Meet Von: The Sex-Positive, Innovative Producer & Playlist Guru
Posted on September 20, 2018
Meet the boss behind many of Gender Amplified’s official Spotify playlists: Von. This girl is talented and multi-faceted to say the least. Not only is she a student at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, but Von is also a self-produced artist, a playlist curator for Milk.XYZ, and manager of all the verified playlists for the Clive Davis Spotify page.
To top it off, Von has worked with Gender Amplified to curate some of our most diverse and brilliant Spotify playlists. Von’s five Gender Amplified playlists have a specific goal in mind: she wants listeners (of all genres, genders, ages, etc.) to have access to a sonic space where womxn/femme/female artists of all kind are celebrated, visible, and listened to. To achieve such a goal, Von’s playlists are inspired by Spotify’s most popular playlists today, but she has re-curated and re-named them to emanate the same vibes but with exclusively womxn-identifying producers and musicians. Below is one her curation products, Kit Kat, a playlist for every Bushwick househead wishing they were in Berlin. It’s mimicked after the Spotify playlist mint and includes artists like SOPHIE, Yaeji, Grimes, and more.
We spoke to Von about her musical influences, her preferred production compositions, sex tech’s potential for the future, the use of her vibrator’s sound waves to create a song, and more.
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What first sparked your interest in music production? What was the first track you produced?
I actually started out as a classically trained pianist. A security guard at my High school was also a rapper and he knew I played piano, so he asked me to make him a track with keys in it. I had nooo idea what the fuck that even meant but just started messing around on garage band and realized that I really loved playing with rhythm and it didn’t sound like absolute shit!!! That was the first track I ever technically “produced”. It was by no means good but I still go back to it sometimes to see where I started and how far I’ve come. It’s crazy that was only 5 years ago. 5 years sounds like a long time but when I think about how much growth has been from then till now it seems wildly short.
Who or what are your musical influences and how do they shape your creative process day to day?
I’m obsessed with Charli XCX, SOPHIE, Grimes, Peaches, Abra. I could go on. I really love grittier, complex production paired with catchy, glittery toplines. Sonically these artists have 100% directly influenced my own music, but I also admire the way they create so unapologetically. What all of these artists have in common is how blunt they are with their work. The vibe is very much like: I make x, if you don’t like x then x is just not for you . I think that’s commendable, especially in pop music. I make pop music but I’m aware that my music is still niche. I hope to have that same amount of confidence with my own work.
You have collaborated with several organizations, including Gender Amplified and Milk.xyz, to curate playlists. What do you find special about the art of playlist curation and why do you love to do it?
I’ve always loved making playlists and literally since the age of 10 I didn’t go anywhere without headphones on, so for a long time I’ve just been used to always having music in my ears. The songs I wanted to listen to on the way to my soccer game were different than on the drive to my grandma’s or the carpool to a school dance. So I always just had different playlists to choose from based on the circumstances. Not to sound too corny but I really do think that every emotion/mood/task has such distinct characteristics that can be interpreted sonically. Playlisting has just been a way to do that tangibly. Playlisting’s become so important that most people depend on curated playlists for music discovery, which is awesome! But I remember scrolling through Spotify’s Rap Caviar and seeing that they had ONE female on the entire playlist. I hear a lot of bulls*** about people not knowing any female artists/producers/songwriters- and it’s infuriating because there’s so many who are so overqualified at what they do. Playlist curators have a job to give womxn in music the visibility they deserve. Narrowing my own playlists for Gender Amplified to only 20 songs is genuinely difficult because there’s soooo much good music coming from womxn right now. Playlists curators have to not only realize how important they are in advancing underrepresented artists, but actually do their part.
If you had to create a 10-song Spotify playlist that encapsulated your personality as an artist, what songs would you include, and what would you name the playlist?
Yes!!! Designer Pu$$$y is a playlist of 10 songs I’m really into, that I update as I find new stuff to listen to. I have Billie Eilish, LIZ, Tommy Genesis, ROSALÃ A on there and moooore.
Here’s the link: https://open.spotify.com/user/
What is your ultimate goal for your career — whether that be music production or some other creative position?
I really think that sex tech is the future. My goal is just to continue merging sex tech with art in whichever ways I can, and to continue learning about sex positivity. My career has barely started, so I don’t know where it’ll go or if I even have an “ultimate goal” as of now. For a long time my ultimate goal was just to get the confidence to share my music with other people. Now I’m just excited to see where it takes me.
Can you tell us about your self-produced song “Action,” and the distinctiveness in how you created it?
Yes! So I wrote “Action” about an intimate, sexual relationship with yourself. The production started off as just a really simple drum track that I wrote the song over. I really wanted to make music with vibrators, and since this song was about self pleasure I really wanted to find a way to make that idea an actuality. I ended up teaming up with Lioness, a sex tech company, to use their vibrator and to use my own orgasm wave patterns in the production. After a session with the Lioness I connected the vibrator via bluetooth to an iOS app. The app shows you the actual waveform for each session. I took a screenshot of the waveform and input it into Serum, a wavetable editor. In Serum I was able to map an LFO to the wave table position so that the entire waveform would play back when I triggered a note. I manipulated the sound’s envelope settings and other parameters to really shape the sound I wanted. What I ended up with is the bass sound you hear in “Action”! The rest of the production came pretty fast afterwards, the song was done in a couple more days.
What advice would you give to someone just starting out in music production?
There is no right way to do anything. I remember how f******* nervous I’d get showing my tracks to people, (mostly dudes), freaking out over if I eq’d the snare right. At the end of the day everyone’s process is their own, and the only way to get better/concretely hone in on your own process is to make a nauseating amount of material. Produce a song everyday, don’t stress about things being done the right way . The right way doesn’t exist and literally the only way to get better is to just keep doing.
Connect with Von further by following her on Instagram, Twitter, and read this incredible Broadly article on her new song “Action!”
