SoundBridge Academy Exclusive Interview: WeMakeDanceMusic.com

Recently, SoundBridge Academy sat down with Mikas Anguelov, CEO of WeMakeDanceMusic.com, and discussed how he got into selling project templates, what types of musicians he works with, and how you could benefit from analyzing the projects of professional musicians.  

Who are you, and what do you do?

"Hello everybody, my name is Mikas Anguelov. I am a music producer originally from Canada and now living in Europe. I have started producing music back in the '90s. The year 1999 was the year when I discovered Rebirth and fell in love with the process. Since then, I have created a record label called "Progressive Groove" records. It released music from 2000 until 2005. I have also created a website for people to share project files, and that was called "WeMakeDanceMusic.com." This platform allows people to buy and sell projects, and I will speak more about this later. I am passionate about music production and sound engineering, making music with a computer, etc."  

How did you get into selling project templates?

"Well, I started with dance music in April 2012 after I was doing a recording session with my producer. We would get into the studio every Thursday and create some music together. We composed music together; I arranged, mixed, and mastered it in our studio. We would finish the project in Logic, and he would send me the files. Later on, I was walking down the street and got a notification that he had sent me the files, and at that moment, it struck me that I could send those files to other people. That was April 23rd, 2012, and on that very night, I have registered "WeMakeDanceMusic.com." I had a concept in mind to sell the project files. I create and sell project files so other people can use them for inspiration, remixing, and learning. It took me a few months to get the site online. So, on July 15th, 2012, I offered around 30 projects online from me and some other producers from my record label. We had Cubase and Logic projects. It started really slowly since I did everything manually. Then, with time and much effort, we had to build the technologies that enabled me to hire more producers. Now, we have about 3,200 templates, plus some sounds, STEMS, and other things. I thought project templates would be the following format because the sample packs contain only samples. The project file gives you much more value regarding arrangement, sound design, track composing, sound engineering, equalizing, automation, etc. Since then, six years and two months have passed, and I have stuck with this idea because I think it is excellent. On the producers' end, it allowed them to make some revenue without depending on Spotify streaming. If a producer sells every project template for 10 or 12 dollars, it is a little more every time. By that, we can maybe offer people an opportunity to buy some gear. They can travel and make some revenue even if they are young producers. Some producers are around 20 years old but possess immense talent, and others buy their projects from them regardless of the source. Somebody will use it, and it's a way that electronic music has been produced for a long time. So this is it; this is why I sell project templates.  

What type of artists do you work with?

Well, we now have around 300 different artists and labels. We work directly with artists who are producers, and we basically have people from everywhere. We have some people from Africa who produce Hip-Hop music, people from England who make Dubstep, Trap music, and so on. I don't think there is a common point. The newer generation probably likes to share more, while the older producers demand higher value for creating music. Nowadays, everybody can do it; it is so accessible. While some people think this is a great idea, others aren't interested in it. Therefore, the people who want to produce with us can freely make an account upload. If the product possesses quality, we will enable it and encourage the producer to upload more. Our platform is based on quality, but at the same time, it is based on creativity as well. Music is really and drastically personal. The people we work with go from professional producers who have a video on TV and produce for movies to little bedroom studio guys who are 15 years old and still make some bangers. Today, everybody can make music with a computer.  

How can a person new to music production benefit from a project template?

People who started making music new to DAW can download some of our projects and produce music with only Ableton or Logic. Without including plugins, they can get an excellent idea of how the DAW works. They can see how it's laid out, how the buses function, etc. If you have a completed track, we can give you a good idea of how to layaway. You can reverse engineer it. You can look into the processes, play with the MIDI, and see everything done production-wise. If you go a bit deeper and have already produced music for a bit and already got some plugins installed, you can get some advanced projects; then you go to advanced routing, sidechaining, and all of the production aspects. Even the arrangements are there for you to understand. You can get an idea of how professionals create a track. I think downloading a couple of professional project templates is beneficial for a beginner who has never used a DAW and got Logic Pro. Our site includes an unlimited download for a lifetime. So, once someone downloads something, he will have it forever and can download it as often as he wants from different computers. He can do the pretty music that he wants except release a track made from the project template.  

What other services do WeMakeDanceMusic.com provide?

We, of course, have much more than templates. We have over 3,200 templates for Ableton, Logic Pro, Cubase, and FL Studio. On top of this, we started to build a massive collection of sounds. That means we have lots of presets as well. We also have sample packs of construction kits. Some are loop-based, some are synth-based, vocal pack, and acapella. One of the things that we have introduced lately is remakes. Some of our producers remade the most famous songs, like the last David Guetta hit on the radio, entirely from scratch, and we even got a singer to re-record a vocal.

We sell those kinds of projects as projects, STEMS, or acapella. This can be an excellent resource for DJs in their mash-up versions. They can make their interpretations, or aspiring musicians can make covers on YouTube. We have STEMS that are full-length tracks. You can drop into any DAW and make a track. Some include MIDI presets to make a music bed to record more music. Of course, it's always about getting inspiration from other people. We also have services that are unique to us. I believe we don't want to do that on the web openly. So,  we get the producer to send us the project file, Ableton, Logic Pro, or FL Studio, and we hope we have the plugins. So we take the perfect file, rework it, and then send it back to you, so we have different levels of this service. I think it happened to everybody getting a little stuck and needing help. Therefore, we take our experience, put it into your project, and return it to you. That means if you are making a funky house track and are a bit blocked with the arrangement or don't know how to push it to the next level, you can send it to us. We will work on it a couple of times. Exchange the project with you back and forth. Finally, you will get a finished track of the next level of knowledge in producing. We are sending it to a producer who is one of the best in that genre of music, and he puts his input into it. I think this is a valuable service for a wide variety of producers.

We are also creating custom templates. If somebody, let us say, likes some tracks from the particular genre so much and wants to produce a way like this, then we can make a custom template for that person. We do custom remixes and specific genres so you can send us your track, and we will do a remix. Let's say you like ASOT, a kind of heavy trance music. You can send us your progressive house track, and we will rework it. We only take payments and don't take credit for what we do. You are paying for the work by the hour. Once the track is done, you will have it and take all the credits. Besides that, we also do services for mixing and mastering that complement all our work.  

How can we find more info about WeMakeDanceMusic.com?

You can check us out at www.WeMakeDanceMusic.com. We are also on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc. There are over 2000 videos on our YouTube channel. So, we have a lot of content there and more to come. We also have some short videos on Instagram and Facebook.