Meet Robert Quinones | Music Producer/DJ & Dad

We had the good fortune of connecting with Robert Quinones and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Robert, as a parent, what have you done for you children that you feel has had the most significant impact?
Not a lot of people I work with know that I am a single parent, it’s usually all business and creating whenever I’m working with somebody. I have an 8 year old daughter and she knows that I do music things. Since I’m in a creative field, I like to try and involve my daughter as much as I can. I’ve let her name songs and even made some songs with her. As far as impact goes, I actually think it has been mostly positive. She sees and hears me creating things, I always tell her about the opportunities I am given and show her pictures and videos of the things I have going on. She has taken to being a creative type with crafts and singing, writing her own songs, etc. It’s really awesome to see that as a parent. On the opposite side of that though, I do spend a lot of time working and I don’t get to spend as much time as I could with her. It can be difficult to find a work/life balance, with a kid especially, but we do set out days to go and do things together. I think it’s going okay haha

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I create music! I mainly produce bass and experimental bass music, but I have produced tunes for some singer friends and beats for rappers before, too. I love playing with audio. Everytime I’m about to start a new tune I get butterflies in my stomach because I can make literally anything. The song can be anything and that’s an exciting feeling for me. I like to mash together different styles of music a lot, and some combinations I have never heard, personally. “Because why not?” is a motto I live by when I make music, I let my ears carry me down the path of creation. Whatever I think sounds cool I can start to hear in my head what should come next and the track starts to kind of build itself in that way. My tracks usually evolve as they go, with the 1st and 2nd half being different from each other but with some similarity to each section.

When I first started making music I had a little netbook laptop that was so slow, it took so long to make anything and I had to learn ways around slow processing on a computer. I’ve got a good work laptop now and still use some of those tricks for more complicated projects.

Getting to where I am now was not easy and I’m still not where I want to be, it’s taken a lot of time and work, but I am grateful for the opportunities I’ve had so far, and I love the work. In a creative field, I feel like there is no specific path to get where you want, so you just have to keep on creating whatever it is you like, for the sake of creating and the opportunities find you. Sometimes it happens fast and sometimes it’s a slow burn, but I love what I do and I will keep doing it.

I’ve been producing music for a little over 10 years now, and I learned that in music, there’s really no ‘right’ way to do things as it’s a subjective thing. Just do what sounds good to your ears. I also learned that mastering will not fix a bad song haha. For a long time I always thought getting a tune mastered was a magic solution to getting my music to sound better. While good mastering definitely adds to a tune, it’s not going to fix anything if something sounds bad, its gonna make the bad stand out more. Another big lesson is patience, which kind of ties back into just loving what you do, creating for the sake of creating.

As for me, I’m just a dad and music producer, making things that are interesting and fun to listen to, while trying to show the crowd some music they may not have otherwise heard at my shows, and show my daughter that your hobbies and interests can be a career.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I think the first day would definitely be at the beach, probably Santa Monica because of the pier and rides.

Day 2 would be more of a food day. I actually don’t know a lot of food spots in LA so that would be an adventure for both of us, just pick a place and go try it out haha.

Day 3: I’d take them to Universal Studios, I haven’t been there myself in a while.

Day 4: Hit up some friends and arrange a meet up at an escape room so they can meet my friend too

Day 5: Go to a club show! Check out what’s going on at Avalon, Catch One, or Sound Nightclub

Day 6: The Comedy Store and more food

Day 7: There’s this arcade called EightyTwo that also serves drinks and has a ton of pinball tables. I actually really like pinball and arcades in general and explore the area, I think that would be a cool way to wrap up the week

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
There’s a quite a few people I’d like to give a shoutout to, I’ll try not to make the list too long!

Firstly, my friends Donovan (Xtrofik) and Zac, they turned me on to music producing and Donovan gave me my first DAW to work on. I’m not sure I’d even be here without them.

Secondly, The whole Ninety9Lives team, Nate from Echoes Collective, Tavis from The Goblins Lair, and Jer and the whole team at Above & Below too, they were some of the first people to ever sign my music and put it out. They’re friends and supporters to this day, and still putting out dope music.

Marvin Street Jr. and the Mayhem Events team. they were the first people to give me a shot at playing shows out in LA and I still perform with them from time to time. Going to be doing a halloween show with them this year at Catch One

My buddy Arriel, we collaborate and learn from each other often, love that dude.

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Image Credits
@spawnzone @_so_uni_que @arrielmusic