BEATS, MASTERING, MIXING

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

A: I am building a brand day by day by being active on social media. I hope to make music my primary income by doing this.

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Digital because of the flexibility it offers. I travel quite a bit so having everything on my laptop and hard drive comes in handy.

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

A: I usually work on EDM and trap music. Ive been mixing and mastering old school boom bap these past few months while working with artists in Tijuana.

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

A: A project that I recently worked on was my EP called Nocturnal International featuring Shizzy P. This was collaborative EP in which Shizzy P did the vocals while I made the beats and mastered the project. Shizzy had a couple of engineers do the mixing on the vocals and a couple of beats.

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

A: I recommend hiring Michaela Shiloh (FKA Mickey Shiloh) if you're looking for a phenomenal songwriter.

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

A: I promise to give you a product that you will love.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: The flexibility that it offers. This is a huge passion of mine so most of the time it doesn't even feel like a job.

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

A: "How long will this take?" It will take 24-48 hours for the highest quality master.

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

A: People think mastering is just making the song louder by turning the volume up. That is not the case. Often you need to preserve the dynamics of the song and turning the volume up will not achieve that. Production is more than just making a beat. Production is the goal of trying to make an entire record around the artists' vocals.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: What kind of production are you looking for? What's your budget? How fast do you need this job done?

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

A: Communication is key. Please communicate with me throughout this process to both parties are satisfied.

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

A: I would take my MacBook, my Apollo Twin X, my monitors, my bass, and amp.

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

A: Ive been producing and mastering since late 2020 - early 2021.

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: My specialty is dark trap. Anything dark and eerie. Sounds that make you feel something is my niche. Make it loud!

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

A: I would like to work with $uicideboy$ because my sound matches their sound perfectly.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Cut the unnecessary low end on most instruments and sounds. Save the low end for drums. I made this mistake in the beginning of my music production journey of not knowing what an EQ was. Get familiar with EQing.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: My strongest skill is persistence. Persistence is a skill that is needed if you want to finish a song or a job within a certain time frame. Another way to put it is that nothing else will happen until a project is finished. Set small goals for this if the project is a big one.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: I bring in my 10 years of experience being involved musically in all aspects of my life whether that was having my own band, singing karaoke overseas every weekend for two years, playing bass, etc. Music production and song mastering have been apart of my 10+ years of being involved musically.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: My typical work process for mastering a song is I pull up the DAW, drag the song inside, and check the levels of the mixed song to see how much louder the track needs to be in order to apply the proper plugins. I have a LUFS loudness meter in the mastering chain in order to pay attention while i'm adding the finishing touches to your mastered track. My work process for producing a song is pulling up the DAW and starting with the melody. Create a 4 or an 8 bar loop. 99% of my beats are made from scratch so I lay down the melody with enough room for the artist to rap or sing. Next I add the drums and finish the beat from there.

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: I am currently working out of Tijuana and have my studio there. My main piece of equipment is the MacBook Pro. My other pieces of equipment are the Apollo Twin X, Rokit 5 monitors, a Rode NT1-A microphone (with a kaotica eyeball attachment), and the Beyerdynamic DT 770 pros. Honorable mention: I have a Floyd rose Ibanez guitar w/ an amp, and a Ibanez bass w/ a bass amp in my studio.

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

A: My musical inspirations are rooted within both the trap scene and the metalcore scene. Music professionals such as The Word Alive, Asking Alexandria, Korn, Metro Boomin, Pooh Shiesty, Gucci Mane, etc. The EDM scene has a huge inspiration on me as well. The EDM artists that inspire me are Yellow Claw, Tiesto, etc.

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

A: I provide beats to multiple artists in order to enhance their sound. Ive done a few mastering jobs for other artists as well as myself and has become a common theme in order to save the artist time in the studio and just crank out multiple songs.