Hi, I'm Brian Starley aka Bergatron.
I am a freelance audio engineer based out of Los Angeles, CA.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s in Salt Lake City, Utah. My brother and I were raised on our parent's vinyl records and homemade cassette mixtapes. Wherever we went, there was always a soundtrack to whatever we were doing. My parents listened to everything from The Beatles to Sade.
I got into recording fairly early with my brother. We would overdub our favorite movies onto cassette with our own voices and completely change the dialog of the movie, along with the plot. I didn't realize it at the time, but I think this overdubbing along with watching my dad record his vinyl down to cassette, was where my fascination with recording actually began.
Growing up, I played ice hockey religiously. I got to play all over the US and Canada. In high school I was the captain of both my high school team and travel team. After I graduated, I moved to Shelburne, Ontario (Canada) to pursue a career in hockey. When I wasn't on the ice, I would either be listening to my MiniDisc player, or learning to play my acoustic guitar.
Team Northwest - Chicago Showcase 1999
I ultimately decided to quit hockey competitively and moved back to Salt Lake. I ended up working in construction for a few years and in my free time, got really into playing my guitar. The more I learned about guitar the more interested I became in recording and eventually my fascination with recording took over.
After dabbling in guerilla recording and starting to learn ProTools, I decided to move to Los Angeles and go to school for audio engineering in 2005. Before I graduated I got my first job (in the music biz) as a runner at the world renowned Conway Recording.
Conway Recording 2005
After several months at Conway, I decided to jump ship and start working for a cartage/studio rental company (Lon Cohen Studio Rentals). It was here that I would cut my teeth in studio etiquette and discover the real inner workings of the studio life all across Los Angeles. An average day would consist of setting up gear at Capitol, The Record Plant, Ocean Way, Cello, The Village, Sunset Sound, NRG, Fox, WB, Universal and Sony Scoring stages and many more incredible home studios. Our clients were some of LA's biggest session musicians and producers: Abe Laboriel, Robben Ford, Greg Leisz, Mike Elizondo, Lyle Workman, Tim Pierce, Ross Hogarth, John Goux, Justin Meldal Johnsen, Brian Ray, Rusty Anderson, Ringo Starr, Neal Avron, Billy Bush, Danny Elfman, Joe Chiccarelli and so many more...
I would eventually become the General Manager of LCSR and would oversee every aspect of the business. From dispatch to payroll to guitar tech-ing to amp repair, I wore a lot of hats.
Lon Cohen Studio Rentals 2009
I worked (4) 10 hour days per week and freelanced as much as I could on the 3 days I had off. By 2009 I decided to go back to school in the evenings and learn everything post-production sound. After a year and half of school, I graduated and became Avid Certified in post production.
In an effort to make more connections and scoop up any unused studio time, I started working part time (as a tech) at the school in the evenings. Between the cartage/rentals and being a studio tech, I was essentially in a studio 6 days/nights a week. This would eventually take its toll on me and I ended up leaving LCSR to give myself more time to build my own career while supplementing my income as a studio tech.
By 2013 I had built up enough of my own business, so I decided to quit working as a tech and made Bergatron Music my full-time job. I haven't looked back!
Outside of the studio I spend as much time as I can with my wife and my dog, camping and going on adventures together.
