John Kolar Music

Audio engineering Portfolio

John works as a recording, mixing, and mastering engineer for music and podcasts, mainly using Pro Tools, Adobe Audition, FL Studio, and Ableton. He also develops audio software plugins and tools in Matlab and Max MSP. He has built electroacoustic hardware, including loudspeakers and electric guitar parts. He teaches guitar and audio engineering lessons to several students. He has also worked as an architectural acoustics consultant and as an audiovisual technician. He is Dante certified, Level 1.

Below are some examples of John’s audio engineering work. If you would like to see more, visit the YouTube channel at this link.

Music Production

Below are some recordings of alternative rock, classical, and indie pop pieces. ‘Kings and Queens’ and ‘Hello June Goodbye July’ were written, recorded, mixed, and mastered by John. The Mozart piece was recorded and mixed by John at West Virginia University’s Creative Arts Center.

hello june goodbye july - kiolo

Fantasia in D Minor - Mozart (solo piano)

Kings and queens - mother of earl

A video breaking down ‘How to Make an Indie Pop Song’ through Kiolo’s single ‘let me go’

Teaching videos

Music Technology development

Here is The Spatial Looper, developed using wavefield synthesis technology in Carnegie Mellon University's 4D Lab as a part of The School of Design's 'Spatial Computing Design' graduate course. This project was completed using various technology including infrared cameras, Motive tracking software, Unity, Max MSP, and Dante.

Here is a Max MSP patch that I created to harmonize a monophonic audio input. This harmonizer is intelligent, meaning that it has the ability to recognize the audio input pitch and to pitch shift the input signal to another note within the user-specified key (i.e. the software will pitch shift a minor third or major third depending on the note being sung and the specified key).

The Dynamizer, a Matlab audio software pluginwas developed for the Audio Engineering Society (AES) Matlab Plugin Student Competition. I was selected as a finalist and presented this software at the AES Convention in New York City in October of 2019.

Below is a link to the Dynamizer code on the Matlab File Exchange.

Here is a pair of stereo speakers that I designed and built.

'Pixel Mod' is a pixelization and modulation audio plugin developed in Matlab. Here is a demo of it functioning on a song by Kiolo.

Here is a video of data population sonifcation in Max MSP using JavaScript code.

Here is a randomized pitch shifting delay created in Max MSP.

Here is a spectral distortion Max MSP patch that allows the user to control the amount of distortion and the amount of gain for specified small frequency ranges.

Audio & Video

I recorded, mixed, and mastered all of the audio in the videos below. Also, I recorded all of the video and edited it in Adobe Premiere.

Here is a video of an original piece that I composed in 10 minutes.

‘myopia’ is an audiovisual composition that I created through my Audiovisual Composition course at Carnegie Mellon University with Dr. Freida Abtan. I composed, mixed and mastered the music and filmed and edited the video for this piece.

Here is a video of a classical saxophone and piano performance that I recorded and mixed.

sound design & Dialogue recording

As a part of the music technology minor at West Virginia University, I completed a “Sound Design for Visual Media” course. This video was a project that I completed during this course. I recorded all of the dialogue and sound effects for this scene. I also wrote some of the music in this scene.