Jan Herbst is a popular music scholar, musicologist, music producer and guitar player. Currently, he serves as Reader in Music Production at the University of Huddersfield, where he is also Director of the Centre for Music, Culture and Identity (CMCI). ⇒ profile on university website

Practical aspects of music production and technology are of great interest to Jan, apart from being deeply engaged in research. His publications include more than 70 books, articles, chapters, encyclopaedia articles and reviews, and he regularly presents research papers in various countries. His published work focuses on the areas of popular music studies, psychology and sociology of music, the art of record production and music technology. Jan is a member of several international editorial boards for journals (IASPM Journal, Metal Music Studies, Samples) and book series (Beiträge zur Popularmusikforschung, texte zur populären musik by the German Society for Popular Music) and is editor of the Companion series of Cambridge University Press. Jan is a regular peer-reviewer for journals, including Metal Music Studies, IASPM Journal, Rock Music Studies and reviewer for Routledge’s Perspectives on Music Production and Ashgate Popular & Folk Music book series. He also serves on the Executee Boards of IASPM UK & I and IASPM International.

Jan’s current major, book-length projects include:

• Gear Acquisition Syndrome: Consumption of Instruments and Technology in Popular Music (with Dr Jonas Menze) (website) (open access)
• Heaviness in Metal Music Production (HiMMP), a 3-year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) (with Dr Mark Mynett) ⇒ project website
• Extreme Metal Vocals (EMV), a 2-year project funded by the European Union (with Dr Eric Smialek) ⇒ project website
• Songwriting Camps in the 21st Century (SC21), a 3-year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the German Research Foundation (with Prof Michael Ahlers & Dr Simon Barber) ⇒ project website
• Rock Guitar Virtuosos: Advances in Electric Guitar Playing, Technology and Culture (with Alexander Vallejo)
• The Cambridge Companion to Metal Music
• The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar (with Prof Steve Waksman)
• Rammstein's "Germany": Pop - Politics - Provocations (with Dr Kerstin Wilhelms et al.)