Spy Jazz
James Blonde
Original spy-jazz action cue inspired by classic espionage cinema, composed and produced for full band from the ground up.
MJ Habal — Composer · Recording Engineer · Mix Engineer · Mastering Engineer
Professional Experience
Before digital marketing, there was music.
What started as a passion for arranging and composing eventually led to over a decade of audio engineering, music production, and commercial work for advertising agencies and brands.
Many of the skills I use in marketing today were first learned in the studio.
Long before AI found its way into music production, I was already spending evenings arranging songs, auditioning sounds, and obsessing over details most people would never notice.
What started as a passion for music eventually became more than a decade of arranging, producing, and audio engineering. I spent much of that time as a Senior Sound Engineer and Music Arranger at Digitrax Sound Productions, working on projects for advertising agencies, brands, and other creative productions.
The original goal was simple: become a music arranger and sound engineer. Growing up around the film industry, I was fascinated by the idea of writing music that could shape a scene without saying a word.
I studied Public Relations at De La Salle University–Dasmariñas, which makes more sense in hindsight. Even then, I was already interested in more than one discipline at a time.
Music just happened to be the first rabbit hole.
Nothing here yet.
Technical notes on mixing, mastering, and the decisions behind each production.
Most muddy mixes are gain problems wearing an EQ costume. Set levels properly at the source and half the "fixing" disappears.
After two hours in a mix, your ears drift and everything sounds correct. A reference track is how you find out it isn't.
Nobody ever complimented a mix for how many tracks it had. If muting a part improves the chorus, the part was the problem.
Notes from years behind the board.
A better take beats a better plugin, every single time. The mix can polish a performance. It cannot perform one.
Impact is relative. A chorus only lands as hard as the space the verse leaves for it.
Listeners feel what you removed. Space reads as confidence, in a mix and everywhere else.
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