You might think for an EDM producer to have a solid grasp of the genre in which they are making music, they must have some degree of experience in a club, venue or other dance music setting.

But in the case of Aussie producer and DJ Ninajirachi, she first got into electronic music when she was just 12 years old, as she tells MusicTech in a recent episode of the My Forever Studio podcast, made in partnership with Audient.

• READ MORE: Save hundreds on synths, controllers and studio mics in Reverb’s mega Labor Day sale

Her musical journey started as young as “six or seven” when she took up piano, before discovering GarageBand a couple of years later, and easing herself into the basics of producing.

“I would just loop the stock loops and record over the top through the MacBook microphone. A lot of the first recordings, I didn’t know how to turn the metronome off, so it would be just completely out of time with everything I was recording over the top. I still have a bunch of those old recordings.

“I eventually started using different software when I got into electronic music when I was in early high school, like maybe about 12 years old. And I realised I kind of needed something more powerful if I wanted to make sounds like the ones I was hearing in my favourite songs.”

Ninajirachi explains that while her taste for “traditional” EDM diminished as she approached her mid teens, she acknowledges that the genre was “kind of like a gateway drug” into discovering more niche “producer music”.

“I was also making music without ever having been to a show or a venue or a club,” she goes on. “And I didn’t know anything about dance music functionality or why there was a build up and a drop. I just thought that sounded cool.”

Ninajirachi’s flavour of ‘girlEDM’ takes inspiration from hyperpop, hard dance, electro house and video game music, and her credentials include remixes for Deadmau5 and The Neptunes and playing with the Charli XCX.

Listen the full My Forever Studio episode with Ninajirachi below:

The post “I was making music without ever having been to a venue or club”: Ninajirachi on her formative years as a producer appeared first on MusicTech.