Ryeland Allison

Ryeland Allison (born October 7, 1967) is an American music producer, composer, sound designer, and multi-instrumentalist.^[1][2] He has collaborated on music with artists such as Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard, TOOL, Ariel Pink, BT, Hybrid and Eric Persing. He has produced music for films, television and video games as well as album and single releases and remixes for other artists.^[3] He resides in California with his wife and two sons.

Early life

Ryeland Allison was born to Keith Allison^[4] and Judith Allison in Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA on 7 October 1967. His godparents are Sonny and Cher Bono.^{[citation needed]} His father Keith, a musician and a member of Paul Revere & the Raiders,^[5] provided direction in music through LPs of popular acts of the day. At the age of three, Ryeland began playing drums. By age six he had added piano to his self-taught instrument skills. He formed his first band, The Rockers, with Anthony Wilson at age 10. Throughout his early life, mainly through his family connections, he visited and shared impromptu jam sessions with notable artists such as Ringo Starr, Elton John, Keith Moon and the Monkees. He played percussion on one track of Ronnie Hawkins album “The Hawk” in 1977, marking his first professional recording session.^[6]

Education

Ryeland attended Crossroads School from 1979–1981 where he was first exposed to Apple computers. He took an extension course on Analog Subtractive Synthesis at UCLA in 1984. He graduated from The Newbridge School in 1985, having completed a Senior project of compositions that he had performed, engineered and produced in his home studio. By this time he had joined two bands as a drummer and was performing around the LA area at venues such as The Troubadour and Madame Wong’s West. One of these bands, The Motion, recorded two songs for the CBS Television Studios pilot “Summer” in 1984. “Native Sun,” another band, was formed by Anthony Wilson and Jeremy Toback, with whom he would continue writing music in later years. In the summer of 1986 he formed another band with friends Craig "Nick" Santangelo (Guitar) and Pete "Taylor" Hawk (Bass)^[7] called "Active Habit," and enjoyed jamming together for over a year. Warner Bros Records showed interest in the group and had an agent attend many sessions, including a live performance for an anti-drug campaign in Pasadena. After a brief stint at California Institute of the Arts, where he studied percussion with John Bergamo, he continued his music studies at San Francisco State University with Dr. Herbert Bielawa.^[8] Introduced to modular synthesizers, FM synthesis, MIDI and sequencing software, his production techniques expanded considerably. He finished his formal education at the Dick Grove School of Music, in the Electronic Composing and Arranging Program in 1990.

Career

From 1990–91, Ryeland worked as an assistant engineer at the studio of composer Mike Post. There he refined his knowledge of professional studio equipment and practice, contributing to such shows as Law & Order, Cop Rock, and L.A. Law. He then worked briefly with composer Ray Colcord, who introduced him to composer Jeff Rona. Jeff taught Ryeland the finer points of digital sampling technique on the AKAI S1000, and introduced Ryeland to composer Hans Zimmer. Meanwhile, Ryeland had begun working with Roland Research & Development^[9] as a patch and demo song developer,^[10] where he was introduced to sound designer Eric Persing. Ryeland began regular session work for Hans Zimmer, performing drums for sample library sessions, and creating sounds for the composer. As Hans became more familiar with Ryeland’s abilities, he offered production and composing tasks for films such as Drop Zone and Broken Arrow.^[11] Concurrently, Ryeland and Eric Persing were creating the sample library Distorted Reality. A pre-release version was first utilized by Hans Zimmer in the score for The Fan, which Ryeland co-produced. Distorted Reality was critically acclaimed and has gone on to become the best selling Sample CD-ROM of all time.^[12] By the year 2000, Ryeland had broadened his alliances by working with other composers of note such as Harry Gregson-Williams, John Powell, Mark Mancina, Andrew Gross, Roy Hay, John Van Tongeren, Michel Colombier, Steve Dorff, Rupert Gregson-Williams, Mark Mothersbaugh, Steve Jablonsky, and James Newton Howard.^[13]

Exclusive of film and television music, Ryeland has also produced^[14] many titles of electronic dance music, remixes and additional productions for the recording industry. His production work has made an impact with other producers in the electronic music genres.^[15][16] In 1999 Ryeland partnered with Vincent DeFranco. Together they produced rock superstars TOOL and their collaboration with The Melvins for The Crybaby album.^[17] In 2000, Ryeland produced and released an eponymous solo album as well as an album for his group ambr.sea. In 2001, Ryeland began a writing partnership with DJ/Producer Dave Dresden.^[18] Together they produced many influential club anthems under the monikers “A.llison D.resden D.uo” and “Attention Deficit.”^[19] Some of their remixes released on 12” and CD include Wild, Sweet and Cool by The Crystal Method, Yet Another Day by Armin Van Buuren, Cold Comfort by Curve, The Great Escape by BT, Deepsky, Thunderpuss, Kelis, Peaches, Made By Monkeys, and 4 Tune 500. A single release by Ryeland in 2004 on Teknology Records, "How To Get Down," gained club play and attention.^[20]

Ryeland has performed and recorded with many different bands and venues across the United States. Some of these include ambr.sea^[21] (with Roxanne Morganstern,) engine ear^[22] (with Vince DeFranco,) Man-Go-Bang! (with Andrew Gross and Katisse Buckingham,) Big Milk (with Paz Lenchantin,) and Super Chief (with Aaron Hagar, Kyle Eastwood and Michael Stevens.) He performed as part of the Hans Zimmer Orchestra at the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End Premiere at Disneyland,^[23] and at a special concert in July 2009 on top of the Dreamworks parking garage. A residency at Remote Control Productions saw Ryeland working on some of the biggest grossing productions of the 2000s^[24] including The Dark Knight,^[25] Iron Man, The Simpsons Movie,^[26] Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Sherlock Holmes,^[27][28] Inception and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.^[11] In September 2012, Ryeland joined Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti as drummer and electronic tracks producer for a tour of the US and Canada. Ryeland continues to compose for film,^[29] television, music libraries and video games. His sound design work continues as well as his remix and production for artists worldwide.

Acting

Since the 1970s, Ryeland has appeared on screen in several bit parts for titles such as Rhoda, Wizards & Warriors, Medusa: Dare To Be Truthful, Blossom, America’s Funniest People, As Good As It Gets, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, and It’s Complicated.^[11]

References