Interview No. 185

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Today's guest has been brightening up the Audio Portal and the Writing Forum with his music and poetry. With songs such as Vista Sounds - Library, Vista Sounds - Must Be, and School Days, which has developed into a series. At a young age, he has taken the site by storm with his works. I am pleased to welcome, @Vista-Sound13.

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: I actually found out about NG out of nowhere when I was in Kindergarten, and I used It as a website to play games on, mostly Mario games. After Kindergarten, I haven’t been in Newgrounds until 7th grade. That is when I heard about Geometry Dash and its music. I also found out that you can make music and get it heard in GD, hence my existence in this part of the media. I joined so I can get my music allowed for use in GD, but now, I’ve grown a passion for music which is sadly fading away slowly.

Q: When and how did you become interested in music?

A: I was weirdly inspired by an artist hight Rukkus who is a dubstep producer, and I really loved listening to music overall. So, I decided to download FL Studio and start my first song in which honestly wasn’t terrible. Then, I started making more and more brief pieces, which were quite bad, but then I started making longer pieces, learned tips, got more interested in music, and became a decent artist, and the process was quite fun.

Q: Your Dad purchased Image-Line's old-school breakout sample pack. What was it about this sample pack that appealed to you. What songs have you made with it?

A: The style of early hip-hop appealed to me a lot, and this drumkit that you are talking about was pretty good for that kind of music for the most part. After getting this pack in 2019, I had been producing pieces with it

• Serendipity (2019)
• School Days II (2020)
• I’m Done (2020)
• Books (2020)
• School Days XII (2020)
• Study Hall (2020)
• Interview (2020)
• Verglas (2020)

Q: We come to your first song, entitled Calm System. You made it on Fruity Loops Studio. Although simple from the works that would follow, I can still see your style has not changed, but evolved. If you were to remake this song, what would do differently?

A: Well, I kinda did lol… and it came out very Vistaed!

Anyway, if I were to do it again, I would

• use the same melodies (obviously),
• make some new melodies,
• use much more sounds to make the piece more full,
• maybe use a more consistent drumbeat,
• make it more structured as the alpha piece doesn’t have structure.

Those stuff will make a superior remix, but there is your beta piece. Who knows if I’ll make a gamma piece?

Q: You and I are both writers here on Newgrounds. While I have dabbled in short stories and journalism, you have dabbled into poetry. Your first step here on Newgrounds being "Double Entendre". How long have you been writing poetry? I get the feeling that the poem is about two personalities presented online. The yellow and blue in cyberspace. That was until the ending which throws me off.

A: I’ve actually been writing poetry since I wrote Double Entendre, That was the first poem I’ve written for fun, and I’ve been writing for fun since.

And speaking of “since”, SINCE you were befuddled by the envoi of Double Entendre, I was basically saying that I am a person who appreciates clean content more than dirty content, and ogling racy pieces would resemble the opposite of who I really am. That’s what “Verso” essentially means. I should really make a music piece out of that word.

Q: You would continue to share poetry on Newgrounds, to the point you made a thread to collect the archive entitled Vista's Poesy. Do you have any plans of turning one of these poems into a song?

A: I kinda do, and I’ve been proposed that suggestion as well, and it’s really cool, but I’m not a rapper, I don’t really have bars, and I cannot sing, I’d need autotuned if I wanted to even try to sing. Anyway, I would have to pay a rapper to rap over a beat I’d make using my verses, and I don’t make money yet, so I’ll have to wait ‘til I can get my hands on that opportunity.

Q: One of the first songs I heard by you would be Vista Sounds - Library. I absolutely love this piece. Not only do I love the music, the beat, but my favorite part is the pencil writing and scribbling in the background. It just matches everything else that is going on. I love the jazzy groove it sets, that it isn't a quiet song, which is something I expect in songs titled library. What made you break away from that norm? How did you do the pencil sounds in the song and incorporate it to get this balance?

A: I’m happy to hear that you really enjoyed my Library piece. Anyway, I never really adding constant background effects recently. I didn’t really stop, it just happened naturally.

How did I do the pencil sounds? I didn’t, I simply looked up a pencil sound online and found something good.

How did I incorporate the balance? It was really as simple as adjusting the volumes of the sounds and a few EQ tweaking until I got a good mixing.

Q: Vista Sounds - Must Be would be the first of your songs to grace the Frontpage of Newgrounds. A nice ambient piece, with some Techno and World vibes going into it. What can you tell us about this song? How did it feel hitting the Frontpage for the first time?

A: The song Must Be is a piece which is apparently dubstep without growls and all that jazz (I thought it was simple, ambient electronic music) that honestly just happened. Sometimes, I get inspired to write pieces of certain moods, and sometimes, pieces would just happen, but recently, my pieces were planned as I’ve been encountering beautiful words to musicalize.

Anyway, it felt absolutely amazing to see my work on the homepage for the first time. At first, it felt huge going on the homepage as I was going to start getting views, but after winning this achievement again and again (it happened a lot), The big feeling petered off, but it still felt good.

Q: At the time of this interview, there are fourteen songs in the School Days series. How did the first song School Days accumulate into thirteen other songs. Will we see a continuation of it?

A: The first song didn’t accumulate into the rest of the saga. What really accumulated the saga, were the school-related pieces outside my grasp (other people’s work) like School Days by []. Also, there are music videos with a school background/setting imbuing be with that high school vibe. Not for learning but with cool, significant coveys of teenagers getting together and being school.

I would like to lengthen the saga, but it’s going take some inspiration.

Q: We now enter the Country genre. With another favorite song of mine, Vista Sounds - Nature. You have this skill of being able to add a beat to anything. Hearing the country twang of a guitar with this great beat, just melts my ears. Your first dip into Country would be with Vista Sounds - No Mention. What made you want to pursue the Country genre here on Newgrounds?

A: Thank you for your two pleasant cents on such pieces. Anyway, nothing really made me really want to make country music, and I never really pursued the Country genre. In 2020, I was simply producing incidental music, and it just turned out to be a Country style, hence No Mention. In 2021, I had some guitar samples I could chop up for my next pieces, and that’s what I did, hence Nature. They really came together nice.

Q: You are the only musician here on Newgrounds I know of that adapts their style into Classical, Jazz, Hip Hop, R&B, Country, Pop, and even Brit Pop. How do you adapt your style through a wide range and still keep your music fresh?

A: I get inspired by other music like modern western pop music, early hip-hop, and rarely classical piano music, and the big factor of my style is me wanting to describe moods and settings through music and hoping that people will make use of it, and that requires different soft genres like chill hop. But, A.I. technology is growing in the music community, and people may start using music made by A.I. as they won’t have to pay for the music or wait for permission, but my pieces are free too. Anyway, I keep my music fresh because I try to keep my mixing clean and radio-ready. When I’m cooking something quirky, I always need it to be pleasant to listen to as well, or I’ll get slated for the questionable mixing.

Q: During your time, you have confessed to cracking songs. You would remove these songs and later re-upload them with their original versions. I don't fully understand what it is you did. Could you elaborate on it? What cautionary advice can you give to aspiring musicians here so they can keep their wits about them?

A: Not songs, plug-ins. What I did was get my father to pay for some of the products I didn’t pay for, and only reupload the pieces with those samples. The other songs with the other samples are still gone, but maybe one day, I’ll be rich enough to free every one of my pieces, even the bad ones.

Anyway, I would advice produces to not do what I did because you can face charges for it, and I heard that piracy is more serious than it seems. It make sense because you’re not paying the people who work so hard on these goods, and because they worked hard on it, they should get hard-earned money and a lot of it.

Q: We have spoken to different Newgrounds members when it comes to battling depression. You would share these symptoms with us. How have you been feeling since? What advice can you give to creators who are also depressed?

A: I think the main reason I’ve been sad sometimes is school. I try to be a good person that almost everyone would appreciate at the very least, but sometimes, I would somehow slip up and get royally chided for it. It happened a year ago, and I was super ablaze as I felt violated. When I’m depressed, I don’t do anything fun; I spend time thinking of what an apparent knave I’ve managed to prove to be.

I’m really sorry when I say this, but for advice, I don’t have any goof advance for depression. All I can say is that depression absolutely sucks, it’s the worst illness to ever exist, and everything and everyone that imbues others with this illness are defo evil until they edify themselves and fix things.

Q: You are also quite the artist and animator here on Newgrounds. What can you tell us about the Newgrounds Ratings characters? What can you tell us about When the Submission is Rated A?

A: The Newgrounds Ratings characters are a covey of characters who represent the content ratings used in Newgrounds. Everyone, Teen, Mature, and Adult.

E is a happy, awesome fellow who is positive, outgoing, and appreciates kids.

T is mellow, cool dude who is mostly negative, but haute. He also has the power to print T-rated contents from his head, which is a printer.

M is one who is snaky sometimes, but most of the time, he is somewhat a chill one, but he’s not very nice. I first illustrated him to be a quite grumpy and cross, but now I think he should be more laid-back. Anyway, he can also print content out of his printer of a head, but with M-rated contents to scare kids and bribe adults so they don’t hurt him.

A is more outgoing and animated than M, but he’s bawdy, sultry, and a lecher. He can also print adult content out of his head, like T and M. I first illustrated him to be an evil one with an wicked attitude which he carries most of the time, but I then felt like that was weird to do, so I had to allay his persona a bit.

And there’s When the Submission is Rated A. This skit was supposed to speak for two things. Not being comfortable to see a piece of alluring content at its fullest because the rating says you shouldn’t, and quickly seeing the true colors of an innocent looking thumbnail before you see the whole thing. It’s not really a pet peeve as it’s not frequent, but it is annoying when it happens.

Q: As much as I love your characters. I have to say I love Waffle Wedges!. What made you take a shift to something different with your art?

A: For one, I’ve watched the Alphabet Lore by Mike Salcedo, and it was quite the mini-movie; it was amazing. Then, I saw a lot of LittleElcho’s pieces which were very quite. Then, at one point, I wanted to illustrated the characters I and Y from the Alphabet Lore. I chose those two because the letters “I” and “Y” rhyme, and I kinda wanted to emphasized that. To do that, I felt like doing a different approach, and it was inspired by LittleElcho.

For Waffle Wedges, I saw a picture of some waffle wedges which looks very scrumptious and made me want to remix it, in the same style I remixed I and Y.

Q: What is in your opinion the definition of music?

A: I think that it’s so broad that it’s awesome. Music can be many things; it doesn’t have to be a fully-made song. It can be just rhythmic percussion, and maybe you can add actual melodies to it. Music is so broad that we don’t have to try super hard to make music, and that’s one of the beauties of it.

Q: What can we expect from Vista-Sound13 in the future?

A: You can definitely expect more music and utile (useable/useful) loops for your convenience from me, at least once a month. You can also expect a few Alphabet Lore fanart as the movie is that good. If I ever make a lot of money, I may be able to purchase some quality software and hardware to create quality animated skits or digital art pieces.

Vista-Sound13 is a musician I came across while looking for music for The Tank Tribune Phonograph. I absolutely fell in love with his music. It is my vibe whenever I am working on something here on the site. To see how he can blend his style into so many genres, it reminded me of Back-From-Purgatory. Vista-Sound13 is quite the underrated musician here on the site. One that this writer, truly appreciates being able to listen to his music.

The Interviewer is a part of Dohn's Desk Productions

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