EvokeOne - v5

To start this whole process off, introduce yourself to everyone. Who are you, what's your name, where do you live, what do you do?

All your info.

I am a human, or at least that's what I'm led to believe, going by the name of Vitaliy, or V. I am a musician with about 8 years of total consecutive experience living in Toronto for the past 4 years.

So you've been doing music for 8 years. Is this something you want to do professionally? If so, how do you see yourself doing music in the future, do you want to be a producer, DJ, what?

Well in future prospect, yes i would want to pursue music on a level where i would be comfortable enough with just having to do that. My ultimate goal is to become a film composer, actually im working on some minor animation projects right now, so baby steps you could say.

So hopefully future will go under that route for me.

Awesome, I'm sure I'll watch a movie with your name on the soundtrack some day.

As a musician, how do you feel being a part of Evoke, as well as other internet communities, helps you grow?

Evoke is a great place for artists, looking at all the urban artists and potential of right now in one place and being in that place is extremely exciting for me. I mean here is where urban art becomes a part of culture and becomes a part of history, its very interesting and fulfilling in the whole retrospective.

And definitely communities like this help with a lot of inspiration from artist to artist. Its great!

Sounds great man, I definitely am glad that you are enjoying your stay here. With being here I'm sure you have taken note from other members (inspiration, etc) whether it be not only musically, but visually. Has your stay with evoke changed or evolved the artist in you?

It has definitely given me a fresh new perspective on what i can do and how i could deviate from the sort of spectrum that i got stuck in for some time. Especially getting new inspiration from the art pieces here is not only fun but definitely an eye opener on absolutely fresh perspectives. Having a bit of personal graphic experience it just blows my mind to see the stuff people release here...

And that of course gives me that boost and connection to the theme packs. Not only at evoke, but also in SlashTHREE which is a great group, and in the absolutely new artist community which welcomes me, Intrinsic Nature. The full range of art released be all these groups is extremely inspirational.

Certainly, I think the combination of visual and musical pieces online inspires everyone.

Tell us about your workflow, how do you personally get inspired and create your tracks?

Well the inspiration could come from out of nowhere, like a dirty stalker jumping on you in a dark alley . . . Sometimes a song would come from a concept, or have picked up couple of notes on my keyboard or guitar and get that developing and opening up, sometimes it's not that easy though. Mostly the music comes from melody concepts that form in my head and in some weird sense I try transferring it into some sensible piece of music; however I haven't ever perfectly pasted the concept from my head into the musical form yet, hopefully I will be able to do it soon.

Surely man, surely; I have much of the same flow and concept myself before beginning a work but I can never get down exactly what I want just yet. This is definitely grounds to improve however for both me and you. So to dig a little bit deeper, tell us more about why you chose the DAW you chose to put down your ideas and why the synths you use work for you. Also, I know I am not very organized when composing but are you a serious planner when it comes down to putting down a track or do you just per say 'go with the flow'?

Well I am currently working with FL Studio 5, that has been extremely useful for me for the past 2 years now, it has given me everything i need right now. I heard FL Studio 8 was released couple of weeks ago and everyone is hyped up about upgrading to the new version but FL 5 still is more than enough for me and my barely puffing PC [it sits on 256 RAM]. Some exceptional synths that I think I should mention are GForce Oddity and Cakewalk z3ta+, great synths!

Anyway I think that's proof that it doesn't matter what tools you use as long as you know how to use them.

Philosphy for Life!!! 101

As Alfred asked, do you plan out your music ahead of time? Or is your work really quite random and based on whatever is going through your head at the time?

You know it all depends, on the moods and the approach to the song itself, a collaboration that I'm working with my good friend and an outstanding musician Evgeny Konkov has been planned out to the outmost for me and him we've exchanged a lot of conversation just to fix up a piano line aside from all the other elements in the song!!! And sometimes I just sit down and go with the flow without any pre-planning or thinking, more like spur of the moment thing. Sometimes those come out to be the best tracks though!

Yea, I find almost everything I do being spur of the moment so I'm right there with you on that one. However I suppose sometimes I do find time to make attempts to organize, which always fail. Nonetheless, you seem pretty adamant about either method which is a great standpoint since it keeps your options open when composing. Since we are on keeping your options open, what type of musical influences and genres are you most affected by? Furthermore, who would you say sits on top of your favorite artists chart?

You know, I would say the list of the artists would go on and on; good music is good music and it's important to understand and realize what it is. A lot of people don't and unfortunately we have the Britney Spears bubble gum generation of music lovers; however, that seems to have happened throughout history all the time. In the recent past I've been very affected by Jazz. It was my early love when I studied classical piano. Now I try to get my hand around the (Jazz) genre which is equally as great as classical music.

But of course I also am influenced by more modern genres of music too. Some of the artists I've been listening to lately are: John Powell (Bourne Ultimatum soundtrack), Stereophonics, Alan Hawkshaw (Pink Panther theme), The Servant, Henry Mancini, Kaki King, and Propellerheads. The list goes on and on.

I know that we've all heard 1000 times how to "become an artist" but only rarely do we hear someone tell us how to become a musician these days.

What would your advice be to someone who wanted to get started making audio the way you do?

Well first and foremost to become a musician, you need to know an instrument, to me personally that is vital to have some knowledge with any instrument, be it percussions, piano, guitar, trumpet, whatever it is, it helps greatly along. To become a musician also you have to have a personal sense of what your music should be at least, so being a musician who can play music and being a musician who can create music has a great distinction between themselves.

Of course today we have a lot of software to help you improve your music making experience but again it all comes back to the basics of music theory and music understanding. Without those it could be hard to advance yourself as a musician. Even the utmost urban musicians like BT for example have stated that first the music comes from the real instrument and only after that it goes on to be developed on a computer and all the audio editing programs.

Surely, it seems this is a trend in the business as a whole. However I have been meaning to ask you this because I can't quite fit your music into any particular genre being that it is very unique in nature. So, in general how and where would you describe your music in relation to other genres?

Well, it has become my sort of objective to mix genres as I make my music. It's not a completely conscious decision, but I think that's what makes it more interesting. A big part of my music I think has a certain basis in hip hop - I've essentially started out as a "beat maker" and then transformed into a more versatile musician I think. But for me it's in utmost importance to get the best of all the worlds of hip hop, electronica, new age, and classical music.

I think the best categorization for my music would be Experimental because essentially what I still keep doing is experimenting with all the possible sounds I can get in.

To close this off, here is Dalla's famous Top 10 List:

Dalla's 10 Question Pop Quiz:
1. Favourite Food?
2. Do you think you're sexy?
3. Pepsi or Coke?
4. What's your favourite gaming console?
5. Favourite band or musical artist?
6. Blonde or Brunette?
7. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
8. Favourite Sport?
9. Mac or PC?
10. What is your current homepage?

1. Nutella.
2. Is that a rhetorical question? The answer is always yes.
3. Coke
4. Sega Mega Drive 2, 16 Bit of PURE FUUN.
5. ALL OF EM
6. Brunette
7. Somewhere warm, by the sea, with good looking hookers (Brazil)
8. SOCCER FOR LIIFEEE
9. PC FOR LIIIFEEEE
10. http://www.myspace.com/vforvital

Phew.

Alright, here's the last one but first off I want to say thank you in advance for lending us your time and words and we are definitely appreciative of your service, commitment, and contribution to Evoke. Before we end off, is there anything else you would like to let our viewers know and is there anything else you'd like to mention?

Well thank you for having me in the group and more over interviewing me! I'm very honoured to stand beside great artistic power like evoke. Thanks to everyone who listened to at least one of my songs, those people are exclusively awesome on many levels. Enjoy art, enjoy music and enjoy life. Peace, Love and Unused condoms.