#laxcity

Welcome to our Friday feature. Today we present UK producer laxcity. Check out some of his chill tunes on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/laxcitymusic 

Especially take a look at some of his video streams, they offer great insight into his workflow: https://www.facebook.com/pg/laxcityofficial/videos/

Show some love, it’s much appreciated! If you want to get featured, send a message here on tumblr or an email to [email protected]. Indulge.

• What are your inspiration sources?

There aren’t particularly any sources of inspiration that I search for. Inspiration is mostly drawn from whichever mood I feel in the moment. If a mood or feeling isn’t there, then I experiment until the ideas come to me.

• Tell us something about your workflow.

People often say my workflow is fast, this is evident from my Facebook livestreams. Most ideas start off with a simple chord progression, drum loop or a piece of sound design. From there onwards its just a matter of adding more layers to the cake. Then comes the part where the layers of that cake will be structured into a song, adding on more elements along that structure until I reach a conclusion.

• How would creative rituals benefit your workflow?

I don’t really have any rituals, i just push myself to create the best masterpiece I can. Its really a matter of whether the idea works or not.

• How do you get in the zone?

Music is a spectrum of emotions for me, there will be those moments where I get frustrated, resulting in me giving up. Theres no specific method for me to get in the zone, making music is hit or miss for me. Like I said before, its just a matter of finding the right mood and idea.

• How do you start a track?

Mostly by spending an hour writing midi chord progressions by mouse.

• Do you have a special DAW template?

I have two I normally use. One is set up essentially to help me get into producing immediately without having to setup my sidechain buses or mastering chain. And the other one is a FL project with a smooth Rhodes layered on top of a harmor preset I use which i generally for jamming and writing melodies.

• What do you put on the master channel?

Two instances of FL studio’s Maximus for dynamics, and a parametric EQ to shape up the rest of the frequencies. It all depends on how the tracks been mixed.

• How do you arrange and finish a track?

There’s never a straight path towards finishing a track, when I do finish a track I aim for it to be the best track ive ever made. For example, my track “embers” was probably the most stressful song to mix, I challenged myself to be as epic and loud as possible. Finishing a track can take days, weeks maybe even months. There are those tracks you finish in one day, and there those that take half a year, it all depends on how often the ideas come to you (also the amount of luck I have with mixing).

• How do you deal with unfinished projects?

I don’t, if an idea is unfinished it’ll get buried under more projects until I revisit it out of boredom. This is a really bad habit, I don’t recommend it. Instead I encourage most producers to re-visit their tracks just to see where they’ve come from. See if you can implement any new production techniques you know now.

• How do you store and organize your projects?

It changes all the time, in the past I would have one folder dedicated to all my FL studio projects, I still have it and its quite messy. Now I have a naming scheme, I sort my music out by genre and give them names I can remember. I also make sure to save tracks I’ve released as zip files, just in case I’ll need to bring them out later for circumstances such as if people want to remix it.

• How do you take care of studio ergonomics?

Oh wow…about that... cant say im a fine example for studio ergonomics. I create tracks on my bed, I sit in the most awkward positions and I suffer from backpain during most of my production sessions. It’s a struggle but I still enjoy creating art this way. In fact the best production sessions have mostly been on my bed. For example my remix of work by Rihanna was produced on my bed too! It’s a track Im really proud of.

• Tell us something about your daily routine, how is your day structured, how do you make room for creativity?

Most of my daily routine is to wake up and attend classes if I have to, if my friends made plans I join them in whatever it is they’re doing. Since im in university now, most of the time I make music in the evening till 1am. During that time im mostly switching between gaming, watching movies/anime and making music.

• Share a quick producing tip.

Experiment as much as possible, have fun discovering new sounds and build your own techniques. Make music for yourself, aim to make the best track you can. Don’t aim at fame… das all.

• Share a link to an interesting website (doesn’t have to be music related).

http://www.pointerpointer.com/

This one has amused me out of boredom.

• List ten sounds you are hearing right this moment : )

1.       Numb by 21 Savage playing on my TV

2.       Traffic outside my house

3.       My flatmates having a conversation in the living room

4.       Doors outside closing and opening

5.       My laptop fan

6.       My mouse clicking as I write this

7.       My fingers tapping the keyboard as I write this

8.       Bass from my next door neighbour’s subwoofer

9.       Notifications from my phone