Today’s guest mix features a man of many hats… Producer, DJ, and mastering engineer extraordinaire, Aeded is a powerhouse brimming with musical talent. With a penchant for meticulous percussion and fast DJing, he has garnered attention from the likes of VALE, WONK#AY! Records, Erie Sounds, and Wavecraft Collective, among others. As an avid connoisseur of music in all its shapes and forms, Aeded finds inspiration from every which way, resulting in some incredibly refined track curation in his sets. I cannot understate that this man is a wizard in the DAW; every track he releases is a flex of technical know-how, the result of countless hours of diligent perfection-seeking. On stage, his USB for any given performance is a vault of lethal dancefloor weapons that are sure to get feet moving and hearts racing. It should come as no surprise, then, that I’m thrilled to have him on for this week’s interview and mix, so let’s get to it!
We’re hyped to have you for this week’s guest mix! What sort of journey are our listeners in for with this one?
Thank you so much for having me! Listeners can expect a variety of breaks, garage, drum & bass, some jungle, and even some bits of softer pop music and electronica sprinkled throughout. I really focused on connecting the often opposing worlds of pop music and underground dance/bass music. It’s a sound I’ve been trying to hone lately 🙂
I treated this as a sort of “influences mix”, like the ones I used to listen to on Inspected‘s SoundCloud back in the day. I’ve always loved diving into my favorite artist’s influences, so I thought I’d leave a little mark here in case somebody’s curious.
Not to mention, there are pleeeenty of unreleased bits from me and some of my friends!
What’s your musical background like? Are you primarily self-taught?
When I was 10 years old I picked up the drums! I don’t play much anymore, but I often miss it. My parents enrolled me in drum lessons at the time, which I did for about 3 years until I moved on due to loss of interest.
I picked up electronic music production around when I was 14. I started making future bass, progressive house, and downtempo type songs for fun. I’ve evolved a lot stylistically over the past decade, favoring breakbeats and drum & bass these days.
Since starting, I’ve enrolled in programs like ill.Gates‘ Producer Dojo and went to a small recording & sound tech school in Gettysburg (AMP). Other than that, I’ve been pretty self-taught through YouTube tutorials and the general sharing of knowledge amongst my friends and favorite producers.
You’ve now had two tracks (‘Funny Bunny‘ and ‘Traffic Jam‘) featured on VISION Radio. How did it feel hearing your name get a shoutout from someone as prestigious as the NOISIA crew? Any idea how they first heard your music?
It’s really cool having my stuff supported by them, and I couldn’t be more grateful 🥲 Noisia was my first “real” deep dive into drum & bass, and I consider all three of them to be at the absolute top of their craft. Bar none.
Big thanks to Dave Columbo Jenkins and Posij as well! I hope they all realize the sheer impact their show has on the bass music community. I noticed a huge uptick in the interest of my project after “Funny Bunny” got played a couple times, which felt really validating.
I find it less stressful and time consuming to work on other people’s tunes, mostly because of the ego factor that it’s not so closely connected and representative of me.
It seems a lot of your time goes to mixing and mastering, both for your own tracks and for others. Do you find it easier or more difficult to master tracks other people have written versus your own?
I believe a lot of the beauty of having somebody else mix and/or master your tracks is that you can offload that last 5% of creation onto somebody else. That last 5% is often brutal. If you know, you know lol.
I find it less stressful and time-consuming to work on other people’s tunes, mostly because of the ego factor that it’s not so closely connected and representative of me. When I’m mastering my own tracks, I find that I’m so wrapped up in it all that I can’t “objectively” critique the track. It’s basically impossible, and I almost never end up 100% happy with it.
Despite being a working mastering engineer, I’ve started offloading my mastering elsewhere since working with WONK#AY! on the Singularity 02 release. Seppa mastered that one! It’s so freeing, and the last part of the production process goes so much quicker when I’m able to work with somebody else on it.
Art is never finished, only abandoned
Mixing and mastering can be quite the rabbit-hole of endless tweaks and fixes if you don’t know when to stop. How do you decide when a track is finally complete and ready to share with the world?
“Art is never finished, only abandoned” 🙂
I try my best to “abandon” tunes right before I start to get exhausted and jaded with them. It’s a struggle I’m still trying to navigate at the moment.
What’s the most “I can’t live without this” piece of software or plug-in you use regularly?
Boring answer, but Fabfilter Pro-Q 4 is a beast of an EQ. It’s everywhere in my projects 🙂 The more interesting answer might be Phase Plant. It can do literally anything except (at the time of this interview) spectral/additive synthesis. It’s used on a majority of my tracks, and is my “swiss army synth”. Serum 2 is slowly starting to overtake it for me, though.
Some hidden gems I really love are Melda’s plugins, but more specifically MSpectralDynamics. I have so much fun tweaking with that one in sound design sessions. It even has some neat mastering applications!
Do you have any big plans for this year that you’re able to share with us? Any special live bookings, releases, etc.?
Nothing is set-in-stone in terms of releases, but I have a lot of 80-90% finished material right now. Hoping to get another AEDFM all-original mix out soon + figure out what future projects are gonna look like. I’m always thrilled to be exploring new territory with my sound, and I’ll continue to do that as I have been since my project’s inception!!
I love the nerdy/techy obsessions that come from being in the studio. I love the connection to people I get from sharing music through DJing.
What’s your happy place and why: DJing on a stage or producing in the studio?
I’m more of a studio guy, but I definitely enjoy DJing a lot. I love the nerdy/techy obsessions that come from being in the studio. I love the connection to people I get from sharing music through DJing. It’s almost difficult for me to choose which one I enjoy more, but I find myself thinking about studio activities a lot more than DJing.
What inspired the name “Aeded?”
Aeded
Do you have any notable hobbies outside of music? Where does your free time go?
A lot of my free time tends to go toward health, wellness, and my relationships with people. I’m an avid gym-goer, enjoy gaming with friends here and there, and I like to learn more about myself / my relationship to everything through activities like meditation and journaling. Cooking is also fun 🙂 despite mostly being a chore, I do a couple times a week lol.
What’s one piece of advice you’d like to give to aspiring producers?
Create something every single day. No exceptions, no matter what happens. Doesn’t need to be a full song, can be a single kick sample for all I care. As long as I make something every day, I am making progress and staying healthy/happy 🙂
Any other last words for our readers?
Aeded is musics (pronounced: /aeded/)
You can follow Aeded on socials and keep up with his shows/releases here.
Aeded FUXWITHIT GUEST Mix Tracklist
Former – i know you
Overmono – Arla Fearn
charles nimbus – Projector
Headie One – Back to Basics (feat. Skepta) Floating Points Remix
VELLE – Adore
Doss – Puppy
Fracture & Sam Binga – Xtatic
RHR & Logan_olm – DIAGONAL (Dub Mix)
COIDO – Little Snitch w/ Caroline Polachek – Bunny Is A Rider (Doss Remix) (Aeded Edit)
Aeded – ID
Pipe Leak – ID
Sonorous – ID
Odd Mob – LEFT TO RIGHT (Aeded Flip)
Lamont – Titanic (Virtual Self Edit)
Posij – B-Boy Sonata ’99
Aeded – ID
Aeded – Funny Bunny 145 VIP (Unreleased)
A.G. Cook – Serenade
Rohaan – guess i’ll call you back
Aeded – ID
gyrofield – S.G.A.
DLR, Ill Truth, Molecular – Dust Collector
Aeded – Bugger Mouth VIP (Unreleased)
Genic – Typhoon
Mat Zo – Kamikaze Cosworth
Culprate – Eighty Six (MVRK Remix)
Aeded – MIA DUB
Enta – Bitchin
Anycia – BRB (VELLE Edit)
Aeded – MY FLOW
Aeded – ID
LIN000 – LIN003
Anile – Nothing Makes Sense (Satl Remix)
Total Science – Jungle Jungle
monopulse – extra terrestrial
Aeded – Zoning Out
They Invade & Aeded – ID
Aeded – ID
Trex – Hypnosis
miaw – hello hello
Aeded – ID
Maito Florale – Cat in a Bottle
S.Murk – Pain
Vulture – Give Me
Samurai Breaks – Endgame Juker
S.Murk – Got More
Aeded – Traffic Jam
Culprate – Junglist Acid
Oklou – obvious
Katamari Damacy Series SOUND TEAM – Fugue 7777
