Rich Wenzel

The founder and owner of Ardent Audio Productions, Rich Wenzel is an accomplished musician, producer, and engineer with over 40 years of experience in the music industry.

Rich studied music at the University of California Long Beach. He began his career in the late 60’s touring LA venues with his first band opening for acts like The Doors, Van Morrison, and Frank Zappa. After several years as a music instructor at the Peninsula Academy of Music as well as Lamarca Music in Torrance, Rich returned to touring.

For the next decade, he played with various LA and Las Vegas show bands, toured the United States, and recorded several albums. Then it was off to sea on the Love Boat and several other cruise ships where he was an onboard band-leader. Later Rich continued to play around the world for international Stars Viki Carr vikkicarr.com/, Friends of Distinction, and Cecilio & Kapono www.ceciliokapono.com/.

After completing his touring career in major stadiums across the country for acts like The Beach Boys www.thebeachboys.com/, Dave Mason www.davemasonmusic.com/ and Jazz/Rock Flutist Tim Weisberg timweisberg.com/, Rich took a consulting position for another decade at Yamaha Music corporation and Kawaii USA where he honed his skills as an audio engineer.

Since opening Ardent Audio Productions in 1989, Rich has continued to tour and record as a top studio musician and has always kept up-to-date with the latest trends in musical styles, instruments, recording techniques, and computer sequencing.

At Ardent, Rich has worked as producer, arranger, and engineer for literally hundreds of clients whose CDs have been distributed around the globe.

Michael DeMott

From an early age, Michael displayed a passion for music, studying guitar, piano, and voice at early age. He went on to study music theory, music production and graduated with a bachelor’s in Audio Engineering from CSU Dominguez Hills. Over his career, he has developed a deep understanding of Classical and Jazz theory and is passionate about all genres of music. He has worked with and produced albums for artists in different genres such as Glam Rock, Heavy Metal, Punk, Funk, Jazz, Reggae, Ska, Pop, R&B, Hip Hop, EDM, Blues, Country, and Gospel. Notable Audio Engineering work includes Recording Background Vocals for Double Platinum Pop artist Conrad Sewell, Engineering new music with Producer Tony Coleman (Notable Producer/Songwriter for Aretha Franklin, Irene Cara, Stevie Wonder, Coolio, Mary Wilson of the “Supremes”, The Emotions, Lakeside, Carl Carlton, The Earth Wind and Fire Experience featuring Al McKay and many more,) and recording V/O for commercial audiobooks. Being a passionate music producer and film composer himself with a keen knowledge of recording techniques, he can ensure that any genre of music is produced at the highest commercial level.

Joshua “Tipz” Richardson

Joshua “Tipz” Richardson has been a professional music producer and engineer for over 10 years. He has worked with amazing artists and companies such as Prince, TLC, T-Boz, Luke James, Kurupt Tyrese, Ray J, Lil’ Fizz, Disney, ABC, VH1, E!, MTV, Comedy Central, and many more. His latest work can be heard on TLC’s self-titled final album and T-Boz’s audiobook CD titled “ A Sick Life.” He takes pride in supplying a high-quality product for all independent and major clients.

Ken Givens

If you can hear you’ve probably already heard the work of Ken Givens! As a composer, arranger, sound designer, and MIDI programmer he has worked with notable industry names and corporate clients such as Dick Clark, Jack Morton Productions, Apple Computer, Mazda Motor of America, Coldwell Banker, National Semi-Conductor, and Toshiba.

Ken has been the musical backbone of various film, television, and even interactive gaming projects and even wrote the original music for various radio spots featuring the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City.