Tim Williams

I have enjoyed music from a very early age. At age seven, my mother gave me her old Dansette Major Portable Record player – it was cream and red - and my parents allowed me to play albums and singles from their record collection. Their collections were mostly pre 1964, as they "didn't have much money after the kids were born". I was drawn towards British Bands like the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and The Kinks but also enjoyed listening to my fathers small collection of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry 45s. Every new song I heard was a joy to listen to, and that still holds true today.

By age eleven, I had a part time job and was using the earnings to buy records. The local record shop had a pretty good selection and I spent hours browsing through each album cover one-by-one. I had also decided that I wanted to get a drum kit. I worked all summer at the local funfair and saved enough money for a second-hand Blue Sparkle Hayman 4-piece Kit. A seed had been planted, and now it was time to germinate! I played my drums in local bands and ended up travelling the world (because of my real job!) with them. An interest in music is such a great way to establish yourself in a new town or city.

I have a background in Engineering (BEng Hons) and Business Management (MBA). I began my professional career, designing sound-deadening features for dot-matrix and laser printers – 48dBA was the target back in the early 1990s – I used to test my designs out in the company's anechoic chamber. In my professional time, I also Project Managed Multi-Million Dollar Automotive Projects in Japan and South East Asia. I also have a passion for coding – from my first Sinclair Home Computer in 1981 with 1K of RAM, to coding this website and others with Bootstrap, PHP, and SQL.

It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that I developed an interest in recording. I had read an article in Modern Drummer about Pro Tools’ capabilities for quantizing – using Beat Detective – and was very curious to find out more and give it a try. My first attempts at setting up the DAW and drum microphones was laughable, but I soon discovered a deep passion for my Home Music Studio and realized that I needed to educate myself.

Enter, Roey Izaki, Mike Senior, and Bob Katz, whose books I purchased and devoured. After a ton of ‘ah-ha’ moments, I started making progress with my mixes. I now enjoy writing lyrics and arranging songs. I have just begun to learn the guitar and piano so that I can understand music theory a little more and I am still enjoying every moment of it!

Music education is truly a never-ending journey. Music and love.