Dana Cornock, Guest Engineer

Dana W. Cornock has been a recording engineer and producer for 40 years and has been playing music for almost 55 years. He was born and raised in Western Massachusetts , but has lived in the Central Florida area for most of the past 45 years. He received an Associate of Arts degree in 1976, and that same year began working as an engineer at Seabird Recording Studios. In 1978, he joined one of the Southeast’s most prestigious facilities, Bee Jay Recording Studios, in Orlando, Florida .

While working at this world-class facility, Dana had the opportunity to work with and learn from many of the world’s most successful artists, engineers and producers. As a result, he began earning what would become a long string of music industry awards such as gold, platinum and multi-platinum albums and Grammy Awards nominations.

During his tenure at Bee Jay, Dana also undertook what would become a lifelong commitment to being an educator. In 1981, Full Sail Center for the Recording Arts opened its doors in Orlando by becaming one of Bee Jay’s many clients. During this time, Dana and the rest of the studio staff aided Full Sail in designing and implementing their original teaching curriculum. He continued at the school as a guest lecturer and an instructor off and on for several years.

Since the artists Dana was now working with were national and international recording stars, the opportunities arose to travel and work in studios in New York, Los Angeles and Mexico City . He became a freelance engineer and producer while continuing to use Orlando as his base of operations until 1985, when Bee Jay Studios was sold. That was when he decided to move to Chicago .

Over the course of the next two years, he worked as a freelance engineer and producer based out of the famous Chicago Trax Studio. While collaborating with many of the city’s legendary jazz, rock and blues artists, he was also involved in developing what would become the now-famous “house music” style. Also during this time, he continued his commitment to education by teaching record production at Columbia College and establishing the curriculum for their four-year Bachelor’s Degree Program in the Recording Arts.

In late 1986, Dana returned to Florida and founded his own production company, Wolf’s Head Productions. By the end of the next year, construction was completed on a 2,000-square-foot studio that he custom designed for his own specific needs. Although the studio began as an all-analog facility, by 1988 Dana had begun to combine vintage analog gear with the then-emerging digital recording technologies. He quickly established himself as a pioneer and expert in these rapidly growing computer-based recording systems.

In 1997, the lease on Wolf’s Head studio expired, and Dana once again began to travel extensively, this time covering nearly all of North America and much of Europe . When he wasn’t working on live remote recordings and integrating these with computer automation systems for major touring acts to synchronize their music, lighting, pyrotechnics, audio and video, he was back at home doing post-production mixing for television shows and pay-per-view events and 5.1 surround mixes for DVD releases.

Dana continues today as an audio trail blazer and educator.