Ilias Gogakis is a Mixing & Mastering Engineer and Co-Founder of Vowlume Productions Ltd. He has a variety of work under his belt including a track for the Eurovision Song Contest, InPhaze and, more recently, the debut album from Valcata.

What started your interest in music production?

I started as a guitar player. With my band mates we used to spend many hours in rehearsal studios back in the day. When it was time to record our first EP, I was so amazed by the techniques used by the audio engineer and he transformed our sound to something way beyond our imagination. I was studying computers in college then, so the connection with technology and music was always in my blood. When I finished my computer studies, I started getting more into music production.

What is the story behind Vowlume Productions?

Vowlume Productions is the team of creative people working together. The idea behind Vowlume is to provide integrated creative services to artists and businesses. The name of the business Vowlume is a combination of Volume and the bird Owl. We combined the wisdom and the knowledge with the high quality and expertise on our field. We are sure that we are able to provide high quality standards to our clients and our goal is to build a long time relationship with them.

Do you enjoy working with a particular genre of music?

Oh yes! Rock and metal music! it’s more like a lifestyle; I grew up with rock music. My uncle and my aunt used to listen to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Rush, The Beatles, Nirvana, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Metallica. I grew up with this music and I believe it was natural for me to start playing the guitar and later when I got involved with music production, for rock and metal to be my main genres.

What was your favourite project to work on?

I have been involved with some demanding projects I must say. One was back in 2012, when I had to full produce (record – edit – mix – mastering) a song for Eurovision Song Contest. That was when I was in Greece, in 2012 with a friend of mine who wrote a song for Switzerland. We had only 4 days before the deadline. I managed to finish the production 4 hours before the end of the deadline.

The next demanding project was when I was trying to finish the album for my personal band, InPhaze. I was working crazy hours, because half of the band was in Greece and I am in London. Things took too long to be done because recording had to be done in Greece and then I had to mix in London.

But the biggest challenge so far was the latest release which I had the pleasure to work with the composer Oha Cade, from New York. Everything was recorded at each musician’s studio, and I received the recording in my studio in London to do the mixing and the mastering. It’s not as simple as it sounds, as I had to go through rough mixing, check with Oha, ask the musicians to redo the recording if something wasn’t done correctly. And do this over and over till we get the correct take for 10 songs. Took us about 10 months, but I believe we have a very good result.

What is your favourite genre of music to listen to?

I really enjoy all the genres of music, depending on the mood I am in at the moment. For example, when I wake up in the morning, I will never listen to Sodom or some kind of black metal music. Sometime I choose a random chill out Spotify playlist before the caffeine hits my system. Because of my job, I really enjoy different styles of music and I like to explore what is out there.

Do you play any instruments and/or sing?

I do play electric guitar. I haven’t touched it for some years, but I am very much keen on starting again.

What are your future plans for Vowlume?

Some of the services Vowlume offers at the moment is online mixing and mastering, and video production (music videos, business videos, training videos etc). For the very near future we plan to add more members in our team in order to be able to offer photography, 3D services, web development and more, so our clients can come to us and have a full creative package.

Looking for sound production or video production services? Get in touch with Ilias at [email protected]

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