Part 1

Name: Eoin DJ
Nationality: Irish
Occupation: Producer, DJ
Current release: Eoin DJ's ‘Pure U’ EP is out now on Sally C’s Big Saldo’s Chunkers. 
Things I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: I really like birds!   

If you enjoyed this Eoin DJ interview and would like to know more about his music, visit him on Instagram, and Soundcloud.
 


The path to becoming a producer is a process - but from many interviews, I am under the impression that there are nonetheless one or a few defining moments. If this was the case for you – what were they and why were they so incisive?

I think for me it was investing in a set of studio monitors and buying a (very basic) midi keyboard about 10 years ago. Being able to hear the music properly and having a space set aside where I could make stuff really set me on the path.

At this stage I had been DJing for about 5 years and was playing around with Ableton a lot but couldn’t get the hang of it at all. I think something clicked when I got out of using headphones.

This time period also coincided with leaving my home town and meeting some other producers. I was lucky enough to meet some friends who were a bit older and who had been making music for quite a while – they showed me around their studios and we jammed and it gave me a lot of confidence to give it more of a shot myself and to back my ideas.

This was all happening in my early 20s and I was diving straight into it. Still swimming! I remember being so excited when I finally pushed an arrangement out on my first track– I found it recently and all things considered it’s not terrible.

Tell me about one or two of your early pieces that you're still proud of (or satisfied with) in terms of production – and why you're content with them.

I still love “Invite Delight” on the Radiant Records IWD compilation from 2022. I think this was the first track that I finished where I knew straight away that it was good and that I would want to play it in my own DJ sets.



I’m a bit more capable now, but this was definitely a fluke in the way that it came about and with the way the elements sit together - I think they all compliment each other a lot so the mix is very clean and it sounds really punchy on a soundsystem.

To tie this up with the last question too - this was the track that caught people’s attention earlier on and maybe put me on people’s radar a bit more outside of my DJ mixes. Thanks as ever to Byron for the trust!

Another one from my early catalogue that I still enjoy is ”Mild Life Crisis” which was released the same year on the Rhythm Section Shouts compilation.



I was really enjoying experimenting with new sound design processes and it came together really quickly, and again, I think the mix came out really nice because all of the elements go together pretty nicely.

I still think it sounds fresh and a bit future!

In how far, would you say, was your evolution as an artist connected to the evolution of your music set-up and studio? Were there shared stepping stones?

I have always just used Ableton and a midi controller. I think this has been imperative in my development as an artist because of the limitations presented by that.

I mean you can do anything with Ableton of course, but having a finite number of tools to work with and just figuring out how to make them work in a way I like has been an essential part of shaping my sound. I’m self-taught and was making music for about 6 years before I actually released anything, so I really took the long road in developing my ear and my sound.

Now I can make a track or two in a day because I can work very quickly with Ableton - I can distil the original idea into an arrangement without getting distracted and come back to it objectively to see what it might need or how it might fit into a project.

Making my own instrument racks and effect chains have enabled me to embed my own sonic imprint on everything I make - I don’t really think there’s a blueprint on what this should be or how to do it, it just takes time and a lot of experimentation but it ultimately leads to my tracks sounding like ‘me’ if that makes sense.

There are artists who can realise their ideas best with a traditional – or modified – piano interface, others with a keyboard and a mouse, yet others by turning knobs or touching screens. What's your preferred and most intuitive/natural way of making music and why?

I’m a keyboard and mouse person for the most part.

I usually start in loop mode in Ableton and jam ideas out with a midi keyboard, making tweaks to the midi as I see fit. I’m getting as many ideas down as I can - so maybe 30 channels of drums, bass, fx, chords, pads, stabs etc.

I try and do this quickly so I’m not thinking about it, but once I’ve got a loop with a lot of things happening I start to tweak and tune it and from there I record it live into an arrangement, usually by duplicating the loops and taking bits out here and there so the vibe of the loop is still there but it’s “moving” by elements coming in and out.

Once it’s in an arrangement view I can gently chip away at it, adding fills, an intro, an outro etc. It’s a bit like making a sculpture where I’m removing little bits all of the time to create a defined finished version. It’s quite boring and formulaic but having a workflow I trust means that I’m freer to experiment with what’s happening within it, while still coming out with something tangible at the end.

When I’m making a new track I always try to incorporate a new process or a new sound each time to keep it fresh - it’s probably an 80:20 ratio of tools and sounds I know and trust to fresh experimentations.

Tell me about the space of your current studio/workplace and how you've set it up to optimise creativity.

Haha oh god. My “set up” is in my room and I have a laptop that never leaves my desk that’s always plugged into the midi keyboard and soundcard and a USB with all of my samples and projects on it.

I have an Ableton template ready at 130bpm with a drum rack I’ve made and some soft synths I’ve saved, as well as an impulse instrument with some stabs and fx so I can get started on something very quickly.

I also have a folder of samples and tools that I’ve tagged as favourites so I can access them very quickly. I’m always setting samples aside when I hear them. It’s analogous to a painter having their canvas and paints set up by the easel already so they can just get to it.

I think having it there in my room where I can just sit down, turn it on and get started makes it all very easy for me – I’ve found in the past that being distracted by plugging stuff in or looking for where files are on my laptop or something not working really gets in the way of feeling creative so I try to eliminate those distractions.

From the earliest sketches to the finished piece, tell me about the production process for the Pure U EP, please.

For this one I sent Sally [aka Sally C who runs Big Saldo’s Chunkers where Eoin’s latest EP ‘Pure U’ recently landed] about 10 demos and she picked out three and from there I just refined them.

The foundations of the tracks were all made in the same way that I outlined above, only on this EP I added the vocals on ‘Pure U’ and ‘Track Like’ after I had sent the demos, and I also wrote the dub of ‘Pure U’ once the other tracks had been finished, so there would be something a little bit more stripped back on the record.



I’m not precious about asking for feedback when I’m doing a release and we both felt that a little something could help the tracks along. I had been sitting on the acapella that I used for ‘Track Like’ for a while and tried layering it over the instrumental that I had sent Sally and it just sort of worked. I think having the vocal on top made me listen to the track a bit differently so I added a second bassline and some more “party starting” elements that suit the vibe of the label.

With ‘Pure U’ the track was pretty much finished when I sent it to Sally, so the vocal was just added at the end. I feel it gives the track a bit of a human touch which adds to the euphoric mood of it. With the dub I basically stretched out the grooves in the original and teased in the elements a bit more delicately. It took a couple of goes since usually I sit on tracks for a while before I release them, but I’m very pleased with the outcome.

When I send a label a ‘demo’ or if I’m preparing an EP myself conceptually, the tracks are usually about 80% finished. I try not to preoccupy myself with very small details in the jamming process because it takes away from hashing the original idea out.

Once I’ve had some time away from the track I can return and play it in a DJ set and get a sense of how it’s working. From there I can make appropriate changes to things like the levels, EQ, effects, little splashes of ear candy, fills, builds, drops etc … sometimes it’s hard to know when something is finished but I try not to overthink it and just follow my gut.