HEY THERE!

Welcome to richardcleaver.com! This has been my home on the web since 2004. I am a guitarist, an audio engineer, an author, a photographer, a cyclist, a retired executive and probably many other things. Most important to me is my faith and my family. Thanks for dropping by. You can find out more about me and this website here.

  • Blog

    I post a few times a week about guitars, audio engineering, and serving churches in music and sound. Check out the blog here.

  • Videos

    Concert footage, studio tours, mixing and sound seminars from my YouTube channel. You can check them out here.

  • Guitar Gear

    So much gear, so little time. My guitar gear over the years. A humble yet formidable collection of tone. See it here.

READ RICHARD’S BLOG

Changing Things Up

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Pedalboards are always changing. At least they always change…

Carter Vintage Guitars

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I was in Nashville a few weeks back and I had to make the…

New From Strymon

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A new Strymon pedal was just announced. The cloudburst seems…

GUITARIST

I’ve played guitar for over 40 years now. As a young musician, I toured professionally in support of Christian artists. Since the 1970s I have served in numerous praise and worship teams in Canada and the United States. Always learning and always trying to improve my musical skills.

GO TELL

I have served on Praise and Worship teams since, well, before Praise and Worship was a thing. I’ve been playing guitar in churches since I was 14 years old. Here is one example of how I play. I recorded all of my guitar parts along with the rest of the band before the video shoot. During the video shoot, I captured the drums and vocals and then mixed them in post.

IT’S CHRISTMAS

Recorded live off the floor, the finale of a 10-year run of a musical program I ran each Christmas called Celebrate Christmas. In this song, I battle it out with Trevor on a duet that begins at the 4 minute mark. A wonderful compilation of some classic Christmas tunes that celebrate the birth of Christ.

AUDIO ENGINEER

I’ve been fortunate to receive a number of industry awards for excellence in the recording arts. I have extensive experience in recording studios and concert and church sound. I’ve served as the audio/visual technical director at several churches in Canada over the years and I’ve led numerous seminars on church sound for volunteers.

FEAR IS NOT MY FUTURE

This song was recorded live off the floor at Connexus Church in Barrie, Ontario. I recorded the live parts as multiple takes and then edited and mixed the tracks before sending it over to video post-production. This is a song that reminds us to not base our lives on fear and uncertainty but to have confidence in our faith in Christ.

EASTER SONG

Between March of 2020 and December of 2021 I recorded and mixed over 180 songs for Harvest Barrie Chapel in Barrie, Ontario. This is but one of those songs. I approached the recording and mixing process with a lot of care to help the community at Harvest engage in worship. The Easter Song is a joyful song intended to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. This type of mixing is very challenging as the schedule is very tight and I work with musicians and vocalists with varying levels of skill. Often I am turning the mixes, including editing and tuning of vocals in less than a day. For this song I recorded the drums and vocals live off the floor at the church and flew in parts from the other musicians into my Pro Tools rig. I played all of the guitar tracks.

EAST OF SINAI

I have spent over 40 years in studio recording and mixing and I have worked on many albums over that time. Here is a recent example from a project that I recorded and mixed for the Trevor Dick Band. The tracks were recorded at Noble Street Studios in Toronto and I mixed the project largely from my own studio. The New World album was mastered by George Seara. The project received a Covenant award from the Gospel Music Association of Canada for Instrumental Album of the Year in 2015 and it also received two Global Music Awards for Top Ten Album and Band of the Year. I love all the tracks so it was hard to just pick one but here it is. The band describes the track, East Of Sinai, this way:

This song’s spy overtones and middle eastern flavour features drummer, Steve Heathcote, in an all out drum solo in the outro section of the song. The music is purposely unsettling, like traveling into a war zone. It “unravels” as it progresses to the final resonating, reverberating chord. East of Sinai represents both the present unrest in the Middle East and also the feelings of fear/uncertainty we all feel when venturing into the unknown. The title also recalls the Biblical story of Numbers 13:1-33 where Moses dispatched twelve Israelite chieftain spies to scout out the Land of Canaan (promised land). These sleuths (with the exception of Joshua and Caleb) quickly lost faith and became afraid of the the giants in the land and their fortress cities with walls too tall to climb.

Copyright © 2004 - 2022 by Richard Cleaver. All Rights Reserved.