DJFinyl is our winner of the MSXII Maschine Giveaway Contest! He put together an incredible record that absolutely smashed the competition. With over a hundred signups, DJFinyl found a groove with MSXII products and let his inspiration set the basis for this track.
Who is DJFinyl? Where are you from? How'd you get your start?
First and foremost, I'm a DJ (obviously), producer/beat maker, record junky. I am the DJ/producer of "The Greater Good"--a group consisting of myself and an artist by the name of Marion Write. I'm also the Red Bull Big Tune Las Vegas Champion. I was born and raised on the island of Saipan in the Northern Marianas and moved to Vegas when I was 13.
I started DJing while I was in college. I would go digging for records to play for gigs and along the way I would also find amazing music that wouldn't necessarily be for my gigs, but just sounded dope. That's where the itch to make beats started. I had records that I knew could be something, but I had no way to create it. I ended up getting an MPC 1000 from Craigslist and I was off to the races after that. No one ever really starts off sounding how they want to sound in their head, which was certainly my case. I just honed in on what I was trying to convey and eventually it started to make sense.
Tell us about your production style, equipment, and work you've done
I tend to gravitate towards a more soulful sound. It's not necessarily a style, but a vibe I try to capture whether it be from a sample or something I composed originally. It doesn't matter if it's something smooth and feels good or something that makes your face scrunch up, it all still has that soul to it. Nowadays my set-up consists of Maschine running from either my desktop or Macbook, a few analog keyboards, a turntable and records.
As far as the work I've done that's out, my group has released 2 projects, The Goodness EP and Goodness Gracious, produced entirely by me. I've also released instrumental versions of those projects--just in case anyone wants to rap on them. lol. I've also done a some other work with local artist here in Vegas.
So you won the MSXII Maschine Giveaway contest with an incredible record! Tell us about the process in making the track?
The foundation of the beat is the guitar in the background. I have some music theory knowledge, so once I was able to figure out what key the guitar was in, I just built the beat around that. Almost every single melodic sound you hear came from a different source. All in all I used about 5 or 6 different pre-recorded sources for it. A few sounds from the stems, a few from previous studio sessions with musicians, and some samples from records. I played the on a keyboard brass to give it a more sinister feel. I didn't add the drums until the very end.
Which MSXII drumkit or sample pack did you grab to base the track off of? What inspired you most about the sounds?
The backbone of the beat, the picked guitar, I got from the Joe Deertay Stems. Like I said earlier, I try to capture a certain sound in my beats and the compositions really resonated with me. In this case, I used it as a foundation to my beat. All the compositions definitely have room for interpretation. What I made may not sound like what someone else may come up with.
What can we expect from you in the future? Where can we find you (plug here)?
I'm about to release my first beat tape for the masses. I don't want to give away too much about it, but just know it's going to be fresh. A whole bunch of artists have my beats, so you may hear certain collaborations from me in the near future. I don't want to mention anyone specifically because you never know how things may end up. I have 2 DJ residencies here in Vegas. One in Caesar's Palace and the other at The Mandalay Bay, so if you're in town come check me out!
I'm always dropping new music that you can check out on soundcloud.com/djfinyl. You can check out my work with The Greater Good at soundcloud.com/thegreatergoodlv. I'm also on all the usual suspects of social media under @DJFinyl. Twitter, instagram. You name it... I'm there. If you want to reach me for $erious music inquries, you can reach me up at DJFinyl@gmail.com.
Once again thank you to MSXII Audio, Reasontowork.com, The Drum Broker, and all the other sponsors for providing this opportunity.
