We caught up with the brilliant and insightful David Vidal a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

David , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I started to produce music back in high school. During the time that I started to learn how to produce music, I was in my high school’s marching band, which I always attribute as the precursor to my love for music and it really helped me in gaining knowledge about music theory and composition in general. I started to watch various YouTube tutorials of producers creating music on FL Studio and it really appealed to me as an enjoyable, productive, and beneficial activity to do in my free time. I watched videos every day on how to produce while also getting into the program itself and taking a hands-on approach to creating music. Throughout the years (and even up to today), I am still learning about the new features within FL Studio, as well as new production tricks.

Knowing what I know now, the biggest skill I learned that could have definitely sped up my learning process is the ability to create different templates within FL Studio. With these templates, I’m able to dive into a project immediately with pre-set parameters and be able to just start producing, as opposed to setting up everything beforehand.

The most essential skills I have learned within this process are not even technical, but more personality based. The two most essential skills I have learned are time management and patience. You have to be patient with learning how to produce music and realize that it will take time to fully master your workstation. Time management is important because you want to be within that fine line of dedicating enough daily time to produce music, but also not spending countless hours on producing and potentially burning yourself out mentally and creatively.

Really the biggest obstacle that has stood in the way of learning more is time. Sometimes all you really need is more time to fully devote to learning and producing, yet daily tasks of life, like work, school, social times with others, fitness, and more can certainly interfere with your production time to a degree. With that being said, learning time management can help you devote the necessary time to create music and learn more about the process.

David , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is David Vidal and I produce and create music under two artist names: DV Beats and KNG DAVÎD. Each artist’s name produces music in a wide variety of genres. DV Beats produces dancehall, house music, baile funk, and more Caribbean/Latin-based music genres. KNG DAVÎD produces mainly hip-hop, chillhop, UK garage, chill house, and trap music. Since I produce so many genres of music, I thought it would be wise to split up my music into these two artistic projects.

I got into creating music back in high school, where I learned how to produce music on FL Studio and started creating hip-hop beats for my friends. Throughout the years, I’ve been exposed to different music events, festivals, and concerts that really expanded my knowledge, appreciation, and curiosity for producing music in other genres. Around my time in college, I also learned how to DJ and would go on to DJ small weddings, formal events, and house parties as well.

In regards to the services I provide, I have created custom instrumentals for artists, providing mixing and mastering services for pre-recorded songs, and DJing a wide variety of events. I work with each client and truly get to know their preferences and needs for the service they are requesting. In regard to creating music, I provide constant communication and unlimited revisions for projects so that they come out perfectly.

I am most proud of reaching modest streaming numbers on multiple platforms for my music, as well as having some support from other producers/DJs that I truly look up to in this industry. Also, I am proud of my expanded knowledge of branding and how to market my music to others.

For those who are interested in my work, just know that I would be honored and humbled to assist you in any musical projects to the best of my knowledge and am certainly open to all forms of collaboration.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

Early on in my creative journey, I only focused on producing music and not so much on actually pushing my music and creative content out to potential (and existing) fans. In fact, I didn’t really start to really dive into and learn about different tools and resources for content creation and posting until two years back, in early 2021.

One of the best resources I use today is a website called Later, which is a content-scheduling website where you can put your content for your social media profiles and plan their postings in advance. It’s a game-changer, as I’m able to focus on creating music and content while Later takes care of posting them on the days and times I schedule myself. It’s an amazing resource that would have been very useful in my early days of creating music, as I struggled to post content consistently and effectively.

Two great resources I use in addition to Later are Canva and InVideo. I create album art and other content images with Canva, while I create reels and music videos with InVideo. They both have a great number of features for content creation and imaging. These resources would have served me well early in my creative journey, as I would have created more music videos and behind-the-scenes content.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

As a creative, you are going to be faced with a wide variety of perceptions from people you know and people you don’t know. You are going to get a great deal of encouragement, support, and recognition from many. But you are also going to deal with much criticism, ignorance, lack of response, and other negative feelings about the music you create, the brand you are, and what unique creative traits you possess. You have to learn that you are going to deal with a wide range of “outside noise” and you have to learn to be consistent in creating your art without letting external factors shut your creativity down or stray you from your creative passion.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.soundcloud.com/officialdvbeats, http://www.soundcloud.com/kingdavidhiphop
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/officialdvbeats, http://www.instagram.com/kingdavidhiphop
• Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/officiadvbeats, http://www.facebook.com/kingdavidhiphop
• Other: http://www.mixcloud.com/officialdvbeats, http://www.mixcloud.com/kingdavidhiphop

Image Credits
ShotsByWill, Perspectiv.Photos