Recording Connection mentor Joey Paranoia on Ableton and Elemental Creative Urges

Recording Connection mentor Joey Paranoia is a DJ, artist, and producer who’s worked with artists like Randall M. Nexus, and David Christopher from the Rabbit in the Moon. A highly skilled Ableton Live artist and educator, Joey has been making waves nationally and as a key player in the vivid Orlando EDM scene.

So what was Joey’s path to Ableton and producing? Answer: a circuitous one:

Well, I was actually never really into music as a kid. I kind of did the non-traditional route. My parents did make me take music lessons, although I wasn’t too fond of the teacher I had. It was very regimented and kind of boring. I would make up abstract pieces of music or be all excited about things, and they were like, ‘No, this is not the right way to do it. You need to be structured.’

Joey came back to music, through another love—film:

I was maybe 15 or 16 years old, in about 10th grade in high school. [I got] really into film and started editing and putting music to visuals. I needed to be able to mix music to the films I was making. That’s really where I kind of got the bug again for music. So that led me to mixing music analog on cassettes, being able to blend things together. This was in the 90’s. So it was analog gear and turntables. It wasn’t as popular. There wasn’t the internet, really. I had never even seen anything like this. So I started seeing these machines and I got really into it. I thought the artform was really cool and it was very experimental, which I liked. So that was the base foundation of what it turned into in my career later as a professional performing musician, DJ.”

Joey’s response made us curious to know if coming to Ableton fulfilled some of those elemental creative urges he had as a kid when he was stuck with that old-fashioned piano teacher.

We asked Joey, “Did working with Ableton enable you to access your more freeform creative side?”

Very much so. There were no rules and no limitations. Whatever you could come up with creatively you could really put it down and it would be manifested right in front of you instantly. It would be almost impossible to do what you do with Ableton with analog gear.”

Learn more about Recording Connection mentor Joey Paranoia and his adventures in Ableton!