A native of San Francisco, Ian D. Thomas started his career as a classically-trained percussionist. For more than a decade he worked as a studio musician and live performer in a variety of musical genres before making the journey to the other end of the recording chain.

He initially started by recording and producing several bands in the late 90s, but he eventually decided to combine his passion for music and sound with his love for film.

Cutting his teeth on feature length documentaries, Ian was subsequently hired by Guerilla Wanderers to do sound design work on Raging Cyclist, a short horror-comedy film. Receiving accolades for his sound design at the premiere of the film at the Cinequest film festival, he went on to work for award-winning sound designer, Kim Christensen at Noises Digital.

After working at Noises Digital as a sound editor and location recordist for several high-profile ad campaigns, Ian became a full-time freelance sound engineer.

While continuing to work in post-production for films, Ian is also the lead audio instructor at the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking. Additionally, he works in audio production at Stanford, and has also done theatrical sound design for U.C. Berkeley.

He is also currently the staff recordist for the Bay  Area-based new music ensemble, Earplay.