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Step
Hey! My name's Stephan Wells, and I'm a musician, mixing engineer, programmer, proofreader, gamer, aspiring game developer, audio moderator, and former host of the NGADM. Thanks to Youkos for the user image and profile icon!

Stephan Wells @Step

Age 28, Male

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Utrecht University

Malta

Joined on 11/4/07

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My Musical Journey

Posted by Step - August 26th, 2014


You know, I've been meaning to write a newspost like this for a while now. Music has become such a huge part of my life now and I thought it'd be cool to have a place where I can write up the whole story of how I became a musician, and gather all my major accomplishments and breakthroughs. Plus, I almost always use this space as a functional tool for stuff like advertising my music, announcing fan milestones, and so on, so it's nice to have a bit of variety. Needless to say, long post incoming, and you sure as hell aren't getting a TL;DR!

 


 

Right, I guess I'll start from the very beginning. My childhood was not very musical. For the first 10 years of my life or so, I had no interest in music and in fact actively ignored it. My passion at the time was for writing. I used to write these cute little poems, and I would secretly enjoy getting English essays at school, even though I wouldn't openly admit it at the risk of sounding like a nerd. Despite this disinterest towards anything musical, at 11 I actually started taking piano lessons, and not the kind that parents force their kids to go to. It was all my own decision. To this day I don't know what exactly convinced me, but it might've been watching my childhood friend Tristan play the piano and think that it'd be a pretty cool thing for me to do too. That's when my fondness towards music sparked. I was still about as musical as a potato but piano was definitely my first nudge towards changing that.

 

I studied hard for my exams, and got into the best secondary school of the country, along with a few other primary school classmates of mine, notably Echo. While I was taking piano lessons regularly, I was still nuts about writing. I started writing books at 12, a few of which were written in collaboration with Echo as well. Meanwhile, a friend of mine told me about Newgrounds and how it has free games, so I decided to take a visit. I found the flash games pretty addictive and decided to stay, eventually making an account entitled 'Supersteph54' (you can see why I got my username changed).

 

When does music come in? Well, after playing Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 2, I stumbled upon the Newgrounds Audio Portal, and it quite certainly opened my eyes. I always thought making music was what only bands, orchestras or DJs do, and there I was, with hundreds of thousands of tracks in front of me made by normal people only a few years older than me, and some of it was actually GOOD. Perhaps inspired by this discovery, I proposed to Echo that it'd be a nifty idea to write theme songs for our books as well, to which he agreed. I searched for a music notation software, and found one called Mozart9. Using the limited music theory I gathered from piano lessons, I started writing my first ever musical notes, and sending the results to Echo for him to add instrumentation to with an old DAW called Cakewalk. Eventually, we finished our first ever track - a theme song for one of my books entitled "The Ten and a Half Heroes".

 

So that was it. I was making music. Not very good music, suffice to say, but music. We kept writing more books and hence, more theme songs, but slowly the writing came to an end as making music took over. I kept using the very limiting Mozart9 software to write my music, and while I wasn't getting very far, I didn't think to search for more music software. I then stumbled across @Blackhole12's music, in particular this one, and damn did I enjoy that track! I checked the description, where he mentioned how much his FL Studio project file kept crashing, and I thought to myself, "Hmm, FL Studio? What's this?". I did some googling, found the software, and pirated it. Yeah, I know, piracy... I mean, since then I've bought it legitimately, but at the time I had no money of my own and making music was just a foolish dream. So yes, I had FL Studio, and the funniest thing about it was that if Blackhole12 hadn't complained about FL Studio in his song description, then I would've never obtained FL, and might not be where I am today. So thank god for FL crashing. Funny how things work out! Soon after I got FL, Echo followed suit.

 

I made my first thing in FL, despite having no idea what I was doing. Of course, it sounded like crap, but everyone starts somewhere! It wasn't long before I made an arrangement of one of my favourite video game themes at the time, the Mortal Kombat theme. Despite that being a load of crap as well, it was actually my first ever track which received a truly positive response in the reviews. I was getting 10 after 10 after 10. People were favouriting me and my track. And wow, it felt GOOD. I think it was then that my music hobby took a turn forward. My mentality switched from "let's see what I can make with this complicated program" to "I've got to make something better! I have a fanbase now!". It was exciting stuff.

 

From then, it was a gradual but consistent climb upwards. I improved slightly with each new track I posted. I also joined the Review Request Club (RRC) - a small club on the forums dedicated to reviewing other people's flash and audio (no art portal at the time). I enjoyed reviewing other people's works (perhaps due to my aforementioned affection towards writing) so I felt right at home over there. I mention the RRC over here because I feel that it was a very important part of my maturing as a musician. Critically analysing other people's audio and getting responses and reviews back from the musicians behind those tracks helped widen my horizons and eventually judge my own music from a critical standpoint.

 

Soon after discovering the RRC, I discovered the Audio Forum. I posted in there now and again, though mostly naive FL Studio questions and uneducated opinions. I found it enjoyable posting there and with the opening of the first ever NGADM and me eventually becoming an audio moderator later on, I started integrating with the community a little more. I was, and still am, extremely psyched about being a regular of the Audio Forum, currently with over 6,000 forum posts. Forming part of a community of like-minded people who you actually get along with is a great feeling, even if I've never been as avid of a community member as I would've liked (I don't visit many IRC chats and don't post terribly often). Still, to this date I hold nothing but respect towards my fellow musicians and I'm honoured to be a part of it!

 

I digress. In the music department, I was still writing crappy techno, until Echo and I eventually agreed on buying East/West Symphonic Orchestra Silver after recommendations from @DavidOrr and @ApproachingNirvana and inspiration from Denny Schneidemesser's music, especially this one. It wasn't fun using that plugin with just 512 MB of RAM, I'll give you that! Still, it meant I started writing more orchestral-focused music, and kicked things off with this track. The huge leap in quality overwhelmed me, and despite having many issues with East/West due to an outdated PC and badly-coded PLAY engine, I pulled through, making more and more orchestral music.

 

I composed Legend, a middle-eastern-inspired track, to kick start 2011. I mention it because it's probably my first ever decent piece of music. I remember @Buoy telling me in his review "huh?! I don't recall you being this good?", and while I didn't make much of it at the time, I realise now why he had that reaction. Looking back, Legend was leaps and bounds above anything else I had done before it in terms of quality. Around this time, I also landed my first ever gig - $200 for around four 3-minute soundtracks for a game called Eternal Quest (which was actually pretty deep into development and I even got to play the game). I was naive and stupid, deciding not to write up a contract with the game developer at the start, and he ended up just disappearing after I finished all the music, so I never got the $200. To this day I've never heard anything about it again. The funniest part about this is that the game developer in question (who added me on MSN) literally called himself "Trickster" on MSN. He tricked me real good.

 

Towards the end of the year, a friend of mine told me about Harmony of a Hunter, a fan-made Metroid arrangement album organised by @Darrenkerwin. I was quite into arranging music, and video games (even though I knew nothing about Metroid). I contacted Darren, and he gave me a track to arrange for the album. Before I knew it, I became very close friends with Darren (and still am to this day), and I even made three full pieces of music for the album. This was one of the biggest deals in my music "career" ever. Harmony of a Hunter not only netted me a close friend, but exposure, tons of contacts ranging from musicians to artists to singers, and a strong liking towards Metroid and its music. On top of that, I'm now the assistant director for Harmony of Heroes, an ENORMOUS Smash Bros arrangement album set to be released by the end of this year.

 

The closer we get to the present, the more musical accomplishments I have. I made Sanctuary, which was my first ever track that truly exploded in popularity on Newgrounds (reaching up to 11th on the Best Audio of 2012 list on Newgrounds), I made my longest song ever, I played a vital role in a pretty large collaboration to remake the Okami Reset theme, I won around 500 Euro due to being commissioned to compose a soundtrack for a game which won a competition, I took part in a large school event at my sixth form as the music director, and kind of recently I had one of my tracks used in the extremely popular mobile game Geometry Dash. That last one landed me huge amounts of popularity, especially on YouTube, since Geometry Dash is top selling on Google Play and the App Store, beating the likes of Fruit Ninja and Temple Run (but not quite Candy Crush). I'm very lucky to be a part of such a well-produced game, and I've got to admit it's a pretty cool feeling when you see random people on buses or whatever on their mobile playing a game that uses your music, or even having PewDiePie play it.

 

Since the beginning, at the current time of writing, I've organised five NGADMs with Echo (on my sixth at the moment), accumulated over 600 fans on Newgrounds alone (and perhaps over 2,000 fans/subscibers overall), made about 150 pieces of music, written close to 1000 audio reviews, taken part in competitions, bought thousands of euro worth of music software/hardware, and met tons of awesome people who I consider dear friends or people I look up to/respect.

 

What is music to me now? What I can say for certain is that it's still a hobby, albeit a very time-consuming and expensive one. I sometimes ask myself whether I should make it my professional career, but due to the fact that I'm half-deaf and the fact that being a musician isn't exactly a financially stable job, I don't see that as a viable option. However, one thing is for sure; I won't stop making music any time soon. I sometimes go through pretty long periods where I regrettably don't post any music, due to being really busy a lot of the time with loads of different things, but if there's one thing I keep doing, it's coming back and writing more music. I'm proud to be a musician, albeit an amateur one who has a long way to go, and I'm excited to see what the future has in store.


Comments

So many text. DAMN YOU STEP!
You made me read everything because you don't have a tl;dr! >:C

In all seriousness though, you really have an interesting story toward your music career.
Really motivational. :3
I'll be here waiting for more music from you!
Who knows, if I get older and manage to learn how to program some games, we could collab and make a rhythm game! huehuehue

Hahaha, no TL;DR indeed. Get rekt.

But yeah it's cool that you read it all! A rhythm game would indeed be cool!

Fantastic read, Step. As a nonmusician who is very musically curious, it's stories like yours that give me a real peek into the music making world.

Of course, it's also fun to watch the king of text wall text wall himself.

LOL, glad you enjoyed reading it and thanks for stopping by.

Just a heads up, the latest NGADM is under way at the moment in case you're interested in checking some of it out. As always there are tons of quality tracks!

Yes! I'm aware. In fact, I considered doing a stats post like last year and ran the group stage scores in a spreadsheet. But the judging was too consistent and noncontroversial that there weren't many interesting things to say about :)

So that must mean the judges are agreeing with their scores haha. Good sign :p.

Nice to hear from you again mate.

Why are you so good? I Know, coz piano playah! I no play anything, I suck music! GRRR!

You don't need to play an instrument to make music. Not with today's tools!

Thanks though :3.

This was worth taking a good couple hours out of my day. Man the Harmony of Heroes thing seems pretty sweet. And I definitely like people who can leave walls of texts like that. People like that leave the best reviews.

Walls of text are awesome ^_^.

Thanks for reading! And I'm glad you checked out Harmony of Heroes. I'm hugely passionate about that project and can't wait until its release.

You will always be Supersteph54 to me. LULZ

How did I never hear "Sanctuary"? I just downloaded the heck out of that track. :D

Your comments about Geometry Dash remind me that I was in Gamestop the other day and heard music from Newgrounds playing in the background of some game. I don't remember who's music it was, but it certainly excited me.

I'll be honest, reading your post does depress me some because I'm reading success after success, and I reflect on my own musical journey (or life journey as a whole) and it's just been a great big pile of pain and failure- mainly because of psychological issues that really make it hard to do anything productively, even when working with skills that I excel at.

I'm glad that I met you, Step, and that you've been friendly to me and inspirational. Maybe one day I'll accomplish something too. For now at least I can help other people on their musical journeys.

For some reason I felt like Monster Hunter would be mentioned somewhere in this post.

"You will always be Supersteph54 to me. LULZ"

Nuuu. I hate that name haha.

"How did I never hear "Sanctuary"? I just downloaded the heck out of that track. :D"

You know, it may be pretty old but I'm still quite proud of that track.

"Your comments about Geometry Dash remind me that I was in Gamestop the other day and heard music from Newgrounds playing in the background of some game. I don't remember who's music it was, but it certainly excited me."

That is awesome. There is some crazy talent on this website.

"I'll be honest, reading your post does depress me some because I'm reading success after success, and I reflect on my own musical journey (or life journey as a whole) and it's just been a great big pile of pain and failure- mainly because of psychological issues that really make it hard to do anything productively, even when working with skills that I excel at."

For what it's worth, as you know I think your music is sweet! Never give up. I still have a very long way to go, but I made it this far only through determination and a constant inclination towards improving.

"I'm glad that I met you, Step, and that you've been friendly to me and inspirational. Maybe one day I'll accomplish something too. For now at least I can help other people on their musical journeys."

Your reviews and support have been awesome, I can't thank you enough ^_^.

"For some reason I felt like Monster Hunter would be mentioned somewhere in this post."

It is mentioned indirectly. My longest song ever is a medley of various Monster Hunter melodies, and I linked to it somewhere in that wall of text :p. Monster Hunter was mostly separate from my music but thanks to it I got to know someone who introduced me to Darren, the director for Harmony of a Hunter and Harmony of Heroes.

"For what it's worth, as you know I think your music is sweet! Never give up. I still have a very long way to go, but I made it this far only through determination and a constant inclination towards improving."

I'm only aware that you like one of my songs, haha.

I won't give up. My problem, though, is that I'm not always able to work hard, due to health problems. Sometimes I can do quite literally nothing.

I heard more than just that one piece of music, although that was a while ago. I'd be up for reviewing another one of your pieces if I find the time actually! Do you have any recommendations?

I would love that! Um, I guess I'll recommend "The Valley of Apples and Hope" since it got relatively little attention.

Roger that!

How didn't I notice this post until now?
Anyway, it was an enjoyable read, and I even found a couple tracks o' yours I hadn't listened to before :D

You have a very motivational story indeed. When I listen to your oldest compositions, and compare them to how your music sounds now, it gives me hope that maybe I'll be able to make something worth listening to someday as well XD

Really glad you liked reading it! I enjoyed writing it.

How long have you been making music for? Is the first track you have on Newgrounds your first ever piece of music?

Well, I've played the piano for five and a half year now (before that I had barely even touched an instrument), which means I've been composing somewhat seriously for 4 years. The first track I uploaded on Newgrounds is probably about 2 years old, so it's not nearly my first. I might actually upload the first serious track I've ever made today, now that I think about it (I actually have the original recording, with all its charming errors, somewhere on my computer). I'll be back to post another comment after I've uploaded it (I've meant to do so for a while).

I keep every single track I've ever made on my Newgrounds profile. I've considered taking them down sometimes but I've been advised not to since it's pretty cool to have a representation of your full evolution and maturing as an artist all in one portfolio, and in hindsight I agree. It can get annoying to get reviews on your old tracks now and again though haha.

Oh God...
Well, here is my first song ever, in case you're interested (at least I've improved some since then XD).

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/588658

(I know how it feels to get reviews on older songs. I've been uploading some lately, as I haven't had time to make new ones, but I still get tons of reviews :D I'm actually glad I get them though :3)

Haha, I guess reviews are nice, but I do get a "why are you reviewing this and not one of my newer tracks ;_;" feeling whenever I see a new review (often even a FAVOURABLE one) on an old and crappy track of mine.

That first song of yours is... actually much better than I expected. You clearly had more knowledge on music theory at the time than I did when I first started making music. You had the concept of a chord progression nailed already, and even had some pretty decent melodies to boot!

So you must've made that when you were 15. When I was 15 I was still making this crap :3.

http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/283723

Lol, I actually think you're track is faaar better than mine :p
You also knew more about production and percussion back then than I know now XD
As soon as I get out of the army I'll try to focus more on DAWs, mixing and such :3

Hahha, Buoy must've gotten a bit on your nerves then, considering how many old tracks of yours have been hit with reviews from him XD

FYI I had absolutely no knowledge of music theory when I made my first song (I don't even think I knew the names of the chords), and my theory is still lacking. I simply ripped off the chords used in "River Flows in You" :3

:OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Your*

Grammar nazi aside, Buoy said he'd review all of my old tracks and I agreed to it. It was actually pretty funny and informative seeing what he thought about them :3.

Trust me, I think your knowledge of theory was far greater than mine at the time. I had NO idea what I was doing. Funniest part was how in the author's comments of that link I sent, I said that I made a change to a "minor key" but little did I know that the whole track was in a minor key...

Ah well! At least we can both say we improved so much since then haha.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How could I make such a horrible grammatical mistake D':

*procedes to take own life*

I am deeply disappoint.

I loved reading this. I felt like I could relate in so many ways. Man, I remember when I first started making music back in '09, and I came across your music and was impressed. You were 14 I think, because I remember the disbelief when I saw your age in your profile, and I said to myself damn, this kid has got talent! I knew you would go somewhere. I know how it is with life getting too busy for making music. Sadly, I had to give it up because I just didn't have time anymore. I never learned how to play piano, so it just took too long to make songs by clicking around FL Studio's piano roll. It’s reading things like this though that make me smile, and bring me back to the gold old days. It has only been 5 years, but so much has changed! I too look forward to listening to what you make in the future.

Wow, josielemmings! I haven't seen you around in so long. It's a real shame that you quit music since you were good at it. Life does get in the way a lot, so I see where you're coming from. Ultimatums suck though; do get back into it if you find the time.

Thanks for stopping by :3.