Todd Cooper and Dave McDonalds go back. They go all the way back to the Blacksburg music scene in the late '80s, when Dave was a member of "The Yams from Outerspace" and Todd was in "The Richard Jessee Project."

McDonalds remembers completing the set-up for a show, sound-checking, only to have Cooper show up with a heavy set of double bass drums. "I remember when in the Richard's show, I played in a pair of shorts and that's it ... it was a full-tilt boogie from start to finish," Cooper said.

Despite the initial sound of it, Cooper and McDonalds aren't any sort of stereotypical town rock-and-rollers. Cooper earned a degree in electronics from a technical institute in Atlanta and had worked in "a suit and tie military job" before devoting himself to music full time, and McDonalds was completing a music degree at Virginia Tech when they first met. Since then, they've been co-workers and roommates on and off.

These days, they can be found on East Main, atop a building adjacent to the Salem Public Library, helping mostly local musicians produce and record sound tracks.

They found themselves working at StageSound together once salesman Tom Ohmson left to found Flat Five Press & Recording Studio. Todd Ohmson's studio recorded Dave Matthews' first album in 1993 in Salem. Since then, the two migrated, Cooper first, over to Flat Five.

"I rely heavily on him for his vast knowledge outside of percussion and drums," Cooper said. McDonalds' compositional expertise (and multiple-instrument capabilities) are accentuated by Cooper's percussion skills and love for piecing songs together.

"If someone comes to us with lyrics and a melody, we can turn it into a song," Cooper said. They've recorded every kind of music from gospel to rap to rock, and more often than not, they play instruments and sub in their own voices for backup. Cooper has even filled a rap group's request to scream Axl Rose's "welcome to the jungle!" for a track.

But regardless of what kind of music or who the artist is, Cooper and McDonalds share the same appreciation and language when it comes to music. It's what has allowed them to work together so closely for more than ten years.

"It's really unique ... we're each walking in a different set of shoes, but we are definitely on the same path," said McDonalds.