Gregory J. Gordon

CEO & Founder
Chief Evangelist

Hometown: San Francisco, CA

Greg’s passion for music, sound and technology led him to create Pyramind Studios in 1987. His visionary leadership as Founder and Chief Executive Officer has steadily grown Pyramind into an internationally recognized production and training company. He has worked diligently to groom and build an award winning facility and team composed of some of the best talent in the business.

In his twenty plus years of experience, Greg has developed an impressive list of high profile clients and recording artists including his own recent work mixing and mastering the in-game music and double CD soundtrack release for Microsoft Studios, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.

In 2003, Greg expanded Pyramind Studios to create a world-class music production training center. For this he was awarded the “Established Entrepreneur of the Year” by the Renaissance School of Entrepreneurship and received certificates of recognition and merit from State Assemblyman Mark Leno, San Francisco City Treasurer Jose Cisneros and California State Senator Carole Migden.

Greg is also a published author and experienced moderator and panelist at numerous industry events including: The SF MusicTech Summit, The Flux Summit, GRAMMY Career Day and The California Music Summit. His vision for Pyramind has included the production of numerous significant events all hosted at Pyramind’s facilities including: Game Sound Con, TestPress, The Flux Summit, The Annual GANG Awards after party, and a number of video game post mortems including Uncharted 2 and God of War III.

In 2010 Greg worked with Harmonix and MTV Games (the maker and then publisher of the video game, Rock Band) to create a nationwide touring master class (sponsored by The Recording Academy, T-Mobile, Fender & Shure) to train recording artists and labels in the process of publishing their music into the Rock Band Network.

Greg graduated with honors from SFSU with an inter-disciplinary degree in Music, Business, and Broadcasting. He is a twenty-year voting member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (The Grammys) where he has served as Trustee and a member of The Board Of Governors and continues to serve on the Producers & Engineers Wing national advisory council. He is also a member of The Game Audio Network Guild and a BMI writer and publisher.

Matt Donner

Chief Academic Officer
Senior Instructor

Hometown: Spring Valley, NY

Matt Donner has been playing music his whole life. He played throughout college while earning a Bachelor's degree in quantitative Business Analysis but left the and cut his Producer and Engineering chops in NYC. He found himself working for high-profile studios like Sound on Sound (Diddy, Anita Baker) and Greene Street (Run DMC and Public Enemy) right after earning his Masters in Music and Music Technology at NYU. He went on to perform for various TV studios and John Cale (Velvet Underground) that included 3 feature film scores using Pro Tools version 1.0 and a two-day live event to open the Andy Warhol Museum. After signing his band to an indy record deal, his cross-country tour brought him to SF where the drummer exploded - how typical.

Matt quickly found himself in high demand in the studio scene as a rare experienced Pro Tools user and became an award-winning Regional Technical Director for Guitar Center, and the Pro Tools Support Lead for the Cutting Edge Audio Group where he served as studio designer, installer and trainer for the likes of Joe Satriani, Metallica, Benny Reitveld (Santana and the SF Jazz Fest) as well as hundreds of private studios including Wally World (Walter A., N'Sync, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion). A crowning achievement during this period was to install, troubleshoot, deliver and support 50 Pro Tools workstations for the legendary Skywalker Sound during production of Star Wars Episode 1. He claims no responsibility for Jar Jar Binks.

In January 2000, he and Greg Gordon began working together exclusively at Pyramind where they began running the hybrid Production/ Training businesses successfully. Matt has served the company as Chief Engineer, Senior Producer/ Composer, Chief Technical Officer, Vice-President and now as Director of Education. He grew the Pyramind Training program from a single 24 hour class to athe highly-touted 920 hour 12-month Digital Sound Producer-Complete (DSP-C). He has trained hundreds of students and mixed/mastered another hundred or so records (including his own released in 2002) as well as publishing several magazine articles. Matt has also written two texts on Pro Tools (Pro Tools Overdrive V 6.9 and V7 for Thomson Press). He is currently working with various Pyramind Staff members and instructors to write nine books based on Pyramind's Core curriculum to be published by Alfred Publishing.

Matt currently lives in San Francisco with his wife Kimberly and his two children, Marcus and Madison. He has been training in Mixed Martial Arts and Bak Mei Kung Fu for 6 years and on good days, surfs the Pacific at Ocean Beach on his Al Merrick 6' 2" fish. The pacific usually wins. Occasionally, he even takes the dogs (Colonel and Chase) for a walk in Golden Gate Park.

Paul Lipson

Chief Operating Officer

Hometown: Madison, WI

For over seventeen years, Paul has refined his skills in management, strategy, music, and education. His career has taken him all over the world, and his passion for audio, technology, and the performing arts has helped him advocate for advancement in the interactive entertainment industry.

Paul is extremely passionate about music and interactive audio, and he currently serves as the President of the Game Audio Network Guild - the leading worldwide organization of game audio professionals. He has worked closely with the Officers of G.A.N.G. to originate the industry-first Program Partnership Initiative, and was the mastermind behind the Guild Scholarship Award for Game Audio. Paul was awarded the G.A.N.G. “Distinguished Service Award” at the 2006 Game Developer’s Conference for his work in education and advocacy for the interactive audio arts.

Before joining the team at Pyramind, he served as the co-founder and CEO of Hit Point Music (HPM) - a development company specializing in music for games and screen .  His team produced for an array of elite clients, including projects for America Online, Hasbro Interactive, Harmonix/Sonic Implants, Associated Production Music, Hyundai Automotive, Killer Tracks, The Environmental Protection Agency, Urbane-Dog Creative, and Legends-Tribal War, just to name a few.

Paul also served as the Chief Academic Officer at Expression College for Digital Arts, and worked as the Director of The Learning through Music and Technology Initiative at the LCG (Boston). He has also spent time as an instructor at Berklee College of Music, has conducted master classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at the Conservatory of Pernambuco in Brazil, and was a founding teacher and Director of Technology at the Conservatory Lab Charter School (Boston).

Paul holds a Bachelors Degree and Masters Degree highest distinction from the world-renowned New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He is a member of the International Game Developers Association, The Music Educators National Conference, BMI, and the Game Audio Network Guild.

Steve Heithecker

Senior Instructor

Hometown: Indianapolis, IN

Steve brings his years of experience as a recording and mix engineer to the Pyramind team. He is a certified Pro Tools expert operator and is always pushing the limits of what technology has to offer. Steve’s credits include recording the Grammy Award winning and world’s top male acapella chorus, Chanticleer, for the score of Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.

He also engineered the sessions for the orchestral recordings for Iron Man 2 the video game. Steve’s expert skills in the studio also include his production and mixing of the newest Bill Ortiz (Trumpet Player for The Santana Band) album as well as recording the dialog sessions and mixing the animated series for Halo “The Return” for Waypoint on XBox live.

Before becoming a full time staff member at Pyramind, Steve was the co-founder of Digital Art & Music: a recording studio specializing in hip-hop/rap and alternative rock music. A seasoned producer and keyboardist, Steve has worked on numerous albums and loves adding to that number. Steve has also written and produced music for live theater, film and corporate video.

Steve also co-authored the highly respected “Pro Tools 7 Session Secrets: Professional Recipes for High-Octane Results” for Wiley publishing, a book that brought numerous insider techniques to light for anyone using Pro Tools. Steve recently added his insight as a writer and designer to the upcoming Pyramind / Alfred publications “The Pyramind Training Series”.

Bryan Dale

Director Of Education
Senior Instructor

Hometown: Philadelphia, PA

A practicing musician for over 20 years, Bryan’s main instruments are electric and acoustic guitar and electric bass. While obtaining his Bachelor's degree in Advertising & Public Relations at Pennsylvania State University, Bryan played in local bands, organized open mic nights and continued taking and teaching private lessons.

His first professional studio experience came working outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in a local independent studio tracking local bands and burning as many hours in the studio as humanly possible. Shortly thereafter, he invested in his first home studio (remember ADAT??) and recorded six solo records before enrolling with Pyramind in 2005.

Hired by Pyramind in 2006, Bryan has gone on to gain Pro Tools Operator Music, Operator Post, and Expert Certification in Versions 7, 8 and 9. Now the Director of Education, Bryan teaches several classes a week and continues to record, produce, mix and master as much music as possible. Additionally Bryan has contributed guitar work to both the Iron Man II and Halo Anniversary video games.

Hideki Yamashita

IT Administrator
Assistant Technical Director

Hometown: San Francisco, CA

Electronic music wiz/hip-hop producer for The Whereabouts and YBS, Deks came to Pyramind for the education and atmosphere, and to satisfy the curiosity he found in making music with computers. Fortunately, the melding of his passion for technology and music has brought him to an industry in which he thrives.

An early Pyramind student, Hideki has since graduated to become Pyramind's IT  Administrator and Assistant Technical Director. Deks works hard to maintain the technical infrastructure at both the 880 and 832 Folsom St. facilities, and the rigorous scheduling and technical requirements of a multi-room studio and educational complex.

Dheeraj Sareen

Financial Analyst: Marketing & Events

Hometown: New Delhi, India

A resident of New Delhi, India, Dheeraj made the move to San Francisco to learn the art and business of music production at Pyramind. Through the education he received, he has gone on to produce tracks that have been signed to MakTub and Kaato Music, and his music has been played by heavy weights in the DJ community the likes of Richie Hawtin, Dubfire, Ricardo Villalobos and more. He has also performed as a DJ at the Sunburn Festival in Goa and has played at numerous venues alongside Dubfire, Jamie Jones, Lee Foss, Lee Burridge, Cassy, Stimming, Onur Ozer and more.

Dheeraj’s formal education as a financial management graduate from Hillsdale College, MI. and his work as a financial analyst at Price Waterhouse & Coopers helped pave the way for his placement in the business division of Pyramind. Dheeraj's deep understanding of analytics, web development, budgeting, and the current climate of the rapidly changing music industry now helps guide the marketing and events produced at Pyramind.

Charles Geoghegan

Pyramind Video Content Producer
Instructor

Hometown: Canaan, NH

Ever since earning his production certification from Pyramind in 2006, Charles has been a regular among Pyramind's staff, students and studios. Coming from a richly artistic and musical upbringing, Charles' main instruments are guitar and keys… and the camera. With a degree in Photography and Studio Arts from Oberlin and a passion for film and video, Charles has since come onboard with the Pyramind staff as certified Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro instructor.

Additionally, he serves as Lead Videographer and Content Editor within Pyramind's creative team, working to generate production content as well as regularly documenting Pyramind's myriad events in the SF music community. When not cutting videos and wrangling video content, Charles enjoys producing genre-blending musical works with classical, acoustic and electronic influences. You can get a taste of his music on Epiphyte Records' Evolution One and you can view his video work on Pyramind's YouTube profile, PyraTube.

Daniel Blum

Admissions Coordinator
Instructor

Daniel Blum began playing music at the age of three as a cellist. Since then he has run the gamut of instruments: piano, violin, trumpet, French horn, guitar, and ultimately percussion and drum set. Earning his Bachelor’s in Music from California State University Northridge, Daniel worked in Los Angeles and abroad as a freelance percussionist and drum set player performing with the Debut Orchestra, the American Youth Symphony, the Orchestra of the South Bay, the Santa Barbara Symphony, Suicide Cowboy, Culture Crash Orquestra, umbrellaMAN and recording at Capitol Records, Conway Studios, the Eastwood Sound Stage, and many more. Also well-versed in composition, theory, and orchestration, Daniel has worked as a freelance composer and orchestrator for various film and commercial projects and as a copyist for virtualsheetmusic.com and several other independent contractors. Dan has also worked as an instructor and teacher at Granada Hills High School, CSUN, Simi Valley High School, and other in the Los Angeles County.

Daniel has since relocated to San Francisco to further his education in engineering, mixing, and digital music production. He continues to play professionally in the Bay Area, produce and collaborate with other musicians, and is now proud to teach music theory at Pyramind.