- NO DM PLZ! email/txt instead. I deleted the apps for a while. -
Composer / Producer / Performer / One Third Of Noisia
Bookings: francesco
@primarytalent
.com
We played the last Noisia show ever last night. Had so many friends and family on stage with us to celebrate the whole story. Monumental. Made memories for forever.
Noisia is done, so we can finally do a sample pack. We always declined, because our sounds defined us too much for us to share them, but now it’s time to share our tools.
Can we please make labels clickable in
@Spotify
? Would be so much easier to discover music if we could click on the label instead of it just being grey fine print under a release :(
I'm actually crying real tears over this. People in Italy locked down, singing out of their windows. This is what music is for. Humans are terrible but also beautiful. Music is my favourite fucking thing in the world. We're all going to be ok, in the end.
Noisia won a lifetime achievement award yesterday.. Awesome. But it also feels a bit funny, because we all feel like we're only just getting started. A lot of timeless artists made their best work in their forties or after. Or am I just telling myself that because I'm 37 lol....
The end of a wonderful era for all of us is closing in. We're so proud, and so grateful. But let's also focus on the bright side: we're taking a full year to end this in style ❤️
More than 20 years of sound design has led me exactly to here: using the same 909 hat and 808 clap every tune because I really like what they stand for and I do not care to reinvent the "hihats&claps-wheel". For me it's about groove, it's about fun, it's about music communities.
On dj social media "should I do X" usually means "I'm going to do X and I know you want X but I won't do X until you tell me how much you want me to do X." I hate that.
I’ve heard the
@Skrillex
album grow across a process of years of obsessive refinement. My favourite part of it that it does big music without using maximised push sonics. The sound and mix stay classy all through.
#snares
Second favourite part is that supersonic is on two albums.
We started getting in the studio with Sonny just after his "my name is
@Skrillex
" EP. Sonny wrote parts of scary monsters EP in our studios. 2010?? We made a lot of music together, but not much came out except the
@Noisia_nl
remix we did for scary monsters. Until now!
#SUPERSONIC
When an artist asks something like: "should I release this one?", what they're really saying is: "tell me again how much you like me". They're not asking for real opinions, just for validation. Maybe there's nothing wrong with that, but I personally dislike these fake questions.
Showed a friend what I look for when I look at 4X. I’ve been making tunes on laptop speakers and headphones a lot and I couldn’t have had this amount of confidence in my lows without looking at 4X.
@VISIONrecs
A dnb/jungle act opening up for BEYONCE was not on my “dnb is popping in 2023” scratch card yet. BIG UP
@archives_nia
!! Happy for and proud of you, and happy for and proud of the scene 🔥
The problem isn't really Spotify. The main problem is that consumers think 10 dollars per month is enough for unlimited access to all music. If that doesn't change somehow, making music will revert to being something people do with a side job and only a few can live off.
Today I learned you can clean permanent marker off a whiteboard with tooth paste. I spent the the rest of the day visualising my goals and obstructions, and one off those drawings became this procrastination flowchart (for myself) that I wanted to share.
I don't like the "us versus them" vibes in the comments here. The superiority. The tribalism. She doesn't know aphex twin. She saw two people on stage (his wife was up). She experiences the show the way it's supposed to be experienced (she's a bit shocked). And u mad?
If you can afford it, please don't ask for refunds for cancelled shows and wait for the rescheduled date. Promotors and venues will all go bankrupt if there is zero cash coming in the coming few weeks. This hit is hard enough. No one was prepared!
Confidence in DJ’ing is playing a long section that you know won’t get a big reaction but that ppl will still really enjoy. They’ll just be bubbling with you rather than constantly validating you. Imo the best crowds also love to bubble, not constantly being told what to feel/do.
A lot of times when producers love a genre that's generally not produced super cleanly, and then they want to "do genre XYZ, but then make it sound like 2023" (or even worse: "sounding like 2033") - this is what's gonna happen:
"You fell behind" - this is toxic on many levels. Scenes and societies aren't zero-sum games. They are stronger when the people with a leg up help the ones around them. Plus you're making everyone that's already struggling with financial and creative setbacks feel even worse. FU
Cliché thing for a dj to say after a show, but: tonight was special. Closing off 20+ years of our lives together. Celebrating all of the great moments we've had, and all of the great people that were with us on the journey. What an amazing send-off <3 onto the next life!
My presets wouldn't take you anywhere. Motivation is 1st (preferably enjoying the process, but ambition works too), dedication 2nd. Both are difficult. Finding ideas, having the luxury of time to work on stuff, and the peace of mind that allows you to create: that's the hustle.
When you send a bunch of people some tunes when you're excited, and then make new versions of them that are probably much better, and then don't know who's got what version and who even cares. I literally never learn. I was doing the exact same thing 20 years ago for Noisia, lol.
Dear producers worldwide: please do not give production advice on social media unless explicitly asked for.
In general this goes for all people.
There’s a thing called “unsolicited advice”. Ask yourself if you do this sometimes. If so, become more aware (and less annoying).
“5 ways to level up your mixes” “3 tricks to get to god tier” “7 simple steps to ascend to Valhalla”.
Fuck off.
Progress is long.
You need to somehow care, and TIME: time to learn, time to work, and the most easily missed time component: time to wait for opportunities.
It's winter, people prone to depression have it extra tough with long dark nights and fake family images. If you see someone suffer: say something! If you are suffering yourself: it's fucking scary to accept, but HELP HELPS. Talk to someone. You might feel alone. You're not. Love
Here's one thing 18 months of not playing dj shows taught me: I love playing dj shows, I'm good at it, and if it's up to me, if there's an audience that wants to hear what I have to give, I'll keep doing until the day I die in whatever form I can.
I’d say this is definitely not gonna work for everyone but it’s worth giving it a try. If it works for you, great! If it doesn’t, that’s fine too.
I’ll add to Gino’s thoughts with some side thoughts, about why this method hasn’t worked for me, and what I needed instead.
basic preachy production tip but write 16 bars every single day even if you have to force yourself to make a bad beat. the consistency of muscle memory helps you more than you'll ever realize - this is practiced amongst all things that require mastery.
Please send AIFFs not WAVs. Please send AIFFs not WAVs. Please send AIFFs not WAVs. Please send AIFFs not WAVs. Please send AIFFs not WAVs. Please send AIFFs not WAVs. Thank me later ✌🏼
please don't do this at the rave. we had to beg security to get him away from me. they didn't kick him out and he waited in the DJ booth to talk to me after I was done. my friends and fans had to intervene and protect me. ☹️
“Seen it all”, I thought, but wow! Playing to such a huge crowd as I did just now at boomtown still got me fully shaken up. It’s hard to believe that was real. (Twitter video compression probably gonna mess this video up completely but there’s proper after footage coming soon)
Writing down your thoughts can be like a freeze flatten / render in place. You've computed your thoughts once, now they're there in front of them, and you can let go of them without spending any more cpu on them. It can be so draining to keep everything running live.
Can AI tune and phase align all my elements so that I don’t have to worry about master clipping sounding bad? Like a clippy or dr watson that pops up and says “I notice you’re struggling with loudness, want me to resynthesize your hihats so they are aligned overtones of the sub?”
Mum pointed me to mixed feedback on our facebook over my recent sets, which led me to read up with the comments. I respect your disappointment. But people: if artists hadn't ever been allowed to take risks and disappoint, your current favorite music wouldn't have evolved either.
A tune in 7/4 trending is cool. Even when the snare's too loud which kills the groove, the more complex rhythms feel disjointed rather than stimulating.. Anything that's trying something different and going viral is cool. Just opens doors. That said I really don't like the tune.
blawan b2b skrillex, dbridge b2b ehua, evian christ & torus, introspekt, slikback live, chuckie b2b de schuurman, darwin b2b mala, i.jordan b2b sherelle, nick leon b2b dj python, rhyw live
nahh. fuck it. i'm going. booked myself a suite in tilburg for two nights. insane lineup🤯
Hundreds of millions have already been promised towards Notre Dame repairs. Typical. The thing was in need for structural repairs for centuries. But it has to burn down for us to feel urgency to fix. Really reminds me of climate change. Humans are bad at addressing slow decline.
Oh no, there’s someone preparing to do THEIR JOB! Right when you wanted to pretend like the crowd was there only for you! Right when it was time for your “media moment”, to do cringy poses in front of the crowd! I hate 2023 American influencer social media dj reality. So cringe.
20 yrs being an artist I can tell you this:
that feeling of being somewhere good but feeling like i should be somewhere else? that feeling rarely leaves.
i'll keep feeling like an outsider here, and an impostor there. always changing, always on the way to somewhere else.
It's my birthday (thirty-nine looking fine). I choose to spend it on twitter, because sharing thoughts about music economy (fuck industry), ecology, macro-economy and geopolitics is quite literally one of my favourite things to do in the world. Instagram ppl yall missing out 🤣
Nicest thing about noisia radio and our labels is the sense of pride I feel when I see new guys and girls consistently reaching new levels on their own after our little boost. They would have made it anyway but I'm happy we could help somehow. Feels nice to be a small part of it.
Why do so many people who design stuff completely ignore how sound behaves in their designs? Bars and restaurants with crazy reverb, hotel rooms next to noisy unisolated a/c ducts, your design can look pretty but actually nobody really feels at ease in a bad sounding room. 🖕🏻
I don't really work with goals anymore after having released dnb on all our favorite labels early on in dnb. And I find the idea of "manifesting" ridiculous. But I just realised I'd love to get a piece of music placed on a FIFA / EA Football game. Their music curation is cool af.
Is it just drama time, or is this the new twitter algo promoting all kinds of arguments to the feed and demoting reflective thoughts and observations? I notice myself clicking drama tweets and then thinking wtf am I reading why am I here how did I get here.. Everybody infighting.
You didn’t ask for it so here’s my hot take: I’m still seeing “pay artists more” as replies to this. My answer: no you pay artists more!
If you want a world in which you music gets paid more, redirect your attention from dunking on Spotify and get your friends to buy music.
When I was younger, I saw successful electronic music producers as wizards that are exceptionally good at interfacing with machines. Now I think the successful ones are the ones that know how to interface with their audience, or manage to build a team that does that with them.
Hearing rumours that noisia will play shows this summer. Lol. No, we quit for real in 2022 (after Covid messed up our farewell ideas in 2020 and 2021). But I love the rumours. Please keep them going!
Funny how some nice snares and bass sounds can lead to where I am now: on a ridiculously luxurious resort cruise sailing on open seas. Mixed feelings. It's nice to treat oneself, but this life of splendor gets excessive fast and it's wasteful. But then again: I GOT A BUTLER BICHE
My first solo album is out today! I put everything I have learned into it, and I learned a lot more about myself and my music while making it. Links to my bandcamp/our webstore/all quality digital outlets here:
Kids younger than this DOA post will come to our noisia farewell shows this year. In 2002 we were still figuring out what those words meant that people used. In 2003 we had our first tunes signed to SLR, and a few months after our first release on Nerve. Still learning every day!
Yesterday was one for the books. 90 minutes set became 3 hours set... Not even surprised. We did end up playing a few dubstep tunes, but mostly techno/electro/breakbeat/house/whatever you call that good stuff at 130 bpm. Thanks Groningen and lovely OOST crew, thanks
@Skrillex
<3
Simplified:
Clap your hands, do you hear reverb? If so, you need treatment for your mids and highs.
Make a sine sweep from 30 to 100 hz, when you play it, do you hear volume bumps and dips at different frequencies? Those are your room modes. Try to put bass-traps in corners.
Thought about mental health & art: Career artists are mostly very very sensitive people. You need to be sensitive to expressions to express your own ideas. Suffering is not necessary for art, sensitivity is. Sensitivity without suffering is perfecly possibly. Take care. Life>art.
I think we just released a techno tune.. Wouldn't know what else to call Dzjengis.. It was definitely inspired by music from people who move around the techno spectrum.. Not that genre matters, but I'm happy we're in a position to release a 130 bpm tune with no real snare 🤷♂️
Don’t want to add to cdj-gate but those fkn CDJs should just work.. the problem is they don’t always. It shouldn’t be a question which of the usb sticks will fail on the CDJ if they work on your laptop.. Finding out if one of your disks is screwed before hitting the stage is 👍🏻
actually sad to think about the 100, 000 year period of generally boring music of the entire history of mankind before Venga Boys came along - there were a few gems but prehistoric music until the 1990's looked bleeaaakkk
If you know young kids prone to depression/emo feelings do them a favor and show them Portishead - Dummy. They'll probably find Nirvana by themselves but they might miss Portishead unless someone shows them. What a fucking record, omg. Helped so many 90s kids through their teens.
I worked hard to put a new noisia set together for that stream, and it went really well. Super proud of that. So many of our homies new music in it too. Thanks
@beatport
!
@Noisia_nl
@VisionRecs
I want to live in a world where recorded music is rewarded financially as much as it's respected culturally. I don't want UBI for every musician. But I want recording musicians to be able to live off the art they produce that everyone gets to enjoy (currently almost for free).
I feel like this needs to be stated regularly: I am a hip hop and house DJ, which means I make a living playing Black music. That music and culture was made directly out of the injustices of Black people in America. To my Black brothers and sisters, I stand with you.
USA friends: a perspective. "This year is the year for dnb" is typical binary thinking (a very normal and very human mistake). Growth is slow. You can't pinpoint it to a year. So if this year ends up not being "the year for dnb" again, it can still be growing. It's been growing.
I’m standing against the wall in a dark as fuck warehouse, with a great sound system, great dj’s, and a crowd of people dancing and cheering on the music. This is definitely one of my most happy places. Feeling safe, surrounded by music and music lovers. Thought I’d share. ❤️
Agility > brute strength for me. That's the core problem I have with a lot of modern day bass music. It focuses on heaviness and misses freedom of movement and dexterity. And a lot of the lighter techy dnb is fucking repetitive and just straight up boring, hate to say it.
ECCENTRIC O (pronounced "eccentric circle")
I've started a new label! WOOHEE! 🎇
I've been co-managing labels since 2005. I took some time off running labels, but I started to feel the need again: looking for exciting new artists and helping them develop ideas, (thread 1/20)
“Manifesting” is a psyop. “You can achieve anything you want if you try hard enough” is a perfect frame to keep the unfortunate unfortunate. Couldn’t get out of those problems you didn’t cause? That’s your own fault for not wanting/trying/manifesting hard enough.
Anyone else hesitating to DM people music links these days? Feels like spamming, overwhelming friends with more trash to process...
Sending tunes on the internet used to be my nr 1 fav thing to do!
Now I don't even send at all, just hope they got the promo, buy it, or DM me..