The 353rd episode of our 12 Questions segment features producer Mark Youssef.
1. How old are you, where are you living and how long have you been producing and Djing?
I am 39 years old ,living in Cairo, Egypt half Egyptian half Australian, I have been Djing from 25 years and Producing from 8 or 9 years.
2. Where do your musical roots lie, what are your first memories of electronic music and when did you know you wanted to pursue it seriously? Are there any particular productions or artists from the past that really made you think to yourself ‘this is what I want to do.”
i think i am coming from rock music because I was playing drums and i love Electronic Guitar a lot ,my first memory of electronic music was when I heard Enigma ,i started to take it seriously in 1997 when I started my first residency in Sandorini Club at North Coast ,Egypt and at that time Paul Oakenfold and Sasha really make me feel yeah I want to be like that 🙂
3. How difficult was learning to produce for you in the beginning? Did you take any Audio Engineering programs or production courses to help you out or are you pretty much self taught? And did anyone give any advice early on that really helped?
it is difficult to be honest ,it takes a lot of time to learn and practice, my uni degree was sound engineering as I am a self taught person I like to learn by myself.
4. What parts of the production process do you find the most difficult and what comes easiest for you? When you do hit a creative block what helps you through it?
Arrangement process is the most difficult for me because it takes a lot of time and the easiest I think mixing maybe because I am coming from Djing.
5. What’s a normal day like for you? Do you have a job outside of electronic music? And what do you like to do when you’re not working on music?
I have my daily job ,we have our own company for spare parts for cars it is a family business established 30 years ago ,when I am not working on music I like to go fishing 🙂
6. Apart from electronic music what other genres do you listen to and who are your favourite artists outside of electronic? and do these genres or artists have a direct effect on your own productions?
as I said before rock music and slow rock, Metallica is my fav band and they are affected me so much and inspiring me a lot to be honest.
7. What was the first and last physical (CD, Vinyl, Cassette etc) piece of music you bought?
ahh very hard question 🙂 my first Cassette was i think U2 and Cd was Metalica and last vinyl was for deepsky i think
8. Tell us something about yourself that might surprise people?
ahh i don’t know 🙂 I like collecting stamps
9. Which producers in your opinion get consistently overlooked?
I won’t tell names but all EDM rubbish producers.
10. Which producers consistently inspire you? And where else does your inspiration come from?
Eelke Kleijn, Dousk, Robert Babicz and where else! I like to hear the old electronic music way back 1999 I think at that time music was well made ..
11. There are countless producers out there trying to find their way and create their own unique sound, what advice do you have for them?
to be patient and practise as much as they could and never release unless they are sure 100 % that there is no more to be done on the track and it is not about how much they release it is about music is it good or bad.
12. If the final DJ/live set of your career was next week what would your last track be?
The Quasar – Lost In Childhood (The Scrubz Remix)
‘Voice of the Mount’ is out now on Clinique Recordings, you can purchase the release: here
