{"id":8598,"date":"2022-08-04T08:09:55","date_gmt":"2022-08-04T07:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sonarworks.com\/blog\/?p=8598"},"modified":"2022-08-04T11:06:59","modified_gmt":"2022-08-04T10:06:59","slug":"ali-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sonarworks.com\/blog\/studio-stories\/ali-stone","title":{"rendered":"Five Minutes with Ali Stone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ali Stone has cemented her place as a leader in modern music production. She grew up in Colombia and eventually moved to Los Angeles, where she writes, produces, mixes, and masters, both for herself and other artists, including Mary J. Blige, Danna Paola, and Natti Natasha. In 2021, Ali received a GRAMMY nomination as a producer for the Chilean singer Cami\u2019s album \u201cMonstruo\u201d. She has performed as an opener for Justin Bieber and headlined the Electric Daisy Carnival in Mexico City. Known as an electronic music DJ and performer, she is also an accomplished musician on keyboards, flute, guitar, and anything else she can get her hands on. Dave Pensado dubbed Ali \u201cthe 2020\u2019s one-man band.\u201d Sonarworks was fortunate to catch up with Ali and speak with her about her career and musical journey. The following are some highlights from our interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tell us about how you started your career in music?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah, I started years ago as a guitar player when I was like 13, playing guitar for artists in Colombia, recording guitars and everything. Years later, when I lived in Paris, I started to like electronic music, and I saw people making these remixes, which led me into production. Then, in 2013, I won a competition to make a song for the Disney movie \u201cMonsters University,\u201d and that kick-started my career. Axwell and Sebastian Ingrosso (Swedish House Mafia) had a public remix contest. I was, like, \u2018okay, I have three days to produce something!\u2019 I didn\u2019t expect to win\u2014I was in finance because I went to business school! That changed everything because from there, people started to book me to make remixes, even asking me if I was a DJ. I was like \u201cOh my god, I need to become a DJ!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ali Stone’s studio in Bogota (2014)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Did you go to university for music, or have you learned everything about music on your own?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was 4, I started with classical piano lessons. Then, when I was 5, I began to play the flute, and when I was 7, I went with guitar and started to study blues, rock, and metal. I was getting this extensive formation in music, especially with instruments and reading music, and being able to identify jazz sounds. But the production part was sort of like self-taught on my own. I was in business school, so it was my way of de-stressing from school. In my free time, I would watch tutorials on \u201cWhat is compression?\u201d and \u201cHow do you apply filters.\u201d I got some books to read just to learn how to properly mix and master because I was doing everything on my own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel like I\u2019m always learning. Music is a process of learning new ways of producing, mixing, and recording. On an album that I recently produced with Sebastian Krys, I saw that he had this [McDSP] ML4000 plugin, and when I heard it in action, I was like \u2019Wow!\u2019 I learned a new way of managing my mix bus, so now I\u2019m doing something that I wasn\u2019t able to do before in my songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ali learning piano (1997)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

What were the first studio tools that you bought, and what currently are the most and least expensive tools you use?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first one was Pro Tools 5. When I started my actual production career, I added the M Audio speakers and the Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 audio interface. Now, the most expensive of what I have here can\u2019t be seen\u2014plugins. If I go out of my studio I won\u2019t have my instruments, so I need my plugins because I can do almost anything in the box. The cheapest one that I love is the CamelCrusher distortion plugin. It\u2019s free [laughs].<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of all the projects you’ve worked on, which one would you say is your favorite?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hmm, it\u2019s hard because I love all of them. It’s a different kind of love for each project. I feel like it\u2019s probably the album that came out for Francisca Valenzuela, a Chilean artist. I co-produced the whole 11-song album with Sebastian Krys, and I feel super proud about that one because it\u2019s very eclectic.  It has rock, cumbia, bolero, and others, and it\u2019s also kind of different from what\u2019s out in Latin music right now. We worked on the album a year ago and it just came out, but it still sounds new and it still feels fresh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also have a project that got nominated for a GRAMMY with Cami. She\u2019s from Chile and that was a super cool project as well because it was very experimental and I was like, \u2018either people will love it or hate this\u2019 because it was mixing folkloric stuff with very, very modern sounds. It\u2019s like a scary combination that maybe people find weird, but it\u2019s there to make a statement. The album is called Monstruo, and that specific song is called \u201cPena Negra\u201d; it ended up getting nominated for a GRAMMY. So yeah, that was like a nice milestone in my career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Purpose Tour (2017)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Where do you find inspiration for your work?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel like I find inspiration in everything, especially since I work not only on my music, but I also write songs and produce for others. There are so many things that can inspire you\u2014like there was a song where I was very inspired by food, so I decided to incorporate a lot of my kitchen elements into the production. I was recording cutting limes, then the shakers were the salt and pepper, and then moving my coffee was like semi percussion, twirling your coffee there. That song is called \u201cCrudo\u201d, it means \u201craw\u201d in Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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