I recently decided that it’s probably a good time to pick the brain of our in-house sound designer, Ryan Enzed. I was able to tear away the man-who-wears-many-hats from his intense schedule as a producer, mastering engineer, DJ, sound designer, and YouTube professor, for a few minutes to find out what he’s got cookin’ down under! While you’re here, take a listen to the audio demo for Ryan’s super-soon-to-be-released Sylenth Soundset Vol. 1 here at Supplemental Sounds. Also, we’ve made 3 free demo patches from the soundset available for you to download and test out.

What made you decide that producing music was something you wanted to do full-time?

I wanted to be ‘big-shot’ DJ and as soon as I realized all the big DJ’s got to where they are because they made hit tracks, I knew producing was something that I had to try. It didn’t take me long to fall in love with the whole production thing as it turns out.

Who were your first influences in electronic music?

Daft Punk, Wolfgang Gartner, Klaas

Before most people ever heard a song of yours, they found out about you through your Massive & Logic tutorial videos on YouTube. What sparked you to start making those videos?

Have to be honest here and say I kind of got the idea to do the tutorials from Lucky Date. His popularity on Youtube really helped kick-start his great career so that was one source of motivation. I consider myself a bit of synth geek so I was keen to pass on some of my knowledge to others just starting out. Also back when I started there were not that many tutorials on dance music and synthesis (well, good ones at least) so it seemed like a good gap in the market to target.

How did you learn how to make those crazy noises you teach us how to make?

I geeked out on synths for about 1 year before I even made my first full track. I find VST synths so fascinating, and even to this day I find myself constantly tweaking synths perhaps a little too much, preventing me from finishing my tracks faster. Having the ability to manipulate a synth is a huge advantage if you hope to develop a sound that is unique to you.

Your YouTube channel has close to 20,000 subscribers and 3.6 million views in just 2 years, did you ever imagine it would get to be this popular?

I definitely didn’t think the channel would do as well as it has – if so I would have never called my channel ‘nzmusic101′…..what was I thinking (laughs). I pretty much have my Skrillex tutorial to thank for most of my youtube success. I feel a little bad these days as I cant upload content as fast as I could when I first started the channel, but the positive is that its a sign that I’m keeping busy with the other music related aspects I’ve got going on.

Electro House has seen a lot of trends come and go over the past few years. There was fidget house, complextro, dutch house, and at the moment that Tommy Trash/Zedd sound (Is there a name for this?) seems to be pretty popular. Any predictions on where it will go from here?

Yes I agree, lately the leading tracks in the Electro charts have been songs with more simplified melodies combined with big basslines – i.e. Dada Life, Tommy Trash and Dyro. I think this trend may stick around for another 6 months or so. After that my guess is that it will get a little boring and people will want that same excitement in songs that complextro bought to the table when that was first making its mark on the scene. But this time it will be far more melodic and ‘Madeon’ sounding.

A couple months ago, you played me a pretty spectacular progressive house song you produced. Do you plan to continue to make music outside of electro house?

Yes I do. I consider myself to be a general ‘music producer’, and not solely an ‘electro house producer’ – it just so happens to be that I have started my producing career releasing electro house tracks. But behind the scenes I make a ton of different music ranging from pop, big room, progressive house to a bit of dubstep here and there. Like I say, people don’t know this because I have only ever put my electro songs out on the net for the world to hear. I find making different styles of music extremely healthy for your production skills and just keeps things fresh.

I hear you have an EP on the horizon? Tell us a bit about that…

I have quite a few things in the works, but I do have a 3 track EP being released through an awesome Australian label, VAMP. All 3 tracks are slightly different but fall under the electro house genre. One of the tracks is complextro, one is big room electro, and the other is a vocal electro house track. The label is sorting out some remixes right now, but overall im really looking forward to this release.

Has Ryan Enzed been doing any shows lately? Any plans to tour outside of New Zealand?

I have been doing more and more gigs lately in my home city of Auckland. Household Management just signed me to their agency. If all things go well, we will be in the process of sorting out a tour to the US for later in the year. There is also talk of doing a couple of promo gigs in Australia with VAMP when they release the EP.

So you’ve dropped two Massive soundsets for all the hungry producers out there, what’s next?

The success of the first 2 Massive soundsets blew me away. I had nothing but great feedback which pleased me immensely. Now is probably a good opportunity to thank all those people who purchased and supported the product. I’m happy to announce that I have my first Sylenth soundset is being released on Supplemental Sounds very soon. I’m excited to see if it proves to be just as popular as the Massive soundsets.

Word on the street is that you’ll also be releasing a Logic Template for a track you produced in the near future?

This is certainly the plan. Im thinking it will be an Electro House track. The song will be made using all Logic’s native plugins for obvious compatibility reasons. I get a ton of requests for this particular product idea, and I see it being a really good way for beginning producers to help speed up the learning process.

Besides your own productions, do you know any other producers that have used your soundsets on songs they’ve had officially released?

Thats a tough one. I know many producers who love using my soundsets, but I’m never 100% certain if the final sounds in their songs are my original presets, due to the way the artist processes the synth making it more difficult to recognize.

What all does your studio setup consist of?

My hardware setup consists of:

• KRK Monitors
• Sennheiser HD 25-II Headphones
• Fast Track Pro Sound Card
• Novation Nocturn 49 Midi Keyboard
• 15″ Macbook Pro Quad Core
• Logic Pro 9

My main plugins would be:

• Massive
• Sylenth
• Waves Plugins
• PSP VintageWarmer
• DMG Equality

What do you use when you do mastering?

I have access to a fully professional studio setup, so that is where I do my mastering. The biggest advantage I have doing the mastering in this environment is the acoustics. The room is fully sound treated and tested. This allows me to hear the song with the necessary flat response to make the critical tweaks and adjustments.

*Your Mastering service has experienced a lot of growth over the last year. Is this a business you want to continue to grow, or more of a way to supplement your income? How can producers reach you, to get tracks mastered?

I couldn’t be happier with how things have grown in 12 months. I enjoy mastering and I do a ton of work for clients and record labels and it makes up a big chunk of my income. But if all things went well and my career continued to grow with more travelling and performing, there would eventually come a time when it just wouldn’t be possible to do mastering for others. My turnaround time would go from from a 1-2 days, to 1-2 weeks (laughs). Im still thinking over how the future of my mastering service will pan out. I have worked so hard to build it up to where it is now, that it would seem like such a waste to watch is dissolve down to nothing.

Any gear you have your eye on to purchase in the future?

I really want to get Native Instruments FM8 Synth. I already have a reasonable idea of how FM synthesis works, but Im always looking to expand my knowledge in synthesis and this is an avenue that interests me.

If you could think of a feature or plugin that doesn’t exist in any DAW yet and make it into a reality, what would it be?

I would really like it if Massive had the ability to load in a sample as the audio source and then process this audio sample with all the features in Massive. The idea of re-sampling using Massive frightens me, the capabilities would be endless.

What’s the “coolest” plug-in you’ve played around with or used recently?

The latest plugin I bought is the Spline EQ. Its really awesome as you have something like 60 bands to use and the sound quality is exceptional. However the CPU hit is not so friendly.

What does your DJ setup consist of?

My personal setup is nothing amazing with just a couple of CDJ1000′s and a Vestax mixer. But most of the gigs I have play at all have 2 or 3 CDJ2000′s and the DJM800. Im also set to make the change from CD’s to USB’s very soon. Im interested to hear the feedback on the newly released CDJ2000 with the controversial ‘Sync’ button. I think traditional beatmatching will became a thing of the past.

You have a couple massive collaborations in the works, with star Electro producers like FTampa, and Vodge Diper. When can we expect those tracks to drop and who would be your dream collaborator?

Vodge Diper and I were so happy with how successful our first track “Reckless” was that we are now in the process of collaborating on a new project which Im really excited about. Ftampa and I have just finished our track which I absolutely love. Strangely enough its not complextro, which may surprise people as we are both known for doing a lot of Complextro. The track is more along the lines of aggressive electro house. None of these tracks have release dates. My dream collaboration would have to be with Lazy Rich. I have so much respect for that guy and I dont think he has ever put out a track that i haven’t liked.

Thanks for taking the time to do this interview with us. Anything else you wanna add before you go?

I just want to say to all those people who have supported me and helped me along, that I am truly grateful and appreciate everything they have done for me. Also be sure to check out for my first Sylenth soundset soon to be released on Supplemental Sounds. And finally keep an eye out for my latest venture with the launch of my own label.