Production Expert has today announced that Julian Rodgers will be taking over as Editor of the Expert group of websites with immediate effect.
The move is part of a restructuring of the management team as Production Expert prepares for their next phase of growth. Mike Thornton, who was previously Editor, is taking on the new role as Managing Editor and will be developing new structures for team and contributor growth.
Rodgers has been part of the Production Expert team since 2014 and has made a significant contribution to the blogs since then. A graduate of The University of Glamorgan he went on to attain a PGCE and worked in music education for several years. He has also achieved certification as an Avid Certified Instructor (Pro Tools), Dante Certification Level 2 and QTLS - Qualified Teacher Learning & Skills. During his career, he has worked as a freelance sound engineer as well as an installation technician.
Speaking of the appointment, Russ Hughes, founder and Managing Director of Production Expert, said;
“Mike has done an outstanding job in his tenure as Editor over the last five years, making the Expert blogs some of the most read and trusted websites in the industry. His skill, knowledge, dedication and integrity make him a hard act to follow. In Julian, both Mike and I know we’ve found the person to steer the ship on the next part of the journey. Julian is smart, funny, hardworking, trusted and universally liked - we couldn’t have a better person to take on this role. I’m also excited to see what Mike will achieve in his new role as the Expert sites continue to grow - these are exciting times!”
We hope regular readers of the blog will be as excited as we are about this appointment.
Julian’s Journey To Editor Of The Experts Websites
Julian started as a reader of the blog and if you are wondering how a person can go from reader of the blog to being the Editor, here’s something from the archive. We found his first email to us from 2013 when he won a white iLok as a prize, he has given us permission to share that email.
On 2 Oct 2013, at 14:42, Julian Rodgers wrote:
Hi Russ
Thanks for featuring my clips list tip. I've been meaning to send it in as you always say, send in stuff which isn't in the manual. Don't worry about sending me a white iLok. I've already won one and the whole point for me about having a white iLok is it being unique. Hang on to it as you'd run out when I won the first one and I had to wait for a second batch. I thought I'd share my early days of the blog story. Some years ago the Air Users Blog was very tightly focussed. It had videos on Air instruments and it sold samples. Some bloke called Russ was given to sometimes posting what was on his mind whether it was relevant to software instruments or not and it was a post on a frying pan which attracted my attention.
A story about a new frying pan (ok, there is a point in there but superficially it looked oblique at best). I replied to the post jokingly asking whether he had sampled it yet? A couple of days later there was a set of frying pan samples uploaded to the site.
What is my point? Well, firstly the difference between a book and a website is that information should flow both ways with a website and a good website will reflect not only the views of the author but also the views of the readership. Secondly, this stuff is supposed to be fun. When I saw that post of frying pan samples I thought I'd stick around and see how things panned out (oops, genuinely accidental but for the Pro Tools Expert blog, probably appropriate, pun...)
Jules
As you can see anyone can be part of this team and help the music and post-production community. Are you interested in being a contributor or content creator for the blogs and being part of the next exciting chapter? If so then read this article and if you are still interested please drop us a line.