Hobart

Music Producer Callum Ball

Callum Ball is an up and coming young Tasmanian music producer specialising in hip hop production. He’s been busy working on a range of recording projects, including works from Tasmanian rappers ‘Dunn D’ and ‘Promise’. Callum describes his journey from being a young beat-maker with friends, making a mix of EDM (Electronic Dance Music) and hip hop beats, to taking the plunge and becoming a full time producer. Callum talks to us about all things music, hip hop and what to expect from an emerging young music scene!

What sort of things do you get up to with your music?

I mainly work as a music producer, working from home: mixing, mastering and I make hip hop and EDM beats. I try to dabble in a large range of genres. I really enjoy mixing heavy metal, but the majority of what I do is hip hop.

about listening, but that there’s a lot more in it?

I was about 20 years old. That was about three years ago, when I picked up Logic and started producing. I just started doing it for fun. I was making music with my mate Huon, and we were just bouncing back and forth. He’s a rapper so I was making hip hop beats and started to realise I was doing it for like six hours a day or more! Just for fun, because I love doing it. At that point, after a month of doing that, I thought, ‘Hang on, if I’m doing this like a full-time job just because I love it, I should actually try to make it a fulltime job (haha)!’ So I un-enrolled from what I was doing in university and went straight to the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music.

How did that go for you? Did you meet people straight away or have people around that you would consider as mentors?

Oh yeah, definitely! Tonnes of people played a huge role in me being able to do

what I do. I wouldn’t have been able to do it as easily as I have without the help of those people. When I first went to the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music, the music tech class just brought me in and showed me stuff. They all knew way more than I did because I’d only been doing it for a month. We just became a tight group! It was literally like being at high school with that group of friends. We all had the same classes and the same lunch breaks; it was a great time. After that, my mate Will Joseph taught me some stuff about Logic. My mate Promise, who I met through Will, showed me tonnes of stuff and gave me a lot of opportunities. Through Promise, I met Dunn D. Dunn D built a big name and following for himself, and it’s been an amazing opportunity to work with him. Yeah, all these people have been a huge helping hand in me being able to do what I do!

The last few years sound really progressive for your music journey. Did you do any sort of music before that (in high school) or did you ever pick up any instruments?

Yeah, in high school I played in heavy metal bands and stuff like that. I played keys, drums and guitar. I kind of became a jackof-all-trades when it came to instruments: I was just learning them left right and centre! But between high school and when I started producing, I kind of had a big break from doing any music stuff. I didn’t play for years, which is a shame, but I guess it’s what needed to happen.

Would you say this was something you wanted to take on as a career path while you were making beats with your friend Huon?

Oh, totally! Even before I started producing, I was listening to other producers and I was into Trap music. I was into Flume and stuff like that. I thought they were so cool, but I had never started producing. But I always thought being a producer would be so cool.