Magic Number is Ross Hillard, a slow-paced, orchestral composer whose engineering and bass playing can be experienced across a variety of releases. Among others, these include Louie Vega, DJ Spen, Kerri Chandler, Lay-Far and Atjazz, the founder of Mantis Recordings and the eponymous label behind this release. 'Badly Written Songs' is, of course, an ironic title. It comprises a variety of carefully structured and well-produced compositions, topped with live instrumentation, commanding vocal performances and high-level production – the result of years of experience in sound engineering and music production. The album features the voices of Sophia Marshall, Clyde and Angela Armstrong.
We have had the pleasure of interviewing him and this has been the result.
Can you tell us a bit about your experience? Where are you from and how did you get into music?
I'm a bass player and a writer. I didn't like playing in bands, Correction, I love playing in bands but bands/people can be sooooooo unreliable.
I got into playing at about 16 and that escalated into collecting studio equipment when I was about 18 and I’ve just collected since.
I lucky inherited a very cool mixing desk, when I say lucky? it cost me a lot of money that I didn't have to restore it, but it's beautiful. it's called a Raindirk Series 3 of which I built my studio “The Paddocks” around. A studio I ran commercially for a long time. I’m just putting an Instagram page together for this called “thepaddocksrecordingstudio” it’s a mad place with hundreds of synths that are all connected so can be used like having VST plugins on you comuter. There’s a concert grand and a beautiful live room. It’s a magical place.
Through my bass playing with Atjazz (in the studio and live) and my studio work, Louie Vega got in touch with me and now I do work with him when he's in London also I’ve MD’ Kerry Chandler's live band, Josh Milan's band and recorded mixed and engineered lots and lots projects in my studio.
Whilst running the studio I've always been writing and now is the time to be putting all that stuff out. I also own an audio company which is about to launch some really cool drum plugins called “Honest Audio”
How is your sound evolving? What artists and genres do you enjoy mixing right now?
I think we now have a real solid sound now. I think that can take a while. Whether people like it or not is up to them, but we like it. It’s not too serious. I think it helps not listening and being influenced too much by other peoples sound. Just do your own thing if people like it cool. If not, it’s ok, as long as you enjoy the process.
I love sound and sound design so I’m as happy mixing and classical and Rock as I am writing electronic music. I love mixing and writing electronic music because the options are limitless and the sound design is so free. Literally anything goes. It’s a wonderful process.
How do you feel your music influences or impacts its listeners?
It's meant to be fun so I hope people would take that from it. From the title of the album “badly Written Songs” to the “Good Morning Sunshine’ and “Better’ videos the idea is that it's all very playful. There are some serious undertones, good morning sunshine is built around major melodies, but talks about living your life and doing the things you want to do now before it is too late, again it's done in a tongue in cheek manner so sounds and looks very positive. The feedback from this song has been wonderful. I get people randomly contact me via my socials every week saying it’s cheered them up and made their lives a little nicer that day which is just lovely and makes me very happy. Obviously, the “Better” video looks at social media and how it's killing people's heads, but again, I've tried to keep that playful and fun. I'm really proud of the animated videos. They were great fun to write and the company made by Marshall did an incredible job of bringing my ideas to life. I think they're a really nice thing to leave in the world.
What projects are you working on right now? What can you tell us about your last job?
I have a jazz record I’m working on. Very 1950’s sounding. Two other electronic projects under a different name. The third Magic Number is nearly written. We are doing a live Magic Number album in my studio “the paddocks” I’m doing the music for a documentary on the history of Broadway I also have three downtempo projects I’m currently writing and producing.
Has that sound changed much in recent years? What is your musical criteria in your latest work?
Criteria?? Hahaha, I’m not a r r r r r r r robot
I think my sound has formed. whilst I was writing the Magic Number record I was also making a jazz record as well. I really liked the horns on the big band record that I was writing so I decided to use horns on the Magic Number stuff. I collect synthesisers which is some insane addiction that’s simply out of hand. I went through all of them and found about 5 sounds that I decided to use for the project. I did this because I think a lot of electronic music records can be quite sporadic thus can sometimes sound very discombobulated, that's why I've used only a few singers and kept to a similar sound set in the hope that this would create cohesion and continuity across the record, which I think it has. I got this idea basically from recording a lot of bands in the studio. Bands always use the same sound sets. The effects may change but the instruments are essentially always the same and like I said I don't think electronic producers often don't because we have infinite possibilities which is awesome but at the same time can ironically hinder creativity. I like this process and I think it's an easy way to get a sound. Hopefully people are like it to?
We all know that the digital revolution has affected sales, but do you think it has affected creativity?
I think we need to approach all of these things positively, at least we can make something from music now. I think if things are good people will listen, it just takes some time to get through the algorithm. I think the most important thing in music is that you're doing it because you want to do it and you have to do it and you love it.
if you do that, you'll make income from it because it will come through in your music. If you're doing it for fame and Instagram likes and you're creating content to gain likes and all your beats and music are from splice just so you can put stuff out on Instagram and be seen, I'd go and get a job. You may make some money, but you are missing the joy of the people and process of music.
Music is amazing I have to do it every day. I don't look at social media for ideas and I don't let that influence the way I write. I write because it’s what I have to do. It gives me purpose and reason to get out of bed.
I think in terms of technology affecting creativity, as said, if we look at social media to influence what we write then that's just awful, just don't do it. In terms of the technology we use to create music I think it's all brilliant.
The drag and drop thing is interesting to me only because, as said, I think if people just drag and drop music there’s a danger you miss the beauty of the writing and creating process which really brings a purpose and so much joy to people. learning how to mix, engineer and build beats are really cool things to discover, it’s how we create our own sound. The learning these process’ is one of the brilliant parts to the journey. I don’t want people to miss these things. Technology can sometimes seem like it's taking all the good purposeful things out of our lives, but that's not a conversation for here haha
The technology we use to create music’s only massive drawback for me is the limitless options we now have which can as said be quite daunting, intimidating and counter productive. It’s also a wonderful thing to have everything available.
Can you tell us about your present and future projects?
I have a jazz record I’m working on. Very 1950’s sounding. Two other electronic projects under a different name. The third Magic Number is nearly written. We are doing a live Magic Number album in my studio “the paddocks” I’m doing the music for a documentary on the history of Broadway I also have three downtempo projects I’m currently writing and producing.
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