Abhijith Hegde, better known by his artist persona Weird Sounding Dude is a Music Producer, DJ & Educator, based in Bangalore. He has been dropping frequent releases through numerous labels worldwide, featuring his brand of progressive and deep house music. He’s an educator of music production and is also active in the gigging circuit, with numerous club gigs and festivals under his belt. We recently got in touch with how his ‘accidental’ career choice has treated him so far.
Early Years :
“The 12-year-old me wanted to become an aircraft pilot or a Cricketer..”
says Abhijith. Growing up, rocking out to all the teen spirit MTV had to offer, Abhijith discovered electronic music as late as 2011. This was when he accidentally heard Armin Van Buuren’s ASOT episode while fiddling through local radio stations. Being his first time listening to a DJ set, and was quite blown away hearing so many different songs seamlessly fused into one another. Infatuated with the idea, he did his own research on how this could be accomplished and came across terms like ‘DJíng’ and ‘Music Production’ in the process. Few years later he would pursue this path seriously. Looking back, he terms his career in music “a big happy accident”.
Why so weird, dude?
Abhijith was into minimalist sub-genres of electronic music at an early point in his career when he came up with his artist alias ‘Weird Sounding Dude’. Although he has since moved on to various styles like Progressive & Deep House, he chose to stick with the name as he had already established himself well in the DJ industry and also put out a couple of releases. “..moreover I thought it’s pretty unique and cool,” he adds. We couldn’t agree more.
Abhijith started his career as a DJ, developing his craft at ILM Academy. In his opinion, DJing first helps you develop a hindsight on understanding rhythm, arrangement, tone selections and more such attributes that come in handy for production. He also adds “Dj’ing expose[s] you to various other genre’s and artists as you are always digging for new music, and this can inspire your own music.”
Abhijith got into music production at a later point thanks to the internet. After spending a couple of years figuring out the nuts and bolts of making music, he released his first track. Although he started out with FL Studio, he’s been using Live as his go-to workstation for its interface, accessibility workflow advantages, built-in instruments & CPU-friendly effects. “The autosave feature […] has saved me a couple of times,” he adds.
The Gig Life:
Weird Sounding Dude has had a good run gigging at clubs as well as some major festivals. He recollects playing at the R.E.S.E.T and Sunburn Festival early on in his career as a major milestone. Having won DJ Competitions to be part of it, it was his foot in the door to connect with major artists in the industry.
Gear & Set-up
Abhijit operates out of a minimal set-up to produce music. He uses Ableton Live and Logic. He heavily relies on tools in the box. His go-to devices in Ableton Live are Operator and Wavetable along with Native Instruments plugins. He also uses Nektar’s Impact GX-49.
Advice for aspiring Artists
“Consistency has always been the key, nothing happens overnight”
He stresses that honing one’s skill should be the primary focus. Being receptive to constructive criticism, networking with like minded artists from the community and accepting failure along the way, are vital qualities. While there is no dearth of opportunities, he adds that success has no shortcuts and one has to work their way towards it.
Recent Releases:
Weird Sounding Dude’s track record over the past couple years saw EP’s after EP’s with diverse sounds. His recent 2 track release features ‘Circling Flight’ released via the label “If You Wait”, the song features beautiful chords, melodic phrases and bass tones with a groove that works out a warm soothing effect. Interestingly, Abhijit approaches music making by building layers around something that takes a centre stage. In this case, it was the chords.Then he works out the melodies to complement his chord structures. This made it easy for him to work out the bass tones as well as the beats.
Working with Labels:
Abhijit has been consistently focused on his music production, releasing his music, and gaining exposure through multiple labels. Labels like Traum Schallplatten, Juicebox Music, Dream Culture, Stripped Recordings, Mirabilis, Bullfinch and many more. “Working with good quality record labels will only ensure the growth of an artist through promos, radio plays, articles, label’s fanbase..” In this regard he suggests a few key points to help budding artists on how to approach labels:
– Do a little research about the labels you have zeroed in – check whether your music fits their style or not.
– Most labels provide a Email ID on their websites or their social media handles.
– Make sure to read the labels policies on entertaining demos, before sending the demos.
“I personally don’t see any downside as it is the producer who has total control to decide where he or she wants their music to end up.”
Working as an Educator:
As as educator, Abhijith has been working at Themusicscool for about 4 years now teaching music production. He enjoys teaching Synthesis as he also ends up learning more, going about it on a daily basis. His classes tend to be hands-on interactive sessions where the students put concepts to practice as they learn.
Moving forward:
Abhijith has had quite the run so far, since the ‘not so tragic accident’ that has helped him shape things for the better. He hopes to continue his solid streak going ahead. He goes on to say “You can expect quite a few releases before the year ends, and a good amount of gigs too.”
Make sure to follow Weird Sounding Dude and stay up to date with his new releases and events:
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/weirdsoundingdude
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/weirdsoundingdude/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/official_wsd
Read more about other artists here: https://djpmedia.in/category/artist-feature/