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Both the Mau5 and the Wolf recently claimed to give links to some of their earliest works from the mid nineties. If, like me, you are the curious type that would love to know how these artists sounded in their formative years, then you are in luck.

While we cannot guarantee that this is the bonafide article, there is no real reason to think otherwise, and the tracks do definitely sound ‘of the time’.

Beyond the guilty pleasure of listening to something of theirs that is less than perfect (by their own standards), there are also some important lessons to be learnt here that can be applied to your own music, and dare I say it – career. While it may initially be amusing, and satisfying to know that before all the polished classics there were many rougher tunes that – heck – you could do better than, remember that these tracks claim to be from 1994/5 and then listen to them again (all links needed below).

What can we take from this? Well firstly, and most obviously/importantly, these guys have been performing their craft for at least fifteen years, and quite possibly longer. You obviously don’t tend to make full tracks the first day you start your music making career, so it is fair to assume that some time was spent previously getting to even this most basic of stages. So a minimum of fifteen years experience is what it took these guys to get where they are now. If you have been producing, even for a couple of years now, you might want to take note of that, and maybe feel a little bit better about your rate of progress.

Secondly,remember it is all about progression. Don’t approach every music making session with the idea of making a hit. That sort of pressure can be exactly the cause of the creative block you are trying to over come. Have fun with it, do it because you love it, and trust that over time you are going to get better at it. This is the forgotten secret in today’s electronic music making scene – practice. With software making production easier and more professional than ever before we all want results now, and that’s simply not realistic.

Take refuge in the fact that two of the biggest selling electronic artists of our time started somewhere, and it was far from over night success. This doesn’t mean that it has to be a long and hard process, just that there is no rush if you really want to make it to the top. You can scramble to get a tune out as soon as possible, or sit back and get good at what you do. I tell you what, success will come a lot easier if you do!

Wolfgang even goes as far to share his tunes with a document explaining a little bit more about them, and admits that many of them were remastered to bring them more inline with modern standards, which if you were around in 1995 you will find a relief! Thanks to My beat fix where we originally sourced the Wolfgang files.

The links:
Deadmau5 demo from 1994:

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Download the entire Wolfgang collection of demos here

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