@castleengineers

Cristian “Castle” Castillo is the Head Engineer at Coda Room Chicago. He started coming through Coda not long after the studio opened, ran his first official session there in 2019, and by 2020 had pretty much started making the room his own.

Castle began producing and engineering in 2013 and studied Audio Technology at SAE Institute. Over time he became Coda’s go-to engineer: fast, laid back, great sounding, and particularly good at keeping a session moving while making everyone in the room comfortable.

At one point, enough of Castle’s clients started referring to the “CR” on the studio door as “Castle’s Room” instead of Coda Room that it became a running joke. It wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

His work moves easily across R&B, Hip Hop, Pop and Latin music, with credits including Lil Durk and longtime collaborator Sydny August. Early on, after working with Castle, drumming legend Ernie Adams, one of James Auwarter’s original mentors, summed him up pretty well: “It’s like working with a young Auwarter!”

Today, Castle oversees the engineering side of Coda Room Chicago while continuing to make records himself. Every engineer who wants to freelance out of the studio has to be signed off by Castle first. Period.

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