About Me | Arno Hachaduryan

Short Version:

I am Arno Hachaduryan. I mostly record and mix music. I also do live sound.

Long Version:

I was born in Haskovo, Bulgaria on November 15th, 1980 in the family of hard working electrical engineer Philip Hachaduryan, ambitious piano teacher Ani Hachaduryan and brother Van Hachaduryan (who happens to be the best brother in the whole world!). At the age of 4, I was enrolled by my mother to music theory classes and started playing the piano a year later. Yes, my mom doesn’t joke around.

Needless to say music became very important part of my life. I grew very fond of baroque, classical and contemporary music. In 1987 I won first prize at the “Emanouil Manolov” national instrumentalist competition of Bulgaria (thanks for the amazing support and endless hours of tutoring, mom). Around that time I also got exposed to The Beatles and quickly fell in love with their work.

Favourite artists from that period – J. S. Bach, Jean Michel Jarre, The Beatles.

At the age of 15, I became part of my first musical ‘band project’. Since all other spots in the band were taken I became the drummer. My friend Peter Naidenov (lead guitarist, fontman) introduced me to my second obsession – classic rock. Bands like Manowar, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden and Metallica were constantly playing. Anywhere, everywhere. . As time passed I started experimenting with guitars and before long I transfered all my attention to playing and practicing chords and scales. Between 1994 and 1999 I participated in a few new projects, the main of which called “Chaos” was the first one with me playing all the guitars in it. We performed at every major venue in Haskovo and after an exciting talk show with host Diliana Mihailova some of our music was featured at the local radio station.

Favourite artists from that era – Manowar, Iron Maiden, Guano Apes, Aerosmith, Primal Fear, Guns N’Roses, Helloween, Metallica, Testament, Signal, FSB, Sepultura/Soulfly, Joe Satriani.

What followed was my first dark period. During that specific time Dream Theater’s album ‘Images And Words’ and ‘Awake‘ played a heavy role in forming my musical taste. After a few long months I grew tired of my current situation and decided that a major change was needed. That is when I made a big step into a completely new direction – I started a whole new chapter by moving to the United States.

Favourite artists from those days: Dream Theater, Audioslave, Rage Against The Machine, Korn, Astral Projection, Pantera, James Horner, John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Panican Whyasker, Antonio Vivaldi;

While I lived in Chicago, IL (2003 – 2008) I worked mainly as a server (later as bartender) and I used my spare time to work on music. After a tough beginning I ended up meeting amazing people and musicians. Currently I consider my “Chicago period” one of the most fun times in my life.

Anyway, a few months after I moved to the Windy City I purchased my first bass guitar. Not long after I become the bassist of a local punk-rock band NatureDevil, fronted by talented musician, videographer, artist and dear friend Brian Lambrecht. While in that project I played local venues such as Penny Road Pub and The Double Door (I was very excited to play Double Door, especially because The Rolling Stones played that venue a few years prior to that). During my ‘Chicago’ period I participated in a few nameless projects with musicians Neil Yodane, Chris Reyes, Jason Kluss. Around that time I also discovered software phenomenon Reason and the concept of MIDI.

Greatest influences of that period: Radiohead, Nirvana, Tool, Nickel Creek, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Foo Fighters, Tiesto, Darude, Sergei Ra chmaninov, Claude Debussy.

It was the winter of 2007 when during a family visit in New York City I decided to pursue a career in Audio Engineering. Sure enough, in the summer of 2008 I moved to San Francisco, CA in order to attend SAE Institute‘s Audio Technology program and earn a diploma and become an audio professional (years of study 2009 – 2010).

In May 2010 I successfully completed my internship at Prairie Sun Recording Studio in Cotati, CA where I got to work with amazing professionals such as Oz Fritz, Matt Wright, Jason D’Ottavio, Eric Gales, Omar Torrez. There I also met Mike Varney from The Shrapnel Label Group.

In 2010 and 2011 I helped a local company called “Bay Area Tone” do a solid amount of live tracking for Pure Volume House at the CMJ festival in New York City and at SXSW in Austin, TX. It was around that time when I got in my first “Top Album” list with I Would Rather Go Blind by Blind Lemon Pledge – top 50 iTunes releases for Ireland.

Mid 2011 was marked with the birth of The Lazy Cocoon – my interpretation of mobile production.

Currently I work as a freelance audio engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area and I am still in the process of building The Lazy Cocoon into the best she can be – a truly unique alternative in the world of mobile audio capture and production. Stay tuned on that!

I live in San Jose, California with my wonderful wife Kerri and our astonishingly silly dog Butch.

Go green technology!