MDK
Tell us about yourself and how you got into music?
Music came into my life in a fairly stereotypical way. In fact, if you ask anyone born in the early 1990’s I’m sure they’ll tell a very similar tale: I was forced to take piano lessons as a kid (which I absolutely despised), but instead of practicing I would just mess around and write my own music, or learn how to play songs from my favourite video games. Looking back I realize how incredibly obvious my lack of practice must have been, but my teacher was extremely patient and accommodating despite how frustrating I most probably was to teach. Gotta love us stubborn, creative types!
You have a unique musical style, can you tell us how you developed your signature sound?
As weird as it sounds, I didn’t listen to electronic music when I first started using FL Studio. My go-to music was a combination of heavy metal and video game OSTs, but since I was a broke teenager with nothing but a piano, producing metal/orchestral didn’t work out too well. One day I was at an arcade with my family when we saw some people playing DDR. My brothers and I were completely mesmerized by the music coming out of the machine, so we wrote down the name of the song and downloaded it as soon as we got home (at 4kb/s, good ol’ dial-up!) That song, “A (Renaissance) – DJ Amuro”, catapulted me into the world of electronica, though I still listen to a lot of metal and video game music as well. In my opinion, bass music is the “heavy metal of electronica”, so I think it makes perfect sense that I gravitate towards producing chiptune-influenced electro & dubstep.
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How did you start using FL Studio & what does it mean to your productions?
I downloaded the FL Studio (version 7) demo when I was 14, and was instantly hooked (though I’ll admit I came very close to uninstalling it because I didn’t know you could change from “pattern” to “song” mode #noob). After a few days of messing around with the demo I realized that I was seriously addicted. Hell, “addicted” is an understatement. It consumed all of my free time and I realized that it was what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing. I managed to convince my mom to buy the full version of FL for my 15th birthday (which wasn’t easy – that was her first online purchase ever), and the rest is history! I’ve tried most other DAWs at this point, but none of them have ever felt as intuitive as FL. It’s the perfect balance of a sleek, user-friendly program, and a truly badass piece of audio software.
Tell us about your production environment & toys?
I’m not a huge fan of hardware, so I just run your average PC/interface/MIDI controller set up. I was once convinced to buy a Roland Gaia SH-01..which is now sitting in my closet. It’s a rad synth, but I don’t think I’ve ever used it in production. I also have a pair of Genelecs that I absolutely love, though my neighbours probably don’t feel the same way. I recently picked up a Launchpad, and will hopefully be learning how to use performance mode in FL Studio in the near future!
Do you have any links you would like to share?
I actually have a series of FL Studio tutorials that I started launching on my YouTube channel this year. The goal is to create a consistent series of tutorials, starting at the very beginning and gradually building towards much more advanced topics and techniques. So far I’ve only finished Season 1 (the basics), but additional seasons will be released in the future. If anyone is curious to know more about me or my music, they can visit my website for more information. MDK
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