denise groove challenge winner: Min Kursitis
We are excited to finally announce our grand prise winner for the groove challenge!
Congratulations Min Kursitis!! He has won 1000€ of denise store credit!
Since we really liked his submission we asked him a few questions about his workflow and his background. Read below:
Where are you from?
I’m from Seoul, Korea and I’m currently living in Latvia.
Since when are you making music and what got you into it
in the first place?
I started writing songs and fiddling with DAWs since 2005 and it has always been a learning experience ever since!
Growing up in a very international community in Manila made me realise that music is a language that speaks to all cultures. The surreal experience of jamming with people with whom you couldn’t communicate in words got me hooked to music.
What inspires you the most?
I get inspired from focused listening – There’s always so much to get out of listening out for different sound design techniques, chord changes, beat elements that other artists create. I go into writing with a specific sound I’d like to try creating for that session in mind, which is why it’s really nice to have creative sound tools helping me get there in less time (and less cpu load!)
What instruments do you play?
Guitar is my principal instrument and I mostly rely on it when writing songs. I also play the clarinet, bass, keyboards and a bit of percussion for production.
Do you have a preferred music genre?
I usually listen to a wide selection of genres from electronica to classical music to draw different elements from them but lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of instrumental music featuring electric guitar as the solo instrument.
What is a crucial essential in your workflow?
I make it a point to take a step back and try to remove clutter – it could be overlapping melodies that take the focus away from the main melody, or frequency redundancies in the mix, or excessive sound effects that aren’t essential to the flow. Creating focus for the intended sound always seem to tell a better story as a final result.
A big thank you for the team at Denise Audio for this interview!
The Denise 2020 groove challenge was an exciting learning experience!