Clyde McNeil better known as Maly born in Manila, Philippines raised most of his life in Greensboro, NC never once knew he had the potential to make his mark on the music scene as an up and coming producer. As a youth Maly was always surrounded by music rather it was in church or down at the local “Juke Joint” that his relatives mostly played anything from R&B, Soul, Jazz and Blues. This would have a huge impact later on Maly’s music career.
2005 Lakenheath, England U.K. Maly along with his first artist delivered a spectacular performance in the local area. This enabled their album sales to go through the roof. With the success of this, their careers would go on a short run until 2007 when both parties parted ways in pursuit of different goals.
From 2008 to 2010 Abilene, TX USA Maly would again pair with another amazing act. With Maly’s heavy southern beats he was able to singlehandedly take his team to the next level. Performing shows in San Antonio and various parts of Texas, Maly’s heavy southern influenced beats took Texas underground scene once again for a short period of time.
Late 2011 Japan Maly has taken a step back from the music scene to find new meaning and hone his skills to devise yet another try into his big break into music scene. Armed with his plethora of knowledge and skills with his favorite DAW FL Studio, Maly used this time away to design yet a new strategy in becoming one of the world’s premiere top Super Producer.
Fast forward to now San Antonio, TX USA Maly is on the verge of making waves with his new revitalized sound. This is the year he has deemed his time to show the world what they’ve been missing out on.
Exposed Vocals: How did you hear about Exposed Vocals? What made you decide to sign up?
Maly: I received a message through Twitter. Well after looking through the site and how you guys hook folks like us up, I decided to try and give it a go.
Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become a producer?
Maly: I grew up in Pleasant Garden, NC just right outside of Greensboro. It’s very country where I’m from and I like it that way. What made me decide to do this really is a long answer. Back in 2004 at first I just thought that it was a pretty good thing to do as a hobby until other people started commenting and telling me how good my beats were sounding. Later on my boy put me on to making beats in a program called Magix Studio. The program was very basic; you just throw together samples and generate a beat. We thought we were doing something amazing LOL. Later on we graduated up into using FL Studio which is the program I’ve been using since version four and still to this day. From version four up to the current version I’ve been gaining more knowledge and techniques about producing. It’s been a great journey so far. There’s a lot of stuff to learn and when you think you know it all then something else comes up and you got to go back and re-learn that specific technique. So basically to sum this all up is the challenge of trying to be better than the competition, but in a respectful manner.
Exposed Vocals: How did you come up with Maly? What was your inspiration behind it?
Maly: I came up with “Maly” long time ago when I was about 14 years old. At that time my cousin and I was creating a comic book and of course we were in it as well LOL. But the name originated from Maelstrom my comic book character after looking through the dictionary to come up with a name. Maly derived from Maelstrom and I flipped it based off of the definition of being a violent whirlpool. I’d like to add that that’s my mentality when it comes to making music. I seriously want to be the best. At the same time I know I’m still far from reaching that goal LOL.
Exposed Vocals: What do you think about online music sharing? Do you ever give your music away for free? Why?
Maly: For online music sharing I think the idea is great. Now with social media and other internet services this is a great opportunity for independent/underground artists, writers or beat makers to be heard. I talk about this all the time with the team that I’m a part of. Most of the times the reason I give away music for free is that it’s just another way of getting out there. Be on the lookout on my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTYKewDpm0J8CfENrH6x-9w) that’s where I’m going to be giving them out.
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?
Maly: I think that first it starts with getting your stuff to sound right. To me it’s all about the basics on mixing, if your sound is not quite right in some cases people aren’t going to take you serious. There was one time I recorded somebody and the vocals just did not sound right. Long story short I basically missed out on future projects with this artist.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that?
Maly: I don’t do any performances; I don’t think I’d do to well if I were to do a performance either LOL.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about?
Maly: Well fortunately or unfortunately for me as a producer, there’s not much touring that I do. I do have future plans on building a website to sale beats, due to come out first quarter 2016 stay on the lookout. In the meantime look me up on SoundClick (http://members.soundclick.com/MalyMal25) and RocBattle (http://www.rocbattle.com/Maly)
Exposed Vocals: Where do you usually gather songwriting inspiration? What is your usual songwriting process?
Maly: There’s music all around us everywhere we go. For me I’ll go to YouTube to see what other producers are doing just to use them as a measuring stick to grade myself on how I’m doing. I get inspiration from my team that I’m a part of and just from anybody that is doing anything in music in general. For making a beat to me I usually start out with a nice little chord progression and layer sounds on top of the foundation of those chords before I put drums in. That’s mainly the gist of how I make my beats and every now and then the process changes. Most of the times it all depends on the mood I’m in, recently I found out that after I come in from a jog I tend to make some pretty good aggressive beats that way.
Exposed Vocals: Do you have a website? What online platforms do you use to share your music?
Maly: Right now I’m working on a website for selling beats and a YouTube channel. I use SoundCloud.com, SoundClick.com and RocBattle.com to display and to sell my beats. I guess you kind of caught me at my early phase of my plans on getting out there. I’m just putting all of these into play but be on the lookout as I post beats for sale or free within the next couple of months. This is what I’ve been planning very carefully for the past 3 years.
Exposed Vocals: What are some really embarrassing songs that we might find on your mp3 player?
Maly: I’ll probably have Kid’s Pop on my MP3 player LOL. But that’s for my kids when they’re riding with me LOL. I can’t believe I’m sharing this, whatever.
Exposed Vocals: If you were given half a million dollars and a year off, what would you do? How would you spend it?
Maly: I’d be able to get a lot of stuff set up. Well for starters I’d have the website 100% running selling beats and digital comic books. I’d build a home studio from the ground up with a lot of consoles to help get my mixes perfect. After that I’d really wouldn’t be able to spend the rest because I’d be busy building my beat library up. I pretty much have most of the stuff I need now but it’s whatever, I can only dream.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now?
Maly: Right now I’m planning on getting some analogue gear to help introduce that analogue sound into my mixes. I’m really looking at setting up that ultimate routing chain to help out with that. I’m also looking at getting some DJ equipment. Mainly so that I can come up with a mixtape series and possibly get into DJing. Right now though I’m working inside of FL Studio and the Maschine pulled up for mainly blessing my tracks with those quality drum patterns. I love this set up can’t ask for anything better than this so far.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you?
Maly: As of now it’s just taking advantage of social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. There are others also but I still have to see how well I can incorporate them and how to work with them. Since right now I’m just starting back up and working off of how other people were able to do it I really can’t answer that right now. But in the past it was just mainly by word of mouth. People would hear your stuff and spread the word and next thing you know everybody all of a sudden wants to hit you up wanting to do some work.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why?
Maly: I would love to work with anybody that is willing to work with me. Every time I work with artists it has always helped me reach another level when it comes to making beats or when I recorded their vocals. They challenge me into making something great and different and vice versa.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about?
Maly: Next for me is to keep pushing these beats out to ultimately be able to do business from my website. Upcoming projects I have is that I’ll be working on an album with an artist stay on the lookout as we post updates on my twitter page @MALYMAL25.
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing?
Maly: I’d probably be playing video games a whole lot more or having the actual time needed to get my comic book launched.
Exposed Vocals: Do you remember buying your first album? Who was it? What was going through your head?
Maly: My first album I purchased was The Notorious B.I.G. Life After Death. The thing that was going through my head was hell yeah bout to go down to the beach for Spring Break and bump us some Biggy and have fun. But then I realized that I was only a teenager and sure as hell didn’t have a ride to get down there LOL.
Exposed Vocals: How do you juggle the rest of your responsibilities while trying to stay ahead in your music life?
Maly: It’s the hardest thing to do. It seems like there’s never enough time in a day to get the stuff done that you want. I have a regular 9 to 5 and most of the times when I get home I’m mentally and physically tired. But the only thing that keeps me going is the ultimate outcome of the “IF” I make it that keeps going through my head. My family and I would be able to have a more comfortable lifestyle. I do this for them.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in 2015?
Maly: 2015 and beyond keep checking me out on my social sites
– SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/maly-1
– Twitter https://twitter.com/MALYMAL25
– YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTYKewDpm0J8CfENrH6x-9w
– SoundClick http://members.soundclick.com/MalyMal25
– RocBattle http://www.rocbattle.com/Maly
– Facebook http://www.facebook.com/TJ.MCNEIL.25
– Instagram https://instagram.com/malymal25/
Also be on the lookout for my website coming out first quarter 2016 as I announce it on Twitter, shoutouts to SouthernBoy Stretchmane…We in there!!!!
