Dave Snyder is the founder of state-of-the-art, eco-friendly, residential recording studio Guilford Sound, located within a three-hour drive of New York City in idyllic Guilford, VT. Together with his wife, Sara, Snyder built the studio from the ground up over the course of six years, using his prior experience at NYC recording studios to create the perfect acoustics, obtain the best equipment, and achieve true hi-fidelity sound, all with a markedly smaller environmental footprint than traditional studios. Opened in 2010, the studio offers spacious and stylish accommodations for up to 15 guests, and amenities such as meals catered by a local chef, beautiful woodlands and foot-trails to inspire creativity during songwriting retreats or extended studio sessions, and much more. Snyder got his start in the music industry as a drummer for New Jersey power trio Ruth Ruth, who were signed to Rick Rubin’s American Records. During this time, he became increasingly interested in music production, leading him to co-rent a 100-square-foot room with an attached rehearsal space in the basement of a tenement building on Rivington Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He turned it into a recording studio, quickly acquiring the high-end equipment required but discovering that the space itself was unable to produce the hi-fidelity sound he desired. Snyder and fellow engineer Aaron Keane then bought another studio on E. 4th St. above Tower Records in NYC, which became Jarvis Studios. Over the next five years, Snyder’s studio hosted major artists such as Susan Tedeschi, Los Lobos, and Patti Smith and learned from expert engineers and producers such as Chris Lord-Alge, Ted Niceley, Hal Willner, Dave McNair, and Carl Glanville. However, after discovering issues with the studio’s low-end sound that could not be fixed without a complete rebuild, Snyder decided to create his dream studio from scratch. Dave and his wife, Sara, had always dreamed of returning to live near Marlboro College in Vermont, where they first met, and the dream soon became a reality when they left New York City in 2004 and settled into a small 19th century farmhouse on 175 wooded acres and started looking for suitable land to build a studio. After a year-and-a-half search, they found the perfect spot: A beautiful farmhouse attached to a large parcel of land at the end of an idyllic sugar-maple-lined road. Over the next six years, Dave worked with Francis Manzella of FM Design, Matt Marinelli of Coral Sound, and technical consultant John Klett to create the perfect studio space. The result is Guilford Sound, which has hosted artists such as Speedy Ortiz, Metric, and So Percussion with Caroline Shaw, as well as song camps for Berklee College of Music, The New Yorker, and Vermont Performance Lab. Snyder currently resides in Guilford, VT, with his wife and two children.