2018 was essentially my first year of composing music; I obtained an audio interface and
studio monitors near the middle of the year, enabling me to begin learning about audio capture and
professional recording.
I began with Reaper at the suggestion of SpectreSoundStudios' Glen Fricker, and am still using the
program today. During this year and the previous, I was entrenched in the Nu Metal genre, aspiring to
write songs in the vein of Static-X, Ill Nino, Drowning Pool, Adema, and Limp Bizkit to name a few.
The heavy riffing commonly found throughout the genre was very appealing to me, as I cared little about
the intricacies of guitar playing, instead gravitating toward groove and tone. The first ever demos
I recorded were shooting for a Static-X feel, and I believe I was tuned to C Standard or C# Standard
during that time.

	This was after I'd already been exposed to more reputable subgenres, mind you. White Zombie,
Pantera, Prong, etc. were already favorites of mine and my affinity for them coexisted with my momentary
infatuation with Nu Metal. It was during this year that I discovered Deftones, and this will become
important later on in 2019; I bought a Boss SD-1 to put in front of my Marshall G100RCD in order to
emulate tones by the likes of Stephen Carpenter and Dino Cazares. Fear Factory was another large
influence upon me during the latter half of the year.