i started producing electronic music when i turned 11 in 2010. growing up with flash games & newgrounds gave me a huge appreciation for all of the music posted on its audio portal.

i still think about that kid who just wanted to make music but had no money and struggled to make anything good. i'd like to live in a world where that kid can create the music they love.

strive for a professional sound

i want my songs to be listened to along side my favorite artists and stand a chance. if my song comes on after an alphazone or noisia track, i don't want it to leave me wanting and wishing i did something more. the sound is the most important part of the track in my mind, and the method of how it gets created doesn't matter at much to me. everything after this comes second to me being able to achieve the sound that i want.

audio is expensive. spend as little money as is necessary.

ableton costs $700 with yearly upgrades. tons of my friends use it, but almost none of them have actually paid for it (in minecraft). it's clear to me that huge music software companies don't care about the same kid that i do. if something costs so much that it's out of that person's budget, it may as well not exist to them. the businesses don't want me or anyone without much money to use that software, so fuck 'em. i'll find something cheaper that does most of the job just as well.

prefer open source whenever possible.

newgrounds had a huge open culture ethos. everything back in the day defaulted to a creative commons license, and that fostered a huge community of creators who were able to collaborate in a very decentralized way.

plugins and software should be no different. things i can compile myself, study, fix, and remix are all huge boons to a production workflow. it also goes a lot of the way for making music systems portable (see below).

DRM sucks. i don't want to be locked out of software i purchased if the company gets bought out (camel audio...) or stops supporting their old products (cakewalk...).

licenses suck. what's the point in using a plugin or sample if it comes with a ton of restrictions? i want my music to be able to be used for commercial (or really whatever) purposes, so i'd rather not use sounds that disallow something like that.

managing licenses and DRM sucks the most though. being able to easily install a software package and use it without limitation is a hugely important thing.

portability

the easier it is to copy my production folder from one computer to the next and have my same full environment, the better. i switch computers a lot, so the less of a hassle it is to get setup the same way from machine to machine the better.

portability is something that a lot of multimedia creatives don't have figured out. many keep a dedicated computer just for their work. i don't want to do this. programmers, on the other hand, have it all figured out. in the ideal world, there would be a system similar to git and build tools for music. unfortunately, none of the tools that fit that description (like supercollider) are capable of producing the type of sounds i want on their own.

things i enjoy using

all software is free & open source unless noted otherwise

• reaper (proprietary, $60)
• renoise (proprietary, $70)
• vital
• Linux Studio Plugins
• mixxx
• my midi keyboard i found at goodwill for $30
• literally any audio interface. i found that the Solid State Logic SSL2+ ($300) works very well for what i do, although it's probably overkill for most people. any $100 audio interface would probably do most people just as well. just make sure it's class compliant for portability across operating systems!
• my Behringer TD-3 ($120). there's a lot to say about Behringer, but i really do love my clear blue acid box