People

Producer Simon Holloway established Beaver in 1991. He has worked with pretty much everyone in the New Zealand music industry during that time and has numerous gold and platinum records. His productions have significantly contributed to New Zealand artists’ increased chart presence in their home territory over the last decade, exemplified at one stage in 2004 by his having mixed or produced 20% of the records on both the NZ Top 20 singles and album charts. Simon has been a finalist for both Producer and Engineer of the Year at the New Zealand Music Awards, and was a finalist for Songwriter of the Year at the 2001 NZ APRA Silver Scroll Awards.

Simon’s mixes are consistently in the NZ radio industry monitoring body RadioScope’s most played tracks of the year, to such an extent that twice in the last few years Beaver mixes have been on aggregate the most listened to NZ tracks at radio. When he decided to start his own label in 2003 he did so with characteristic success - first signing Misfits Of Science went to #1 on the NZ Top 40, reaching platinum sales status and winning numerous awards with industry defining videos and innovative recordings.

Simon has been mastering various projects in Atlanta GA over the past few years and this connection saw him working on his first US project in a production capacity in 2005. Somewhere in between this he also managed to produce and program the music backing track for Moana Maniopoto’s 2003 International Songwriting Competition Grand Prize winning song ‘Moko’.

A classically trained violinist, producer Mahuia Bridgman-Cooper has a masters of Violin performance from Otago University as well as a post grad diploma from the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney. Mahuia has had success with his band Exiles in 2008 and arranges and produces our proprietary string section work. With his theoretical background Mahuia brings a level of musical expertise and understanding to the engineering of recording sessions beyond the scope of most specialist engineers.

Producer Dave Goodison runs the C studio facility, under the Metronome moniker. Dave has over a decade’s experience in rock and pop performance and production, while still finding time to moonlight as guitarist with Boh Runga, Elemeno P and Carly Binding. Dave is hands on with our band demo package deals.

Owner Likely Story 
Independent Producer/Engineer

With over 10 years experience in the industry and a strong background in music, he understands both the technical as well as artistic merits of a recording. He has produced artists from a wide variety of musical genres in New Zealand, USA, and Canada.

After graduating with top marks at the internationally recognized School of Audio Engineering, Jonathan went straight into employment working on mainstream charting material at Beaver Studios. Since then he has worked on records which have had top ten chart placements, songs which have achieved number one for national main-stream radio play, and mixed the first New Zealand song to enter the top 40 charts on digital downloads alone.

A composer and writer in his own right, his songs have also featured on multi-platinum selling compilations as well helping secure the signing of artist Haylee Fisher to Warner Music.  Jonathan’s recent production work has spent weeks on the top 40 charts, as well as generating a buzz which secured another major label deal.

As well as music, Jonathan is well versed in the post production field and has done post production audio on top selling DVDs, television programmes, advertisements, and feature length films. Jonathan has also done additional design for the popular sound effects database software BaseHead (http://www.baseheadinc.com). BaseHead featured in a Euphonix MC (http://www.euphonix.com) controller video.

 Between all of this Jonathan also finds the time to beta test and provides input for some of the industry’s top pro-audio developers including Steinberg, Waves, Sonnox, Euphonix, Antares, Sonalksis, Eiosis, FXPansion, Virtual Katy, URS, Serato, and others.

Owner Venn Productions
Independent Record Producer/Engineer/Composer
 
David Holmes started his first studio in 1999 in Hawkes Bay providing local production houses and ad agencies with a much needed digital audio facility. During this time he worked with scores of local bands cutting his teeth in the producer's chair.
 
After a year long stint running the studio in Wellington he moved to Auckland in 2003 and began to focus mainly on album production. He has since completed more than 60 albums and worked with the likes of Autozamm, Gramsci, Anika Moa, An Emerald City, Jakob, Pitch Black, Concord Dawn, State of Mind and Battle Circus to name just a few.
 
A highlight was a Tui award nomination in the Best Producer category for the 2006 Gramsci album 'Like Stray Voltage'.
 
As a backdrop to working with artists David has always maintained healthy relationships with many ad agencies and production houses for audio post requirements. Recent clients are Ford (JWT), ASB (TBWA), C4TV (Canwest), Samsung & Tikidub Productions  (Warren Green LTD), Dirty Dog Sunglasses (KOG Video), NZ Breast Cancer Foundation (Underbelly LTD), Hyperfactory/Chrisco/NZ Libraries & Elite Fitness (The Family Farm). He has also contributed sound design to a number of productions, including films 'Out of the Blue', Ergotism', 'White Lie' and 'Stag'.
 
In his spare time, David is an avid musician and gear boffin, playing in Auckland experimental band Kerretta.

Sonna started working at Beaver Studios in 2004, engineering 3 Top 20 albums and working as session backing vocalist. She complete a Bachelor of Arts from Brigham Young University in 2003 and worked in Los Angeles with producers and engineers for 1 year before coming out to New Zealand.  She is currently working as a musician, producer and administrative co-ordinator for Beaver Studios.

Steve Roberts started his career as an assistant engineer at Auckland's York Street Recording Studios in 2002.

In 2004 he took over as Head Engineer where he stayed until Mid 2006 when he moved to the UK to further his career.

In his time engineering and producing Steve has worked with Tricky, Soul II Soul, Mutya Buena, Face (So Solid Crew), P Money, Che Fu, Dave Dobbyn, Jayson Norris, V V Brown, The Funk Fanatics, The Bleeders, Concord Dawn, Steriogram, Miriam Clancy, Frontline, Scribe, Fast Crew, The Electric Confectionaires, Money Mark & Ad Rock (Beastie Boys), Black Eyed Peas, Bruce Conlon, Brooke Fraser, Opshop, Blindspott, The Feelers, 50 Cent and G Unit and many more…

Steve has now relocated, with his wife and two year old daughter, back to New Zealand where he is continuing his work as a freelance engineer/producer.

Achievements for Steve include numerous gold and platinum selling records, 4  Tui nominations for Best Engineer and 1 for Best Producer for Miriam Clancy’s debut album 'Lucky One'.

Outside of music Steve enjoys fatherhood, travelling and snowboarding and, hopefully, all at once.

BMus

My song writing achievements include winning the 2002 APRA Silver Scroll with Che Fu for Misty Frequencies.

Writing songs on the 1997 Jazz Album of the Year by The New LoungeHead.
Wrote and released jazz E.P 'Cut Lips', under the name Buckle in 1998.

Wrote and recorded song Spud Gun featuring Dave Gibson and Holly Smith, reaching #1 on the BFM top ten in 2000.
Writing Any Kinda Weather, which received both a new artist recording and video grant from NZonAir and released on the 50th Kiwi Hit-Disk compilation in 2002

Writing the strings on Brooke Fraser's debut album 'What to do with Daylight', Amber Claire's debut album 'Of Love and Such'.
Writing the horn section on Nesian Mystics debut, 'Polysaturated'.  Arranging the Elemeno P song Nirvana for the single B-Side from the album 'Love and Disrespect', and recording this with the Rodger Fox Big Band.
Writing strings and horns for Scribe's performance at the Australian Music Awards 2005.
Writing four Big Band arrangements for the soon to be released 'Rodger Fox Big Band plays Kiwi Pop' album.
Arranging strings and horns for the 'Lexus Sunday Theatre' theme on TV1 2003.
Arranging strings for the TV One Americas cup campaign Have a Little Faith 2003,
And For Boh Runga and Carly Bindings Te Reo Recording of the National Anthem for Campbell Live's Te Reo Music Week 07.

Co writing K'Lee's Can You Feel Me, reaching #3 on the NZ singles chart.
The Kiwi Hit-Disk song Anywhere But Here with Nikita Tu-Bryant; 
With Andrew Mockler on his NZ on Air New Recording Artist grant winning song She Waits;
The Del Ray System single Sweet Division; 
With Che Fu on Control Tower, from his third album 'Beneath the Radar'; 
The 'Back of the Y' TV theme for the 2008 Season.

My Performing for the year ending March 08 included Performing Keyboards, Sax and Guitars.
Scribe's Big Day Out tour of Australasia.  Boh Runga's support of her sisters NZ Winery tour.  
Carly Bindings Performance at the SXSW festival in Texas.
Elemeno P's Tour of America/ England. Elemeno P's Winter and Summer Tours 07.
Shows and recording with the phenomenal  Tama Waipara. 
Shows and recording with the Opensouls.

I have had the privilege of playing with the cream of NZ's musicians, sessioned for the likes of Kanye West, and in the RF Big Band have performed across NZ and the U.S 

with the top echelon of jazz greats including the late great Michael Brecker, Randy Crawford, Steve Smith and Dianne Schur.