9lives Unleashes "Cyclop" along with Tim Gordon [Exclusive Interview]

9lives Unleashes "Cyclop" along with Tim Gordon

1/26/2019

Could you describe what inspired you to first get into production?
When I was a little kid, music was always playing in my home and for as long as I can remember, I've been a fan of electronic music. So, it was always very interesting to me to know how it was made. When I was fifteen, a friend of mine sent me the demo version of FL Studio. It was a lot of fun for me to be able to make something new and exciting. Around this time, big room was gaining popularity but after two years of trying a lot of different styles, I realised that I'm better at making more melody-focused music. That's when the "9Lives" project was born.

Your upcoming track on Loca Recordings is a bit of a departure from your normal progressive sound. Walk us through the creative process for this one!
Tim and I started the project in the beginning of 2018 when we were sending ideas back and forth for feedback. One day, Tim asked me if I was interested in joining in on one of his big room ideas. I agreed because I felt like this was a good opportunity for me to try something a little different. When working on the breakdown, I tried to put some of my melodic soul into it. It took us a few months to finish the track because every time we felt like it was done, there was always a new vision in our head that made us want to change the track. Eventually we got to the point where we were both happy with it and we're really satisfied with the way it turned out.

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A post shared by Loca Recordings (@locarecordings) on Jan 26, 2019 at 9:03am PST

Looking over your Soundcloud page, some might assume that you don't release tracks too often but in reality, it's quite the opposite. Tell us how you first got into ghost production and how you built your living off of it?
A few years ago, I saw someone post in one of the Facebook groups I was in saying that he was looking to buy a track. As I said, I always liked making music, so it was really amazing for me to be able to earn some extra money to spend on new gear I needed for production. After that, I started looking for more potential clients who would like to buy my tracks.

Besides that, I started uploading some remakes of existing tracks to YouTube to attract more clients and it has been working out pretty well so far. Sometimes, I feel a bit bad for myself when I see that my work is being released on big labels like Revealed Recordings or Trap Nation and I get no credit for it. But the fact that I can make enough money from selling ghosts to make ends meet and pursue my dreams compensates for everything!

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A post shared by 9lives Music (@9livespl) on Jan 20, 2019 at 12:32pm PST

In addition to selling ghost productions, you've also got plans to reboot your YouTube channel to sell original FLP template files. Considering the occurrences of "producers" re-uploading lightly or non-edited version of templates on their own accounts or even worse, reputable labels like Revealed, what are some of your thoughts on the potential abuse of your labors?
Actually that's a common practice in this industry. I have already heard my sounds and samples in a lot of released tracks but that's not a big problem for me. A way worse situation is when someone uploads or releases a barely changed version of my projects. But luckily, people in the comments usually notice it and bring it to my attention.

For producers, what are the most common mixing problems for progressive house?
Progressive house is actually quite difficult to mix properly. If you want your track to sound euphoric and full, adding a lot of reverb and delay helps you achieve that sound. However, that does make it difficult to mix as these types of effects are easily over done. So finding the perfect balance is the hardest part. There is also lot of layering involved, and everything in the mix needs its own space. Watching videos of producers in the studio explaining their tracks in depth has been a great way for me to learn. Then of course reading a lot of detailed articles and practicing what I've learnt has also helped me improve my mixing skills and gain more experience. Something that I see people making a mistake with is people keeping the reverb generated by a certain plugin. For example, Sylenth1 and Nexus have built-in reverb effects, but most of the time, these effects aren't high quality. Turning off these effects can really help you clean up your mix and will give you much more control in the later stages when you apply reverb via third party plugin.

How did you feel when you found your track was played at Tomorrowland Brasil?
I was really excited about this! It's one of the best feelings in the world seeing people dancing to your music. I used to watch almost every big festival stream when I had the time, so it was always my dream to see my track being played in front of the huge crowd. The whole experience really kept me motivated to continue producing.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?
Good question! I'm happy about how things are going right now. In the future, I want to start getting booked for live gigs and just continue with everything I'm working on right now, just on a bigger scale!