Producer, Mixing & Mastering

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

A: Long story short, I started to do this when I was 10. Inspired by music of Mylene Farmer I decided that I want to do the same thing and went to the Kyiv City School of Music and studied there piano and vocal. Then I went to the University and studied music production there. On the second year of University I started to do my own projects. It's been almost 10 years since I finished my first one. Now I'm very inspired by Modular Synthesis and this whole new chapter in electronic music called synthwave, Dark Synth in particular.

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

A: I'm especially proud of the project "Break The Silence" by rapper Van Wilder featuring ukrainian metal band Doubleaccord, I attached it in audio samples. It's special for me because it was the first time I ever worked with rap. I was asked to make it hard and not "rapish". So I decided to combine dubstep, drum'n'bass, metal guitars and screaming vocals there. I like what we did there.

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: Now I work on electronic rock project. It's a bit of a challenge because I received very bad recorded material. Client said that there is no option to re-record it. I listened to it and thought that the sound of bad recording can actually sound good if used in a proper way. So I took this project and I believe it will sound great. I like challenges.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Do I have to choose? I mean seriously. OK, I usually add some Analog sound to the project because it brings breath and life to it. But let's be honest: sometimes you need a strong cold digital sound. So it depends.

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

A: 100% personalised approach. Your project will have a unique sound yet with influence of the references you will provide (if you will). I promise to listen and hear you. And in the same time to keep it professional which means that I not only listening and hearing but also talking to you.

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

A: I'd take headphones, my M-Track, monitors, my laptop, air conditioner.

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

A: I always get these questions like "Can you make me sound like...?", "I want my song to be like..." and so on. I answer to that with another question: do you want to be a copy of someone? If the answer is yes, no further questions, let's just make it. If the answer is no, then we gotta sit down and discuss what do you really want and after that you will have your own project that sounds like you influenced by someone or something.

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

A: That producer can read your mind. Well, there is another biggest misconception: that producer can make anything you want. Second one is a "yes and no" situation. "Yes"-case is when you really understand that the first one is really misconception. "No"-case is when you don't really understand misconceptioness of the first one.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: I ask my prospective clients many questions, but I start with followed. What's the idea? What do you want people to feel or think or do or see or whatever while listening to it? These are two questions I pay big attention to cause my approach depends on it.

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

A: Have an idea and know what you want to hear in the end and try to explain it in your own words. Examples are great, it would be very helpful if you show me some, but try to explain in your own words what do you like in that particular example, which part of it you want to be realised in your project. Only in this way we could make your project sound exactly how want it to.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: If you feel the lack of something in your mix, you need to remove something from it. This rule works for me almost in every case.

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

A: Well, there are lots of artists I'd be happy to work with. I'd love to work with Twenty One Pilots, cause I like what they do with song concepts and with harmony. Would be great to work with Mylene Farmer, cause I grew up in her music. Would be interesting for me to work with Raign, because she has so strong energy, I think I could direct it in very interesting way. Matt Pokora is very interesting for me because of his energy as well.

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

A: I usually work with electronic music. But I have passion for live instruments so I always try to bring some in the project I work in, of course if it sticks with the idea and with client's point of view.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: My strongest skill is placing vocals, I'd say. But, that's not for me to decide. Anyway, I feel comfortable not only with vocals, but with every type of work I mentioned in my profile.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I bring to the the energy it needs. The energy comes from the idea through the artist's hands, voice, legs, hair or whatever, through my hands and ears straight to the listeners ears and the listener should feel it fully. My work is to make it happen. So I bring to the song the right energy and just in the amount that every song needs.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: When I receive a project for mixing, I start with listening to it for a couple of times trying to get its idea and to figure out what's the dominant thing in it. Then I continue with this dominant thing building the mix around it. After I finished mixing I take a break and come back to the project with fresh ears and finalise it. When I do full production, the idea comes first as well, cause without idea the project doesn't have any sense. When the idea is ready I do composing, scoring, recording and so on. After that the process is pretty much the same as I described above.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: Among software I've got Pro Tools HD and Cubase (feel fluent in both of them), Waves, FabFilter and Slate Digital plug-in bundles, a lot of Native Instruments stuff and some really cool instruments such as BFD Drums, Spire, Xfer Records Nerve and so on. As for hardware, for now I have M-Audio M-Track Eight, KRK RP 8, Beyerdynamic DT 770. Anyways I love experiments with new stuff.

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

A: Difficult to say.. I can be inspired by a production just because of its' high quality even if I never worked in this genre. But here are professionals I always mention when talking about my inspirations: Mylene Farmer and her producer Laurent Boutonnat (I love the heavenly atmosphere in their productions), Rob Swire (I like the soud he does but especially I like his drums), Jacob Hellner and Daniel Gibson inspire me in hard and metal music, I also like very much the work that Tyler Joseph does with overal song concept and harmony. These are very few among those who inspire me.

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

A: Most common work for me is full song production starting from the first rough idea and straight to the mastered song or instrumental. I also often mix vocals with pre-mixed instrumental for my clients.