The Producer Podcast #59 - Kovary

Hungarian producer Kovary joins us on the Producer Podcast this week! Tell us a little about yourself and the type of music you produce. I’m a musician for more than 20 years. I was born in a small town in Hungary. When I was a kid I formed a rock band with my brother, we played blues rooted retro rock in the late 90’s. Originally I’m a guitar player. In 2003. I joined NEO, a successful Hungarian electro pop band. We made an original soundtrack for a famous Hungarian movie called ‘Kontrol’, directed by Hollywood based director Nimrod Antal. It was his first movie, and it was a huge success in Europe. The ost. won tons of awards, we toured all over Europe in the mid 2000’s. We supported bands like Duran Duran, Kasabian, Massive Attack etc.. Besides I started my own dj career around 2006. I was always into funk and disco. I play the mixture of house, funk, disco and electro, with a little French touch and techno. As a producer I produce nu disco/indie dance and house. How did you get started in electronic music production? In the 90’s I played live rock music. When electronic acts like The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers were topping the charts in the mid 90’s I was amazed by them, and started build my own home studio. I started to produce music on the computer around 2000. What is your DAW of choice? Cubase. I started on Cubase and Nuendo. Now I use Cubase 7 with Propellerhead Reason Rewire. Tell us about your workflow? How do you write a song? It’s very different in every occasion. In the past I always write songs on the guitar, now on keyboards. Sometimes I have a good melody in my mind, and I build the song around it. Sometimes I make a groovy bass line first. It depends on my mood. Can you tell us your favorite production tips? I don’t have. I love to try new things over and over again. I don’t like routines. Favorite softsynth? I’m an analogue hardware synth fan. I have 9 synths at my home studio (Moog Little Phatty, Sequential Circuits Prophet 600, Roland Juno 106, Korg Polysix etc) Besides I love Arturia softsynths, I have their analogue factory stuff. Favorite effect plug-in? I use UAD plugins. The best on the market. I love them. Favorite piece of hardware? Roland Juno 106. Roland SRE-555 Chorus Echo. SC Prophet 600. Anything else in your studio that you love? My Mackie 1402-VLZ3 mixer. Where do you go to personally learn and improve your production skills? I listen to a lot of music. Mostly funk and disco from the 70’s. All my favourite producers are from that era. I always try to figure out how did they do their job. Sometimes I read magazines like Sound On Sound and Future Music. What is the highlight of your music career thus far? I shared the decks with almost all of my favourite producers. Lot of them supports my music. I had a dozen Beatport Top 100 tracks. I played in front of thousands of people. What really helped your career along? Faith in music. What is the most effective way you have found to market your music? Soundcloud/Facebook/Beatport What is the best gig you ever played? This year in Budapest Akvarium Club, with 2many Djs (Soulwax), in front of 2000 people. What’s the best piece of advice you could give to an aspiring producer right now? Follow your intuitions. I always did that. Where can people find you and your music? https://soundcloud.com/kovary https://www.facebook.com/Kovarymusic https://www.youtube.com/user/kovaryvideos