My Journey into the World of Sound and Music
A story about how I found my way into audio engineering, the challenges I faced along the way, and where I am today.

Initially, I had no plans to connect my life with music. My first experience working with sound dates back to 2008, when I was 15 years old.

I heard a song I really liked, but it felt like it was missing some drums—so I decided to try adding them by myself. I found some audio editing software— it was Sony SoundForge—and gave it a shot.

Since I had absolutely no clue how to do what I imagined, I simply took a kick drum sample and pasted it over the track manually—no grid, no tempo alignment, just vibes. Needless to say, it didn’t sound very musical, and I gave up on it. But something clicked. I realized I was interested in this world, and I wanted to go further.

I installed “HipHop eJay 4” and started experimenting as a beatmaker.

The software was very basic—there was no way to compose instrument parts yourself, only to arrange pre-made loops in a timeline. That was my whole music production setup at the time.

I made a couple dozen beats that I thought were fire back then. I even tried recording vocals over them in the same program. But eventually, I realized I had outgrown the tool and needed to move on to something more serious.

In 2009, I discovered FL Studio (version 7 at the time) and decided to try using it.

Here’s how that went: I opened it, saw the interface, panicked, closed it, deleted it—and went back to HipHop eJay. I was overwhelmed by all the knobs, buttons, menus... total chaos.

But eventually, I realized I had to face the beast. I reinstalled it and began learning through trial and error. It was slow and clunky, but I was doing something—and that already made me happy.

Then on YouTube came the first video tutorials, and finally, some real progress! I studied them and slowly began to understand how things worked. Still, sound quality wasn’t something I fully grasped—I couldn’t even define what “good sound” meant yet.

I kept recording my own rap over the beats I made. Later I realized that vocals needed to be properly mixed with the instrumental, so I downloaded Cool Edit Pro (which is now Adobe Audition). Again, I learned through pure experimentation.

For quite a while, I was just drifting in a sea of confusing terms and drowning in poor sound quality—without even realizing it. But then I stumbled upon a really solid mixing course. I don’t remember who made it, but it was a game-changer.

I finally started to understand what terms like “compressor,” “exciter,” “mono/stereo,” and “phase” meant. Things began to click. My sound quality noticeably improved. That’s also when I discovered vocal tuning with AutoTune and Melodyne.

I realized how much time I had wasted fumbling through it all on my own—when I could’ve just learned from someone who already knew the ropes. On the one hand, that was frustrating. But on the other hand—better late than never. Eventually, I decided to open my own recording studio and start to do this professionally.

In 2013, I launched my own studio ART LEGION. At first, it was tough—no one knew about the studio, I had no budget for advertising, the prices were low, the city was very small, and I had zero business experience.

Alongside the mix and recording room, there was also a rehearsal space where local bands practiced. The total area was 100 square meters, so it's not so bad for first studio in my life.

The workflow wasn’t great either. I recorded in Adobe Audition and then exported the tracks to FL Studio for mixing, since I couldn’t get external plugins to work in Audition. Super inconvenient — FL Studio wasn’t ideal for mixing.

Later, I tried Cubase 6.5, but it didn’t work well with my audio interface, so I had to let that go too.

Then I discovered Reaper. After watching some reviews, I realized it was a solid, no-nonsense DAW and decided to adopt it. And I’m still using it to this day — love it.

Most of the studio work revolved around hip hop and pop, plus some amateur clients recording greetings for loved ones. I also kept producing music, though it started taking a backseat to mixing and recording work.

Since 2015, I started getting orders from other cities in Russia. And since 2016, I began receiving international clients—from the US, Finland, Scotland, Germany.

That same year, I participated in a sound engineer competition called “SoundMixdBattle” and made it to round 5 out of 7 — though the battle unfortunately fell apart at that point.

In 2017, I entered a beatmaker contest, “BeatZone,” and reached round 4 out of 6—close, but didn’t make it further.

I worked in my studio for five years, but the longer I stayed, the more I felt it was time to move on. I had outgrown it. I wanted something bigger, more professional.
At the end of 2017, I got an offer to work at "M-Art," the largest recording studio in nearby Tomsk city.

At first, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I was my own boss. On the other—this would mean working for someone else. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go to the interview. But I did—and I’m glad that I did it.

When I arrived at the studio, I saw a spacious room, a huge mixing console, loads of equipment. They also had a rehearsal space and a large vocal room (unlike the small vocal booth in my studio).

I decided this was the wind of change I needed—and took the job.
For a while, I juggled both studios. Later, I found an assistant who helped with the workload at my own place, since I wasn’t around much.

In summer 2018, I officially closed my studio and moved to Tomsk full-time. It just became too exhausting to manage both.

Working in the new studio leveled me up professionally. Everything there was on a different level—room acoustics, clients, workflows. The environment was just more conducive to growth.

After a few years, I found myself thinking and hearing things differently. The studio owner, Maxim Pak (who used to teach at the Tomsk music college), also taught me a great deal.

After working for a couple of years in Tomsk, I reached a point where I needed a new stage of growth — creating my own website, moving into freelancing, and relocating to Moscow.

Moscow was a whole different world — both in terms of city life and in terms of creativity. There were countless major studios where famous artists recorded the very hits i heared on the radio and see on TV. The city also offered an enormous variety of educational events dedicated to music and audio engineering. In short, it was exactly what I needed.

I came to Moscow to continue growing as a professional. I visited studios that interested me to exchange experience, enrolled in paid courses taught by people I had previously only seen on YouTube, and connected with talented and inspiring performers.

But eventually, it was time to move forward again. I wanted to expand my client base and work not only with Russian-speaking artists. That’s why I moved to Serbia, started building my new studio, began working harder on my personal brand, and set new goals — like launching a YouTube channel, improving my English skills, and learning Serbian at the same time. Step by step, more and more clients from Europe, the U.S., and other countries started reaching out to me.

That’s the story of how I got into the world of sound. Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about the physics of sound, psychoacoustics, mixing, recording, and more.

But there’s always room to grow! I’m sure my journey in music will continue to unfold—and I’ll be happy to share the next chapter with you soon :)