Raised
on the beaches of Southern California, Roby LaPorte bought his first guitar
at the early age of 8. He never looked back in terms of what he
would do with the rest of his life. He started writing his own songs
in early high school and was doing concerts by his Junior year. As
the founder of the popular rock an' roll band "J. Thaddeus Toad", and now his newest band, Gratitude,
his writing and performing continues to this day. As his music started
to mature, he went into Recording and Sound Engineering so to produce
his songs. In 80's,  he attended the University of Sound Arts in Hollywood to
further his production abilities and graduated at the head of his
class. While producing his own music, he was asked to record and
produce other musicians and bands and over the years has worked
with some of the biggest names in music as a recording engineer,
live sound engineer and session player.
He started using a computer
in the late 80's when introduced to software programs that would
aid him in his song writing and when the Internet started to blossom,
he discovered it was a great way to get his music to the public.
Asked to build websites for musician friends, became a webmaster
and soon teamed up with his wife, Artist / Graphic Designer Carolyn
LaPorte, and Internet Technician and Sound Engineer friend, Blake Folgner,
in full scale website production and hosting.
He
spent most of the 1990's doing the 'Front of House' sound engineering
at the 'Coach
House Concert Hall' in San Juan Capistrano in south Orange County,
California. He was fortunate enough to have worked with many of
his idols during that time such as Justin Hayward, Eric Burden,
BB King, David Lindely, Jackson Brown, David Crosby, Michael McDonald,
Julian Lennon, Jacob Dylan, Willie Nelson and too many more to mention
here, but the list of musicians and bands is staggering. Click
here to see the list.
 Blake Folgner, Live Sound and Recording Engineer, spent the 90's at the Coach House with Roby in the Sound and Production Dept. Blake brings to the table years of experience in sound recording and reinforcement, and as a IT and Network Engineer, his advanced computer skills allow Toad Hall to be extremely proficient in the hardware and software areas. Together, they are an amazing team that gets the job done RIGHT!
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