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Steve Bissinger

Guitarist • Composer • Producer • Mixer • Sound Designer

Steve is a guitarist, composer and producer who has also worked extensively as a sound designer and mixer for feature films, television, commercial advertising and exhibits.

He has been nominated for two Emmy Awards and six Golden Reel Awards, winning the Golden Reel for Best Sound Design in 1999. Recent credits include “House of Cards”, “Despicable Me”, “Percy Jackson and The Olympians: The Lightning Thief”, “Transformers”, “Cloverfield” and “3:10 To Yuma”. Television credits include “Northern Exposure,” “The Outer Limits,” and “The Visitor”. He has scored commercials for Nike, Coke, Mercedes and Miller Light, as well as contributed sound design to top-rated video games “The Sims” and “Lego Indiana Jones”.

Steve recently produced the 2nd album for “Christie Winn and The Lowdowns” entitled “Closer To Home” . Christie Winn is a jazz singer who the SF Examiner called “Golden-Voiced” and The Lowdowns is the result of their ten year long collaboration. Rooted in jazz their original music draws on soul, blues, folk, latin and bluegrass. Gabriel Fehrenbach of the Suddeutsche Zeitung writes:

Steve is also recording and mixing a record for “Mr. Lonesome and The Bluebelles”, a trio comprised of Steve on guitar with the mellifluous vocal harmonies of Christie Winn and Karina Deniké. Performing melancholy love songs, doo-wop, vaudeville and tongue-in-cheek ditties from the 1920’s, 1930’s, and beyond, they bring a splash of the theatrical, a smidgeon of slapstick, and a whole lot of silly fun to tunes of yesteryear, putting a new spin on the early American songbook. Their original arrangements reflect the musings of groups such as The Ink Spots, The Mills Brothers, Eddie Cantor and others. The Bluebelles are joined on the album by Tom Waits alum and multi-instrumentalist Ralph Carney, pianist Michael McIntosh, bassist David Ewell, and drummer Eric Garland.

In addition to his work in film and music Steve has created sound and music for museum tours and exhibits at The J. Paul Getty Museum, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum in New York, as well as a unique nature “Soundscape” installation at the newly opened Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve Center at The Grand Teton National Park.

He served on the faculty of the National Guitar Summer Workshop where he taught jazz guitar, arranging and theory, as well as at San Francisco City College where he taught audio production. Additionally he speaks once a year to the advanced audio class at Mills College.

His clients have included Skywalker Sound, Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, SONY Pictures, The Saul Zaentz Film Center, Maxis, Lucas Arts, Electronic Arts, Arnold Communications, Euro RSCG, Foote, Cone & Belding, GMO/Hill Holiday, Mattel, Inc. McCann Erickson, Ogilvy & Mather, Publicis & Hal Riney, Saatchi & Saatchi, TBWA/Chiat Day, The Sundance Channel, Weiden & Kennedy, and Young & Rubicam.

Steve was born and raised in San Francisco, California where he grew up playing in the vibrant 1970’s music scene. He received a BA in music composition from The Colorado College and an MFA in composition, electronic music and performance from Mills College where he studied with legendary avant-garde composer and multi-instrumentalist Anthony Braxton. In 1989-90 he relocated to Berlin, Germany where he gigged and researched jazz during the Nazi era, uncovering recordings of a nazi propaganda swing band which led him to interview some of the surviving members.

From Berlin Steve moved to Los Angeles where he established himself as a musician, sound designer and composer. He lived in Los Angeles for nearly ten years where he worked extensively, building his resume before returning to the Bay Area. He currently lives in San Francisco where, through his company Sine Language, he continues to compose, perform, record, and design sound for film and other independent projects.