Pulse College loves keeping a close eye on what our graduates are getting up to! This week’s focus is Mike ‘Moggi’ Mannix, a Sound Engineer graduate (2008) from our Diploma program, who is shaking up the music scene with his new online magazine Zone Magazine, the first of it’s kind in Ireland to focus on the electronic music scene!
Mike, who has been a part of the Dublin dance music scene for over 20 years as MC, Producer and Mixer, popped into Pulse College HQ recently to do a feature on the college for Zone Magazine, so we took the opportunity to ask him a few questions as well!
Welcome back to Pulse Mike, How did your career take off after graduating?
It’s great to be back and especially in your new home in Windmill Lane Studios! Initially, just before I left Pulse College in 2008, I had started collaborating on 2 tracks ‘Plastik Fish and Sub therapy’ with Dublin producer/Engineer Spooky, aka Declan Mc Comiskey, of A1-2 Audio Studio, which received great press, exposure and support from the likes of Irish International DJ/Producer John Gibbons, who played them out over his very popular radio show on Spin FM and the tracks where featured as 2 CD cover mount’s on Future Music Magazine in the UK.
So, basically I hit the ground running and continued to progress and work on my sound, starting with my biggest project at the time, my 5 Track debut EP ‘Hypnotic Intelligence’ which was eventually signed to Redbox Records. I worked on this baby for over 3 years tweaking, adjusting and essentially driving myself insane as I carved it out, until at a certain point I just had to put it down and left it for over a year whilst working on other projects. I was sick of listening to it at that stage, to be honest. I think that’s one thing people outside the whole process of music production or recording maybe don’t appreciate, is the amount of time and ‘ear’ energy it takes to listen over and over and over again to the same 4 bar, 8 bar, 16 bar sections of a track until you get the arrangement sitting and working together, whilst still pouring your creative vibes into it. It’s sometimes a labour of love and patience.
What’s been your career highlights to date and any big plans for the future?
When I resurrected the EP from the dungeons of my hard drive, I had fresh ears and just threw myself back into it. When it was ready, it was immediately signed to Redbox records and really did well in the United States spending about 3 months and reaching a chart position of 13 in the DDK Dance charts, with the signature track also titled ‘Hypnotic intelligence’ receiving fantastic support from the likes of the Techno mystro Richie Hawtin. Stemming from that release, I was asked to remix 90’s DJ Trance legend from the UK ‘Jon The Dentists’ huge track ‘Budha‘, which has been well supported all around the world and reaching a highest chart position of number 5 in Hard To Find Records (HTFR) UK Techno weekly charts.
And then, I met DaGeneral, a UK Techno DJ / Producer through Redbox Records, and we immediately hit it off. Alan, aka DaGeneral, asked me to collaborate with him on creating some new techno projects for General Surgery Records based in the UK, and to date we have released 5 original tracks on 3 EP’s titled ‘Redemption (Huge support from SLAM), Destroyer, and Gods of The Underworld’ which has just been released on General Surgery Record’s and exclusively on Hard To Find Records HTFR. Our signature original track off the Destroyer EP (Released in December 2014) also titled ‘Destroyer’ has been sitting pretty at number one for 4 weeks on HTFR!
The pace in which we getting our tracks out is phenomenal at the moment, with another EP literally just started, we have massive plans for the future that are being formulated as we speak, busy studio times, ha ha! Last but not least is the creation with Paul Newhouse of Zone Magazine, an Essential Dance Music Mag that has been 20 years in the making. Watch this space!
What aspects of your time at Pulse College did you find most useful in the real world environment?
Essentially for me, it was getting ‘real’ studio time, in the Engine Room and smaller ‘dead’ room studios, as I hadn’t much exposure to that side of production, even though the Amek Rembrandt desk terrified me initially, ha ha! It enabled me to understand how the ‘room’ worked sonically and helped me understand the dynamics each space brings to a mix.
What are the top tips you would give a student Mike, about to embark on a career in the electronic music industry?
Never before has it been so easy for aspiring DJ’s and Producers to have access to fantastic audio software, DAWS, powerful laptops and Desktops in the creative process. That, unfortunately, allows some to just throw arrangements together and call it a track and release it. There is such a lot of bloat in the electronic music world that, unless you have really put the dedicated time and thought into your track composition, arrangement, mixes and your own vibe, your own style into your mix, it will be swallowed up and forgotten! Don’t just ‘rush’ the process to get a track out so you can brag to your mates. Be original and do your homework, spend the time and then some until you get it right, don’t be a carbon copy of anyone else, buck the trends and believe in yourself.
Wise words to finish the interview indeed! Find out more about Mike’s Zone Magazine Ireland and follow them on Facebook for all their electro and house music news and reviews!
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