I started to get interested in music production at the beginning of the pandemic, using mobile apps to create my first tracks. I watched music production tutorials on YouTube on how to create beats and then seeing that I could produce well on my cell phone, I migrated to producing in FL Studio more seriously.
In the past I played keyboards as a child, guitar and bass as a teenager, and I even became the lead singer of a punk band in high school! I've always been very into music since I was young.
I started researching about producing beats on YouTube and I always watched producers teaching at FL Studio, so I started to get familiar with it and I got a passion for the DAW, I prefer its aesthetics too compared to the others. I still want to one day start producing on Ableton.
My PC Gamer serves me as much as I can on everything I need.
Serum is my number one favourite plugin; I can create amazing and different sounds on it every time.
Gross Beat because it can make any sample sound more interesting.
OTT for the unusual gain to the drums.
When I'm not at my computer, I record some ideas with my cell phone to later try to compose what I imagined, I write some lyrics and leave them in draft in notepads. Sometimes I dream of some ready-made songs, but not all of them are possible to replicate after waking up. When I'm in my DAW, I tend to have a lot of creative ideas, everything ends up coming at the time, I test some samples and continue creating harmonies and melodies according to my inspiration.
Most of the time I watch tutorials on YouTube about some technique, like how to use a plugin that I'm in doubt about. You can really find a lot of interesting things about production to improve your songs. The content is not always up-to-date and correct, but you can learn a lot on YouTube. More recently, I have enrolled in a music production course that helped me profoundly in my development and knowledge.
For those interested in over-compression:
For those who want to learn to make wobbles:
I would have liked to have learned more about musical arrangement, mixing/mastering sooner and how important it is to the quality of the production.
We don't always have the time we'd like to finish a song, and when we have that time to focus on that track, creative blocks can arise. When I catch myself having something like that, I stop and continue the next day or the next few hours. To keep up with new ideas, it's always good to be listening to different genres of music, both new and the ones you like. Watching movies, a TV series, playing games, reading books, travelling; everything that can inspire you to create your art.
Add some syncopation when writing your bass line - it adds such a nice groove to any drum pattern.
Some of these online tools can be really helpful: Vocal Remover, Get Song Key, Get Song BPM, RhymeZone.
Some friends share their tips with me and write advice on how to improve my tracks in the SoundCloud comments. I always review a track when I get suggestions on what to improve, I think it's very positive to have this support from the community because I learn a lot of new things that influence a better sound quality for my upcoming releases. On my last few releases, I've been sending out the unreleased tracks for a few people to hear and give me feedback so I can improve them as much as possible before releasing them for good.
I'm very proud of CARESO's Death Portal (STRYKNYNE Remix). It was a really fun job. It's dark, I've always wanted to do horror tracks and I thought that vibe was appropriate for the remix.
RepostExchange has boosted my fan base, which at the beginning gave me a lot of feedback in the comments of the songs on which to improve, thus influencing me to search for more knowledge about music production.
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This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
