about

Dragonfly Creek Recording Studio is a destination for artists, providing an idyllic environment for creating music.

Located on a private ranch in the scenic hills of Malibu, CA, Dragonfly Creek Recording is surrounded by vineyards, horses, and just ten minutes from some of the world’s most beautiful beaches. This fully equipped, state of the art recording studio and residence is an ideal environment for creativity and production of all types of sound projects, while still providing easy access to Hollywood, Los Angeles and the Westside.

The Main Studio features a completely isolated tracking room with 12’ foot ceilings, great light and variable acoustics, a large iso room for piano or drums and a small iso booth for vocals, single instruments or amps. Taytrix Gobos and their Booth Kit are available for some movable isolation.The Control Room is extremely quiet and can be used as an additional recording space.

The Control Room was custom designed by George Augspurger, whose monitors are found in the top recording studios in the world.  Pro Tools Ultimate HDX is the main workstation with Apogee Symphony & Rosetta providing 40 analog I/O.  The collection of outboard gear includes API,Tube-Tech, Retro,Teletronix and Empirical Labs. Monitoring is by Grace and Barefoot Audio.

There is an ample assortment of mics, including tubes and ribbons as well as 24 channels of premium mic pres composed of Neve, API, Brent Averill, Heritage Audio, Calrec, LaChapell and Avedis. The array of instruments  includes an especially rich sounding Yamaha C7 piano, originally from the world famous Jazz Bakery, A stunning vintage Wurlitzer 140b and an early 70s Rhodes suitcase 73 - both gone through by Ken Rich, Hammond M3 and Leslie,  Custom Recording Yamaha and Gretsch drum kits, several guitars, basses, amps and plenty of small percussion.

For those seeking residential options, we can accommodate writing camps and large productions.  Located on 7 beautiful acres, the estate includes a 5 bedroom + 7 bath home, two bungalows, a saltwater pool, spa, outdoor kitchen, organic vegetable gardens, orchard and our resident pygmy goats for your enjoyment.

CHARLEY POLLARD

DCR’s full service studio continues with Charley Pollard, whose skills include engineering, producing, mixing, editing and collaboration. Charley’s multi faceted career has allowed him to work with artists ranging from Lady Gaga, AWOLNATION, Ryan Tedder and Justin Timberlake to Robbie Robertson, Gloria Estefan, and Frank Sinatra.

As a composer, Charley has scored for shows such as CW’s Reaper, CBS’s Chaos, NBC’s Playboy Club and MTV’s Inbetweeners, and he’s written music for dozens of Honda car commercials.  As a scoring mixer, midi orchestrator, percussion programmer and co-composer, he contributed to countless film and TV scores for Emmy and Grammy winning composer, Patrick Williams. He has produced and mixed songs for OneRepublic, done string arranging, drum and keyboard programming and mixing for a variety of artists such as Robbie Robertson, Gloria Estefan and NSYNC. He has done horn arrangements and played trombone for artists including Andra Day and Wondagurl and shows such as Arrested Development.

While studying jazz performance & arranging at the prestigious University of North Texas music school, Charley also learned the art of recording.  Starting as an assistant in a Dallas commercial recording studio, he soon established his own private clientele, bringing in many bands to record during off hours. This experience also honed his drum and keyboard programming skills and led to his next move…Los Angeles.

In LA,  he worked his way through the ranks at The Village Recorder, also recording and producing bands on his own.  Through contacts at the Village he began writing music for theatrical trailers for Warner Bros.  Over the next 8 years, he was Patrick Williams’ scoring mixer, MIDI orchestrator, drum programmer and sometimes co-writer for dozens of features, TV movies and series.  In addition to the film and TV work, Charley worked closely with Phil Ramone and Patrick on album projects for Gloria Estefan and Frank Sinatra among others.

In addition to working with Patrick, Charley began writing music for commercials and shows on his own. A wide variety of projects came through at this time from doing tracks and string arranging for NSYNC, to writing music for Honda car commercials, to producing Ryan Tedder.

David Schwartz, Emmy and Grammy nominated composer of shows such as Arrested Development and Northern Exposure called Charley to co-compose on a series he was working on. That led to several series that they shared over the next several years.

Meanwhile still passionate to record more live instruments and bands, Charley had a full tracking room designed by renowned acoustician, George Augspurger, and has expanded the recording and producing side of his career since then. The state of the art recording studio, Dragonfly Creek Studio, allows him to continue the opportunity of working on a variety of projects from writing, to engineering and producing on his beautiful ranch in Malibu, CA.