The Musical Journey That Lead Me To Join Splice
On December 4th, I joined Splice as Director of Product. I want to share the story of how I got here and why I believe Splice will become the most transformative company in music technology.
It Started With My Journey To Become a Producer
Most of you know me for creating Secret, an anonymous social network for your friends. I left Secret in January of 2015, and around that time, Justin Kan told me he wanted to build a music studio in his new co-working space. I’d always been interested in making music and had spent a good amount of time dabbling. So, I offered to help.
At the time, I was very into bass music and admired artists like RL Grime, Flosstradamus, and What So Not. I loved the way their bewitching drops ignited something primal inside of me and I wanted to make tracks that made people feel that same way, but with my own touch. The problem was, I was a total newbie when it came to music production.
Challenge accepted.
I quickly learned there’s a high barrier to entry
On May 4th, 2015, I began producing music full-time in Justin’s studio. As you can tell from the very first beat I made (below) on that day, I had a long way to go. On recommendation, I bought a book called the Dance Music Manual and devoured it. I was overwhelmed by the amount of knowledge required to be a producer. Not only do you need artistic taste and musical understanding, but you need the engineering chops to sculpt a polished sound and an ability to tell a story musically. On top of that, most of the software was prohibitively expensive.
A couple months in, I had entered a steady rhythm of learning, listening, collecting samples, producing, and DJing. I really started to feel the friction points in the process. The software was powerful, but it wasn’t always as intuitive as I hoped it could be. It was often hard to know what to do next, or even know what tools exist. A lot of time was spent hunting, or stuck, and not knowing why. There was so much to learn, and educational materials were scattered everywhere and of mixed quality.
I started to sense there was a huge opportunity to make the whole process smoother and more connected. It often felt like technology was getting in the way, rather then solving these workflow problems I was running into. But still, I carried on.
Eventually, I started to make music people were listening to
I made trappy remixes of Destiny’s Child, The Pussycat Dolls, and Missy Elliot. I made some popular Brazilian Bass remixes of California Love by Dre & Tupac (below), and Sexual by Amber. By October 2017, I’d produced about 30 songs, released 15, accumulated over 200K plays on SoundCloud, and started to get inbound interest from labels. But, while my production skills were improving, I still didn’t feel like I was creating something unique to me.
Defining my unique sound was elusive
My goal had always been to release an EP that was entirely my own that expressed my own taste. I knew that it would be bass music, but I wasn’t sure just what the characteristics would be; it eluded me. Beyond the technological and theory challenges, I learned that the ultimate challenge really lies in creating your own sound and style. That’s the holy grail.
While messing around with an idea in October, I got lucky and finally had a breakthrough. The result was the song ‘Galactic’ (below), which is now the first track of my upcoming EP. It captured a lot of the elements that I liked, so I immediately mood-boarded the sound: trappy, spacey, 70–85bpm, melodic, vocal chop leads, driving, cinematic, with robotic textures. I named the sound ‘Galactic Bass’. Then I remembered about Splice Sounds.
Splice Sounds helped me find my sound
Now that I had a sound in mind, I jumped into Splice Sounds and searched for samples and presets that fit the vibe I had created. Splice Sounds allowed me to precisely search millions of samples and audition them while I was working on a song. This let me use my ear, instead of trying to fit samples in from my hard drive, or paying $25 to download a sample pack to find out the samples don’t actually work well in context. This was a huge game changer for me as a producer, I felt like I had been doing it wrong all along.
Friends and fellow producers started telling me that my production skills had improved tremendously. I credit that to Splice. Splice allowed me to make better decisions as a producer by relying on my ear more than I could before. I believe my mixes started sounding better, not because I actually got better at mixing, but because when you choose the right sounds you naturally have less mixing to do. That’s the magic of Splice Sounds.
The inspiration I had at the beginning of my journey came rushing back: modern technology *can* cut out a lot of the friction and help producers become the best version of themselves. This time, I decided I should talk to the Splice founders to learn more about their vision. I hopped on a video call with Steve Martocci and we hit it off.
In October, I flew to NYC and LA to meet the team. The folks I met were all passionate about music, thoughtful about product, and good humans. The conversations were deeply engaging, and the promise of the product became very palpable. There was clearly a large body of challenging and meaningful work ahead that I knew that I wanted to be part of it, one way or another.
To me, Splice is the most promising company for the future of music technology
In the past decade, music technology hasn’t evolved as quickly as the modern musician has. There’s a huge opportunity to close the gap by applying modern product thinking and technology to areas that are underserved. While most new music startups focus on distribution, Splice focuses on everything that happens before a song is released. I believe that in order for the music industry to thrive, creators need to thrive, and the best place to start is at the creative process.
At any given time, producers are interacting with at least one of five major components: Digital Audio Workstations (Logic, Ableton, Pro Tools, etc), plugins (software synths, VSTs, etc), content (samples, presets, MIDI), community (forums, collaborations), and education (classes, tutorials). There is a significant lack of cohesion and interoperability between these components and it’s costing producers and manufacturers a ton of time and money.
Products like Splice Sounds and Plugins are already addressing a crucial need. By aggregating everything into one marketplace and making it affordable, manufacturers and content creators are already earning millions and producers, like myself, are saving a ton of time. I believe Splice can be the great unifier of the industry and lower the bar for producers to get what they need when they need it — and do it in a way that’s mutually beneficial for producers, manufacturers, and content creators. Everybody wins (really).
My mission at Splice is to keep producers in the creative flow and maximize their productivity
“Nothing kills the creative flow more than having to stop and solve a non-creative problem” — Dennis DeSantis
Whether you’re a novice or a seasoned pro, every producer shares a common goal: to define the unique sound that represents us an artist. I want to help every one of us to get there.
My first order of business will be to advance Splice Studio. Studio currently provides cloud back-up for your projects, version control, and easy collaboration across computers and borders. Big-name and bedroom producers alike rely on this product and I’m excited to take it to the next level.
My mission with Studio is to preserve, protect, and propel the creative flow. I want to hold space for producers to do what they do best (create) and shield them from things that waste their time. With present day technology, we can amplify a producer’s creativity and reduce the tedium by adapting to your habits, minimizing redundant tasks, and providing timely assistance and inspiration.
Furthermore, as Splice has proven to be indispensable to producers, it’s critical that we continue to integrate more deeply in your workflow in the places that make the most sense. If we empower developers, we can further empower producers, and help usher in a new wave of music technology that is tailored to each individual producer.
I wish I could share more, but I can’t reveal all the cards quite yet. Follow me on Twitter for announcements, and go forth and define your sound.
For those of you that made it this far, here’s another sneak peek from my EP. Thank you for reading!
UPDATE: Since the writing of this post, my first EP ‘Nebulus’ was released on OTODAYO Records. You can listen here.
