Today we’d like to introduce you to Noel Barajas.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Noel. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Ever since I could remember, music was always being played at the houses I grew up in Clairemont. I am a first generation Mexican American. My parents came to the United States when they were teenagers, met, got married, had my older sister and me here in San Diego. So, I grew up hearing the music my parents were playing which was all Spanish music. My parents listened to anything from traditional Mexican music to Latin pop ballads while my sister listened to American pop and dance music on the radio. My dad has an embarrassing video of me singing at three years old singing to a Latin pop ballad! One artist that I remember my mom playing a lot and that inspired me as an artist is Marco Antonio Solis. When you listen to his music, it has a variety of instrumentation, sound effects, textures, and orchestration in his production. Definitely a big inspiration! When I was around eight years old, my cousin got turntables and started DJing in his room. He turns me on to all kinds of hip hop/rap music. All the golden era, east coast, dirty south, west coast, etc. The way he was mixing all that and the vinyl scratches, I was hooked! I want to come over all the time to listen and learn how to use the vinyl turntables. When I was in middle school is when I started skateboarding so the skaters I was with all were listening to all kinds of rock music. Mostly metal and punk rock. One of my friends that I skated with had a drum set, guitars, amps at his house and they would cover rock songs. I kept coming over to just mess around on the instruments, trying to learn the songs my friends played. Eventually, I picked up the first guitar that my uncle let me borrow when I was like 15 years old. I really wanted to take music seriously so I and some of my skater friends started a metal band. This was also when I first started writing music. When it came to recording our songs, I realized that I couldn’t achieve the same sound and recording quality like all the other successful bands I look up to. That was what sparked my curiosity for sound engineering. The more I learned about it, the more I knew this is what I wanted to learn in college. As soon as I graduated high school, I went to college and obtain a certificate for music technology in 2014. I eventually broke off from being in a metal band and started just composing my own music. A couple of years past, I started sound engineering for rappers who started Disciples of the Canyon which got me motivated in being an entrepreneur and creating music for artist/companies to purchase. Two years later, I opened up the DJ Oh-WeL brand to sell my music. Became the in-house producer and live DJ for Disciples of the Canyon. Here we are now, about to release more music this year. We already got some songs lined up and some in the works right now. We got some music videos about to be filmed very soon. It’s going to be a good year for us and everybody in the local scene!
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Learning how to use a video editing program to create content was a challenge but YouTube helped me out a lot, in general, to educate myself on computer programs that I use. Going to school to learn about sound engineering, recording arts, digital audio, etc. was challenging but fun at the same time because its what I enjoy doing; making music and being around it!
Please tell us more about your work, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
I’m a freelancing sound engineer and I specialize in recording, mixing, and mastering audio. I also have another business selling licenses and leases for music I’ve made to recording artists, media groups, and anyone else who needs music. I feel very proud to provide some kind of value to the music community. Whether it be, recording a local artist or selling a lease to another recording artist from a different part of the world. I feel a sense of gratitude knowing that I’m providing value to others while doing something I’m passionate about. I like to think what sets me apart from other is that when I have clients over, I try to make working on music as least stressful as possible and enjoy the process. The original music production I try to stand out by incorporating rock/metal influence sounds creating my own original sounds.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
My proudest moment so far has been the day I became the in house producer/DJ for Disciples of the Canyon. Everyone in the collective is creative in many different ways. from songwriting to visual arts and they all happen to be good friends of mine since middle school/high school days. I feel lucky to have close friends in music that lasted this long! Recently after that, I had my first song as the credited producer with Disciples of the Canyon not just because it was my first credited song but also because how it was created so organically making the whole process really easy and enjoyable. I made the beat on the spot with FREDIZDEAD and Jonnie Darko writing the lyrics at the same time. By the end of that night, we’ve made ‘Double Up’ which is a single we released on SoundCloud soon to be released on all platforms. I am very proud to be working with very talented individuals!
Pricing:
- Recording/Mixing- $18 an hour
- Mastering- $35 an hour or $40 for singles
- MP3 Beat leases- $15
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.beatstars.com/djohwel/feed
- Email: deejay.oh.wel@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dj.ohwel/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DJ_Oh_WeL
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuj5Qz2wm6lhuAAAXTPfeYg/featured?view_as=subscriber
Image Credit:
@elbebecobian
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