Cypher Sound exists to provide our clients a comfortable and creative
environment by maintaining a standard built on integrity and dedicated to the
great art of professional sound recording.
Aaron Connor Biography
Spanning a Career of over 16 years
in the music industry, Aaron Connor helped shape and define the sound of West
Coast hip hop. Born in Kansas City, Aaron pursued his life long love of music,
moving to Los Angeles in 1989 at age 18 to become a studio musician with a one
way plane ticket and 1200 dollars in his pocket. He then enrolled at Musician’s
institute, where he was taught by industry professionals such as KC jazz great
Norman Brown, guitarists Jennifer Batten and Frank Gambale and Tribal Tech’s
Scott Henderson. Aaron was also able to meet his guitar hero, Steve Vai, and
take lessons from bassist Billy Sheehan.
A billboard ad at M.I. led Aaron to a full ride
scholarship at The Institute of Audio and Video Engineering. He learned
production from famed producer Mike Flicker, who produced all the early Heart
records, and learned engineering from master engineer Andrew Mackenzie, who was
working with Megadeth at the time. The Institute offered Aaron a job tutoring
other students in exchange for free studio time, and by the time he graduated,
he had already produced 10 records. This kick started his career as an
independent engineer and producer.
Aaron’s early sessions were at Trax recording
in Hollywood, a studio owned by Michael McDonald. After hundreds of sessions, he
finally struck gold in 1993 with artist M.C. Eight, whose “Straight up Menace”
from the Menace to Society soundtrack for Jive Records became Aaron’s
first gold record.
This success paved the way for Aaron to work
with hip-hop artists from across the country, one of whom, DJ Uneek, introduced
him to Easy E of N.W.A., who brought in a new act from Cleveland to work with
Aaron. That was when he met Bone Thugs N’ Harmony.
Bone Thugs first record, “Creepin’ on a Come
up” was released in 1994 and became a smash hit selling over 1 million
copies in its 1st month. Driven by DJ Uneek’s “Thuggish Ruggish
Bone”. “Creepin” went on to sell 2 million copies and Aaron went back to
the studio to record their sophomore album, “E 1999 Eternal” sold another
2 million copies. The album, fueled by the hit single “1st of the
Month”, was nominated for a Grammy as hip-hop album of the year.
Later that year, friend and label owner Easy E
died of AIDs. Moved by the crushing loss, Bone Thugs N’ Harmony decided to
record a tribute song to Easy. That song was “Tha Crossroads”. Released in 1996
“Tha Crossroads” spent 8 weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts, becoming the
fastest selling hot 100 single of all time, beating the record set by the
Beatles in 1963. The record label decided to put the single on “E 1999 Eternal”
and re-release it. The album ended up selling another 7 million copies. The song
was nominated as single of the year by the Grammy committee and won the award.
Aaron did 7 albums with Bone Thugs, selling over 20 million records.
In 1994, Aaron started his production company,
Studio Cat Productions, in Hollywood. Studio Cat has produced hits for artists
such as 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G., Cher, E40, G-love and Special Sauce, The
Pharcyde, Montell Jordan, and Angie Stone, just to name a few.
After a successful run in Hollywood, and over
55 gold and Platinum records, Aaron returned to Kansas City in 2003 and took a
head engineer job at a local studio, working with midwest and national artists
such as TechN9ne, Nappy Roots, R.O.B., Skatterman and and Snug Brim, Skrilla Gettaz, Pittcore, and Pull.
In summer 2006, teaming up with architect and
musician Bob Bibb, Aaron started Cypher Sound Studios in downtown Kansas City.
An 8000 square ft. facility with an SSL E series console located at 3600 Main
Street, Cypher Sound is poised to become the next success story for Aaron
Connor. “I am very excited for the future. The studio is growing every day and
many people have joined my vision of a place of creativity and passion.” Aaron
states “I want this studio to be about everyone who works there and loves music.
I am most excited about helping local artists create hit records. I’m hoping I
can take some of that magic that happened in Hollywood and bring it here to
Kansas City. Maybe some day we can look back and see that something special
really did happen at Cypher Sound. Who knows, maybe they’ll write a book about
it.”
