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I wanted your opinion on using different aliases / producer names.

I have my Ascian name which has built up quite a following online... 800k views on YouTube etc. My issue is that I've never sent anything to labels and now I've built up a bit of a mess of different genres of music on my Soundcloud etc.

I now have some decent tunes under my belt but they span many different genres. I feel like I should build two new aliases - one for drum and bass and one for more abstract things as it's unlikely a label would sign both types of music.

The unfortunate thing about that is that starting a new alias means losing the majority of the traffic that comes from Ascian therefore making my new "brands" less appealing to labels.

What are you thoughts? Have any similar experiences?

To me the biggest con of using multiple aliases is that you will be doing promo for both. The other choice is to just do the abstract/experimental stuff for yourself, share it with friends etc. Or not worry about it. I have satellite radio and there is a station, Chill XM, that I listen to on the regular they play quite a few tracks by artists I know of and the tracks seem way out of their norm. But they've obviously been released to some degree.

And shouldn't labels care about the tunes rather than the traffic you are generating? I mean, obviously if you already have fans that is a bonus. But if that is all they care about, think if you even want to release with them.

The abstract labels are probably used to signing "unknown" names and low traffic artists.

I used to think that it would dissipate your efforts (like the aforementioned point about promotion) but I've changed my mind after some thought & musings by other people on the topic. Now the way I see it is: the music stands on its own, and anything you can do to help "free" it - as in getting it off your hard drive and out into the wild world - is giving it a degree of autonomy... an identity and a life of its own.

Because if you lump all different sounds under one name, then some people who've become attached to something particular in your initial releases will be upset/disappointed when this other stuff you're doing doesn't sound like it used to; also, if the sounds are different enough in vibe & intent, then you're going to have a hard time finding someone who's into, say, garage power noise ambient filth hop or whatever the range of sounds you're doing reflects.

This is never cut & dry - there's probably a case to be made for some exceptional musical polymath types who want to cram it all under one name - but that in itself is a vibe, sort of a post-jazz musicological wankfest. Sometimes it works. Usually not.

Finally, doing things under different aliases lends itself to a creative freedom where you're not beholden to anyone's expectations. You can throw shit in on a lark, it's all good. Have fun. Don't take it as seriously. Have a sense of humor about it. Those things translate into humanness, a kind of accessibility and warmth missing from a lot of electronic music where quantize is always on, everything's always in tune and in key, and it's all trying very hard to be cool or dark or mysterious all the time. That stuff gets old fast. Get weird and let your songs run riot in the worlds' speakers.

I have two separate aliases, and its working out pretty well. one's a collaboration project with a mate for for more strictly house/garage, and i kept my original alias for anything else I want to put out. I feel a ton less restricted doing this, and I've even managed to get some crossover fans from each alias finding out about the other stuff I do.

It's a tough one. Keep it on the same alias at the cost of alienating current fans? although you have a platform to stand on already so to speak.

Or start with something fresh that doesn't matter if it isn't "compatible" with previous fan base?

More risk in the first one but could get you where you want to go to faster. 2nd one pretty safe but could take a lot lot more work. hmmmm

Have one account that's serious where you mainly upload one style of music. And then another one with a different name where you just upload whatever you feel like. In the description of your main account, go "I also have a second account called [@otheraccountname] where I experiment with different styles and genres."

Two aliases just seems like a pain. I would write what you want, and push stuff to labels you think labels will want. The other tracks of different genres shouldn't be an issue in my mind. Idk.

Also, did you finish your YouTube tutorial series? I watched all of them and it never ended. They were fucking awesome, I'd love to finish it.

outbound wrote:It's a tough one. Keep it on the same alias at the cost of alienating current fans? although you have a platform to stand on already so to speak.

Or start with something fresh that doesn't matter if it isn't "compatible" with previous fan base?

More risk in the first one but could get you where you want to go to faster. 2nd one pretty safe but could take a lot lot more work. hmmmm

But with all due respect to fans, the moment you start actively, consciously trying to make your sound cater to what [you think] your fans want... that's a dangerous slippery slope that can lead to diluting your expressiveness. I'd personally rather go way, way out there and explore as much as I wanted to rather than rein things in because they might be "too weird" for a certain demographic.

i think that the way you 'brand' yourself or the aesthetic you create is pretty important. if you look at jon gooch, he has different aliases for different genres and each alias has its own feel, character and brand. now, he is a very talented and legendary producer, but i believe that the smartest thing gooch has done is split from spor into feed me. feed me has such an iconic brand and image that wouldn't have been possible if he just started releasing the feed me tracks as spor. it's a neat way to really start to control your brand and really hone in on an image. although you might start back from the beginning, if you have even a small following on one project, it shouldn't be that hard to bring up popularity on a separate project. if you have a niche that you can fit into then that's great, but i believe that having a lot of different genres under the same name is distracting and makes it hard for you to really build up a fanbase because people will like only a couple songs out of the ton that you put out and i think people enjoy artists a lot more when they can say 'i pretty much love everything [producer] has put out'

It depends on what you're after. If you're going more for Machinedrum etc style 'eclectic' sets / production you can do it all under one umbrella. I've allways though it's easier to have a different alias for different styles. Back in nineties I produced d'n'b under Dice moniker(and few others). To me it was alot easier to start from the clean canvas without any 'expectations' what I should sound like. So I created TLR project. And when I sent my first 'demos/dubs' back in 05/06 I never mentioned to any of dj's or labels my former alias or history. I kinda wanted to see what's the honest reaction to my sound is. But then you have to work a bit more bc you can't 'ride' with your former name/fame. Kinda same process again with Trusta alias. But it leaked out quite fast.

ddnnqq wrote:i think that the way you 'brand' yourself or the aesthetic you create is pretty important. if you look at jon gooch, he has different aliases for different genres and each alias has its own feel, character and brand. now, he is a very talented and legendary producer, but i believe that the smartest thing gooch has done is split from spor into feed me. feed me has such an iconic brand and image that wouldn't have been possible if he just started releasing the feed me tracks as spor. it's a neat way to really start to control your brand and really hone in on an image. although you might start back from the beginning, if you have even a small following on one project, it shouldn't be that hard to bring up popularity on a separate project. if you have a niche that you can fit into then that's great, but i believe that having a lot of different genres under the same name is distracting and makes it hard for you to really build up a fanbase because people will like only a couple songs out of the ton that you put out and i think people enjoy artists a lot more when they can say 'i pretty much love everything [producer] has put out'

After deliberating a bit I definitely agree with you and this is the way I’m going to go I think… Just need to come up with the whole shebang now! Alias, design etc. Thanks

dearadamantium wrote:Also, did you finish your YouTube tutorial series? I watched all of them and it never ended. They were fucking awesome, I'd love to finish it.

Thanks man, glad you got something out of them! I’m planning on picking up the YouTube stuff again but it won’t be continuing where I left off unfortunately – it will be starting something completely new!

I’ve recorded 4 – 5 episodes worth of new material that is waiting to be edited and put out

tes la rok wrote:It depends on what you're after. If you're going more for Machinedrum etc style 'eclectic' sets / production you can do it all under one umbrella. I've allways though it's easier to have a different alias for different styles. Back in nineties I produced d'n'b under Dice moniker(and few others). To me it was alot easier to start from the clean canvas without any 'expectations' what I should sound like. So I created TLR project. And when I sent my first 'demos/dubs' back in 05/06 I never mentioned to any of dj's or labels my former alias or history. I kinda wanted to see what's the honest reaction to my sound is. But then you have to work a bit more bc you can't 'ride' with your former name/fame. Kinda same process again with Trusta alias. But it leaked out quite fast.

Thanks for the reply mate. I was a big fan of yours back in the day when I was getting a lot more into electronic music around ’06! Going to check out your new stuff now…

tes la rok wrote:It depends on what you're after. If you're going more for Machinedrum etc style 'eclectic' sets / production you can do it all under one umbrella.

This is a good point...if you are just kinda eclectic from the beginning and that is part of your thing...you won't need multiple aliases. But not really the question at hand.

Multiple aliases is certainly workable, my concern is always just work load for unestablished artists. I mean if you have 20-30 hours a week to dedicate to making your music into some kind of "career" (whatever that means to you, great), but I'm coming from the perspective of working 40+ hours a week 9 months of the year, maintaining a house, a long term relationship, family, friends etc. Of course it's always about making time, but I feel like a lot of you younger guys probably have an easier time making time than I do. I'm lucky to get time for making the music and typically by the time I get to the laptop on the couch with netflix part of the day I can barely be arsed to deal with multiple social media presences : )

Pitchfork did a "Rising" feature on the producer SOPHIE [https://soundcloud.com/msmsmsm] and here's a quote that I thought was pretty eye-opening:

"Aesthetic aims should be secondary to conceptual aims, otherwise you end up with music that is driven by stylistic references rather than its conceptual or musical ideas, or actual content—I’m speaking from experience here. The music or image—the same applies to both—should be built outwardly from conceptual core to aesthetic appearance in order for the conceptual roots to be present and visible in the final product. If you’re working the other way round and trying to force the ideas or content into a pre-existing stylistic mold, then the concepts become warped and deformed."

here's a link to the rest of the interview: http://pitchfork.com/features/rising/9237-sophie/