Read the Solize Interview below and share it on social media.

Please tell our readers who you are and what you do?

Hey what's up everyone! I am a producer from Ottawa, Canada, and I have been making electronic music for more than three years. I used to go under the name 'NoiseStrike', which was pretty unprofessional, and therefore changed to my new name, 'Solize'. I release all kinds of genres of EDM, not limiting myself to one style and always experimenting.

How would you describe your influences and how have they changed over the years?

My influences earlier on and now haven't really changed, in terms of who mainly influenced me to get into electronic music, however, with my experience in the industry; running a record label on the side (North Clouds Collective), and more than five years+ of my life listening to electronic music, I've adapted my tastes to all kinds of styles that I did not appreciate when I was just starting in this industry. I guess the difference now is that I pull more inspiration from different styles.

What´s new right now?

So, I haven't released much, but I did release an edit of a really popular track from Porter Robinson's new monarch, 'Virtual Self' and his track 'Ghost Voices'. I completely changed the pace of the song from house to hard dance, a much faster tempo with a lot more energy. If you want to check that out, there should be a link to the edit down below (Check the website link)! Hopefully I will start releasing more consistently in 2018, I already have a track that's nearly done and several others in progress.

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Are you a superfan of anyone? How did you become a superfan? Do you remember how you become a fan and what turned you into super fan? Have you ever thought about why you´re such a fan?

If you mean like favourite artists, Porter Robinson and Madeon are huge influences for me.

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What was the biggest mistake you made when you started making music and what would be the number one tip you could give to a newcomer musician?

Trying to understand really complicated advice from tutorials online right off the bat is not a good idea. I recommend just taking it one step at a time: learning the basic functions of your daw, getting used to one or two generator plugins, and just experimenting and listening to electronic music to get how that structure is built. Getting into the framework of producing electronic music takes a while to achieve, because it really is a type of structure. I remember when my older stuff was just going from intro to drop immediately instead of having a build, so anyways, just get a grasp for builds tension all the way to the drop is pretty important.

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How do you get gigs? Can you share any tips?

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Do you have good promotion tips for other musicians?

Make good music! Nah, that's not just it. Although making good music in the first place is really useful (and getting feedback from artists is crucial to know where to improve), I would recommend to join communities! There's plenty of room on reddit, and also Discord where you can find many online communities.

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Do you have insights on how to grow your audience on soundcloud that you want to share with our audience?

Networking and building connections is pretty important. Although i have yet to establish Solize, I have grown my record label to 1.5K followers in 15 months with hardly any money spent or deep connections to start with. Maybe try and release with some labels too, that can help because promotion channels are more or so invested in themselves and promoting popular tracks (that still irks me) and labels tend to have a larger following, thus more attention from those agencies.

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What has been your biggest challenge right now? Have you been able to overcome that challenge? If so, how?

Learning how to produce and getting better is the biggest challenge for me. I do not think you can overcome it ever, just because you will always be critical of your own music, but be accepting that art is never truly perfect, and maybe you can overcome it.

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How do you personally discover new music?

Soundcloud, Soundcloud, and Soundcloud. Start following a bunch of artists (Follow me and North Clouds Collective! ;P) and check out your Soundcloud stream, there should be plenty of fresh music to curate.

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Once you discovered new music, do you tell others about the new music/artist you discovered? If yes, how exactly?

“I do tell others, Skype and Discord mainly.

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What is your number one tip to improve your music production or songwriting skills?

Honestly, every producer is at a different level in terms of production skill. Although being consistent and practicing helps (obviously), getting some trusted friends to give you feedback is way better than looking up tutorials on YouTube (unless you know what you are doing and are looking for one specific thing). The most important things in terms of mixing are sidechaining and sub seperation (where you have your entire track except for the kicks, snares and bass be devoid of lower frequencies to make the mix more clean). For composing melodies, having a basic grasp of what a 'key' is and basic music theory should do it, and experience will help. For mastering, I recommend using Ozone. My favourites are the imager and the maximizer, because they really clean up the final mix and master and make your track beefy. Ott is pretty nice too.

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What is your best tip for those who struggle with finishing their tracks?

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We meet again in one year. What has changed?

I don't have a deep concrete plan, but I do want to release an EP ?

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http://soundcloud.com/solize/virtual-self-ghost-voices-solize-edit

http://www.soundcloud.com/solize

http://www.facebook.com/solizemusic/

http://twitter.com/SolizemusicNEW

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCKu3VUGCyl0aHOHNdog14A?&ab_channel=SolizeMusic

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