Dereck Blackburn

Producer | Mixer | Engineer

Member of The Recording Acadely Producers & Engineers Wing

Boston Audio Engineering Society Treasurer 2023 - 2026

Full-Song Production

Bring your song from rough idea to fully realized record with a collaborative production process that strengthens arrangement, performance, and emotional impact. This service turns unfinished demos into purposeful, release-ready songs you can stand behind with confidence. Recommended for artists who have strong songs or demos but want a deeper creative partner to help shape arrangement, performance, and sonic identity into a fully realized record.

Release-Ready Mastering

The final stage that gives your music polish, consistency, and credibility across every platform and playback system. I refine tone, dynamics, and loudness so your release sounds intentional, professional, and built to last. Recommended for artists who are preparing to release their music publicly and want a final quality pass that ensures polish, consistency, and reliable translation across every platform and playback system.

Professional Mixing

Your tracks become a focused, cohesive, and emotionally engaging record that translates everywhere: headphones, car, vinyl, stage. The mix preserves your artistic identity while elevating clarity, depth, and impact. Recommended for artists who have recorded their tracks and want their music to sound cohesive, emotionally compelling, and competitive without losing character or individuality.

Strategy, Coaching & Project Guidance

Structured creative guidance for artists and engineers who want clarity instead of noise, better decisions, and sustainable progress. Together we identify what truly moves your work forward — and build systems, plans, and mindset to support it. Recommended for artists and engineers who want clearer direction, better decision-making, and a more sustainable path forward in their creative work, business, and long-term goals.

Work With Me

Not just recordings - we make records!

Dereck Blackburn is a producer, mixing, and mastering engineer based on Boston’s North Shore. His work spans a wide range of production, mixing, and mastering for independent artists, including Dead to Fall, Crippling Alcoholism, True Faith, Quadvium, Sidewave, Husbands and many others. He approaches projects with an emphasis on clarity, musical intent, and steady, focused progress rather than trend-driven decisions.

Over the course of his career, Dereck has worked in and alongside a variety of established studios, experiences that informed a working philosophy grounded in preparation, critical listening, and mentorship. In addition to client work, he has served as Treasurer of the Audio Engineering Society and is a current member of the Recording Academy Producers & Engineers Wing. He also hosts The High Pass Podcast, which centers on long-form conversations with artists, engineers, and producers about creative work and sustainability.

From 2023 through 2025, Dereck received nominations for Producer of the Year and Studio Engineer of the Year from the Boston Music Awards and the New England Music Awards. He works out of several studios in the greater Boston area and operates a private studio, Quiethouse Recording, in Topsfield, Massachusetts.

Alongside engineering and production, Dereck is involved in mentorship and community efforts within the audio and music world. He views the work not only as a profession, but as a long-term practice shaped by curiosity, shared knowledge, and helping others make informed creative decisions.

Selected projects from recent production, mixing, and mastering work.

Every project here began as a set of ideas, rough sessions, or unresolved creative questions — and became a finished record with clearer intent, stronger emotional impact, and reliable translation across real-world listening environments.

In each case, the work supported the artist’s goals: tightening arrangements, clarifying production choices, strengthening performances, solving technical and tonal problems, and shaping the music into something they could release with confidence.

These records didn’t just get louder or shinier — they became more focused, more intentional, and more fully aligned with what the artist was trying to say.

Architecture for Sound: On Kevin Shields, SUNN O)))), and the Demands of Maximalism by Dereck Blackburn

Guitar rigs that compel you to be there for the spectacle of sound, but is it too much? NO. ITS NOT.

Read on Substack

The Music Industry is Dead, Long Live the Music Industry by Dereck Blackburn

What does it mean to make art when the old rules don't apply anymore?

Read on Substack

DEVELOPING A SONIC SIGNATURE: ARTIST + ENGINEER + THE SHARED PHILOSOPHY by Dereck Blackburn

The art of constraints, obsessions, and interpretive choices.

Read on Substack

From Piracy to Prompting: The Long Road That Made Creative Theft Feel Okay by Dereck Blackburn

Intention, Lineage, and the Moral Failure of Generative AI in Music Arts

Read on Substack