HOUSE | POP | INDIE | TRAP

Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.

A: Full song productions in House, Tech House, Deep House, Hiphop, Pop, Trap, Indie.

Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?

A: I'm an artist myself and I go by the name Jimmi Harvey. It's my house music project. My latest release is a song called 'On and on' featuring Rion S and it got played by some heavyweight dj's in the house industry such as Mark Knight, Low Steppa and Bakermat.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I am always working on multiple projects at the same time. It helps me to make better and quicker decisions. Currently working on a pop song for a client that I've recorded vocals with and a tech house track for a dj.

Q: Is there anyone on SoundBetter you know and would recommend to your clients?

A: yeah me hehe (sorry not sorry) :P I've worked with a lot of vocalists, some of them here on soundbetter like Sakari, Vince Parker, Bryan Dias, Tamika. Super talented people.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: It doesn't matter. Do what suits you best. For me it's digital. In my opinion the only people that care about that are producers. A happy client doesn't have to care about that.

Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?

A: a happy client that's satisfied with the end result

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: creating music and making my customers happy.

Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A: client: Can you produce something good, quick but also cheap? me: You can't have those three things together, but only 2. Pick two and let's get to work.

Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?

A: 1) The biggest misconception would be that you need a professional music studio to make something sound good. 2) As a client you're not paying for a producers time, but you're paying for all the years/hard work and sweat it took the producer to get to the level they're at now.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: -What is your vision? Where do you see yourself in 5 years? -Who inspires you, who do you admire? -Can you give me 2 reference tracks that you absolutely love, so that I can get a feeling of the direction you want your song to go in?

Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A: follow your gut when choosing a producer. Try not to limit yourself by being too much of a perfectionist. We all are perfectionists, a little is good, too much kills creativity.

Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?

A: -laptop -headphones -mouse -midi controler -a satellite wifi box

Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?

A: I'm making music for 19 years now. I started playing guitar when I was 10 years old. I played a lot of blues during my teens and then I formed my first band, a metalcore band, playing local shows, that's heavy music with breakdown n sh*t...I went to conservatoire and have a diploma in music theory and also electric guitar. After high school I entered into another band called Angel at my table as guitarist. We had a female singer and played powerpop. We did tours in canada, australia, Uk and europe and recorded an album in Baltimore with producer Paul Leavitt (All time low, panic at the disco). When that band broke up I formed a new band called Austinn, since I didn't find a singer with the same ambitions I had to start singing myself. We made indie pop, recorded two eps in Los Angeles with producer Matt squire (panic at the disco) and one album in the Uk with james Lewis (wombats, arctic monkeys). During all those years in bands I did the preproductions before entering the studio and working with these multi platinum producers taught me a lot. After Austinn broke up I got more seriously into music production. I also did the Toolroom Academy which is a music production course for house music. Toolroom is one of the leading tech house labels out there and with my current own music project Jimmi Harvey (house) I have released two songs on Toolroom. So over all these years while making music I was in contact with a lot of different genres and that's also the reason why I'm comfortably producing multiple genres.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: if it doesn't make me feel something, I'm not interested. Soul is everything to me.

Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?

A: Freddy Mercury, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse and Jimi Hendrix because they inspire me in so many different ways and because I would love to bring them back from the dead, all gone too soon.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: don't waste money and time on finding and purchasing all the different plugins out there. You don't need 10 different eq's. You just need one. Become a master of that one eq plugin and you're good to go. The same goes for the other effects and plugins like compressor, saturation, verb, delay stereo imaging etc...If I had known that 10 years ago I wouldn't have to ask you so much money for my productions...:D

Q: What type of music do you usually work on?

A: House, Pop, indie pop, tech house, deep house, trap, hiphop

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: I'm good at producing multiple genres. I'm not really limited to a certain style which brings a lot of variety and inspiration into my productions.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: life, story, creativity and quality.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: you send me your demo or idea (if you have one) and 2 reference tracks. I then build a track from scratch or use some of your stems. I produce, mix, polish and make the best version of it. I then send you a version, you give me feedback and I apply it. This goes back and forth until you're happy. I'm happy to do skype calls, talking to someone makes it easier to get it across.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: If you're going to a restaurant, do you care about the stove and equipment or do you care about the chef who cooks and touches your meal? The same goes for music production. It's not about the kitchen but it's about the cook. It doesn't really matter how you are creating music as long as it sounds good.

Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?

A: oh man too many to even get started...I mostly get inspired by life. I am most inspired and creative after a break from making music, doing other things that have nothing to do with it, family, friends, cooking, reading, holidays. I feel like everyone has a source of inspiration and creativity locked inside of them. Sometimes you need space to see the bigger picture, take a break and then come back to it to be able to fully unlock that drawer of creativity. Inspiration is nothing you can force, it comes when you're ready for it.