Jacob Floyd Ross was born in the lunar year of the metal pig in Dallas, Texas to a preacher’s daughter and a police officer. He has two brothers, a sister, and a long-lost stepbrother. During high school, he toured the Bible Belt with the First Baptist Sachse Youth Ensemble. In 1992, after a year spent in college and a year plus of rambling, he moved to Chicago, Illinois, dreaming of music. He immediately began teaching himself recording and mixing techniques. By the summer of 1995, he’d learned enough to acquire an engineer position at Experimental Sound Studio. In addition to engineering at ESS and other Chicago studios, Jacob was the ESS studio manager from 2000-2007. His tenure at ESS led to many varied collaborations in music, archiving, education, and eventually live sound as well as sound design.
After 22 years of invigorating audio work in the windy city, Jacob moved to the hallowed high desert of New Mexico in August of 2014. Soon thereafter he married the beautiful and brilliant Erin Debenport, started his first garden, and opened his own mixing studio. In the fall of 2016 they moved their homestead to Los Angeles where Erin works as a professor of linguistic anthropology at UCLA, and Jacob reopened Beltline Sound in the old studio district of South Hollywood.
Currently, Jacob continues to focus on freelance music and engineering – as well as his passions for traveling, bird watching, gardening, camping, photography, BBQ, bicycles, pie, and most importantly, his loved ones.