The Producer’s Voice: Laudiano [@lillaudiano]

Words By Miki Hellerbach

The Producer’s Voice is a new series for GUAP where we highlight the stories of instrumental crafters. We hope to bring their stories to the forefront instead of kept behind the artist they are producing for.

Laudiano is the producer that goes with the flow and since transitioning from FL Studio to Maschine has really found his feet.

Producer Laudiano was actually born in Sydney, Australia, but was raised in LA from the age of one and still lives there now. He was put in piano classes as a kid by his mom and liked the feeling of making music but didn’t enjoy the structure. Though at this point in his life he didn’t retain any of those early lessons and can’t technically play piano, that doesn’t mean it didn’t garner within him an inherent sense of musicality.

Laudiano started making beats his senior year of high school after downloading FL Studio. He says, “I started just cuz. It was just something I wanted to do.” Legitimately a few months into producing he claims he got over a million plays just from two songs he produced that got placements with burgeoning artists FrostyDaSnowman and Shoreline Mafia. He credits his sole early inspiration to the sounds of the beats for songs by Drakeo The Ruler. He initially learned by trying to specifically replicate those tones and rhythms. This early success literally came from experimenting on Fruity Loops, cold dming artists, asking for emails, then sending beats. That’s it.

For the past 5 years he’s just been slowly but steadily progressing and getting better at making beats. Laudiano stuck to organically getting placements along the way and only ever reached out to artists he thought would actually sound good on his instrumentals. Then, eventually, of course, artists in his lane started to reach out to him for beats. Now he is where he is. 

“I didn’t want to go to college, and I didn’t want to waste my time. I wanted to do something that was fun for me. I just needed to figure out a way how I could get paid doing what I love. The first three years was me learning, but I’m still learning the ins and outs. In the music business, you can do everything independently. You don’t really need anybody. I do my own publishing, I do everything. When it comes to getting paid I really do it myself, I don’t have to split it. Now it’s just about getting better at the craft and doing something every day.”

Laudiano for GUAP 2021

I asked Laudiano to give the backstory of three of his top instrumentals. Take a read.

“Rocc Climbing” by Remble feat. Lil Yachty

“For that beat I was in Long Beach at my cousin’s apartment with my brother. This was like March 2021. I wanted to get my brother into making beats cuz he can play guitar. I was just recording him playing some chords or whatever.

After that, I chopped it up then started with the piano. I make beats on Maschine, I don’t use FL anymore. The melodies and everything, I do it on here. I was doing the piano on this shit and I did some chords. It’s crazy cuz the beat kinda transitions the way I arranged it. When I was making the melodies I took off the guitar and other piano and just had the chords. Then I started building the drum pattern of the beat around the chords. Then I made another drum pattern for the guitar intro part.

In Maschine there’s different ways to arrange beats and the way I did it that time is the way this producer 88thagang showed me. I moved to Maschine because of him. I pulled up on him in San Diego and he had the bigger version of this (one I use). I bought mine the next day and made 8 beats.

Anyway, I don’t think people realize for the final song they basically cut the intro and first 16 bars then basically looped it three times. When they go into Remble’s first part they cut off the transition and build up then go straight to the cake. That was hard as fuck though too. The original beat is more like a track. The drums were easy, I put in a couple hi hats then used the arpeggiator on this shit then made some drum rolls. It was honestly pretty easy, just another day.” 

“Gordon Ramsay Freestyle” by Remble

“Honestly I did not think he was gonna rap on that. I was just tryna rush a beat pack and move on to the next thing I gotta do. I honestly thought he would’ve rapped on some of the other ones I sent. He did an Instagram story and did some dumb shit where he had the camera up to his face and was whispering bars to that beat. That shit was funny as fuck but then he actually recorded on that shit and that shit was fire. But that’s a Maschine beat, Remble is one of the first artist’s to drop with one of my Maschine beats.

A lot of rappers had been rapping on my Maschine beats but they weren’t dropping. Now they’re all starting to drop on my Maschine shit. This shit kills whatever I made on FL by a thousand. But yeah I made that shit in the booth of the new studio I have right now in January. Same old same old, started with the melody and whatnot, hi hats whatever, I be doin my thing. I took it step by step with the 808s. That shit is a gasser.”

“Studio” by Blueface

“That’s an FL beat. I did the kick and everything but the 808. I had it as a loop and sent everything, the melody, the kick, the drum pattern all to his producer called Dnyc3. He’s dope. I looked up to him when I was starting to make beats and just listening to music. League of Starz is really big in LA. Him and his team really set up the LA music scene for future generations. I sent all that to him, he did his 808 pattern and arranged it and sent it back, then I sent it to Blueface and he killed that shit.”

Follow Laudiano on Instagram and Twitter
He also has his own solo music and you can check out his latest project ‘2Notorious’ here.