M4sonic Details

With a background in classical piano, this 21 year old Australian producer discovered the Launchpad when he read an interview with his music idol Deadmau5 entitled “Dance DJs are Glorified Button Pushers”, the article was a typically blunt explanation by Deadmau5 about the ease of modern DJ’ing and the common assumption “by the audience [that] there’s a guy on a laptop up there producing new original tracks on the fly. Because none of the “top DJs in the world” to my knowledge have [done this]. Myself included.” (Deadmau5) Determined to give the concept of creating a truly live DJing performance, M4SONIC purchased a Novation Launchpad the next day.

His first Mashup – “Weapon” samples 15 tracks, from some of his favourite artists; Deadmau5, Skrillex, Nero, Porter Robinson and Knife Party. By using a drum rack to launch samples that are < 2 seconds in length the mashup has a truly original sound. Unlike Launchpad prodigy Madeon who generally uses the “trigger” function to cue and launch tracks that sync with each other as the launchpad buttons are pressed, M4SONIC wanted his live performances to replicate the experience of producing the music on an instrument so he uses the “user 1″ setting, which enables the user to play each sound as the pad is pressed. This setting relies on frenetic hand activity, muscle memory, and timing. If he isn’t touching the pads no sound is coming out, making it a truly instrumental electronic performance.

He uploaded a self made video to YouTube on July 10th, 2012 of his mashup “Weapon” under the moniker M4SONIC, and within less than 3 weeks the video had gone viral with over 1,000,000 views. Subsequent videos of Skrillex’s “Bangarang” and solo demos have received similar acclaim and have a cumulative total of over 5,500,000 views for this genuine bedroom producer. He was approached by Ableton Australia to put on a series of Ableton Live Schools and it was the reaction of a live audience that truly inspired him to step out from behind the camera. Now developing his live show and original tracks this is an artist to watch for 2013…