Ricky Molina is a composer-songwriter from New York City. He performed as lead and rhythm guitarist in musical productions in New York and now focuses on writing original music, producing educational material and all sorts of music-related videos on YouTube.

Ricky studied guitar in New York City since the age of seven, being widely exposed to classical, jazz, pop, rock and Latin music.   ​

Ricky graduated from a top liberal arts college in the U.S. with top grades in music composition. He also graduated from music production programs focusing on the craft of composition, orchestration, recording and production.

Ricky is a fingerstyle guitarist with a never-ending passion for the retro sound of classic jazz, bebop and swing. He also loves most rock music from the 70’s and 80’s – particularly the dynamic analog productions of the 70’s. Ricky grew up with Latin music in his blood – his mother’s South American roots exposed him at a young age to boleros, bossa nova, samba, tango and salsa. He especially loves the songs with sweet guitar arrangements. You can definitely hear the Latin influence in some of his compositions.

In addition to guitar, vocals and percussive instruments, Ricky composes and arranges on midi keyboards, accessing the various synthetic and sampled patches across the sonic spectrum with VSTs. “Composing on a keyboard is like speaking through another medium,” Ricky says, noting that keyboards facilitate harmonic and melodic phrases much differently than guitar. “Things tend to open up and get wider with keyboards,” Ricky notes. “And of course, keyboards are great for triggering percussive patches with fast attack transients.”

As far as applying new sounds and technology is concerned, Ricky adheres to Peter Gabriel’s philosophy of being open-minded, but not to let it overwhelm the music. “I try to incorporate technology in a tasteful manner, so that it doesn’t dominate the piece, unless it’s a techno or edm composition where it’s more obvious. Certainly, today you can’t ignore the fact that technology can take you places never dreamed possible – and because there are so many different sounds out there, it’s actually more of a challenge to know when and how to use them than simply to show them off.” Much of the material Ricky writes is organic, and he tries to use the technology as unobtrusively as possible.

To see a list of programs and plugins that Ricky uses, please check out the Reviews section of this web site. Song credits also list equipment, programs and plugins used on tracks.

You’ll find a diverse range of musical taste in Ricky’s repertoire – from rock, to jazz, bossa and neo-classical. Please visit the Ricky Molina YouTube channel to check out his video-music productions and tutorials. Ricky welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with other artists, especially on original material.

Ricky is a member of ASCAP as a songwriter and publisher, TuneCore, Songtrust, and SoundExchange. He’s the principal of Richard’s Media Productions LLC.

You can contact Ricky via email at Ricky@RickyMolinaProductions.com​