Exposed Vocals Interviews The CF Corporation

Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist?

The CF Corporation: I grew up on a very small town somewhere in Mexico. I just kind of became an artist “organically”, if that makes any sense. I never thought “well, I’m calling myself X and I’ll be doing Y type of music”. I used to play around with an old Technics 2-track tape recorder when I was like 6 or 7 years old, re-recording my favorite tracks and songs from CDs, TV programs and video games. That’s when I started toying around with sound. Then when I first had access to a computer, I would use Windows Movie Maker only for the editing timeline, and I would do my first attempts at mixing two tracks together there. Unfortunately that thing’s so bugged that even though in the preview it sounded okay, when exporting it sounded horrible. Afterward by pure luck I downloaded GoldWave (even though I didn’t even knew what it was used for; I wanted to have as many programs as I could back then…) and that’s the moment when I learned the most. I learned how to make sound effects, make edits to tracks, maximize their volume and even mix them together (yeah, I made a few “mixes” using only a waveform editor; I didn’t knew about DAWs or DJ software). I created a large sample library of lots of effects I sampled or created myself all using only GoldWave. Then somewhere around 2010 I found out what a DAW was. I tried it out and by 2013 I knew how to operate it more or less correctly. But yeah, in no moment I told myself “well I’m an artist now”.

Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with that name? What was your inspiration behind it?

The CF Corporation: I think it’s a really old name. Like, 2006 or so when I came up with it? It was supposed to be an imaginary restaurant chain (yeah, I was 9 years old then so…). I needed a name for the first remix contest I entered so I decided “why not use CF Corporation?” and well it’s what it is now.

Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?

The CF Corporation: Online sharing is good. I do lament the fact that even though we have online distribution 1. we can’t cut out the middlemen in the music business and 2. the amount of frankly poor but very cleverly marketed music has gone off the roof. There’s some really talented people who otherwise wouldn’t have been ever heard of, but I have seen many of them just drop music production because it takes time and it doesn’t even pay anything anymore, and since they’re not pulling media stunts or anything there’s never much hype around them, so I suppose they all go “why bother?” and just leave.

About giving away music, sure.  Then again, most just listen and never bother saying anything, let alone buy any release. The few times someone comments are nice though. Feels good to be appreciated, even if they don’t buy your stuff.

Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips?

The CF Corporation: Hey, I’m still a start-up!! How would I know?

Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?

The CF Corporation: I don’t perform live.

Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?

The CF Corporation: Sorry, no touring.

Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?

The CF Corporation: Inspiration… well, it’s a random thing for me. I can’t point to anything and say “hey this is the thing that makes me inspired” because it doesn’t work like that for me. I can set myself up and be all like “alright, today I’m gonna produce two tracks and I’m gonna use X synth and Y samples…” and ultimately scrap it all (wasting an entire day in the process) while other times it’s already 1 AM and I’ll be all “this is really really good, now lets add this, and this…” so yeah. There’s not much of any process involved either. Sometimes I just start cutting up some sample or sequence/loop and then overlay elements to it, or I start with the beat and build something from there. It’s all very random and organic. For remixes, likewise, I just mess around until I find a usable sequence and build from there, sometimes with very unexpected results.

Exposed Vocals: Do you have a band website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?

The CF Corporation: I have a website at www.cfcorporation.tk. It’s as simple as it gets; list of works, a contact form and an embed SoundCloud player. I use SoundCloud for sharing.

Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?

The CF Corporation: I don’t have a MP3 player, not even a cellphone. Though on my computer, I guess it depends what you think of as embarrassing. I personally keep all the tracks I have for a

reason and I don’t think any of them is particularly embarrassing.

Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?

The CF Corporation: The money would be used for a house or something similar. A place where I can go to record and produce without anyone around. The half year off, who knows? Maybe going to one of those Brazilian buffet places, but that doesn’t take half a year to do.

Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?

The CF Corporation: I’m planning on getting a set of studio monitor headphones and an external DAC. Should let me mix better. I’m working with a $15 headphone set and a laptop. I also want to upgrade my laptop to a SSD, and I need a larger external hard drive since the 1 TB one I have is just not enough anymore.

Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?

The CF Corporation: I participate in multiple remix contests. I use SoundCloud, and from time to time send demos to labels.  I don’t do much promotion by myself.

Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?

The CF Corporation: I don’t think I really have any opinion about this. I do think that certain bands would benefit from someone that did more interesting arrangements for their live shows, so that’s something that I would like to do.

Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?

The CF Corporation: Well, there’s my album that was released earlier this year, so there will be some remixes out of it (more like, the entire album has been remixed), a remix contest and an EP.

There’s also some remixes I did floating around labels but I don’t know when they will be released. And two singles that are going to be released by two different labels.

Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?

The CF Corporation: Working 9-to-9 in some random place probably. Or maybe just reading around the internet all day, like I do sometimes…

Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?

The CF Corporation: It must have been a digital purchase back in 2006. I can’t really tell what the artist was, since I have collected so much more stuff since then. I may have even probably deleted it!

Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?

The CF Corporation: I used not to, so I never had time for anything that wasn’t music. Nowadays, I limit the amount of work I do daily, although it has definitely made me lazier in the music production area. I used to turn about one remix a day for a while, but it was seriously harming my schedule and sleep cycle, so I don’t do that anymore.

Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2016?

The CF Corporation: More remixes, and maybe another single release. I’m taking a small break from doing original stuff, since I recently finished my album and remixed pretty much all tracks as well (so I practically produced it twice!). I also have some remix contest entries whose winners haven’t been announced yet so if I win any of those you’’ll be seeing my name around there as well.