By Erica Rocha
Chunky Puffs, Me and You, Awesomism, and Peace.
These are the names of the four albums Alexander Vaca, Div. 466, has produced. Vaca produces, mixes, and remixes music under the name of Vatska.
“I have loved music since I can remember,” Vaca said. “My parents gave me a piano for my birthday when I was turning eight. One day, I decided that I really liked music and would want to make my own, and so I got into producing.”
Influenced by his favorite artist, Daft Punk, Vaca started sampling, or using a part of a song to create another song, which led to his interest in the “art of mixing” as he calls it.
“I learned everything on my own over time,” Vaca said. “I liked to play around with my piano and my software to create my music. I tried to make stuff I would like, so I would remix songs to my liking.”
Vaca has now been producing music for five years. As a producer, it is Vaca’s job to create a song by adding instruments or effects. This also includes writing the lyrics.
“I usually create songs from scratch,” Vaca said. “Some people come with their own ideas but with others I’ve had to put most of the work.”
He is currently working on a fifth and sixth album that will be titled Phat Beats and The Golden Age. Phat Beats is for a music group called Da Tribe and The Golden Age is for his own album.
Along with producing for Da Tribe, Vaca has worked with a couple of his friends over the past year to create tracks for them.
“Currently, thanks to the Sound Engineering program, I am working with more Lane students [to produce more music], and I’m really happy about that,” Vaca said. “Hopefully I can get them on the album I’m working on.”
Vaca used to share his music on Soundcloud where he managed an online label called Phantom Records/Musique. The name Phantom came from a television show he enjoyed called Danny Phantom and Musique is the French word for music.
“It was to honor my favorite artists, most of which are French,” Vaca said.
Through his online label, he shared his first completed albums for others to download for free. Vaca hopes to continue producing music in the future.
“It is my dream to be a producer,” Vaca said. “I am planning to study Sound Engineering at DePaul, hoping to improve my skills in a larger studio setting.”
Vaca and Dante Bonilla, Div. 464, were chosen by Mr. Hudson to show the new studio in the Sound Engineering room to donors, teachers and administraion in the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony.
Bonilla, like Vaca, is also passionate about music and the ability to express himself through it.
Bonilla started DJing at the age of 12 with the guidance of his dad who is also a DJ.
“He taught me a little bit and I just pursued it on my own and he’d always give me advice on the way,” Bonilla said.
While Bonilla’s dad DJs at family parties, Bonilla has branched out by working at other events such as dance socials for Lane clubs and other Lane events. He has DJed for OLAS and is in negotiations to DJ for an ASPIRA club event.
Bonilla earns around $35 an hour which he says is considered cheap since other DJs charge much more.
“I don’t mind the pay,” Bonilla said. “But I’d rather get a bit more now that I realize all the work that goes into it.”
This includes carrying heavy pieces of equipment, plugging in a bunch of cords, setting up the amplifiers to create a satisfactory sound, and doing a soundcheck. Along with that work, Bonilla interacts with the “crowd” but finds that he cannot please everyone. Sometimes people will get angry if the songs they request are not played, which Bonilla finds frustrating.
Bonilla has also been criticized for creating remixes.
“People get mad at me for doing remixes because they thought it was an original song. You can’t please everyone with that but that’s [something] I know,” Bonilla said.
He also uses a “trick” to play his favorite genre, underground hip hop.
“It’s never what I want to play when I’m at parties. But I have tricks to get people to like what I want to play,” Bonilla said. “There’s a lot of underground hip hop that samples into modern music. What I can do, and I do this a lot, is that I’ll modify songs to flip verses around or if there’s a really obnoxious thing at the end I switch it so that the chorus just leads into like the original chorus.”
Bonilla has familiarized himself with many songs to be able to do these “tricks.”
“In order for you to be really skilled with DJing, you have to know all kinds of music,” Bonilla said. “And that’s why if you look at my iPod you’ll think I’m crazy. My iPod is maxed out.”
Along with struggling to please his crowd, Bonilla also dislikes the way he is viewed as a DJ. He says that girls flirt with him all the time when he DJs but hates that they only like him because of the DJ side of him.
“[Being a DJ] is not what makes me, it’s just a lot of me,” Bonilla said.
Bonilla also mentioned that the flirty girls can get him into trouble with the guys at the events.
“No one has ever fought with me, but I always get those fight type or bad looks from the guys that I can clearly tell are trying to get with this girl,” Bonilla said. “It’s like ‘I don’t want this.’”
Although his friends think it is “cool” that he is a DJ, his parents think differently.
“Well my dad’s a DJ so he understands, but sometimes my mother gets on my case about it and she’s all like ‘You need to be doing homework’ and I’m just like ‘I’m trying to be an artist,’” Bonilla said.
Although he does not want a DJing career, he does want to keep it as a side hobby. Bonilla plans to either go into sound engineering, engineering, or architecture for a long-term career.
