Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • August 20, 2018 • Hartford Business Journal 7 You Won't Want to Miss CATALYSTS FOR CHANGE F.I.R.M. Finance. Insurance. Risk. Manufacturing. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2018 6 P.M. | Hartford Marriott Downtown PLEASE JOIN US! Premier Sponsor EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP OF THE YEAR AWARD HONORING Greg M. Barats President and Chief Executive Officer Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Company Join this initiative to build a larger base of talented technology driven young people to fill jobs coming online with growing companies throughout Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York. Proceeds to benefit Scholarships and Programming at the Barney School of Business, University of Hartford. For an invitation or more information contact: Margaret Lawson at 860.558.5026 or Email: specialgifts@cptv.org ing studio in the basement of the family's West Hartford home. There, between recording Cam- bodian children's songs that Khmer Health used in treatment therapies, Paul Ouk taught guitar to his son, who also tagged along with his fa- ther's Connecticut cover band. "Cambodians love music,'' Kuoch said. "Music is powerful, very healing.'' By the time Rattanak got to Co- nard High School (class of 2000), he had his own reggae and ska cover band. He scoured the state, booking gigs for his group. Ouk said his parents, now retired and overseeing their portfolio of area two- and three-family rentals, are his biggest cheerleaders and financial supporters. Paul Ouk says he oc- casionally visits his son's Hartford studio and is awed by the technology. It makes him proud, he said. "I always dreamed of be- ing a rock star,'' Paul Ouk said, laughing. "I support him 100 percent.'' It wasn't until Ouk enrolled at the University of Hartford that the audio-engineer- ing bug really bit. Though his parents prodded him to consider medicine or the law, Ouk says he really wanted to be a visual artist. Indeed, he sees simi- larities in painting and music. "I'm literally painting a canvas with sound,'' Ouk said. Hartford restaurateur Rob Maf- fucci can relate. Before Maffucci built his rep as chef-owner of V's Trattoria downtown and former Vito's By The Park and others, he taught audio engineering for a time at UHart. Rat- tanak was his pupil in 2005. "Audio engineering is like a perfect merger of art and science,'' said Maf- fucci, who in 1988 earned his electri- cal engineering degree from UHart and taught there from 1998 to 2007. Sonic recording-mixing, he said, once was a craft taught outside the classroom. "It's only recently that audio engineering has become a discipline you'd find at a college," Maffucci said. About 25 years ago, he said, Hart- ford counted a handful of recording studios, several in buildings now housing the Colt Gateway office- apartment-retail development on downtown's southern edge. Another, Planet of Sound Record- ing Studios, on Allyn Street down- town, was run for a time by Ouk and associates before it was mothballed. Maffucci recalls Ouk's passion for audio engineering. The two regularly stay in touch, although Maffucci says he has yet to set foot in Ouk's latest studio. "He was going to do this,'' Maf- fucci said. "I don't think he even had a choice. That's one of the things I liked about him. … It takes a special person to listen to a kick drum for four hours. Listening to the same song 400 times in a row is tedious.'' Hopeful proteges Aspiring recording artist Shanell Sharpe, 25, a Hartford native now liv- ing in Harlem, N.Y., says her musician- ship has benefited greatly from Ouk's input. She and her friend-manager discovered Ouk in a Google-search for a better studio to replace a homemade one in the city's North End. A hip-hop artist and poet who is learning guitar, Sharpe said Ouk also has encouraged and developed her singing skills, while arranging gigs for her throughout the Northeast. "He's shown me what good sound is supposed to sound like,'' said Sharpe, who has her undergradu- ate degree in English and a master's in social work from UCo- nn. She works full time as a poetry coordinator for the New York City school system. She said she and Ouk are working on "Starts at 7,'' her extended-play album set for 2019 release. Multi-instrumentalist Corey Coo- per, 24, of Bloomfield, aims to drop his second album sooner, "777, Vol. II,'' in September. With Ouk's audio engineer- ing, his first volume debuted a year ago. The two met in 2009 when Cooper was in high school, and just adding guitar to his self-taught repertoire of keyboards, drums and vocals, Cooper said. At Ouk's home one day, Cooper began playing Ouk's guitar. Impressed, Ouk invited Cooper to his studio. "He gave me my first Macbook Pro,'' Cooper said of the Apple notebook PC popular with recording engineers. Ouk also shared details about sonic recording that Cooper says he's using to produce his latest album. "He's definitely been, like, my 'Mr. Miyagi.' I feel like the 'Karate Kid,' '' said Cooper, a 2012 Bloomfield High grad. Between full-time work as a recording-session player and road guitarist for R&B singer-songwriter K. Michelle and Sean "Diddy'' Combs' R&B band, Day26, Cooper also plays for Bloomfield's First Ca- thedral choir. Meantime, Ouk, who occasionally leads audio-engineering workshops for middle- and high-school pupils as a way of giving back to his adopted community, says his skills also allow him to make a statement. "Now that I'm actually doing it,'' he said, "I'm glad to be able to prove some people wrong.'' Poet/rapper/singer Shanell Sharpe found The Hartford Studio via Google. HBJ PHOTO | BILL MORGAN

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