Henry Beckett
Assistant Professor
The Art of Soundtrack Design
Hard Disk Music Production
Hard Disk Post Production
Techniques of Recording
Digital Audio Workstations
Office: Ezell 102B
Phone: 615.898.2553
Email: wbeckett@mtsu.edu
Henry received a B.A. from Harvard University
and an M.B.A. from Cal. Pacific and studied law at UCLA Law school.
A musician and technician from the young years,
Henry won the Bicentennial song contest at Phillips Exeter Academy
and at age 16 was a professional pianist in a jazz quartet playing
gigs in New York, Boston, and Portland, and he did professional
solo piano work on the side. In college he built his first "recording
studio", a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder and then an 8-track
1/4" with sync'ed MIDI capability, which had just emerged
as a technology. Active in many musical arenas, he sang with the
nationally-honored Collegium Musicum, and wrote music and arranged
for an a cappella group that performed among other places in Tian'anmen
Square and for the Emperor of Japan in Tokyo.
Subsequently he designed, built and operated
a large commercial recording and production facility in Boston
with a Studer 2", DA88 MDMs, and what was then a new technology,
DAW with ProTools and various MIDI platforms and modules. There
and elsewhere he did a wide variety of recording and production
work, from music production, to film scoring, sound supervision
and design, to television commercials and in-show music, to radio
spots, to game audio design, content and even to live radio plays.
He worked with a diverse group of national and local clients such
as MTV, Miramax, Nike, Prudential, Vivendi Universal, Jordan Knight
(New Kids On The Block), Nancy Kerrigan, Dan Brown and the Atlanta
Olympic games, and many others.
Henry also served as Assistant Professor at
Berklee College of Music, and previously was Department Chair
of Recording Arts and Professor at the Massachusetts College of
Communication.
He also worked as Audio Director for Vivendi Universal Games‚
Boston studio where he did the audio design, music composition,
sound design and voice work on the sequel to the multi-million
selling "Lords of the Realm" series, and worked on audio
for many other internationally regarded games.
He has published articles on game audio and his work on Vivendi
Universal's "Pharaoh" was nominated for best music of
the year.
Among other activities, he has served as an acoustics/wiring and/or
MIDI/audio consultant to a variety of professional recording studios
and as consultant for Yamaha International on the development
of its keyboard products.
