About

Ryan Douglas Michelsen

Producer and composer, video editor and director, designer, maker, and production-tool builder based in Phoenix, Arizona.

I began at the piano and followed that thread through live performance, independent releases, graphic design, manufacturing, and custom production software. Originally from Illinois, I performed as a keyboardist with the metal group 29 Needles on bills that included Avenged Sevenfold, Five Finger Death Punch, Three Days Grace, and Dead Horse Trauma before moving to Phoenix, studying music business, and founding Pombrah Music Publishing.

My work has never stayed inside one medium. I compose cinematic and hybrid music, direct and edit video, develop visual identities and production artwork, build physical products, write speculative fiction, and create tools that help complicated work move more reliably. The disciplines connect through one habit: understand the idea, learn what the medium requires, and carry the work far enough that it becomes real.

Music remains the creative center of that history. Selected releases include Triumph, Pursuit of Happiness, and Requiem and Orchestrations.

Music & Composition

I started as a pianist, moved into rock and metal performance, and developed a solo practice centered on contemporary cinematic music, hybrid orchestration, electronic production, and melodic instrumental writing. A piece often begins through improvisation at the piano, then expands through MIDI orchestration, layered performance, sound design, and structural revision.

The production workflow developed in stages: early loop arrangements in Acid Pro, note-by-note channel experiments for Silver Stitches, and then The Last Winter—my first complete Cubase album, programmed entirely with in-program VST instruments. That album became the foundation for the DAW and MIDI approach I use now. View the early production archive.

That work led to independent releases, collaborative production, remote work through SoundBetter, and Pombrah Music Publishing. Pombrah began as my artist identity before becoming the publishing name; I created unique, concept-specific artwork for each song in Photoshop, then handled the metadata, rights, versions, delivery packages, and long-term catalog organization around the releases.

Selected work includes Triumph, Pursuit of Happiness, and Requiem and Orchestrations. The production style changes from project to project, but the through-line is melody, atmosphere, and emotional movement.

How the Work Evolved

The work grew in layers rather than separate careers. Each environment exposed a new constraint and changed how I approached the next one.

  1. Performance foundation

    Piano became live production

    I moved from piano into rock and metal performance with 29 Needles. Rehearsals and live bills taught me to prepare, listen, adapt, and deliver inside a shared creative system.

    Music & composition

  2. Independent releases

    The music required an operating structure

    Pombrah Music Publishing brought composition, artwork, rights, metadata, masters, and distributor packages into one maintained catalog rather than a collection of disconnected releases.

    View the catalog and release system

  3. High-volume visual production

    Repeated judgment became a faster interface

    In high volume visual production, I rebuilt the correction process around a custom Photoshop keyboard system that translated fast visual judgment into consistent action. Dozens of custom commands and structured Bridge queues allowed complex batches to move quickly without treating every image the same.

    View the image correction system

  4. Physical production

    Digital files met machines and materials

    More than two years at Car Beyond Store expanded the work into print, vinyl, laser cutting, sublimation, assembly, quality control, packaging, and made-to-order fulfillment.

    View print production

  5. Production systems

    Scattered archive steps became one operating view

    Across roughly three and a half years, I consolidated an archive workflow spanning multiple workstations into a comprehensive dashboard that coordinated transfer, verification, labeling, reporting, and fulfillment while substantially improving throughput and reducing oversight.

    View the archive operations system

Visual Worlds

My visual work spans more than 15 years of image-making, video editing and direction, production artwork, photography, correction, motion, and brand execution.

Current Direction

Science Fiction, Worldbuilding & Physical Artifacts

I am currently writing a science-fiction novel. The outline is complete, and the first chapters are underway. I see the manuscript as the narrative foundation for a larger visual system that may eventually include identity, environments, diagrams, maps, designed artifacts, and physically fabricated objects. The project is still in development, so I am presenting it here as an active direction rather than as a finished case study.

I think of the broader practice as a modern form of Renaissance making: not a claim to mastery in every field, but a commitment to learning deeply, following ideas across disciplines, and using contemporary tools to make ambitious work possible within one independent practice. Curiosity creates the rabbit holes; structure is what allows me to bring something back from them.

Writing & Collaboration

I build enough structure around creative work to clarify ownership, contribution, review, and delivery without taking authorship away from the people involved.

Why I Build Systems

I tend to follow operational problems past the immediate symptom and into the system that created them. My strongest work has come from identifying repeated friction, tracing dependencies and failure modes, and turning those findings into tools or workflows that make the process more reliable for the next operator.

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