Max Paparella, born in 1975, is a Hammond organist and keyboardist, arranger and composer (SIAE registered from 1998) with a special passion for vintage instruments. Active in the music industry over 20 years, he has forged close ties in Europe and the USA, working on numerous albums over the years as composer, musician, mastering engineer and “ghost producer”.

Growing up listening to the vinyl records of great soul jazz masters such as Jimmy Smith, Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff and Richard “Groove” Holmes, in the late ’80s and early’ 90s he discovered a new, increasingly popular musical movement, soon known as “Acid Jazz”, which profoundly inspires him still today.

The rest is history, the style, musical choices and contaminations from genres as eclectic as house, Afro, lounge, funk and hip hop go to make up Max’s “genetic” sound, research and experimentation leading him to fuse and to combine sounds characteristic of electronic music and vintage and retro instruments.

Between 1999 and 2004 he ran a recording studio in Bologna, Italy (MJA Recording Studio) with two associates, working mainly as a composer, arranger and later as sound engineer. During the same period he worked with DJs from the national and local radio stations "Latte&Miele" and "Tam Tam Network" on various dance and house music productions. Following his experience with Studio MJA, he continued working as an arranger and freelance sound engineer.

 

Since 2007 he has been working with the American record labels Selekta Recordings and Cabana Recordings on deep house and afro house music productions as producer and remixer.

 

In 2010 he founded the studio Groove Sound Design, starting a solid partnership with the guitarist and producer Valerio Fuiano, working for singers, artists and record labels on pop/rock/r'n'b/soul productions as mixing & mastering engineer.

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He has been working with IRMA Records in Bologna as mastering engineer and musician since 2011. He has also mastered over 1000 tracks of the past IRMA's catalogue from the years 1990 to 2000.

 

Since 2011 he became a resident member of AES (Audio Engineering Society) n°90129.

 

Since 2012 he has been working with the group Halftones (Alan Iotti and Giulio Vetrone), producing for many record labels, including Goodlooking Records (LTJ Bukem - UK), BMG Production Music (UK), Si.Fa.Re Publishing (IT).

 

In 2014, as part of his professional training, he has taken two courses for mastering engineering at the SAE Institute in the UK, passing both with full marks (100/100):

 

- Audio Mastering 101 - EN 0214

- Audio Mastering 201 - EN 0314

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From the 2008 he start to works on several person and side musical projects like Peepstyle - Meters Follow - Max Paparella Organization - Strata-Gemma - Tensione Casio.

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In 2019 with Irma Records, he produces 2 albums, which include unreleased songs and covers of the Max Paparella Organization project: "Acid Jazz Mixtape" and "Jazz Funk Rewind".

 

In 2021 he founded his own record label, Screaming Cockatiel Records and released the third album of his Max Paparella Organization project entitled "Chillhop Master Tape".