Making music at Shine On Studios in Oakland, CA is fun! Take it from someone who has worked with…read morethis guy for decades. This review has been a long time coming. No matter what I say, I cannot do Shine On Dave enough justice. I met Dave 20 years ago, I'm guessing it was a Craigslist ad. I was building a recording studio in my home and needed guidance. Dave became that beacon. Since then, I have visited Shine On working with various projects many times over the years. As someone who is a 30+ years experienced vocalist, I have watched Dave grow for decades. He is and has always been, as far as I could see, completely dedicated. Dave's passion of being a well earned award winning recording engineer and studio is why Shine On Studios was awarded as best recording studio after many years of growth. I have witnessed him building 1st hand and his success is from hard work, taking on any project he could get in the early days. He can now pick his jobs as he has paid his dues many times over. If Dave is recording you, you must have something real good. Dave has established an awesome pro studio in Oakland. The sounds he is getting are great. The amps, mixing board and most importantly, Dave's ear are all excellent. Dave's interest in offering a comfortable working environment is obvious. The couches, his attitude and studio sounds are 2nd to none. Thank you Dave and Stef! You make a great team...

Bluhd I've been with Dave since 2010 and don't wanna go no where else, Shine On Studios for life.read more

Michael did an amazing job mastering my LP. The result is a cohesive sound that translates well…read moreacross different devices and sounds just as good on my studio monitors as it does on my laptop speakers - and he did this despite the differences in instrumentation and recording quality on each track. I highly recommend Coast Mastering!

Coast Mastering has not one but three powerhouse mastering engineers. I worked with Piper Payne…read moretwice - once on an indie rock song and again on a folk/acoustic song. She gave my rock song the smooth punch I was looking for, and was able to fix up flaws in the other. I will definitely be back at Coast to master my next mixes. The whole team is friendly and communicative, and the price is right. The vibe is professional but chill - and so cool in their new location right next to Fantasy! Thanks, Coast!

Joe with High Five Help is amazing, skilled, personable, and KIND. He is particularly adept with…read moreSeniors/Older Adults in the community/Bay Area. I recommend him anytime to anyone for simple help to extensive troubleshooting, installation, and configuration. Give him a call when you want to get through your projects big or small--he is ALSO patient when your patience has run out. -Stagebridge staff

I hired Joe Lachoff to set up my home and office wi-fi network. The download speed increased…read moretenfold. A few months later I had Joe come back and set up my new Studio M4 computer with dual monitors, camera, lights, speakers, etc. Apple Mail was not working on my old Mac and when the data was migrated to the new hard-drive, it still didn't work. Joe was able to find and delete the 3 corrupted files in the nearly 10,000 email files and get everything running smoothly. This guy knows his stuff!

Jonah engineered a live video performance for my band and he killed it. Not only is he the best…read moredude, but the setup was a breeze, painless, and fun. He is incredibly knowledgeable and a total geek, in a good way. He loves the classic sounds/techniques but doesnt shy away from experimenting to get cool sounds. Highly recommended, cant wait to work with him again at his new space.

Jonah built a god damn studio in the void that once was a living room. Why? Because the room…read moresounded good, and he was obsessed enough to do it. With that as the precedent, you will never find a more attentive engineer who knows his gear than him. Phil Collins constantly yaps about how great his studio is, but Phil Collins is a fucking poser. I recorded these records (http://bhamilton.bandcamp.com/) there, along with an insane amount of material that exists as the smallest weight ever attempted on a series of hard drives. The studio has a bunch of crazy ass gear to play with, and a grand piano that is easily the best sounding keybox within thirties, even forties of miles. Along with that, Jonah will make god damn sure that the mic placement is unique, and correct. Unlike Phil Collins, who randomly takes off during a session to hold private meetings with his stuffed animal Model UN. Just fucking record here. Its weird, its close, its cheap, and its run by a dude who will make god damn sure you leave with what you want. Its literately the antithesis of what that enemy of taste, Phil Collins does, which includes making you rewrite all your songs to include a lion prince, and adding random, terrible drum solos to any verses that include the words "heat" or "night." What a fucking shuttlecock. Fuck that idiot. Cheers, Phil Collins

This guy tuned my Kawai piano and it sounds great, better than a Steinway (my Steinway 1990 B) I…read morehave a Kawai GS-60EP piano that I wanted voiced like my steinway, and Tim knew exactly what to do, spent about two hours tuning and voicing my piano. Other Techs could not do what Tim can do, He was spectacular. This was done about a year ago and It still hold a tune. It is better than the steinway B, which was my dream piano for so many years. I have a GS -60 and it is about 30 years old and it is a dream because of Tim. I think He left for Hawaii, I hope He comes back. I think He got Married there and decided to stay. I am having a tough time getting a hold of him. But he was the best tuner i have ever used. If you can find him and are in need of a tuner, then Use him, you will not be disappointed.

We were recommended by our neighbor about this tuner. Our neighbor and we both have a 100+ old…read moregrand. In the beginning I would like it tuned. Also I was interested to know how to improve the sound of our piano. Same as Tim. Much more than tuning the piano. He tried to persuade me to do expansive stuff. Ended up when he left , 2 of the keys were stuck. I called him several times to come back to check on it. He was quite reluctant. It ended up the keys finally unstuck by themselves. With his attitude (all about money) I definitely won't recommend to anyone.

My experience of working with Brian and Qualitas could not have been better. The product quality of…read moreour drives was perfect and Brain's professional guidance throughout the process was exceptional. I will always be a customer and would highly recommend working with Qualitas.

I only posted on Yelp after speaking to Brian personally on the phone and sending him an email…read morefollow up again trying to understand what the problem was. He never responded. First, our last order with DVD Copycat was in June of 2011 for 100 CDs. If we were such a problem client, common sense suggests he would have communicated this or tried to resolve it after that order was completed and paid for. He didn't. We were not contacted ever at all about any problem on any level with our orders. Not once. We were not told to find another vendor ever. Second, in August when I went back to DVD CopyCat for a reorder, we were not told by the salesperson that we she could not take or fill my our order due to problems in the past. Common sense suggests, we would have been told this at that time. We were not. The salesperson took my re order until she came back and said she didn't have the DVD cases in stock we needed and didn't have the authority to order them. When I spoke to Brian just a few weeks ago to re order another CD set, and he said he didn't want our business any longer, and couldn't clearly say why, I angrily said to him, it was us who should be letting him go, because of what happened last summer while he was on vacation and couldn't fulfill an order. He had no knowledge of this having happened. I guess his employees never told him. Last, what I stated is factually true. What Brian states is the usual unsubstantiated personal attacks of someone defensive and trying to divert the conversation from their own actions. We were not a problem client. We paid our bills on time. We provided all the artwork. We picked up our orders on time. We reordered products. I would love to have more clients like that! We have had relationships with the same duplicating and printing vendors going back into the mid 1990s. And, Brian also states that he sent back all our artwork and masters many months ago because he no longer wanted our business. I have no record of this and can not find those items anywhere in our office, I have no email stating this was being done. I honestly wonder if Brian does not have us confused with another business.

I've had the pleasure of working with Alex several times across different projects, and he…read moreconsistently delivers exceptional result! Results are always on time and beyond expectations. He's highly professional, creative, and often brings fresh artistic ideas I wouldn't have considered. I've hired Alex for photography, graphic design, and merchandise creation for several artists I work with, and he approaches each project with precision and care. Whenever I collaborate with Alex, I know I can expect top quality, confident, and professional work. Highly recommended!

High quality work. I own multiple pieces of clothing he's printed on. You can tell he cares about…read morehis work.

O.K. This will…read moreprobably be one of the most difficult reviews I will ever submit. First and foremost, Rock's Bar B Que is not a bbq joint. Rock's BBQ is a techie by the name of John. If you are not a part of the culture associated with competition barbecue, this will escape you entirely. John has pretty much struck gold. Some might even say he has a license to print money. John has created a device, The Stoker, that is essentially a CPU to monitor the temperature of the meat, the temperature of the chamber and control the temperature of your wood or charcoal fired barbecue. BFD! you might say? Well, in the world of competition barbecue, where precise cooking times and temperatures are essential for low and slow cooking of beef briskets and ginormus hunks of pork, this tool is used by some pretty big name BBQ competition teams. For example, Slap Your Daddy BBQ Team, currently featured on the recent reality show on TLC, BBQ Pitmasters, uses the Stoker. The Stoker also allows for a more efficent use of your fuel and allows you to get a few hours of sleep. This is essential when you are doing an all weekend cook for bragging rights on the competition circuit. As for myself, I am a backyard enthusiest with way too many cookers and I love, love, love my Stoker. This device is truly a barbecue and geeky thing all rolled up into one. The best of both worlds. My brisket and pulled pork have never been easier to cook with results far better than I could ever imagine. I use my Stoker on my Weber Smokey Mountain cookers and my Stoker can fit on every piece of equipment all at once. The litereature will have you believe that you can manage up to 25 devices and I don't doubt it for one moment. Adapters can be purchased to install this unit on just about any kind of BBQ you have. The rating for this piece of equipment is truly in excess of 5 stars. And this is the part that makes my review difficult to submit. While this peice of equipment is an exceptional device that costs a lot of money, John, the techie behind Rock's BBQ, has admitted he is an engineer. Marketing? Customer service? Not exactly his skill set. When you place your order, expectations of timely delivery of your Stoker would be unreasonable. Even if you pay for expedited shipping. Ain't gonna happen. In both my experiences in purchasing gear from Rock's, I had to be very proactive in my efforts to see to it I got my gear in this millenium. I felt like John's focus was not necessarily in getting the gear shipped in a timely manner. That makes my over-the-top 5 star rating a 2.5. In conclusion, The Stoker is a phenomenal piece of equipment that has a total geek thing going on. Just don't be in a hurry to get it when you order it.

I had a different experience. I submitted my order online, and received it on time, with no issues…read more Configuration was simple, provided you read the documentation first. While boil testing the new probes, I noticed that one of the temperature probes was far off and needed calibration. I had to calibrate it by 40 degrees. I carefully described the issue in detail in an email to Rock's. I received a response on Monday morning that they would ship me a new probe, and I was to return the old. I tested the new probe, and it behaved according to expectations. So far my experience in dealing with Rocks has been very positive. In addition, the Stoker performs admirably.