Discover Fryer

What first drew you into music production and dubstep production in particular?

I have always loved EDM since when I was very young. So when I got a little older, around 12 years I decided to try making it myself. It took me a few years to actually learn everything. There were not electronic music production schools or anything like that, at least not that I was aware about. Today, you can go to a school and learn everything that me years, in a couple of months which I think it is very good for upcoming producers to learn everything fast and get right to it. I literally like so many different EDM genres and I have produced tracks for every genre I like. The first dubstep song I have ever listened was Scary Monsters & Nice Sprites by Skrillex, I felt in love with it so I started looking for more dubstep tracks and it became my favorite genre. I started to try making dubstep tunes myself but at the beginning it didn’t work out quite well. With time, patience and a lot of trial and error, I was able to understand more about the genre and my tracks started to sound better. I still make other genres when I feel like it but most of the stuff I will release as Fryer is going to be more aggressive. However, I will definitely release some chiller tracks like my first official release as Fryer, “Clouds”.

Your latest remix of “Anubis” is one of the most powerful tracks we have heard in a while! Could you tell us more about your creative process and how you design such powerful growls/basses?

I like having days where I just open the plug ins and make new sounds, not necessary producing. I spend hours on Serum and FM8 which are my two favorite synths. Sometimes I make the sounds for scratch and sometimes I will modify presets and achieve great results. I don’t think there is anything wrong with using presets in your tracks, that is something upcoming producers should not be scared about. I think not everyone should be good at sound design to be a good producer. There people that really good at arrangement or music theory and etc. Personally, I have a lot of fun messing around with synths, it is one of my favorite things about music production so I spend a lot of time with that. For my remix of “Anubis”, I made a lot of the sounds using FM8. There are layers of Serum and FM8 going on with most growls and bases.  I still don’t understand FM8 as much as I understand Serum so it takes me much more time to create sounds with it but it is definitely something I am planning to work on during 2018.

Dubstep is known to be one of the most complex genres to produce, how did you manage to develop such great mixing skills in such a short time? What is your studio setup like?

Mixing and Mastering were two things that I was not worried about in the beginning. I was focused on learning how to actually produce songs. When my work started to turn out better, I decided it was time to take a step ahead and learn how to proper mix and master my songs so I could start playing the tracks at local gigs. The concept of mixing and master is really simple but when you are actually doing it, it can get pretty challenging and extremely time consuming. It took time before I could achieve cleaner and warmer mixes and louder masters. I became friends with a sound engineer from my hometown (São Paulo, Brazil) who really taught me how to take my mixes to the next level. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know if I would be able to achieve great mixes. Thank you so much, Akimoto!

My studio set up is pretty basic since I have a bedroom studio. I am Mac based and for the monitors I have a pair of Adam Audio F7, I love the way everything sounds on those. My favorite company is definitely Native Instruments, I have a Komplete Kontrol as my main midi keyboard and all their plug ins. I recently got a M2 Subpac and I am loving it so far.

Coming from San Diego do you have any favorite clubbing spots?

There are many different clubs in San Diego, most of the time I go to Omnia or Bassmnt. I really like Bassmnt because I consider it more like an EDM venue than a club. They always have huge names as headliners and I am friends with many local DJs that are very talented and are always playing great music there. I might be wrong, but I think Bassmnt is the only place in San Diego where they play the more aggressive EDM genres, that’s why I love it.

2017 has just passed us, how would you summarize 2017? Did it turn out the way you expected it to?

2017 was great. Although I did not release as many songs as I wanted to, I was able to at least put out two songs I am very proud of. I didn’t expect that many people would like “Clouds” or “Moon” that much. I got a lot compliments and very nice feedback that I was not really expecting, especially with “Moon”. After I released “Moon”, I started working on new tracks. At the moment, I have enough tracks to cover 2018 entirely which is very exciting for me.

2018 has just began, what are your goals for the new year. Any upcoming projects we can get excited about?

Definitely, as I mentioned earlier, I have about 10 tracks that are already finished that I will be releasing throughout 2018. At the moment, I am working on multiple different projects and I am trying to experiment new things and sounds.

I think my biggest goals right now is getting more exposure, start building a fan base and playing more gigs around the US. I know this is all going to take a lot of time but I am confident that with hard work and patience I will be able to achieve my goals.

Thank you so much HBT Magazine for having me again.

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