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Doug Benson is a professional recording engineer and musician with a degree in music composition from the University of Maryland. In 1992 he opened Harvest Recording, a two-room studio which he ran successfully for ten years, engineering and producing well over 100 independent CD releases and developing a long list of repeat customers. In 2003 Doug moved the studio, operated under the name Catoctin Mountain Recording for several years, before finally re-opening as Commodore in 2013.
For nine years Doug also worked as the recording engineer for Montgomery College in Rockville, MD. In 2006 Doug, along with business partner David Sager, co-founded Off The Record LLC, an independent label specializing in the CD reissues of classic jazz. OTR’s first release, the complete output of King Oliver’s 1923 Jazz Band, was nominated for a Grammy.
Doug is internationally known for his audio restoration/remastering work, with reviews published by Dan Morgenstern, Nat Hentoff in The Wall Street Journal, Gary Giddens in The Jazz Times, Will Friedwald in The New York Sun, and others. Other restoration credits include work for the Les Paul Foundation, Uptown Records, JSP Records, Frog Records, Archeophone Records, Patuxent Records, Chuwanaga Records, Rivermont Records and Black Swan Records.
In 2002 Doug wrote the book and score for the award-winning musical Andrew Michael, which touches on the many issues facing families with autism. Doug’s song “Here In Your Presence Lord” took first place at the 1996 SAW awards.
Doug has also taught college-level music courses, worked as a full-time musician, a full-time videographer, and gained extensive experience in all aspects of arranging, recording and music production.
Jessica DeTello is an audio engineer and digital media specialist with a degree in Music Technology from UMBC. Her passion for music was apparent at a young age, and she became a skilled classical violist before studying sound engineering in college, where she held a work study position under Alan Wonneberger, assisting in archiving, video recording, and studio management. In addition to her recording, mixing, and mastering abilities, Jessica is also an experienced videographer, having produced a number of music videos featuring local Maryland artists.
Jessica is fascinated by the preservation and restoration of obsolete analog formats, and has interned at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, working under Pete Reiniger as a tape restoration and archiving specialist. During this time, she also worked as a live sound engineer for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival; an annual event that celebrates cultural heritage and takes place on the National Mall in Washington DC.
Jessica’s relationship with Commodore Studio began as an internship in the summer of 2018, where she engineered and/or assisted in dozens of music and voice recordings, and showed great promise in the specialized craft of analog restoration.
