About the Author

Asaf Fulks is a music producer, audio engineer, recording artist, songwriter, attorney, author, inventor, educator, and software developer based in Wildomar, California. He built it all from scratch over two decades—one room, one record, one client, one line of code at a time.

Originally from Chicago, Illinois, Asaf discovered his passion for music production while studying Computer Science and Economics at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. He converted his dorm room closet into a recording booth and quickly became a hub for recording within the school and surrounding Columbus area. After graduating in 2004, he relocated to Southern California. His employer at the time recognized his passion for music and offered him unused office space to set up a studio. With minimal gear, few contacts, and a relentless work ethic, Asaf opened The OC Recording Company in Orange County, California in 2005.

After helping his first client land a record deal, word spread—local artists became regional artists, regional artists became chart-toppers. What started as a one-room operation grew into a full-service recording studio, record label, and music publisher. Working alongside platinum-selling and Grammy-winning artists across hip-hop, R&B, pop, rock, electronic, and every major genre in between, Asaf produced thousands of songs while the studio booked weeks out and every dollar went back into expansion. He engineered Moe Rock's international hit “Baby June” and was named Producer of the Year by Now Hip Hop Magazine and ThisIs50.com.

In 2013, Asaf founded The OC Recording School, an audio engineering and music production certificate program offering one-on-one instruction in Pro Tools, Waves Audio certification, and Native Instruments Maschine training. He has mentored hundreds of students, with graduates scoring Interscope releases through artist Contradash, touring as electronic music DJs, joining major game studios including Blizzard Entertainment, and building independent recording studios across the country. The curriculum Asaf developed for that school became the foundation for this book.

Asaf has engineered, mixed, or mastered records for major-label artists including Lil Wayne and Kendrick Lamar, and he mixed and mastered three #1 records written by Meghan Trainor. His productions and compositions have been placed across major media platforms including Netflix, Disney, MTV, ESPN, and Showtime. He composed the official theme songs for the LA Clippers and the St. Louis Cardinals. His productions have been placed in feature films including Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Adam Sandler's I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. His first compilation album earned him the title “Timbaland of the West Coast” from West Coast Performer Magazine.

Asaf is also a prolific recording artist and songwriter. He has released multiple solo albums—OC Express, OC Bandwagon, OC Mix Buss, and OC Speaker Cab—writing, performing, producing, mixing, mastering, and directing music videos for every track. His catalog of 168 original instrumentals lives at hiphopbeatz.com. His collaborative work with his mother, artist and author Yakira Shimoni Fulks, produced the OC Mix Buss album blending her spoken word, poetry, and visual art with his music production and engineering.

Asaf is a former Grammy voting member and an Avid Pro Tools and Waves Audio certified engineer. He also holds a United States Patent for microphone stand technology. He has been recognized by the OC Weekly as Best Recording Studio in Orange County, awarded Best Recording Studio and Best Music School in Santa Ana, and named a featured alumnus in Denison University Magazine. He serves on the Commercial Music Advisory Board at San Bernardino Valley College.

Driven to understand the business and legal side of the industry he'd spent his career in, Asaf enrolled in Taft Law School in 2017—while continuing to run OC Recording full-time. He passed the California First-Year Law Students' Examination (Baby Bar) on his first attempt in 2018, passed the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination on his first attempt in 2019, and graduated Magna Cum Laude with his Juris Doctor in 2021. He then passed the California Bar Examination on his first attempt in February 2022. Asaf is admitted to the California State Bar and the United States District Court for the Central District of California, serves on the Taft Law School Advisory Board, and delivered the school's 2023 Commencement address. Today he practices law in California across civil litigation, personal injury, intellectual property, entertainment, insurance defense, construction defect, and estate planning. He brings firsthand legal insight into the contracts, licensing, and business realities that every working audio professional eventually faces—topics covered in depth in this book.

Beyond the studio and the courtroom, Asaf is an active software developer and technologist. He created StemDesk™ (in development), an AI-powered mixing automation platform built around a suite of sixteen custom VST3 plugins—an eight-band EQ, dynamics, time-based effects, vocal processing, and a thirteen-module channel strip. StemDesk analyzes multitrack stems and generates intelligent gain staging, EQ, compression, and saturation settings tailored to over 150 genre profiles. It integrates with Pro Tools (AAX) and, via VST3, Reaper, Cubase, Ableton Live, Studio One, Bitwig Studio, and FL Studio—plus the open DAWproject standard. The platform features eight specialized AI modules powered by local large language models for mix critique, arrangement analysis, genre detection, reference track comparison, and natural language mix feedback—all running on Windows with no cloud dependency. He also developed CaseDesk, a legal practice management application built with Electron and React. His technical aptitude spans audio engineering, software development, web design, videography, graphic design, and emerging technologies. He is the author of Consensus Change Standards: A Legal and Technical Framework for Bitcoin Protocol Governance (The Forum Press, 2026).

In 2025, Asaf relocated The OC Recording Company to Wildomar, California, where he maintains a state-of-the-art professional recording studio, develops audio technology, and continues mentoring the next generation of audio professionals. From a dorm-room closet in Granville, Ohio to a world-class studio in Southern California, the work has been built one session, one client, one case, one line of code at a time. The studio is open. One step at a time.