacks FX, a boutique effects pedal manufacturer where the two develop their own innovative circuit designs, in addition to building each pedal by hand, in house, with beautiful artwork designed by David Van Patten. Frederick also uses the studio in partnership with the Recording Connection to teach aspiring audio engineers the ins and outs of the job in a real-world setting. He’s also producing music as part of Castaliah and Broken2th.

Long Beach Post: What was the impetus for creating 3 Pt.?

Brian Frederick: I had small studios in Long Beach, and always struggled to get the sounds I heard in my head out of the speakers. When I made the move to start working in historic rooms with Top 40 artists in Los Angeles, I found that sound, but something inside was still missing.

I realized so much of the recording process wasn’t about the gear, although it helps. Instead, it was about the vibe and the energy of the room that was capturing the performance. When you record in a bedroom or a garage or a living room, it has a vibe, a feel. It’s not bad. It’s necessity.

I wanted the room to let the music breathe. Expand. Let ideas flow and not be piled on top of each other. In L.A., I found myself in million dollar rooms with amazing gear, but none of my independent artists from Long Beach could afford the rates. The studio 3 Pt. brings together my desire to make great records in inspiring rooms at prices independent artists can afford.

What was the search like for the space? How did you find it?

I searched for six months. There were a lot of different locations we looked at and every single one of them was in Long Beach. I knew Long Beach would be home. I just had to find the right spot. I wanted space, high ceilings, and a feeling when you walked in the door. When we walked into the dump that was 1388 Daisy ave in June of 2014, we knew we had something incredibly special.

What did you have to do to transform it from a dump into a working space?

There was a week of demolition, three months of framing, insulation, running audio and electrical lines, sound board, drywall, drywall mud and sanding, painting, wiring the console and monitoring systems, permits and getting the place up to code. It was quite the experience. A big shout-out to Dan Browne IV for helping us through the construction and build out process.

The main room in 3Pt. Studios. Photo by Sander Roscoe Wolff.

What’s it like, now, to have a space that’s all yours, that you know inside and out?

Its very special to me, but I want nothing more than to share it with others. I’ve spent the past two years dialing the place in, and although there is still some work to do, it sounds incredible. Just listen to the music that’s coming out: Litronix, Mr. Moonshine, and the new Tall Walls record. It’s an exciting time right now!

When you were a kid, was there music making in your home? What got you started?

Music was always around. My Dad sang in the church choir. My uncles all played electric guitar. My Grandma had a piano in her house that I used to mess around with. It was my neighbor, Brian Halter, who played drums in a band called “Lead and Thoughts and Spears,” or LTS. He taught me to play the drums then, together, we learned about recording when I was just a kid. If it wasn’t for Brian, I probably would have found interests in something else. But he bought Logic 5 back in 99′ I believe, and we sat in his garage for almost a year until it worked! [laughs] There was no internet forum to teach yourself recording.

Mike [Rothmeyer], Dave [Nadal], and Brian were huge parts of me growing up. Mike inspired me to play guitar and use WAAAY to many pedals, and now I have a pedal company. Dave taught me to listen and play bass like no one else – literally. Brian was the older brother I never had. Those guys are my musical childhood in a VERY big way.

So… After that year of wood-shedding in the garage, what happened?

Oh man. That’s a wild path. I did stage crew at Wilson High School, running the sound board. I started a band, played drums, recorded a demo, the band broke up, and went off to colleges. I vowed to learn the rest of the instruments so I could keep making music.

I then opened three studios—the first in Brian’s garage—called Halcion Studios (2006-2008). We recorded four songs with Joy Shannon and the Beauty Marks, for her first album. I then opened Full Flux Studios in Whittier (2009-2010), and Secret Hill Studios in Long Beach (2010-2012). We recorded Wild Pack of Canaries and Panther Heart there.

After Full Flux Studios, I left to Los Angeles to work at Serenity West Recording, where I worked with DJ Quik (he gave me my nickname Ivy League), Wiz Khalifa, Hollywood Undead, Snoop Dogg, and Isabella ‘Machine’ Summers. I worked underneath some incredible engineers and producers who helped shape and hone my ear and my craft. It was in LA that I really learned the business of making and selling records. It was that experience that I wanted to bring back to my friends back home and help not just make great records but, hopefully, launch a few careers as well.

How do you balance the technical role of audio engineering with the more creative role of producing?

Audio engineering gives me the technical ability to translate emotion into music. Math is to audio engineering as physics is to production. Knowing how to use the tools and what they can do aids in how to make creative decisions with those tools and, most importantly, how to bridge that world between musician and technician.

What about your own musical projects?

I have two projects. They are Broken2th and Castaliah. I try and play out a few times a year, with different projects, or even just a group to get on stage and jam. I love playing drums and bass, but wouldn’t mind getting proper time in on the keys so I don’t embarrass myself on stage. [laughs]

You mentioned getting into effects from Mike, the guitarist for LTS. How did that move you to start making them?

While working in Los Angeles I had a desire to understand, at the atomic level, how things were working [laughs] and thought learning electronics would be the way to go. I started building clones and kits of famous pedals, and half of them didn’t work.

I had met Miguel Vasquez at the warehouse where Secret Hill Studios was located. He was a free lance builder for a pedal company in Los Angeles and helped fix some of my early builds. I had some ideas for gear that I thought would be really cool to see in studios and, from those conversations, we formed a friendship and a company together.

What’s the design aesthetic for the effects you make?

Our desire is to design and build quality products that don’t exist yet. There is a huge market in clones and re-creations in the pro-audio and music world. It’s disgusting. Who needs 20 different versions of the Klon Centaur? I get it. It’s an awesome drive pedal but, seriously, what happened to innovation, to coming up with something different?

Of course, saying all of that, its still incredibly important that the pedal looks the way it sounds. We feel incredibly lucky to have Dave Van Patten be our artist who takes the sound and vibe of the pedal and creates some incredibly amazing artwork to go with it. We want it to grab your attention at the music store. We what the sound that comes out to keep it.

Can you break down one pedal, to illustrate the innovation you’re talking about?

What makes all of our pedals unique is our approach from start to finish. Our goal isn’t to make the cheapest or the most expensive pedal, but a pedal that will last. We want to make one that will sound great and will continue to turn on and off under the foot of the player for years.

This begins in the design and layout stage and continues up through final testing. We want to design a product that fits a need the studio or one of us as musicians need. We don’t look at what the best sellers are, or look around at long standing ideas or designs (like the ibanez tube screamer, one of the most copied and cloned overdrives of all time) but instead begin on a blank bread board and a final sound in mind. The design fills in the rest until we have a bridge to the sound we were hearing in our heads.

A lot of companies are switching to overseas assembly, which means lower initial costs to the consumer for the product.. the only bummer is when something happens to the pedal. When a robot assembles a pedal and uses SMD (surface mounted diodes, very small, very difficult to service electrical components) It becomes very difficult to do any servicing to the pedal.

We offer a 10 year warranty on all of our pedals. And honestly, if you’re the original owner, we’ll look after it as long as you have it. Just pay the shipping back to us and we’ll fix whatever component went out inside of it. We build our pedals the way pedals used to be made, by hand and with serviceable parts, not what’s best for the bottom line.

The Fuzz Gazer is really a couple different fuzz pedals in one. Miguel created an input that caters to Bass, Guitar, keyboards, and synths. The input body control tailors the amount of low end that enters the fuzz so, if you want to tighten it up for guitars, go right ahead. If you want to let that low end fly, crank it open!

The shining glory of the pedal lies in its ‘bias’ control. Without giving away the ‘how’ too much, the bias control gives the user an unprecedented amount of variation in fuzz tones, from gated and spitty, angry and gnarly to wide open soaring fuzz. It really surprises players and can and will replace a few fuzzes on your pedal board.

What about the art? How did you come to connect with DVP?

I’ve known Dave since ’08 when I’d see him at house parties I threw, or around town. He always had an amazing hug and, maybe partly due to his height and giant heart, brought the sunshine with him.

Dave had done artwork for Miguel’s band, Wild Pack of Canaries. He’s a local Long Beach artist in our music scene, and a talented musician in his own right. He was on my radar for a long time, just as an appreciator and a friend.

Miguel and I, unfortunately, tried a few times to design the artwork ourselves and it just never came out right. We kind of had one of those ah-ha moments (i can’t remember who thought of it first.. so for the sake of this memory, we both said ‘DVP’ at the SAME EXACT TIME. Dave was excited, but also told us he had never done anything like it before. Well, he’s a ‘one take Jake’ ’cause he KILLED it on our pedals! But seriously, Dave’s artwork brought out the personality of each one of our pedals. We couldn’t be more excited to be working with him.

Are you working on any interesting studio projects?

I’m currently involved in producing a few albums I’m really excited about. The Tall Walls EP, a full length Bearwulf album, and a These Are Villains EP.

How did you land the gig working with Tall Walls?

I had a working relationship with Jay Penev—the drummer—from previous projects such as helping with final mix down and mastering of the last Fathers & Suns full length album, and co-producing an unreleased project with Jay called ‘Dreamer.’ The band was a little on the fence about where to go. Ultimately, Jay had heard some of the records that had been coming out of the studio and knew that we could get a great sound out of the room so, after a couple of band meetings, everyone was on board to have me produce and engineer the EP.

I’m also getting back into work on a down-tempo record that I should be done tracking by the end of the year, possibly even with a release by Christmas. Castaliah, though… I’m currently finishing up our first single, which I’m beyond excited about. Its a song called ‘Shadows’ and I hope we can look at a mid-summer release for the song and the video.

How would you describe that project, musically?

I call it Cinematic Indie Hop. [laughs] It’s very visceral. Heavy on both organic and ‘digital’ vibes. I try to pull from jazz, 90’s indie rock, and modern hip hop, trap, and EDM. I work with a vocalist, Crystal Anthony. She’s also a business partner in the studio venture as well. She writes the lyrics and the melody.

In addition to audio engineering, producing, and building pedals, you’ve also started teaching. How did that come to pass?

3 Pt. Studios began our partnership with the Recording Connection in August of 2015. We currently have five students actively enrolled. The goal of the program is to put students directly into recording studios with recording engineers to learn the craft of record-making first hand, in real world situations. I feel this relationship is what really sets The Recording Connection apart from other Audio Engineering programs. Not only that, its 30% cheaper than most schools.

As a studio owner and engineer, it means I can train the next wave of audio engineers—who will hopefully take my place one day – while, at the same time, creating and fostering an environment of curiosity and exploration, which is what making records is all about. It’s great to keep my own chops up as I teach, and its highly motivational to see students go from clueless to confident in 20 weeks time.

With all of the classroom time existing in real sessions, in real time, I’m never worried about students not being able to apply what we’ve just learned. It’s demonstrated in front of them on a weekly basis.

In addition to your wood-shedding in Brian Halter’s garage, and your work in L.A., you also attended LBCC’s now-defunct audio engineering program. What did that mean for you?

LBCC had a wonderful audio engineering and record production program for roughly 40 years that taught all the skills you would need to get a job in a recording studio. I can’t say enough about the wonderful jobs Dr. George Shaw, Nancy Allen, and Charles Gutierrez did in teaching, mentoring, and preparing me for a career in audio engineering. Their guidance, tutelage, experience, and instruction were my pillars early on and, if weren’t for them, 3 Pt. Studios would definitely not exist today.

Are you also developing artists, sort of in the old A&R style?

If there is a band or artist I believe in, I will produce in the old school sense of putting the right players in the room to create the magic, down to the modern production method of playing and writing parts with the band to flush out the best version of a given song. Once the material is finished, there are a few different places we look to shop them around, both locally and internationally, depending on the act.

As the business moves forward, I definitely want to push more into placements in film and television by using the catalog of music created with those artists. Ultimately, I want to become a publishing company, moving content for film and tv, video games, and Internet content.

To learn more about the studio, visit 3PtStudios.com. To learn more about Stacks FX, visit StacksFX.com.

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