EP18 - Zane Talavia (Mix Haven): A Journey Through the Art of Music Production and Lifelong Learning

[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hi, guys. Welcome once again to the Rajkor podcast. So I've all of you know that I'm from the Bangra industry in the UK. I'm trying to branch out as much as possible. So a little while ago, probably maybe a year, maybe back. I'll let the guest explain when he's in a second. I started following an account on TikTok and, and, you know, I'm into production and stuff as well, so. But this account really stuck out to me. His content was spectacular. The way he explains things about mixing, mastering, even production, I've never seen it explained that way, his graphics and stuff. So I'm going to let him introduce himself over to you, Zane. [00:00:51] Speaker B: Oh, that was a really nice introduction. So thank you for what you said there. Well, my name's Zane and I'm a producer, dj, mixing and mastering engineer. My artist's name is Moda. So I make my own music under Moda. Am I loud enough, by the way? [00:01:07] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. [00:01:08] Speaker B: Perfect. So I make music under Moda and I have done for a while. I've been producing music for about ten years or so. And a year or two ago, I started mixhaven, which is a content creation platform for me to basically reach out and talk about mixing and mastering, because there's so many well kept secrets in the mixing industry. And when I started learning music production, I didn't have any friends or tutors or anything. All I had was YouTube. So it took me a really long time to learn, get to the stage that I am now. And I think sometimes when you look stuff up online, there's so much information out there, it's so overwhelming. And that's how I felt, was overwhelmed. So I just wanted to kind of deliver it in bite sized chunks. So that's a really brief introduction to who I am. [00:02:02] Speaker A: Well, brilliant, because I actually saw your, one of your, you know, even on something simple as. As compression, I used. I use your, one of your slides and videos just to help me understand it a bit better, because I think you know what sort of compression it is. Compression is, but the ins and outs of it, like, just the way to how to use it and why to use it. Um, your. Your slides and TikTok explained that really, really well. But before I start, where have you been, Zane? Because, like, I've, um, I really miss your content. Like, I'd realize the other day, oh, where's Mixhaven content? It's not been there. Oh, let me chase him up, because I said this to you a while back, didn't I? Uh, I'd love to have you on the podcast. So that, that reminded me. So what you mean? [00:02:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I've, uh, I've been, I've been everywhere. So I've kind of. I have dropped off the map the past few months. Um, I've moved to. So I've moved from Plymouth down south in the UK up to currently living in Scunthorpe. I have family that live in Lincoln, which is just an hour south of where I am now. And I visit them every once in a while. And when I came up at the start of this year to visit family, I met a girl, fell very much in love. [00:03:15] Speaker A: As you do. [00:03:17] Speaker B: As you do. Dropped everything in Plymouth, which, you know, I had a chapter in Plymouth which spanned ten years that had already felt to me that it had come to a close. I just didn't know where I wanted to go next in life. And then this beautiful girl fell into my lap right at the right time, and I thought, this is it. So I've moved up north to be with her, be closer to family. It took us a little while longer to settle into a place, but we are now settled, you see, behind me, this is what we call our reading nook. So, uh, you, I don't know if you can see, you've got my helper there. That's Lena. Um, and this is where we come to hang out and chill. Um, and I've got my temporary studio set up here. Drum set. So I'm all set up and ready to go and new content is, uh, on the way. [00:04:05] Speaker A: So are you a drummer by, uh, uh, sort of, uh, instrument wise, just out of curiosity? [00:04:12] Speaker B: So I can't play any instruments. Um. Oh, my camera's gone, hasn't it? [00:04:16] Speaker A: That's all right, yeah, don't worry. Just switch it back on. [00:04:20] Speaker B: It's just the USB. [00:04:23] Speaker A: That's all right, yeah, carry on talking. Don't worry. We'll just. [00:04:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So I am. I don't play any instruments, so the drum set is actually a gift for my girlfriend spotted going cheap, and she's always wanted to start drumming. So, yeah, I just got it. And the idea is that once she starts learning and picking it up, then we can do little collaborations and join in one another and I can sample some of her drumming. And that's the idea. [00:04:57] Speaker A: That is so cool, Zane, because, you know what's interesting is how your partner is involved in your musical journey. Because my partner, my wife, she manages me musically and she, she's the one who gives me. Because we've got two kids and what? We just, we just had the second one in June, July. Sorry. [00:05:17] Speaker B: Congratulations. [00:05:19] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks. So we've got a newborn in the house and she's, she's like sort of uh, um, throwing a span in the works in music at the moment, but my wife, she still gives me time to dedicate to music, to practice and I'm learning piano at the moment, so just to put amazing up my repertoire, it's quite nice. So it's interesting how your partner's involved in your musical journey because for me it excel my musical journey big time. When you got someone behind you. [00:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah, she's so supportive. I mean, before we moved into, while we were looking for houses to live in, she was very adamant that we had a room spare for my studio, for my study. So she, she really wanted, she didn't want me to fall behind on my, my musical journey. So she's really supportive. I show her all of my new music, she goes to work and she plays it to her colleagues and she comes back and she tells you that they like it. So that's really nice. And yeah, I just, I want to get involved. We've sat down, I've done a bit of production with her, some light production with her. I, and yeah, the idea is to get a drum in for me. [00:06:31] Speaker A: She sounds amazing, to be fair. Yeah. So let's actually start the podcast properly. I was doing this kind of tangent, but how did you get into, did you start djing first or put or producing first? [00:06:48] Speaker B: So I always wanted to be a dj first. In fact, I remember specifically, I think I must have been about 14 years old. I asked my mum for some turntables for Christmas because I'd seen dj's on YouTube and stuff and I knew that that's kind of what I wanted to explore. So Father Christmas came and I woke up on Christmas Day and I had, I remember what it was called, it was called a new mark dj in the box. It came with two turntables and a mixer. So I hooked it up and I very quickly realized I don't have any vinyl, I don't know how to dj, I'm 14, I don't have a job, I don't have any money, I can't go out and buy vinyl. So this sat and it gathered dust for about two or three years and I don't think it ever really got properly used. But what I could do in the meantime was I could start producing. And I remember that day very clearly as well. Again, I was about 15 or 16 and I was watching a YouTube video of disclosure, the brothers from the UK, playing a live set at some festival. I think it might have been their festival. And I remember sat watching this set, being in absolute awe of these guys just playing music that they created to this crowd. And I went and I downloaded music software 30 minutes later, and I opened it and I was like, oh, my God, this is overwhelming. Once again, I don't know what I'm doing. So that then gathered dust for a few weeks until I eventually forced myself to learn. [00:08:22] Speaker A: Which software was it. Sorry, Zane. [00:08:25] Speaker B: Fl studio through and through. I've done fl the whole time. I've dabbled in Ableton and logic and others, and I know that obviously, Ableton is kind of the industry standard at the moment. That's what they're pushing in schools and stuff like that. And it is a fantastic piece of software, but I just. I feel a real connection with Fl studio. I know it like the back of my hand, and it's just where I feel most comfortable. [00:08:50] Speaker A: So that's like, at the start, you said you. You don't. You don't play an instrument, but in. In reality, that's your instrument, isn't it? Because, um, it is basically. That's your instrument. You mastered that. [00:09:04] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, I don't. I may not be able to pluck the strings of a guitar in a melodic way, or I could play a bit of piano. I definitely can't play the drums, but when it comes to turning dials and equations and all of the calculus behind synthesizers, that's where I get real nerdy. So in that sense, yes, I suppose you could class that as my instrument. If people. I don't like to class myself as a musician, I guess I am technically a musician, but I guess I'm like a new age electronic musician, I suppose you could say. [00:09:47] Speaker A: I suppose that's where there's a bit of almost maybe snobbery amongst musicians sometimes. Oh, you don't play anything that's not, you know, you don't play anything proficiently. I mean, and there's almost like, oh, well, that's not the case, because I think times have changed so much now where a door is. Is an instrument, because to master it, it takes a real, real long time. And you need that insight as well. You need that practice. You can't just jump. You can't just get up and just start doing it one day. Do you relate with that? [00:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. I mean, I've put in the same amount of hours as any other professional musician, and their instrument. Although I have access to digital versions of, say, guitars or pianos or organs or whatever, and using those digitally have given me a better understanding of how those instruments work. I still don't have the motor skills to play them myself, but there's still an awful lot of knowledge and time and hours and patience that goes into it over the years. So it's a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none type thing, I think. [00:11:08] Speaker A: Yeah, well, it's sort of from my experience, I'm not primarily a producer. I sing mainly and do play, play a bit of instruments here and there. But from my sort of, not to the best of my knowledge, you need you still, when you. When you start to produce, you need some sort of knowledge about chords and what, what key is what. That's the basis, and, and you can't produce without that. So you're already onto that, I think, because, because, because you can hear it as well. You, you know, stuff like dissonance and things like that. So, yeah, I think you're onto it already. [00:11:48] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, when you learn an instrument like a guitar or piano or whatever it is, drums, you. You're very much honed in on, on that specific instrument with music production, you learn. So you learn such a broader, you have a broader view of the music world. So, you know, I remember when I first started out, a lot of these tutorials I would watch, would say things like, don't worry if you can't hear this change, it's because your ears aren't trained yet. Your ears need training. Ear training kept coming up over and over and over again. And I was like, what the hell is ear training? And, you know, ear training isn't. It's. It's kind of like, this is how I described it to one of my clients once. Having your ears trained musically, it's kind of like being a chef, tasting a dish and knowing exactly what ingredients are in that dish. And that's not something you can watch a video on and learn how to do it. It just comes with time, and that's where the patience needs to come in to it. [00:12:51] Speaker A: See, that's why I've got you on this, on this podcast, because I've never seen it. I've never heard it better than that. That's why. So tell me about your journey. So you started producing and where did that lead? [00:13:09] Speaker B: So I started producing when I was again, about 1516. I originally went under the alias of Indigo Child, which I cringe very much at now in my older years, making just the most unbelievably atrocious music. And after a few years of sort of honing that. The funny thing is when you first start making music, and this is true for everyone, not just me, and I'm sure maybe you can relate to it as well. When you first start making music, or I, any hobby or professional craft, there's something called the Dunning Kruger effect, which is really interesting. It's where when you start something new, you overestimate your abilities. So you think you're better than you are, so your confidence shoots through the roof, so you think your music at the start sounds really good, when in actual fact it doesn't. And then as you get better, and the more you learn, the more you learn that you have more to learn, so your confidence goes down. And then. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the imposter syndrome, which is where you're so talented, so you have so many hours behind you that you kind of look at yourself as a fraud, almost, and you don't quite believe that you are as good as you are. So it's really important, I think, to understand the Dunning Kruger effect and the imposter syndrome when you're starting out. I know that that wasn't the question you asked me, so I'm going to go back to that now. The journey started things, so, yeah, started making music in my bedroom, of course. And then when I turned 18, I sent a message, a Facebook message, to all of the clubs and bars in Lincoln, East Midlands, where I was living at the time. And I basically said, look, I would dj in your club for free if you just have me on. And the only bar that replied was a bar called the scene, which is the only gay bar in Lincoln. Fantastic venue. Such a vibe in there. They were the only bar that replied to me. So I ended up playing Sunday nights there for about seven or eight months for free. They gave me a few drinks and stuff. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know what kind of music the clientele wanted. They wanted Madonna and, you know, that kind of stuff. Beatles and ABBA. I was just playing a heavy, heavy bass line because I was 18 and I didn't know what I was doing. And then, yeah, shortly after that, I moved down to Plymouth. Moved down to Plymouth University. This was ten years ago, almost exactly coming up to eleven now, I think, actually. And I continued my djing and production down there. By this point, I'd renamed myself to waves. I don't know why. It just felt right at the time. Again, I cringe at that now. I soon changed that after I realized there was a cafe named waves by the sea, which was just put a damper on things. I massively upped my dj game in Plymouth. I got myself my first residency, or my second residency rather my first, in Plymouth at a bar called Cuba. Cuba isn't there anymore, sadly. I worked in Cuba for about four years. I worked at the bar and I also djed there. It was a very, very important time in my life because I was at this time between the ages of maybe 18 and 22, 23. I met some of the best friends of my life in that bar. We've all grown up together and we're all still in touch now, even though I've moved away. So a lot of the core people in my life are from this bar, from this first residency in Plymouth, producing on the sides. Couple years into it, I'm struggling. I'm trying to find an identity. I'm having this identity crisis and I think every artist goes through it at some point, you know, who do I want to be? What kind of music do I want to make? And I'm scratching my head a lot. And then one of my mates turned around to me and said, why don't you just go by the name Zane T? It's a cool name. I was like, yeah, fair enough. So I then went under under Zane T for a few years and you can actually still listen to Zane T's music on Spotify. It's a separate account. Got my first big hit with Zane Tachyde. A song, a remix that I made, was picked up by a dj called Don Diablo, who is one of the biggest dj's in the world. Played on his radio that blew up to, I think, about 200,000 views in, what, overnight. And then, yeah, continue producing, continued djing, and then we enter the. The chapter of MoDa. Do you want me to continue into that chapter now or did you have anything else you wanted to ask before I do? [00:18:25] Speaker A: I've got loads of questions just there. We'll pick up a modae. Just two things you said, like, which really stuck out to me. The first was the imposter syndrome and I can't remember the other. The other terminology you used was the. [00:18:39] Speaker B: Dunhole effect tooling Kruger effect, dunning Kruger. [00:18:44] Speaker A: So, yeah, that. Both of those I can really relate with because when I was probably 1617 and I was singing, I didn't have any fear at all. But now, like right now, I'm scared to sing. Like, sometimes I'm thinking, oh, gosh, have I hit a bum note here? Have I done this? You over analyze. So I thought, I totally relate, but I didn't know I knew about the imposter syndrome, but I didn't know about the other one that I still can't remember the done. [00:19:14] Speaker B: In Kruger. [00:19:16] Speaker A: I was gonna remember Freddy Kruegere. Yeah. So I didn't know that was a thing as well. So that's fascinating. It's, it's, this is why I've got you on here, Zane, because honestly, you're, it feels like you're the type of persons right down my street who I can learn often, and hopefully, hopefully we'll continue this relationship. [00:19:40] Speaker B: Oh, definitely. [00:19:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So the other thing that stood out for me was, um, the, uh, you, the, the, your identity, finding your identity as a musician. I still struggle with that as well, because the problem I've got, so you might be able to chip in into this, is that primarily, I'm a Bangra artist. I don't know whether you're aware of Bangra. [00:20:04] Speaker B: I'm aware of Bangra, yeah. I love Bangra, actually. I'm quite a fan. [00:20:07] Speaker A: The problem is that Bangra has become very stagnant in the sense of it's got, so the, initially you had, like, the, you know, the Punjabi MC stuff that was going on that was massive worldwide, you know, Mundi at the Bach get a night ride again. [00:20:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:26] Speaker A: So initially you had that, but now the scene, because let me tell you something. The, the Bangram music was invented in the UK. But you didn't know that. [00:20:37] Speaker B: I didn't know that, actually. No, no. [00:20:39] Speaker A: Bangram, the moo, the dance and the folk music was in it from India. But the, the music that weren't popular was invented in the UK because it's a type of fuji music, because the immigrants who came here, they adopted a lot of western stuff and they started making their own music, and that's where it started. So initially, that Bangro whole scene, which is worldwide now, was invented in the UK, which is something the UK should be proud of, really, I think. And what happened. So what's happened now is that it's going to Canada and the hip hop scenes really infiltrated. So Bangra is not so Bangra anymore. It's, um, it's very different. So coming back to the point of identity, I was trying, I'm trying to think, okay, how can I like rock? Um, that's my sort of. I love eighties rock, seventies rock, like, sort of, uh, um, bon Jovi and metallica and things like that, you know, but so I'm kind of like, that's my influences as, like a. Like a musician. But I'm just thinking, how can I fuse that with. With Bangra and make it still sound good? So, yeah, I just wondered whether you had any insights into that, because finding your identity as a musician is really, really tough. [00:21:50] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. I think identity and identity crisis is genuinely one of the most prevalent issues in. In all our artistry, I think. Not just music, but all forms of art, poetry, writing. Hang on. Dogs barking. No one's there. Don't worry. It's a really, really big hurdle that artists need to sort of not necessarily climb over, because it's. It's not. I think people mistake identity crisis as an obstacle when it's not necessarily an obstacle that you have to overcome. It's. It's. It's more of a puzzle that you have to unlock. Right. So, um, a lot of artists, I've seen a lot of my clients stagnate in their early days because they get frustrated because they can't come up with anything new. They're trying to be unique, and they're trying to be. They're trying to stand out, and I totally understand the need to do that. But what people need to understand is that 99% of the time, you're not going to stand out to begin with. You're not going to be unique, and you're not going to come up with anything new to begin with. That is going to come organically as you grow as a person. So, you know, a lot of artists will turn their nose up at the idea of copying other artists, or, like you said, trying to fuse two styles together. I think that's really important. Sampling is really, sampling is a whole other discussion for later, but sampling is really important in music. So my advice would be copy your favorite artists, copy your favorite styles, try and blend them together, see what works. You're going to get a lot of misses, but, you know, something amazing might come out of that. And as you learn, because you're always going to learn, even through your failings. So as you continue to fail and continue to learn, then you will eventually mold yourself into something unique. Don't go looking for unique from the get go. It's just not going to work. I hope that answers your question. I don't know if I want to understand you there. [00:24:07] Speaker A: That is fascinating. My wife's going to hear this, and she's going to say, well, Zay knows what? Because we've tried. Trust me, we've tried, like, sort of, because I also like electronic music as well. So if you look at. Listen to my back catalog, some of the stuff is like very electronic fusion with bangra, but it didn't quite work. Even though the song. If you. If you hear that, you probably like the song. Like, any. Anyone who's not a bangra head will like the song, but people who like Bangra, they won't like it. So it's almost like you're trying to. [00:24:38] Speaker B: It's. It's one of those things where you could blend two of these sounds together and it's like, it's. Sometimes it's not always as simple as, does it work or not? That's very black and white. You know, for you to determine truly if something works or not, you'd have to show that product to the entire population of the world and get a census. Realistically, you're only going to be showing it to a very, very small percentage of the population, a very few people. And for the majority of people, they don't like new things. So you're going to get a lot of pushback. That is one of the problems. So I got a piece of advice once. I can't remember who it was from, but I was having this same discussion with someone years ago about identity and trying new styles. And I said, I feel like the music I'm putting out is good, but it's just not getting the reception it needs. What am I doing wrong? This is really frustrating. And he said, look, at the end of the day, make music for you. If you like the music you're making, somebody else will like it somewhere and you may not find those people straight away. So again, the patience comes in, the persistence comes in. If you have this fusion of anger and. What was it you said? [00:26:00] Speaker A: Electronic music or a bit of rock here or there? Yep. [00:26:04] Speaker B: So that's, from what I understand, that's very niche. Okay, so because the. The concept is niche, the audience is going to be niche. Doesn't mean it's not out there. You just got to kind of push through with that. And I've completely forgotten the point I was building up to there. [00:26:23] Speaker A: You were saying your colleague was telling you about. About identity, that you can't reach out to everyone. [00:26:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's right. Yeah. So if you like the music, if you like the song, if you like the art that you've made, someone else out there will like it. It doesn't mean you should give up on it because you're not getting 100,000 streams on it straight away. A lot of this originality, a lot of this new concept that we're making is unfortunately going to get buried, especially in the era of TikTok nowadays, and short form content consumption, it's very, very difficult. Doesn't mean you shouldn't try. And it could. That's what I was going to say. It could be the diffusion that you're making. It might not be that it's not good, it might be that it's not the right time. You know, like, I've done it in the past where I produced. I've gone to try a style of music which just hasn't stuck. And then five years later it's blown up. Or maybe five years before it was big and it's no longer popular, you know, so it's something to bear in mind, definitely. [00:27:29] Speaker A: That's. That was absolutely amazing. Really insightful. Yeah. The other thing I have noticed is what. What you. In relation to what you're saying, fusion, fusion music, is that I've seen people like new producers, what they do this sample a lot of old songs, distort it slightly to get that familiarity and then change the music. But because I'm a singer, I can't really do that. In that essence, what they do, they just sample. And that. I find that goes viral very fast on TikTok. Have you experienced that yourself, or. [00:28:09] Speaker B: I haven't experienced any virality on TikTok from myself in that sense, because my content is primarily education based. However, I see it in others all the time. What people are playing on there is nostalgia. I mean, we've gone through so many decades of music and, I mean, you have. You know, the nineties dance music scene has been rehashed so many times. Like you had the early 2010s, where you had people like Oliver Helden's Tiesto Armin van Buren. And, you know, a lot of those dutch and european artists rehashing and resampling the old nineties stuff, bringing it back to a modern flavor. And now it's happening again where they're doing it slightly different. I don't know if you listen to a lot of the charts and popular music, but what they're doing now is they're resampling that nineties music again, but this time they're changing the lyrics. So think about, like, I'm blue, David, who is it? I can't remember who it is, but I'll see if I can find it and give you an example later. But, yeah, what they're doing is they're sticking with those familiar melodies, but they're changing the lyrics to be new lyrics written by modern artists. So again, they're tapping into that nostalgia, you know, the melody. Oh, but these are new lyrics that I can sing along to, or they're adding lyrics to instrumentals, you know, that were previously big in years gone. So that's what people are really tapping into, is nostalgia. Because when, you know, in a world where originality is so scarce, people will default to nostalgia to get those hits, to get those plays, because unfortunately. Well, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, nostalgia hits hard. Nostalgia wins over originality in a lot of cases. It's very rare that you have a new upcoming artist. Wren is a brilliant example of a new upcoming artist. I don't know if you're familiar with him. [00:30:33] Speaker A: May have is he's in the charts right now. [00:30:37] Speaker B: I'm not sure if he is right now, but he was this completely massive tick tock sensation within the last year or so. He's a rapper. He plays acoustic guitar. He talks a lot about raps, a lot about mental health. But the visuals that he does, the lyrics, he kind of raps to himself as if he was two different Personas. And I've never seen anything done like it before. Really unique, really original, huge sensation. Great example of unique and originality breaking through. But that's amongst the storm of nostalgia rehashing, which I'm not saying is a bad thing. But again, this goes back to what I was saying earlier. It's hard to be original from the get go. [00:31:21] Speaker A: Hi, guys. This is Raj Kul. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast. If you want to support the rest of my. If you could go and check me out on Spotify on Apple Music and add my songs to your playlists if you like them. Thank you. That's absolutely sort of fascinating, I've got to say. My wife's going to actually love this podcast. I think it's going to be her favorite episode because of the insight, because we're always trying to. Because we're all trying to improve in music and the music business as well. So we're all trying to learn and think, okay, what. How can we improve from my last project into the next project? And we don't want to sort of keep going from, you know, start what? Change the style of music to the different style of music. My emphasis is always on melody. So, you know, the traditional bangra melodies and stuff, keeping that authentic, but changing the music around it. So that's always been my style. But it's really interesting you say that, but let's get back to you. So let's get back to your journey as. Was it modern? Was it? Yep. [00:32:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Moda. Yes. So I started Moda. Moda was the next, and in a way, still the current chapter of my music career and really the biggest as well. It's kind of the highest point on the ladder so far. So I originally started Moda with a friend of mine called Matt in Plymouth a few years ago. I want to say maybe four or five years ago now. So time flies. Matt and I were DJ's. I was djing for a few events with him, and I went on holiday, and we were discussing ghost production, actually, which for any viewers aren't aware. Ghost production is where you, as an artist, write a song or a production, and you sell it to someone else and they put their name on it and pretend they wrote it. It's a bit of a gray area. Some people disagree with it. Some people think it's a good way to make money. It's what I was doing those few years ago to make a bit of money to get by, because I had this skill set and nobody was recognizing me. But there were people out there willing to buy some songs I would write for them. It's not something I do now, but it's a chapter of my life. So Matt said to me, look, I have this knowledge of the industry. I've been putting on events for years. I know labels, I know event organizers. You have the music production skill with both dj's. Why don't we team up and do something? And I was like, wow, okay. You know, this is in the height of my identity crisis, so I'm like, this is it. Like, I can see this. So clearly. We both agreed on a sound and a style that we wanted to do. Originally. Moder was more sort of bass heavy house music, which was really popular at the time. And so we teamed up, we came up with the name Moda, and we put out our first ep, which was a three track ep. It was called Binary. Being obviously, the two of us, we did a load of awesome promo leading up to it. The whole theme of Binary was ones and zeros. And we were putting up these little codes on social media of, like, the ones and zeros, and people were trying to decode it, coming up with dates for the release date and stuff. And it was all as hype around it, and it was so much fun. And although the three tracks on there were awake, binary and Invasion, and there was a very Sci-Fi theme to it. I'm a big Sci-Fi nerds. Massive sci-fi nerd. So we put this out and we never released it officially. So we put it out for streaming but we never released it for download. So we always wanted this original piece, this launch piece of motor to be just for us. We wanted people to want it but not be able to have it. So I think we gave it to a handful of friends but we never made it available for download. We kept it as a dub. That's what you call a piece of music that a producer makes that they don't release. They call it a dub. And then it did really well. It was received really well. We then went on to make our first single, which was called Spaceships. We signed that to our first record label, which was Yosh or Yosh Pit, which is ran by four f o o r. Great group of guys. That song, spaceships got picked up by an artist called Yellow y three ll. He is from myanmar, I believe, and over there he's like a huge superstar. And he sent me a video of him playing this song, spaceships to God, I don't know how many people were there. Like, there was just this ocean of people and it was the most breathtaking thing I've ever seen in my life. Like, I couldn't believe it. And we, we then got the following day. This lasted for about seven days. We had this influx of just people just liking and following our page on Facebook, just hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people from Myanmar. And it was insane. It was really crazy. And then we did a song called War Mode. War Modes was signed to a label called 3000 Bass. It's a label I always wanted to sign on at the time. And then we moved on to a track called Obelisk, which signed to Crewcast. Crewcast is one of the biggest base labels in the UK. That was such a big stepping stone for us. And at this point im thinking, wow, this is going somewhere. We make a good team and this is the difference it makes. When you find your identity, when you settle into your identity and you have that vision forward and you can just start slamming out the tunes, the success just rolls in organically. It's such a big difference rather than kind of feeling like you're lost and wandering around and not knowing what you're doing. And that came organically. So yeah, I think we've got about 40, 45 songs out in Tokyo. Yeah, yeah. Moda is just me at the moment. So Matt has a couple of years ago, Matt moved away, got married, had a kid. So he's living his dream life at the moment and as a result of that, isn't able to participate in Moda anymore. So after that period, I started writing this album, which I'll talk to you about the album a bit later because I want to break up the stories. But, yeah, so we. I think by this point, we'd signed to. I think in total. No, it was signed to about ten or eleven labels, which is just something that I never thought would be possible. But it's, you know, this is the point where I start to realize that this is really going somewhere. [00:38:56] Speaker A: How did you sort of. The challenge I have was sort of getting your music discovered. Was that. Was that a lot to do with the label or was it, was it your hard work that you put in? Are you and your fellow business partner? [00:39:16] Speaker B: Yes. So it was a combination of an amalgamation of things. So Matt had, like I said, he had a lot of contacts with a lot of big artists, radio hosts, because we were getting radio plays as well, which I'd never had before. This is all to do with Matt's help, funnily enough, there was a Facebook group that we're a part of, a really, really popular, active Facebook group for the bass music community in the UK, which I believe it's still present, but I think it's no longer active, at least not in the capacity it was before it was called Legoland. But Lengolandhe it was. It was a really great community. We kind of found our audience in there and we were signing to labels. We were very driven when it came to the labels, so we were sending. But what we were doing, we actually had a plan of action in mind. So we weren't shooting for big labels, we were shooting for smaller, medium sized labels to begin with, labels who were more likely to read and reply to emails, labels who were more likely to accept these songs as part of their catalog, a catalog of which we have well researched and decided it would be a good fit. So we weren't blindly sending out demos, we were very precise in where we were sending them to and we were active. We were active in our local community. We were playing gigs all over the city and surrounding areas. So this network started to grow and grow through our local community, through this Facebook group, which was UK based, until we started signing to labels in Denmark and France and even Los Angeles, who signed us to a small label there. But, yeah, it was. It was very. It was very precision cut method. [00:41:24] Speaker A: Wow, that's fascinating. Yeah. So just a bit about your production, but we'll move on to your story in a second. So when you started producing, you said you learned from YouTube. Is that correct? [00:41:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it's all I had. So I literally would go on to YouTube and I'd type in how to make music, how to make future house was my obsession back then. So, you know, Oliver Helden's mesto and a lot of the spinning records younger roster were really my big influences. So, you know, and I just, I'd follow step by step what they were doing on there, I wouldn't understand what I was doing on a deeper level. I was just copying on the surface. And I do think that is a very good way to learn. It's a slow way to learn because I think it is better to have a tutor or a friend or an artist who can actually sit down with you and tell you specifically, one to one, what you're doing. But if you don't have that YouTube, such a great resource. And that was how I got started. [00:42:35] Speaker A: That's fascinating because I always struggle with YouTube. I think know when you have, um, uh, when you rush things and you want, you want the answer fast, pretty fast, straight away, rather than lots of, okay, as you said, you slow it down, take it step by step. So I struggle with that. And in particular, I've always struggled with the percussion side of things like drum, especially when I'm sort of having, say, I've got sort of, um, uh, live drums and in it and live drums, there's a almost like, which I've learned now because I spoke to a smoke of cam frantic, his name. He's an, he's a renowned producer. So he says, look, you got to look at the sway. And that, that threw me. Like, there's a sort of. Because sometimes live instruments, they don't have. They're not exactly on. Always on the beat. [00:43:26] Speaker B: Ah, the swing. [00:43:27] Speaker A: Yes, swing. Sorry, mom. [00:43:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:43:29] Speaker A: Tell them not producer, then. The swing. That's it. [00:43:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. That's right. [00:43:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Because I'm not a producer, so that's what he taught me. And. But I'm still not perfect with it at the moment. And just, just getting that, that. Getting that in my head. Getting all the sort of layers of drums and stuff like that in my head. Have you got any advice on that? On the drum part? [00:43:52] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. So swing is, like you just said, to rephrase, swing is the humanized component or the humanized effect on percussion, for example. So if you have a live drummer going ham on a drum set, if you were to. As professional as they may be, if you were to slow that down, not every drum hit is going to be perfectly on beat. There's going to be microseconds either side and depending on what style you're going for, that swing is going to vary. Now, when you program drums on a piece of electronic music software, daw Daw, by default they're very much calculated to be by the milliseconds programmed on beat. Now this is good for electronic dance music, house music. You want those kick drums, boom, boom, boom to be hitting the exact same millisecond every time. However, if you are going for something that's got more of a live feel to it, but you don't have a live drummer, swing is going to be really helpful. So you. There's lots of different ways you can incorporate swing into your drum samples. You could genuinely zoom in on your grid and move each drum sample. Might. Sorry about that, I didn't even hear it. Don't worry. Yeah, but yeah, you could individually move the samples left and right and basically take them off grid a little bit to give that live feel. That's one way you could do it. There are other plugins as well that will read the samples that you've input and it will apply swing for you. I know that fruity loops, FL 20, which is what I use, has a built in swing dial. So you can program kicks and claps and you can turn the swing dial up and it will move them off grid a little bit. So it all depends on the style that you're going for. If you do want a live music feel, swing's definitely a good thing. [00:46:02] Speaker A: But obviously the issue I had with the live drum. Sorry to interrupt you, is that say you had live drums in and it doesn't quite sound right. So that's what Cam was trying to correct when I spoke to him. He says how. How would I know? Is it, is it a case of where you keep doing it until you get it right? So how do you know where the live. How, where the live drums would sit? [00:46:30] Speaker B: Are you talking about when you say getting it right? Are you talking about the positioning of each individual sample? Yeah. [00:46:38] Speaker A: So, so say you've got like a song and you've got like a normal drum, like you got the click but. And you've got the rest of the track. But when you put these live drums on and they're slightly out and it doesn't sound quite right. [00:46:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:53] Speaker A: And how would you just. Is that something that comes with, with. [00:46:58] Speaker B: So a good rule of. A good rule of thumb is if you're trying to emulate a live drummer, and this live drummer you're trying to emulate is a professional drummer who is very good at drumming. You're going to want to introduce swing very, very subtly. So, in other words, the swing amount of the drums, you're not going to be want. You don't want to audibly hear it. So you don't want to hear that this kick is. Oh, that kick was way too off there, or that snare was off, because that's too much swing. You want it to be so subtle that you can't hear it. But it just feels like if you close your eyes, you can picture, like, someone playing the drums. If you have no swing at all and they're all programmed immediately on grid, it will sound quite robotic and repetitive, which, you know, some. Some people may not even pick up on that. So it's all to do in the subtleties. And again, it's. It's more to do with the feeling. So how. How are you introducing swing into your drums? Are you doing it manually or do you have a plugin? [00:48:07] Speaker A: So, just for argument, I've got this track and basically I had a logic default beat. And then I've introduced some live indian percussion in it, which is. Which has been played professionally, but that live indian percussion doesn't quite marry up with the actual logic beat because it's on. The logic beats on time. So I'm trying to put add swing onto that beat to match it up, and I'm struggling thinking it still doesn't sound quite right. [00:48:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got you. So I think the problem you might be having there is when you are introducing swing to a beat. So you've introduced this extra percussion, percussion, which is more sort of swingy. Right. So it's going to be more offbeat. The more layers of drums you have, the more drums you have hitting off beat until it gets to a point where it's going to sound really messy because they're all hitting in random places. So if you have this robotic, synced up or syncopated beat that the computer has generated for you or Ableton's provided for you, and then you have this swing beat, this more natural swing beat, it's very unlikely that they're going to work together. So my advice would be either to zoom in to your Ableton provided syncopated beat and chop it up and move the individual components to be more in line with the swung beat. [00:49:40] Speaker A: Gotcha. [00:49:41] Speaker B: Or remove it completely and look for a similar beat that is live recorded. [00:49:47] Speaker A: Guys, I just want to stop. Stop Zane for a second because I don't want to. Zane's giving me all this advice, but I actually want to just give a little plug in for you. Zane, you do mentoring as well, don't you, for people? [00:50:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I do. I've just started it back up, obviously, after the move. So I actually do one to one sessions like this with screen recording and. Yeah. [00:50:12] Speaker A: So, guys, if any of you are interested, I might actually take you up on that. Zane. I think my wife's going to say, go and contact Zane. So if any of you guys are interested in in mentoring, I mean, you can see Zane knows what he's on about. And it's not just. I haven't just brought in any, any Tom de Canary. Basically, I brought someone who knows what they were on about. So make sure you contact Zayn, because as you can see, the way he explains things, which is why I brought him. Zane. Zane. Because honestly, I've never seen anyone explain production and, and technical terms as well as you have, even on YouTube. Honestly, I'm not just saying that. This is why I found your content and I messaged you. I said, would you? I'm missing your content because even. Even though you're not teaching me directly that content was so valuable and it brought me so much value because, you know, when you go on the clear out of your social media feed after, oh, this person's not really bringing me value, and then you notice, I noticed that you're not on there, I think, where's your content gone? So I'm so glad you're getting back into it. So. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for that. I just want to give you a push for that because, you know what? [00:51:19] Speaker B: I think I actually really needed to hear that because I've been out of the game for quite a few months now. I'm at a stage now where, like I said, I'm ready to get back into it, but I'm kind of in that attitude right now where it's like, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it next week. So actually hearing that is inspired me. [00:51:39] Speaker A: No, honestly, Zainab, I'm not just saying it because I've had some, lots of world class musicians on this podcast who have sort of worked on a world level. And there may be, technically, there may be right up there. But I think I've learned more from you because of the way you explain things and the way you describe things as well. And sort of your analogies you use. So thank you again. [00:52:14] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I think that's why I do this is because I've always had a passion for, as egotistical as it sounds, talking and teaching because I have adhd. So it's really difficult for me to stay focused. So when I'm watching tutorials and I'm getting all of this, you know, that it's like a 20 minutes tutorial, which is for something that could be explained in 30 seconds. I don't. I get frustrated. So, you know, I like to pick out the key bits of information and find a way to compress that, pardon the pun, into something that is bite sizing and easily accessible to the ears, you know? So. Yeah, I appreciate what you said there. Thank you. [00:52:59] Speaker A: Yeah. So anyway, let's. Let's carry on. That's. That's enough of my talking about my. My technical problems. I'll probably contact you outside of this. And would it be okay if we. [00:53:10] Speaker B: If we just pause to get a drink? [00:53:12] Speaker A: Of course you can. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:53:13] Speaker B: Appreciate that. [00:53:14] Speaker A: I'll just hit the pause button. [00:53:15] Speaker B: Yeah, no worries, man. Yeah, sure. [00:53:20] Speaker A: Hey, guys, we're back from that little break from a little water break, I think. You're drinking coke, aren't you? [00:53:26] Speaker B: I am brew. [00:53:27] Speaker A: Awesome. I am awesome. Yeah. So. So what? I've got loads more questions in regard to this. There's a few, few little subjects, but I just want to. Want you to finish off your story. Then we'll discuss any after bits afterwards because I want to discuss stuff like AI with you and. And your social media platform as well. So. Yeah, go for it. Yeah. So what happened after Boulder? Yep. [00:53:50] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So. So where were we? So I had signed. We'd signed to a few labels by this point and our next big break was. Or really our first big break with Moda was signing a two track ep to a record label called Gold Digger, a french record label. And we had the pleasure of collaborating with an mc called DreadMc, who is just an incredible guy all around. He used to. I don't know if he still does, but he emceed for a production duo called my new Leng and I was really big fans of them. So he invited us to record with him in his studio in Bristol and we went up there and we had this incredible session. He recorded some vocals for us and I. We released a song called debts and we later use some excess vocal recording to release a song called no talk on a Bristol bass label. So we got a lot more traction from that, and it also expanded us into Europe. And then where did we go from there? It feels like it was so long ago. Let me have a quick look at Soundcloud. So, yeah, we signed Debts EP, which was a real big one, and then. What do we have here? Spare with me a second. Sorry if I'm. [00:55:30] Speaker A: Don't worry. Take your time. Take your time. [00:55:37] Speaker B: Yeah, so we were churning out. I mean, I think we were averaging a song a month at this point, so we're doing about twelve to 14 songs a year. So, you know, this is the. The most productive I had ever been, and it really was because I had Matt by my side. And although Matt didn't produce, he brought so much value to the duo in other ways that a lot of people didn't understand. Like, you know, a lot of these connections and the insight he had into the industry was so valuable to me, and we made a really, really good team. So was he the. [00:56:22] Speaker A: Was he sort of the brains behind it, like, in terms of the business side, would you say? [00:56:27] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely, yeah, a hundred percent. He's a bit older than me, so he's got those years under his belt already, and it's, you know, it's a real shame that he's no longer able to participate in because, you know, life gets in the way, and I understand that. But, yeah, he. I think that he had. He added value to it in so many ways, but the most valuable thing that he added to the group was that he kept me focused. He gave me this vision, and he provided this environment where he could really let me be creative and let my sort of ideas flow, because without he kind of, like, paved this road forward for me to follow. Without that, I would still be wandering around, you know? So that's what I'm really grateful for. I mean, we. Yeah, so we did the french EP. Ah, yeah, that was it. So the second track on this debt, CP, which was signed to the french label, is called Mockman. Mockman was a bass house tune with an artist called Koi Kkoi, who is an emcee from Plymouth, where I was the past ten years. Really good friend of mine, one of the most high energy, positive people you'll ever meet in your entire life. He can walk into a room full of people that he doesn't know, and instantly everyone loves him. He's such a powerful presence to be around, and he's so talented as well. So we wrote this song, mock man together, and we put it out and it did. It didn't do quite as well as debts with dread mc. But it was picked up by someone called Mister Traumatic, who is an emcee in the UK, very, very popular artist. Now, K Coy, Chris. Chris and Mister traumatic were friends on Facebook. So he saw the post and he commented, this is a really sick tune. Can I jump on this and do a verse on. It's like a vip version. So he called me up and he was screaming and shouting and jumping for joy. Yeah. Yo, man, like Mister Paul White wants to jump on this. This is sick and this is embarrassing to admit, but at the time I was like, oh, that's really cool. I don't know who this is. So I had to actually because I wasn't aware of this artist at the time. So I had to look into him and look him up rather. And he was big, he's a big artist. So we did this VIP version. It's called Mockman the vip to k Coy and Mister traumatic. And we're steadily approaching 2 million on that track now. [00:59:25] Speaker A: Wow. [00:59:27] Speaker B: I mean it hit its first million in a few months. It was growth like I'd never seen before. And I mean, he absolutely piggybacked us that way. But the track, of course, was clearly still well received. Now, mister Traumatic releases a very different style of music. So this was kind of stepping out of his comfort zone as well to work with us. And now, in hindsight, I do appreciate the fact that he gave us that chance. So much. So that was and still is to date our biggest track, I think across all streaming platforms, Spotify, YouTube and such. We are in the region of 2 million, not quite there, but just under. And that opened up a load more doors for us and we kind of, that was our peak. But I'd actually like to sort of take a minute to talk about peaking because there were a lot of, there were some downsides to this, actually. With peaking with this track, we were kind of, if you imagine we were kind of steadily rowing and then boom, kind of went like that overnight. There's a lot of pressure involved with that. You know, the next song we release, there's no chance that's going to get anywhere near what that song reached. And it didnt. And the song after that and the song after that and the song after that and it didnt. And were seeing our stats go down because our stats have now been skewered by this massive bump and thats not nice to look at on a daily basis. Its not nice to see your stats going down instead of up. So it introduced a lot of pressure. And it actually kind of put me off a bit because in my younger years, I'm now thinking, well, I've got to live up to this standard every single song. I now realize that that was an unrealistic expectation to set myself, but I think a lot of people do it. And that's one of the problems with hitting overnight success, is it does take a toll on you in that sense. But I'll break it up there for you because there's still a bit more to talk about. But if you had any more questions relating to what I've just said, I'll give a chance. [01:01:56] Speaker A: It's really fascinating that you say that. I mean, especially how your numbers get skewed. And I'm just thinking, I'm just trying to relate to that because, I mean, we as artists have. So I've never had nowhere near as being as successful as that, but I can still relate because some tracks, they. They do well and then they do on average, and then suddenly you just drop in popularity and. Yeah, it's a bit of a tough one, that is. [01:02:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it is a tough one because essentially I've gone from this bedroom producer that is known well, amongst my friends. Let me fix that. No, well, amongst my friends and family, to this guy overnight who is quite literally being stopped in nightclubs for pictures. Genuinely, this has happened so many times, especially when I've been with Chris Keikoi, the other featuring artist, on the song. We've had people coming up to us reciting the lyrics to the song that even. I don't know, you know, I've been. I've played gigs up in. Up in Glasgow, the other end of the country, and people have come up to us and referenced the song or come and spoken to us. So that was so surreal. And then, you know, so I said there were a couple of downsides to that. One of those was being the pressure. The other side is the ego. I think ego is something that we're all really susceptible to. Nobody wants to admit that, but it did feed my ego. It did inflate my ego for a little while, you know. And when that started to deplete, those numbers starting to deplete, started to deplete. And the recognition that I was receiving publicly was starting to deplete. It impacts you, you know, and it's something that's quite difficult to grow out of because once that starts happening or even before that starts happening, you are constantly, as an artist, you might, I'm sure you can relate. You're constantly comparing yourself to other artists, you're constantly feeling like you're in this race. You're seeing people around you, your friends, your colleagues, doing well, and youre happy for them, but youre feeling bad because youre not keeping up with that. And that is also really, really quite damaging. So youve got the pressure of trying to keep up those standards of the numbers. Youve got this massive inflation of ego, which has come out of nowhere overnight, and then youve got what I just mentioned. It's, it completely flips the paradigm of what you're doing. Yeah, it's, it's a weird one. [01:05:06] Speaker A: So if you went back, this is just a thoughtful question. If you went back, and I was going to use the word capitalize on it, but that might not be the right word, if you went back, how would you do things differently going back after that success? [01:05:25] Speaker B: That's a really good question. [01:05:29] Speaker A: It's quite insightful. Like, you know, if an artist out there listening, listening to us has a, has, has that kind of success, because we have that. And I had a similar thing in my podcast, whereas one of my podcast episodes just went to 10,000 views, which is quite a lot for, like a YouTube video, for me, like a small, definitely a growing podcaster, and it went to 10,000 views, and the other ones went back down to a few hundred, like, which is, which is growing. So, yeah, so I'll let you think about that one. [01:06:03] Speaker B: I mean, I don't know if or how I would do anything differently because, and this is such a cliche answer, we've all heard it a million times. But, you know, I'm a strong believer in everything happens for a reason. Everything in your past is there on purpose to form and shape you so that you can become a better person. I don't know if I would necessarily change anything if I were to go back. There's definitely a way that I would have preferred it to go, which I would have probably preferred a more gradual rise to success. And I use the word success lightly because success is, of course, it's, it's relative to the person. But in terms of Spotify streams, let's say, in relation to success, I would have preferred it to be a more gradual rise. I seem to remember Matt at one point, I think we were in a nightclub, and I'd had a few drinks after a set, and I think Matt took me to one side and he's saying, palm your ego a little bit. I know it's exciting, but just, and I was like, you're right, this is not me, you know, so I don't think I would change anything. I think I learned a lot of lessons from that. I learned lessons in modesty. I learned lessons in growth. So I think in the long run, I benefited a lot from that, even though in the time, there are a lot of negative effects from that. Instant success overnight. So there's definitely, like I said, I would have preferred a gradual rise in success that I could visually see and appreciate every day. I think that's another thing. You appreciate gradual growth because you see it day to day. If you blow up overnight, you can't appreciate that. There's no room or time for you to appreciate that. So that's. That would be my answer to that. [01:08:03] Speaker A: I think I can really relate to that, actually, Zayn, because, like, we're always looking for that. Oh, yes, the next song is going to be the big one, but that's not actually the case. And that shouldn't be outlook, should, it should be. Okay, next one. Building upon that, you're building upon, building upon. Building upon each track. And that's how we should, as musicians, we should aim to do our music. Do you agree with that? [01:08:31] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly like I said, and it was around this time that I received that advice. If you liked the music, someone else out there would like it. And I think that's so important is that it gets to a point like it did for me, that you get a taste of this success and you want more of it. You want more of that dopamine hit. So you start making music for that dopamine hit, you start making music for that success. So you, you might try and make a song that's similar to that one that blew up and it just doesn't work. And that's a, that's a kick in the teeth. So my remedy to that, my potion to that was writing my first album for Moda, which is kind of like the next and most recent chapter of the. Of the saga, if I can be big headed enough to call it that. And the whole idea behind this album was me breaking out of this ego was breaking out of this, breaking out of these confines that I had set myself and trying new styles, styles that I knew wouldn't be received well by my fan base that I'd established. And kind of knowing that I take that hit in plays for the opportunity to try something new and grow as an artist. [01:09:59] Speaker A: And how did that, what was the response like? [01:10:07] Speaker B: Well, the story of the album is quite funny, so I'd always wanted to write an album. When I say album. I've always wanted to write a body of work that was cohesive and made sense and had a theme and had a story to it. Ever since I started, ever since I watched that disclosure video when I was 1415, whatever it was, I've always had that idea, but it's never come to fruition. So numbers are dwindling. I'm starting to fall into a depression, which I didn't know at the time. I didn't realize I was depressed at the time, but I was. I was starting to fall into this, into this depression. I wasn't leaving my room much. I wasn't making much music. I was out drinking a lot and a very, very self sabotaging time of my life. And I really needed something to pull me out of that hole and I really didn't know what that was. And so one day I woke up in the middle of the night, which is unlike me, because I like my sleep. And I usually sleep through the night until the early hours of the morning or very late hours of the morning. I woke up one night at about 03:00 in the morning. It's the height of winter. It's leading up to Christmas. I think this was, if I remember correctly, 2021, 2022. And I went downstairs and made a cup of tea. For some reason, I don't know why, I just, I couldn't sleep. And as I woke up, it's almost like I had snapped out of a dream and I'd sat up in bed, wide awake. And I've gone, I want to write an album. I want to write an album right now. So I did. I went downstairs, I made a cup of tea. It was 03:00 in the morning. I sat at my computer, turned it on, and I started writing. And I didn't sleep for about 72 hours. And that's not an over exaggeration. I genuinely didn't sleep for three days. I had never felt inspiration strike as hard as it did then. I don't know why it struck. I feel like it might have been some kind of helping hand that was reaching out to me at that time. I am a very deeply spiritual person, so this is something that I consider usually inspiration is given to me from an external source. I see something cool, I hear something cool. This wasn't there. So this just happened. And if you actually listen to the first song, the introductory song on the album, basically, I sit at my computer, I turn it on, I turn my microphone on, I hit record, and I just start talking. And I just basically say, look, the time is it's this time, it's this date. I want to write an album and I just start talking really raw and just from the heart. And I include that dialogue in the introductory track of this album. So the album is called reflection. And I called it reflection because at that time in my life, I was doing a lot of reflection. I think we had just come out of, or was about to come out of lockdown and coming towards the end of COVID So I was reflecting on Moda, on myself, on my lifestyle and all of these kinds of things. So that's where the name come from. And the first track with the dialogue in that I just mentioned is called fractured. And if you look at the artwork for the album, the artwork I'm really proud of. So I had a friend of mine, photographer friend of mine, do some shoots with me. So I had this idea in my head where I basically went to B and M, which for your viewers outside of the UK is a home store. You can buy stuff for your house. I went to B and M and I bought a mirror, a big round mirror. And I took her into my backyard and I placed it on the ground and I dropped a big rock on it and I shattered this mirror. And then I bought two garden stakes which vines would go around, and I crossed them like that. And I dangled from them. I tied to them a clear fishing wire, and from the fishing wire, I dangled these shards of glass, almost like a very dangerous baby mobile. And I wedged this thing into the top of my door frame. Not this door frame, but a door frame. And I soaked myself in water and I stood and the photographer was over my shoulder taking pictures. And he then created a compilation of these shards of glass, my face dripping in water. And we compiled that and it was supposed to represent the fractured state of mind that I was in. I was confused, I was sad, I was lonely. I didn't know what I wanted to do with Moda. I didn't know where I wanted to go with it. So there is an underlying tone of mental health to the album. And in terms of success, the album wasn't successful. I didn't promote the album. I did an amazing album launch party in Plymouth with all my friends. We got very drunk. It was very, very good celebration. It was a lot of fun. But in terms of actually promoting the album, promoting the album, I didn't do it. I didn't do it out of laziness. I didn't do it because I was partly still depressed, which I understand now. I didn't at the time. And, you know, I also didn't promote it because I didn't want it to be this big thing. This was more of a therapeutic thing for me. It was me healing. I didn't care if people liked this album or not, and I still don't have. So every song is a different style. It's all a different genre. If you were to pick a random song off the album and release it by itself, it wouldn't make any sense. It would alienate my audience. They'd be like, what is this? But together as a compilation, it makes sense. It tells a story. So that's a brief sort of rundown of reflection in the album, what it means to me. It was a way for me to heal, really. [01:16:50] Speaker A: That's amazing, Zane. You know, my wife, Ruby, she's going to love this podcast because you're. Because she. She loves the stories behind things. And your story is amazing. Even the sort of mental health part, because I can relate to that. You know, as a musician, sometimes you. You do get into dark places at times, you know, when, and you don't even realize it and especially when it comes to music as well. I find sometimes you're there and you're thinking, man, nothing's working. Or just. You just. You're not even inspired at times. Like you don't want to do music. Yeah. So moving on from that, should we. Do you want to tell a bit more about your story or should we. Shall I move on to some. Some random questions I've got for you. [01:17:37] Speaker B: Let's do some random questions. 100%. Let's break it up. [01:17:40] Speaker A: Yeah. So how did you get into the mix? For me, it's a really dark art, the mixing and mastering side of it. [01:17:50] Speaker B: Yeah. The thing is, mixing and mastering is a dark art. It really is. At least that's how it's pushed out on social media and YouTube and stuff. People don't make it easy to understand. It can be easy to understand. That's what I try my hardest to demonstrate, but it's, you know, a lot of people want to keep these secrets close to their chest, I think. I've always had a passion for production and writing music, but my passion for mixing and mastering and engineering for people has grown to match that equally. I see it as puzzle solving. I see it as, you know, I see it as a challenge. Every song. The reason I like doing it personally is because, as I'm sure you can relate to, when you're writing a lot of music yourself, you get pretty sick of doing it. So hearing other people's music, working on other people's music is inspiring, and it's a breath of fresh air. So that's another reason why I like doing it. And again, you know, like I mentioned earlier, trying to learn how to mix and master. You know, I remember thinking to myself, what the hell is mastering? Why can't anyone on YouTube tell me straight? What mastering exactly. [01:19:13] Speaker A: Zane? [01:19:14] Speaker B: I don't understand why it's so difficult. Why is this website telling me this? And this website is telling me this? Why is this artist saying he doesn't even master, he doesn't need to master, and then someone else is saying, you have to pay 300 pounds to have a song. You know, what is this magical mastering? And so after I learned more and I started to sort of unfurl this web of lies. Not lies, but this web of misinformation that the Internet has generated, I've come up with this analogy as well. I really love my analogies that I use to explain to all of my clients who are confused about what mixing and mastering is. What is the difference? What order do they come in? Are they the same? Are they similar? Are they different? So the way I describe it is, and I'm going to go back to our chef analogy, which I mentioned earlier, if you imagine baking a cake, okay, mixing is essentially taking all of the components, the ingredients of the cake, the drums, the vocals, the melodies, all of these ingredients, and putting them into the mixing bowl in the right. The correct amounts. Okay? You know, this many vocals, this. This volume of drums, this amount of. Of piano, whatever, I'm mixing it all together. Mastering is baking it in the oven at the right temperature for the right amount of time. If you have a bad mix, you're going to have a bad master. In other words, if you put the wrong ingredients or the wrong amounts, too much salt, too much sugar, not enough sugar, too much flour, and you bake it at the right temperature, it's still going to taste rubbish. It's still going to sound bad. Mastering doesn't fix bad mixing. It just takes a mixed song and it grants it loudness and clarity. If you have a problem in that mix, that problem is going to get amplified in the mastering. A lot of people think mastering fixes bad music. It doesn't fix bad music. It will only amplify issues that are there. So if you want a louder, cleaner, more professional sounding master, don't look at the mastering engineer, look at the mixing first. Sort out your ingredients. Sort out the amounts that you're putting into that mixing bowl, get a good sounding mix, and then the master will come easily. [01:21:55] Speaker A: Wow. It's a master class. Unintended. That was so. Yeah, you know, I'm actually really inspired by Zion now. I want to sort of stop this podcast soon as podcast, get upstairs and start. Stop producing music again, because it's. You're really inspirational. And that's what this podcast. [01:22:19] Speaker B: Thank you, Matt. [01:22:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And the other thing I love about this podcast is that people like my wife, who's a number musician, she's going to listen to and she's going to understand what mixing is and what, what, what mastering is. So when you just. Just keep just which you already are, just keep, like, here in mind, like my wife or any other listeners, because a lot of listeners, they're not musicians, but they love learning about music and learning about mixing and mastering. And so that. That was great. Yeah. So onto your social media part. How did that stop? Because that's how I found out about you. [01:23:00] Speaker B: So it's a funny story about social media, actually. So I had built up, I say, I. Me and my partner at the time, Matt, between us, had built up the moda social media presence, the Facebook, the Instagram and all of that. And then, you know, we had this big following we released on labels in Europe and so on. We had this big. This big song which I spoke about. So we were starting to get this. This fan base grow and grow. And shortly was this after the release of the album, I think maybe before, I can't remember around the release of the albumen. At this point, it's just me now in moda. Something happened with my social media. To this day, I don't know what it was. I remember it was I was sat in a walkabout, which again, for your non uk viewers, is a sports bar, an australian themed sports bar in the UK. I was watching the football with my friends and I got this notification pop up on my phone and it said it was from Facebook, and it said something along the lines of, your account has been disabled for dot, dot dot. And I was like, that's really bizarre. So I clicked on this message and it basically came up with this blank screen with the Facebook logo at the top. And it said there was about three lines of text. It said, your accounts have been disabled or deleted for violating our terms of use. And then it said something else, but essentially what it was saying was, your accounts have been deleted. Nothing you can do about it. So I'm like, that's really weird. Didn't think too much of it. There was an appeal button. If I pressed appeal and I said, can you just review what you just sent me? Because I can't access my Facebook, my personal Facebook, which I've had since I was about twelve. My personal Instagram, my moda Instagram, and my business Instagram, my business, which was the lead up to Mixhaven. So before Mixhaven, I was going under nuanced sound, same concept, mixing and mastering. So four accounts just gone in a puff of smoke. So three or four days later, I get a response from Facebook or meta, the organization that runs all of them, and says, basically, I swear to God, this is what they say. They said, your accounts have been deleted for violating our terms of service. We cannot tell you why they've been deleted because it will break. What was it? They couldn't prove that I was the owner of the account, so for that reason, they couldn't tell me why. So for some reason, and again, still to this day, I don't know why, I read Facebook's terms of service. It was all standard stuff like don't bully, don't cyberbully, don't advertise, don't share inappropriate material, that kind of stuff, none of which I've broken those rules of. So I went on Reddit, and I did a bit of research on Reddit, and apparently there had been this big spate of like this, almost like a glitch, where hundreds of thousands of accounts had all been shut down by a false trigger on this system. Now, I fought so hard to get these back because this was not just my career, this was my personal life. This was 15 years of photographs and memories and statuses and friends. And I fought so hard to get this back. There's nothing. There's no call center for Facebook, there's no email you can write to. There isn't no customer service at all. There's only, like, a forum. And about a week later, I thought, okay, I'm going to try and set up a new account. So I tried to set up a new account instantly banned, because the IP address had been banned, obviously. So it was kind of like, imagine someone knocking at your front door right now, like a couple guys in black suits storming into your house, taking all your photos, your documents, your belongings, everything that defines you as a person over the past 1015 years of your life, and just burning it without explanation and going. And that's kind of what it felt like. And then I really got depressed after that because I had no following, I had no history of who I was as a musician or any online presence, my entire digital footprint had been erased. And I don't know why. I don't know why. I still, to this day, don't know why. That hit me really hard. Yeah, it hit me really, really hard. Really, really hard. So it took me a few months. I mean, obviously I ended up making up a new Facebook and a new Instagram, just a personal Instagram. I've not, there's no, there is no modo Instagram to this day, you know, because I've lost everything. So I've done it under a new IP and I've just slowly been adding, you know, new, new pictures and memories to these social medias. But, yeah, it was like my whole life had been halted. It actually kind of made me realize how dependent you are on social media, you know, how important it is to us because we do take it for granted. And in the time that I was without social media for those few weeks, it was actually, there was a silver lining. There was this fresh reset in my life. It was like, okay, I've lost everything, but I have this opportunity now to start fresh. And that's kind of how I saw it. So, you know, my new Facebook remains private. I've got, before I had about 3000 friends, now I've got about 500. So it's really sort of trimmed down to close friends and family. Now I have a new instagram with, again, only a couple hundred followers, down from a few thousand close friends and family. So it's a lot more. The content that I see on these social media platforms now are more relevant to my life. You know, went on a massive tangent there, but that's when you said social media, that's the first thing that kind of jumped to mind. [01:29:47] Speaker A: No, that's really interesting. Gosh, it shows how dependent we are on social media platforms and the fact that they can just get rid of it in a click. Just a joke. [01:30:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's crazy. It's, you know, I've never felt rage like it because I felt like I'd been, I felt like I've been stolen from. I felt like I had my, you know, you know, when I, when I met my, my current partner, my girlfriend Chloe this year, you know, I had to explain to her that everything on my instagram only goes back a couple of months because there's nothing before that, you know, I had to explain to her that my entire life had been deleted offline for reasons that I don't understand, that for security reasons, they couldn't tell me, which is ridiculous. That's, that's how they worded, actually, for security reasons. We can't tell you why this has been done. So it was a real, real kick in the teeth, and it felt like I'd lost, you know, that identity that I'd worked so hard to get towards. And it felt like that had been eradicated. And it was then that I properly, fully fell deeply into a depression. And obviously the album helped with that. And then I'm not going to go into it in too much detail here, because it will probably bore your viewers very much. But I went. I started on this very, very spiritual journey. I had this, what some might call a spiritual awakening that lasted about two years, and it helped me to. It opened up the door of opportunity for me to know myself. And I actually have a tattoo on the back of my neck that says, latin for know thyself. And that is the name of my second album is termit Noske. That is going to be now the continuation on from the story. [01:31:57] Speaker A: Wow. So, yeah, back to your social media. I mean, that was really insightful. So how did you. From there, you started the mixed haven account on TikTok. [01:32:11] Speaker B: So before. Yeah, essentially. So before the accounts got deleted, I had another. Another business called nuance sound. There was no TikTok involved in this. It was all Facebook and Instagram and such. Same concept, mixing, mastering, tutoring one to one. It wasn't until all of this got deleted and I had to start from scratch that I decided to rename it Mixhaven, and this time introduce short form content on TikTok. Content creation on TikTok. So it was, yeah, maybe about a year ago that I started mixhaven officially started uploading videos in sort of bite size format, videos like the compression one you mentioned earlier. And I really wanted to use because I felt like over the years, I have accumulated quite a lot of helpful analogies. I feel like analogies are really my forte in how I teach, because I feel like analogies are a fantastic way to deliver complex information and complex theories to people in an understandable way. So I could use TikTok then, as a platform to deliver these analogies, deliver these explanations in. In a way that I could reach audiences like I'd never had before. I'm one of those. I mean, I'm nearly 30. I'm one of those guys that's been kind of digging my heels in about tick tock for years. I'm not going to start tick. I don't want to, you know? And it got to a point where I was like, right, okay, let's give this thing a go and it's. It's been really helpful. Yeah, yeah. [01:33:49] Speaker A: Your TikTok accounts great, as I say, is one of the best accounts for me, at least. It's one of the best accounts on there. Yeah. I want to sort of start rounding things up because it's a. Believe it or not, it's been over an hour and a half. [01:34:03] Speaker B: Wow. [01:34:03] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. I just wanted to know your opinion on AI because the reason why. Because logic, the latest version of logic. I don't know about the other doors, by the way, if you listener door is digital audio workstation. Because we say all these sort of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We say all this jargon. Some people don't know what it means. Yeah. So the latest version, logic, I've, my Mac's quite old now, so I haven't got the latest version, but apparently it's very AI centered. Do you think music production is going that way or. [01:34:52] Speaker B: So? I'll make you deal. Let me go to toilet and I'll tell you all about AI. [01:34:55] Speaker A: All right, give me 2 seconds. [01:34:59] Speaker B: I'll be right. [01:35:00] Speaker A: So I accidentally hit the stop button on that. So I'm hoping that it's got the other file on the zoom recording. I've had to hit the resume again. [01:35:07] Speaker B: So I think it goes into a folder. Yeah, yeah. [01:35:10] Speaker A: I'm sure there'll be two recordings, but hopefully it goes. [01:35:13] Speaker B: This is going to be a really short interview. Interview, yeah. [01:35:16] Speaker A: So, Karion. Yeah. About AI. [01:35:19] Speaker B: So AI is fascinating. You've opened a can of worms here. But I'm going to keep it specific to music production. And this is a subject that really fascinates me. It's something that I research a lot. In fact, most of my TikTok feed is AI related. Not just AI in music, but AI in art in general, I think is really interesting. So I think we need to, we need to, first of all, set a ground rule for what the definition of AI is in this context, because AI is a very broad term. You know, AI can be from answering a question on Google that an AI chat box looked up online to the plot line of the Terminator. You know, it's, it's quite a broad thing. So the AI usage in music and art is. It's more of a. And I'm not an AI engineer, so I'm not going to be necessarily on point with my terminology here, but it's, it's a learning model. Right. So what it does is you ask it to do something and it will complete that task using knowledge already available on the Internet. So you look at chat, GPT, for example, you ask it a question, and the answer it gives you is not an original answer that this intelligence has come up with. It's an answer that it has compiled together in understandable language from different sources on the Internet. It's essentially the entire Internet in one chat bot. It's like googling something and researching something for hours, but in a few seconds. So obviously, AI is being incorporated, this form of AI is being incorporated into everything at the moment. You know, I mean, first of all, I think the big question is, the moral question, is it okay to use AI in music, in art? And that is a debate that is now raging at a peak, really. One thing to understand, first of all, is that AI this, in this context, so, you know, I think it's artificial general intelligence. I think they call it, I could be wrong with that, has actually been used for years. So AI has been used before. It's become a popular, mainstream topic of news headlines. It's been used for years in things like airplane flights, prices on, you know, you look up an airplane flight ticket, and then you refresh the page. A few minutes later, you get a different price. Or the stock market is run by AI, hotel prices are run by AI. All of these things are being generated live constantly. So it's been running our lives and banks and things like that for a long, long time, longer than we actually realize. It's only now that it's really become a mainstream discussion. But it is now being incorporated into music software, which is your original question. Ableton and FL studio. So, for example, in FL Studio, which is obviously what I'm familiar with most, there's a new feature where, there's an AI feature where it can take a clipped sample or a clipped sound. When I say clipped, I mean a sound that is been increasing volume to the point where the peaks of that volume has been cut off. So it may be distorted. So this AI feature now reduces the volume. You still have those clip top peaks, but then it regenerates those peaks. In other words, it kind of cleans up distorted audio, which is something that manually we couldn't do for, at least not without great difficulty. So it's really interesting because is it morally right to use AI in art? It's a hard question. I think the default answer is no. A lot of people would say no. There was a big. I'm a huge Marvel fan. I love Marvel movies. I'm a big, you know, big, big Marvel fan. And for any of your viewers, that have seen the Marvel series Secret wars on Disney. The title sequence for that show was all AI generated. That created a massive, massive backlash, you know, because there are artists out there, skilled artists, who have missed out on that opportunity to create that title sequence because AI has generated it for them. So you have that. You have artists who are now using AI chats, AI image generators to generate their track and album artworks, again, taking away from artists who have honed their craft for years. And not only artwork, but music as well. Like, I mean, I'm in danger of this as well. Like, I am under threat. You are under threat of this. You now have AI models that can write music and put together instrumentals. You have AI that can write lyrics. I could go on chat GPT right now, trust me, because I've done it already. And I can type in, write me some lyrics for a pop song about love. And I can hit generate. I can hit generate 5678 times. And I can write them all down and I can stitch them together, and I can come up with all of these lyrics that I didn't come up with myself, I stitched together by this AI. I can then go on to another AI app, which is a voice generator, right? You know, you have these realistic voice generators where they mimic celebrity voices. You know, I think it was I might be wrong in this. It might have been David Getter or another really big superstar DJ who opened one of his festival sets with a quote from a celebrity that they didn't actually say it was AI generated. There was this whole lawsuit because obviously legislation and law can't keep up with the development of AI. So, you know, I can't remember who it was. He used the AI to imitate, but the, they weren't happy about them using his voice. So I can go online, I can produce lyrics from an AI chat bot. I can have another AI machine give me a vocal singing that in the style of whatever celebrity I want. That's dangerous. I think that's dangerous because, again, it kills creativity. It's dangerous because how long is it going to be now if they're not already doing it, before major labels produce entire albums from dead artists? When are we going to see a new Michael Jackson album? Because they can do it right now. They can have AI write lyrics in the style of Michael Jackson, have Michael Jackson's voice sing it, and release a whole album of AI generated. Michael Jackson. I think that's something that's going to happen in the very near future if it isn't already in production. So that side is morally very, very debatable. But let's go back to the small scale, like you were mentioning. Like AI products inside of daws that help you to solve small problems. Like I just mentioned with the volume correction of the distorted audio that Apple Studio can generate using AI. Personally, I think that is fine. Why do I think that's fine? Well, because I'm already using loads of an entire plethora of plugins which are using back engineering software to generate sounds that I'm not manually making. I'm already using synthesizers that are doing. The computer is doing a lot of the work for me. This is just another way that the computer is doing work for me. So I think for me. And I'll wrap this up shortly because I know I've been rambling quite a lot when it comes to AI. Are you using AI to assist you or to do it for you? If you're using AI to assist you, I think that's okay because we use so many tools to assist us already and there's already such a gray area about what AI is. But am I using AI to write me an entire song that I think is wrong? I think it's a debate that's going to be going on for a very, very long time. And I think it's good to be observant of that debate, get involved with the debate and, yeah, just, just keep updated with what's going on because it's ever evolving, this AI debate, and it's going to be going on for a long time. [01:44:58] Speaker A: That's fascinating. I haven't actually looked at what logic can do, but I know it's what I heard. It's heavily integrated now in the latest version, logic, even though it's a bit buggy, I think, sort of it. So it's really interesting, you saying that, uh, and in terms of your, the voiceover part that you were saying, I've seen that, um, so many times on TikTok where you've got a certain song sung by loads of different artists by using AI. So it's a, yeah, it's scary stuff. [01:45:32] Speaker B: This is it. This is it. It's, you know, it's going to get to a point where, you know, how can you tell? How can you tell what's AI and what's not? I mean, you could, you, you could label it as AI created or you could hide that fact. I mean, there's a plugin out there which is a synthesizer, which works very much like an AI image generator. So if you've ever used an AI image generator. You type into the chat, I want to see a castle in the sky surrounded by mountains with water falling off it, and in the style of this artist, an oil painting. And it will give you that image. You can do that now with sound. You can say, I want a plucky synth with with bright, you know, frequencies in it that has a sharp attack and a long echo, big reverb, and it will generate that sound for you. Again, that's a very gray area because previously we would make that ourselves, twisting dials, crunching numbers, looking at formulas, you know, resampling things like that. And now if we can just type that in and get it, it's something to consider. [01:46:41] Speaker A: I was experiencing, I was experimenting with chat chat GPT the other day just a few weeks back, so I ended up purchasing the paid version of it just to experiment. I think it was about 20 odd quid for the month. But man, it was able to produce album covers for me, like single covers and stuff. And they're really, really good. See, if I see me, she found got one. This is for my next single. But my, one of my best friends, he's a graphic designer, so he normally doesn't the graphics for me, and he was astonished. Some of you can see that. Is it out of Zoom or. [01:47:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I can see that. See, it's fantastic. And a lot of this artwork is really, really good, but it's I think it's a good solution for those who aren't able to afford an artist. Yeah, then sure, maybe experiment with it. But I think as a general rule, I think people should note whether it be with sound or visual or just artwork created by AI. I think that's really important because you might have a really great piece of art that might capture people's attentions, but if attention, sorry, but if that art is known to be created by AI, it won't receive the same credibility than if it was created by an artist. So I think it should be clearly stated. When something is created by Aihdenkhdev, it's a difficult one, isn't it? It's a really tough conversation, and there is no answer to it currently. Like I said, this is going to be going on for years to come. [01:48:27] Speaker A: And who owns it? [01:48:30] Speaker B: Exactly. Who's to say? If this AI is giving you verbal answers from a conglomerate of Google searches, then it's going to be giving you images from a conglomerate of images it's found online. If you get if you get an image that's very, very similar to something else that exists in real life. Is there a lawsuit there? Perhaps so, you know, and I mean, AI art generation, as far as I'm aware, isn't even necessarily considered or acknowledged by legal courts and such yet. So that's going to be an interesting development over the next few years because we're gonna be. We're gonna start seeing a lot of court cases coming up with. To do with copyright infringement from AI. I think that's coming up brilliant. [01:49:22] Speaker A: I expect this on your, expect some AI stuff on your. On your TikTok soon saying, all right, I look forward to it. So any. Any last words, Zane? What we finish off? [01:49:35] Speaker B: No last words. However, I think I would like to, uh, show you my next song, uh, that's coming out in October, actually. Um, what you'll have to do, there's. [01:49:47] Speaker A: A setting on Zoom, because what happens on zoom, uh, um, you have to work out the set. I can't remember the setting, so it plays the. The track out properly because otherwise you kill certain frequencies. So you'll have to experiment with it. [01:50:02] Speaker B: Let's have a look. So same as system. Let's try this. So you let me know if you can hear this. [01:50:15] Speaker A: Go for it. [01:50:19] Speaker B: Anything? [01:50:20] Speaker A: No, I can't hear anything at the moment. [01:50:22] Speaker B: Okay. Don't worry. I think what I need to do is maybe screen share. I think that will do it. [01:50:27] Speaker A: Yeah, try that. [01:50:28] Speaker B: Cool. [01:50:33] Speaker A: Or just chat. GPT. [01:50:38] Speaker B: How do I change sound to audio one? So if I share my screen like this, go to this one here and share sound. This should work perfectly. Can you see? [01:50:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:50:51] Speaker B: Perfect. So this is a collaboration between me and Niall T. Nyeal. T is my little brother. Definitely. Go check him out. He's phenomenal. Producer. Very, very good. Very, very proud of him. We've got killer P on the vocals. This is a drum and bass track. It's called go get. It's coming out in October. [01:51:11] Speaker A: Let's do it. [01:51:13] Speaker B: Can you hear that? Come. [01:51:23] Speaker A: Like the gala mud me to bomb mo see again rasta. [01:51:34] Speaker B: Every time I see her, it's a matter. [01:51:52] Speaker A: Of that. [01:51:53] Speaker B: Killer, for real. [01:51:54] Speaker A: I remember which one of them? [01:51:56] Speaker B: Which one of them? [01:51:56] Speaker A: Which one? Big one. [01:52:15] Speaker B: That's all you get in. [01:52:17] Speaker A: That is phenomenal. I love the bass in there. Just. Do you know what the sounds? Nothing. Not too good on my laptop. Like, man, it's still coming through. It's still coming through. [01:52:29] Speaker B: That's the first proper song that my little brother and I have actually fully collaborated on. And it is a combination of my sound design and his sound design, which are very different. But they work so well together, and it was such a pleasure to find it because we used to butt heads growing up a lot. So finally, to be able to get over our differences has been such a big deal. But, yeah, that's coming out in October and will be a part of the new album that's coming out whenever I finish it. [01:53:01] Speaker A: Brilliant. Brilliant. I really look forward to it. Just make sure you send me all your stuff and our addiction playlists and stuff as well, so I'll be listening to it. I'm sure my wife's gonna love that because she's a big bass head. My wife is, so she's gonna love it. [01:53:16] Speaker B: Nice. [01:53:17] Speaker A: Yeah. So, okay, where can we find you on social media, and if anyone wants to contact you in regard to your mentoring and your music in general? [01:53:28] Speaker B: Yeah. So for mixing, mastering, mentoring, anything business related will be Instagram, Mixhaven, underscore. So mix. H a v, underscore. Tick tock is Mixhaven. No, underscore. And if you want to follow my personal slash music account, it's Zane. Z a n e, moda, moda underscore. And that's all I have social media wise at the moment. [01:53:58] Speaker A: That's fantastic. And, guys, so that was Zane Mixhaven. Make sure you check him out. I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast, and also, if you could leave a review for us, and if you're watching on YouTube, drop a comment, drop a. Like, follow myself, and follow Zane as well. And, yeah, hopefully see you next time. So I'm going to stop the podcast and just catch up with Zane off it. [01:54:24] Speaker B: Thank you so much. [01:54:25] Speaker A: Cheers, Raj. [01:54:25] Speaker B: I really appreciate it. [01:54:27] Speaker A: It's amazing. Amazing, Zane. So I'm just going to stop the podcast, and we'll. We'll carry on chatting. So, guys, that was Zane, and this is the Raj call podcast. Bless.