Saturday, December 5, 2015

Industry Spotlight: Sean Divine







Tell us a little about your musical background and influences?


My entire family has always been passionate about music. Growing up, I remember my father having all different genres of music playing at our house or in his car. My brother was a bass player and he got me into the 90's alternative rock movement when we were very young. The first CD I ever listened to was Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and even then, I was blown away by how the record sounded as a whole. I didn’t realize at the time it was the mixing and production that I was so drawn to but it made a huge impression on me back then.

I played in bands as a drummer and began to become interested in the recording and engineering side of things. I went from that to trying out keyboards after a friend introduced me to Hip Hop music. Once again, it was the production and “beat making” processes that sparked my interest. My father bought me a copy of the software, Reason 1.0, and I made beats and electronic music throughout high school. I didn’t really start to take the production seriously until I was in college studying to get my bachelor’s degree. I made beats in my dorm room, working with artists on campus. I found out about a website called “Soundclick” and I created a page to post my first beats. Once that was in place, everything started to take off from there. Eventually, artists and companies started offering to license my music. At that point, I realized if I was diligent, it might be possible to turn it into a career. I committed nearly all of my free time to making music and studying production. Thankfully, great opportunities came up shortly after I graduated and I'm now working in music full-time.

You have made a couple of sound banks for AAS, how did that business relationship start?

I was an assistant engineer in a studio just outside of LA in 2012 and the owner and friend told me about a music conference held in Anaheim, CA called NAMM. I didn't know anything about it but I attended that year. I was using a few of the AAS plugins at the time, especially Strum, which was one of the only convincing guitar emulation plugins. We spent some time hanging out at the AAS booth and met their Product Designer, Eric. Their team was very down-to-earth and extremely bright. My manager, Zack and their CEO, Marc, discussed putting together a signature sound bank for their Ultra Analog VA-2 plugin. That ended up becoming "Reverence" and I've just finished a new urban bank called "Low End Theory", along with working on factory presets for most of their instruments. AAS is a top-notch company and it has been an incredible experience working with them. Their approach is so unique in the plugin instrument space, being that everything is based on physical modeling. I’ve always been inspired by the AAS plugins, so to be able to collaborate with them has been an honor.

Do you have any advice for people who are looking to get into sound design?

I would encourage you to experiment and also study the sounds you know and appreciate. The best way to learn something is just to sit down and fall in love with the process. Starting out, I didn't know much about the technical side of sound design. I just knew what sounded right to me, as well as the types of sounds that inspired me to want to write music. Particularly with sound design, you want to create sounds that inspire people and are playable. Most are flicking through presets very quickly, so you don't have much time to catch their attention.

I would suggest choosing one synth that you are inspired by and are comfortable with. Then center all of your production around that instrument for a while to truly learn all the features it has to offer. Eventually, you’ll pick up on a lot of the technical aspects and by necessity you’ll be able to create different sounds with this one instrument. Most of the main technical aspects of a synth will translate to others, so this will give you a great basis for sound design.

Since you also produce and engineer, what does your studio mainly consist of (Software/Hardware)?

I've sold a lot of my outboard gear at this point. I'm all about simplicity and enhancing workflow. My main setup consists of:

iMac (Quad Core i5, 12GB ram)
DAWs (Logic Pro X, Cubase Pro 8, Pro Tools 11)
Loads of plugins
RME UFX w/ remote
Event 2030 / Yamaha NS-10M
Sony MDR 7506 / Audio Technica ATH-M50
Yamaha Motif ES6
Access Virus B
Akai MPK249
Microphones – Shure SM7B, KSM32, SM57, Rode NT1, NT1-A, iXY

What is next for you?

I'm currently looking to sink my teeth into more in-depth production projects as well as working with talented artists. I feel the process of working with artists personally that you truly believe in and contributing to a specific vision is extremely rewarding. We're working on great new sound design projects with AAS and others. I also launched Divine Tracks about a year ago, which offers my beat catalog as well as beats from 4 other extremely talented producers: Jurd Beats, Bombs and Bottles, DJ Shaw-t and Sean Ross. That's something we're excited to continue to develop. I’ve recently started creating more learning based content on my YouTube channel, whether it be mixing and mastering, making beats, sound design or just for those seeking inspiration. To help encourage and inspire the next generation of producers, engineers and beat makers is something that is very important to me

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