intro
Welcome to my website! My name is Mathew Valente. First thing you may notice, is that I am not that great a web designer. It's true! But that's because I focus my attention on what I'm good at! Sound!
I am a budding sound engineer from the great white north. In 2009, I moved to Vancouver, BC from Toronto, ON. Now I am located in Victoria, BC.
I grew up in the Greater Toronto Area, in a city known as Brampton. There wasn't much opportunity to advance there, except moving near Toronto, but the city life out there is just too much for me. There was something that stuck out in the back of my mind, ..a bit of subliminal messaging from The Pet Shop Boys if you will..something telling me to go West. Well, that's where I ended up.
starting out
I started out in the mid 90's, by listening to video game music no less. I attempted to recreate these songs using software named "Scream Tracker". Well, it didn't turn out so hot, but I was learning. I was teaching myself music theory because my parents, despite their best efforts in attempting to get me into something creative, never thought of introducing me to music professionally.
Anyway, while I was listening to other people's remakes of popular video game music that I loved, I became dissatisfied with the quality of some remakes of music that I was hearing, mostly in the General MIDI format. It became my goal, my ambition in all of my musical remakes that I attempt complete accuracy. This has turned me into somewhat of a purist, and a perfectionist (as is evident in some critical thoughts I have towards Playstation's version of Chrono Trigger, and the soundtrack CD that came with Lunar: Eternal Blue for Playstation)
During my ventures I have learned the art of MIDI, and digital audio. My software of choice is Cakewalk, Cubase, Protools LE 7.4 (until I upgrade to 8), and Adobe Audition (formerly known as Cool Edit Pro). I am fully adept in all of these programs, and it doesn't take me long to learn and utilize different software.
So, having about 15 years of audio work and mixing, most of which for fun, I decided that I loved this profession too much to let my life go by without doing it professionally. So with that note, I enrolled to Recording Arts Canada in 2008 to get myself one step closer to this ultimate goal. I left the school with a newfound sense of purpose, and my yearning to acheive my goal has never been stronger.
welcome
If you have come to this website from my business card to check out who I am, and what I do, please check out the "services" section of this site to get an idea.
Thanks for reading this brief history lesson about myself. Enjoy the website, and I hope to be hearing from you soon!
-Mathew Valente [TSSF]
P.s. My Facebook page is temporarily deactivated as I work through some issues.