Today we’d like to introduce you to Tdogdaruler.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in a small town called Lodi, which is in Northern California close to Sacramento. At a very young age, my parent’s embedded music into me. My father always had to listen to hip hop music whether he had music videos blaring from the living room while getting ready in the mornings or when he had a sports game on. He always had to have music on. My mother had a different style of music than my father and I think that really helped broaden my horizon of taste.
At a young age, I wanted to be a rapper/artist, but as I grew older, I changed it to a DJ than to a producer, and finally chose to be an audio engineer. Going into my senior year of high school, I taught myself how to read sheet music and play the piano. In 2014, I moved to Glendale, CA, thanks to my aunt and uncle who were currently living there. In 2015, I taught myself how to make hip hop beats on garageband. I quickly became addicted and wanted to learn more.
As I mastered garage band in only a few months, I upgraded to Logic Pro X. I attended GCC’s music program and I did not complete it. I did meet some amazing people there and found a couple of really close friends. One who is an artist and I work with very closely, Sito Crazy. During my last semester at GCC, I found an internship in Hollywood for a studio called Treehouse. I interned there for about 4-5 months and I decided to attend Musician Institute. I graduated from the Audio Engineering Program with the extension of Live Engineering. I met some super dope people there and some that will be lifelong friends. As I learned the proper way to record musicians and run boards, I was also still creating beats and working with Sito Crazy. I produced and engineered half of his first album, DRACARYS. My first real project I was a part of. It motivated me to get better and to create more.
After graduating, I worked on some live gigs and engineered a few artists. I also was releasing beats tapes. My fiancé introduced me to a colleague of hers who is an extremely dope artist, Nariz. Nariz paved a way into an underground producer event hosted by SunSweatGold, who eventually got me into a label called Villain Beach. Villain Beach was started by Sentry Sinvil who is from Brooklyn, New York. VB is rapidly spreading with a group of us in New York, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area. Shortly after joining, SunSweatGold gave me the opportunity to do my first live beat set. I did a 15 minute live set on the MPC touch and opened up for some extremely talented artists and producers. While working with VB, I’ve still been creating stuff for other artists and working with Sito Crazy. During this pandemic Sito Crazy and I took this opportunity to work almost every day on his upcoming album “Voyager” which is releasing November 2nd. We have spent a lot of time creating and building our craft. We can definitely see and hear the growth in our music from the last album that was released.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I grew up with my parents separated but they always tried to help get me whatever I needed. After moving from home and my aunt and uncle teaching me how to be an adult is where most of the struggle came from. For me to live with them, I needed to pay rent, which was very little and I thank them for that and get my own food, they also helped a lot with feeding me. I tried to give back by purchasing them food or cooking for them when I could. They also wanted me to attend college full-time and maintain passing grades. I can’t thank them enough for letting me live with them and giving me the knowledge of becoming an adult. After completing my last semester at GCC, I decided to attend Mi. We decided I should move out and live closer to school. Before I was working part-time and going to school 2-3days a week and it being full time. Moving out and going to the new school, I worked from 3-4pm to about 1am 5 days a week. Some days getting overtime while attending maxed out full-time schooling at 18 units per semester. I would wake up at 5:45 almost everyday driving from Eagle Rock to Hollywood to attend class at 8am.
Classes would end at 3 or 4 in the afternoon and I would go into work until 1am. It would take me about 15-20 minutes to get home depending on what day it was. I was usually in bed by 2am and did that everyday for a year straight. Some days I wouldn’t even sleep because of huge projects we needed to work on or studying the Audio board manuals. There would be days I would only have one meal and sometimes it was asked to be compensated by a manager at work. One of my very good friends that I met at Mi, Ludvig, one of the dopest guitarist/engineer I’ll probably ever meet would always tell me that he doesn’t know how I would do all of this and still have a session on my day off. I would just say back to him “Bro, it’s that banana bread everyone fights for in the break room at school.” Anyone that is reading this, in the moment of hustling, it does not seem like you are doing a lot and it does not seem like you are tired even though you are running on minimal energy, you just keep going until the job is done. In the back of my mind, I still tell myself the job still isn’t done.
Can you give our readers some background on your music?
I am selling my own beats/instrumentals, engineering and mixing. I am a certified audio engineer and certified in Logic Pro X. I mainly make instrumentals unless an artist asks me to make a tailored beat for them. One thing I do with Sito Crazy is we sit down and I ask what he is feeling whether it is something boom bap with a nice lofi melody or something up tempo like trap or Bay Area vibes. I’ll start creating, and Sito Crazy will tell me if the beat is “talking to him.” That is my favorite way to make beats. I am basically selling my knowledge of engineering and mixing while being able to sell my produced beats. I am always looking for someone to work with and am willing to teach my knowledge to whoever. I am also about to start my own microphone company. I just completed my first ribbon microphone.
I am currently on a quest to create a condenser microphone. My main focus is creating these microphones to have my own sound when recording as well as my sound for beats. I am most proud of the knowledge I have learned from Mi on engineering and how to handle situations in a session. As an engineer, signal flow and working quickly are probably the most important aspects that I adapted and believe are something that all engineers need. I think my sound and what I can do to create what the artist needs sets me apart from other producers and or engineers. I am also a two for one package deal as well for making beats with engineering and mixing.
What were you like growing up?
As a child, I was more outgoing which most kids are. I was and still am very competitive. I have to win and make sure I win. When I was a kid, I had a temper. I would get upset if I lost or was losing and it would fuel me to win. Now I am more introverted but can be extroverted when I want to. I was into music but my parents never put me into music classes. My parents focused me more into sports such as basketball, baseball, and soccer until I was like 9 or 10. I grew up a SF Giants fan because of Barry Bonds, but I am an Angels fan. My mom always had tickets to see the Sacramento Kings, but when Blake Griffin was drafted I became a Clipper fan and a Knicks fan when Melo played. I still rep Clippers and Knicks even though they always let us down. Football wasn’t really an interest until I met my best friend in the 4th grade. His family is a huge Cowboys fan but for me, I’ll watch the NFL but I am more interested in college football. At the elementary school I attended, we had music classes, which I excelled in, and in middle school I was placed into a band and played the drums. I was always into some type of sport, worrying about when the next best album is coming out and what were the dopest fits to wear.
I am all about the 90’s. Fashion, music, sports, whatever is connected I am intrigued. With my mom being on my on butt about listening to something other than 90’s hip hop. I got into jazz which has really helped my sampling game. My favorite artists are Biggie Smalls, the entire Wu Tang Clan, Flatbush Zombies, The Underachievers, Pro Era, Isaiah Rashad, Mac Dre, and Hippy Soul. I grew up watching a lot of movies but my favorites are Coach Carter, Interstellar, 2001 Space Odyssey, and Whiplash. I didn’t grow up watching anime but I recently got into it and started with watching all of Dragon Ball all the way to Dragon Ball Super, Cowboy Bebop, Naruto and Naruto Shippuden, and my favorite Afro Samurai. I am pretty big on video games as well. Growing up with my father, we played Mortal Kombat, Tony Hawk series, any type of Mario’s, and I am a huge fan of Zelda. I’ve beaten every major console Zelda game with my uncle. I was really into skateboarding and BMX biking with my friends. In high school, my grandpa got me into stocks. Now I am into finances and learning business models for different things.
Pricing:
- 20$ an hour for engineering
Contact Info:
- Website: https://solo.to/tdogdaruler
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/tdogdaruler?igshid=g60qz39spcam
Image Credit:
Endzwithdalenz
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