About Rich Renken and Rev4 Audio: A Musician’s Mixer
Rich Renken has spent a lifetime in music, working professionally in a dizzying number
of areas of the industry. His incredible depth of experience starts from an early age,
mixing live sound (among others, Mom had a classic rock band!), to playing rock
and roll (his college band featured future producer/engineer Bryan Carlstrom-Alice
in Chains, Offspring), to attending the Dick Grove School of Music (for bass and
engineering), to helping build guitars with luthier extraordinaire James Tyler, to mixing
and/or mastering dozens and dozens of projects for artists, broadcast, and DVD.
In 2012, realizing where his truest passions lie, Rich made the decision to leave his latest
music industry job (Product Manager/Artist Relations at Line 6, where he helped drive the creation of some of the best
sounding and selling products in the business! M13, M9, Spider Valve and the James Tyler Variax to name a few.) to turn his
professional hobby as a Mix Engineer into his full time gig.
For Rich, mixing music is about listening for the emotion. It’s about uncovering and
helping convey the emotional intent of the artist or song.
“Mixing is a creative process. Whether it’s mixing live or in the studio, I try and function
as if I’m in the band. It’s not that I’m playing the bass part, but my ‘part’ as the mixer to
try and make the speakers go away, to remove the veil between the artist and listener.”
“All the live sound mixing I’ve done has definitely influenced my studio mixes. If it’s
appropriate, I love to bring a ‘live sound feel’ to the mixes I work on!”
With a lifetime passionately steeped in tone- from the sound of guitar woods to
understanding the nuances of studio gear- his goal is to help his clients bring their truest
vision to audio life.
“My total joy is serving the band and the song,” Rich relates. “I’m not looking for you
to say ‘wow, what a great mix’. I love it when the artists I work with say ‘Wow! We did
that!’ Nothing satisfies me more when I get a call from a producer or artist asking ‘how
did you do that?’ and I can answer ‘You did that! I just helped bring it out!’. It’s the best
feeling in the world.”
With the creation of Rev4 Audio in Burbank, CA in 2012, Rich occupied part of the famed
Mad Dog Studio, which has had everyone from Third Eye Blind to Aimee Mann to Pete
Anderson in it’s rooms. Coming full circle, next door is his old friend and bandmate
Bryan Carlstrom’s Tranzformer Studios! (Sadly Bryan passed in 2013) Rich then moved his studio to his own space.
In 2014, Gibson made Rich an offer he could not refuse. He returned to full time work as a Product Manager
for KRK Systems where he worked with a great team to bring KRK monitors back to prominence with major producer/mixers
like Spike Stent/Manny Marroquin/Joe Barresi/Jacquire King and many more. "All the hours of critical listening at the shop
and with hundreds of great audio cats in their studios has sharpened my ear and I created my dream monitors, the V Series 4s."
In 2019, Gibson moved KRK to Nashville and Rich returned to full-time mixing. Mixing or Mastering - Music, Post-Audio,
whatever your needs are, Rev4 Audio, is here for you.