DEARI – Music Production 101 Interview

An exciting rising star within Electronic Music, we’re thrilled to be sitting down with the talented Producer DEARI to talk about his unique approach towards music production. As he continues to offer music distinct in sound and high in quality, showcasing a signature sound that incorporates vocal-driven House into punchy, energetic music, DEARI surely remains one to watch out for within the genre. 

So, join us this week as we present this exclusive interview with DEARI. 

Hi Deari! How are you today?

Really good thanks! I’ve just released a new single, ‘Falling’ and I’m looking forward to a busy year of releases!

To start, tell us about your journey into Electronic Music production; what first inspired you to start producing?

I’ve always been surrounded by music at home but growing up I was more into Rock, Punk and Indie Rock and had probably never listened to Dance music until I went to Leeds festival when I was 16. I saw Skrillex at Leeds fest and the energy you get from a Dance set is something that can’t be recreated! I was hooked on Dance music from that point going forward.

From that, it led to raving in the UK and trips to Ibiza. My late teens and early 20s were pretty much raves and parties every weekend. Then, my friend Craig bought decks and a Mac with Logic when we were around 18 and this led me to get some decks, a MacBook and Logic. 

What would you say is your most used piece of equipment? 

To be honest, I am not a gear head. I have a laptop, plugins, and my headphones. 

Growing up, I was a guitar player and didn’t really touch the piano so playing synths takes longer than drawing in patterns on the piano roll for me so owning a keyboard is not something I have invested in yet. I also am a massive preset guy; I can’t design my own synth sounds and I will always search Splice presets for Serum. If I need to recreate a sound, I will find something close on Splice and I can tweak it a little bit. I think it’s more important that you have great ideas than having a very expensive sound. In terms of my most used equipment, it would 100% be Serum or the Korg M1 plugin. These plugins are used on pretty much all my productions!

Which DAW do you prefer to use?

I use Logic which is very user-friendly, and I love it. I’ve always used Apple products, so Logic is the simple choice as its interface is very familiar. Most Producers I know use Ableton which seems to be easier for some things, but I find the interface a lot harder and the overview confusing, so I am sticking to Logic!

If you were to ask which one a new Producer should use, I would say, use any, because you can get the same sound on any DAW it’s all about you and how you use it and the creativity you can come up with. External plugins sound the same on Logic, Ableton or FL, so you can get the same sound on any DAW.

How did you learn to produce music? 

From 18, I’ve been self-taught through basically YouTube videos, and it was always something I wanted to do more of but didn’t put too much time into until COVID hit. I decided it was a great time to start putting more time into my art and thankfully I used a terrible time to make something constructive; I enrolled in the Toolroom academy, which was great, and built some fundamentals in Logic.

From there, I then enrolled in the Expansive Academy six-month mentorship with Jon Kong, and this was where my productions went from being decent to taking a step up and having that professional sound. That was around 2 years ago. I finished the course with Jon, and I have been putting a lot of time into my music and have a lot of unreleased material that I am excited to share with the world!

What does your usual workflow look like? How do you go about producing a track? 

For me, the melodic part is most important, especially in the genre I produce. Once I have a melodic hook I will work on the first breakdown, then a build-up, then the first drop. If I have these three sections nailed on, then it’s very easy to build out a song from it. A melodic idea can be anything from a bassline, a vocal hook, to a piano riff. When I listen to music, I am always drawn into melodic ideas over groove, so this is what I enjoy the most about the music-making process.

Do you have any methods or techniques that you use each time you produce a track?

The more you work on tracks the more you realise that the stuff that works on one track will probably work on your next. An example of this is that I used to try to put rock and punk drums into my productions when I first started but it just doesn’t work!

One thing I do use a lot is a midi chord pack just to get down initial chords. I know this is probably seen as a word of sin in a lot of Producer’s eyes but if I can drag and drop a 4-chord sequence over and then change the midi to fit the feeling I am trying to create, it speeds up the process massively. I feel it’s the same as using a piano sample which a lot of great tracks have done but I am actually editing the midi to fit what I want it to do.

What piece of equipment would you say is essential?

For me, the most important part is knowing your DAW and the creativity you come up with, not fancy equipment. ‘Latch’ by Disclosure for example is all stock plugins and that song is a charting hit. You look at ‘Lady (Hear Me Tonight)’, the actual track is all samples. There are countless examples I can show you but for me, the idea and execution are far more important than the equipment you use. I can create a very similar synth noise with Logic stock plugins as I can with Serum but I know Serum so I also default to it.

What inspires you to produce?

I love music, the process of making music and getting lost in Logic for hours. For me, music is an escape from everyday life so I can just put my headphones on and go into my own little world of Logic. The funny thing is that I have a playlist of tracks I would like to use as references on Spotify and it’s over 200 tracks. I have had to stop adding to it after a couple of weeks of making it because there are way too many songs that give me inspiration to make my own. 

Which element of a track do enjoy creating most? 

My favorite part of production is when you go from having a couple of sections to joining them together to form a skeleton song. I will have a breakdown and a build-up and then I create a drop to complement it. The best part for me is the moment these sections all connect, and you know you have a track on your hands.

I always much prefer making anything melodic over drums as you have more freedom to experiment. In House music, the drums that work will work on most tracks whereas you can have infinite musical ideas and that is what I think the beauty of music is.

We conclude our interview with DEARI by thanking him for his time and sharing a glimpse into his creativity; with an exciting musical journey still ahead, we look forward to hearing more from him soon. So, a talent not to miss, make sure to follow DEARI across social media to stay in the know about his upcoming releases and projects.

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