Pretorius P.I.G. - Bio (Alias v Creator)
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Alias: Pretorius P.I.G.
Occupation, location: yet a fictional rapper, a stable in Germany
Breed: German noble pig

History of 'Pretorius': Pretorius is a surname of Germanic origins, literally meant 'leader' but was used in Imperial Rome to describe officials leading processions. Also the surname of fictional scientists.

Appearance: looks like a pig, grunts like a swine
Appeal: seems to have aged quite well, some say as well as good wine
Birthday: Pretorius P.I.G. was born on Sep. 18th, 2024 into adulthood
Deepest desire: To go on tour, be on the field & wallow in a pool of mud.

Creator & Producer: Stefan Michael Savolyi
Born: January 1980, in Heilbronn, Germany, unstable, not in a stable
Location: South-West part of Germany, close to Karlsruhe/Stuttgart

Disclaimer: this Bio includes my own personal opinion. Opinions are my own and do not represent the views of my employer, people, institutions, or organizations that I may or may not be associated with, whether in a professional or personal capacity.

What's your history with music? Music and Sound have always been an important part of my life. I've started as a kid playing the musical keyboard, then as a teenager or pre-adult I've built audio amplifiers, techie stuff, but I've also listened largely to music through that time, e.g. pop, rock, metal, dance, eurorap... I could totally get lost in music, listening to every detail that our stereo at that time would reveal. Music has an incredibly high value to me personally. Music can be your lifesaver and a best friend. It surely was to me, and it always will be.

When did you start making music? Back when I was still a young adult I have put together a home recording studio with some vintage gear to learn and self-study the topics of music production. So from arranging, composing, MIDI sequencing, sound design to recording, mixing, mastering... there was so much to try out and to learn, well, there still is (laughs). I do confess I'm quite a detail-oriented person, I always like to learn new stuff and to challenge myself.

What are your influences? My childhood, my parents, esp. my father. I think my love for music surely was given because of my dad. He also is musical, he loves music and used to tip with his fingers to the beat, which I find myself doing while I am driving in my car (laughs). Most influential has been music from the 80s til 90s and a bit beyond, some classical music as well. To give some examples: 2Pac, a-Ha, ABBA, Ace of Base, Alphaville, Antonin Dvorak, Backstreet Boys, Billy Idol, Billy Joel, Blümchen, Bon Jovi, Boney M, Britney Spears, Bronski Beat, Bryan Adams, Camouflage, Cannata, Chris Rea, Christina Aguilera, Cindy Lauper, Coolio, Depeche Mode, Destiny's Child, Die Fantastischen Vier, Dire Straits, DJ Bobo, Down Low, Dr. Alban, Dune, Duran Duran, Eminem, Eros Ramazzotti, Eurythmics, Friedrich Smetana, Foreigner, Fugees, Genesis, George Michael, Green Day, Helloween, Jay-Z, Jean Michel Jarre, Jennifer Rush, Jennifer Lopez, Joe Cocker, Justin Timberlake, Klaus Lage, Lene Marlin, Linkin Park, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madonna, Manowar, Marc Cohn, Metallica, Michael Jackson, MOBY DICK (HU), Modern Talking, Natalie Imbruglia, Nana, Nena, Nirvana, NSYNC, Oasis, Paul Young, Pet Shop Boys, Phil Collins, Pokolgép, Puff Daddy (until 2001), PUR, Queen, R.E.M., Return, Richard Marx, Robbie Williams, Robert Miles, Salt-N-Pepa, Samantha Fox, Sandra, Scorpions, Snap!, Sting, Stratovarius, Styx, Supertramp, Suzanne Vega, The Beatles, The Hooters, The Notorious B.I.G., The Police, The Rolling Stones, Toto, Van Halen, ZZ Top. I also liked it when artists were being shown on TV, e.g. ZDF-Hitparade, the earlier years of the TV channels MTV & VIVA. Other influences include cartoons or TV-series that I've watched, some targeted my general curiosity, like Löwenzahn, The Adventures of Jonny Quest or WDR Computerclub. What surely ignited my interest in home computers and tinkering with stuff in general was besides playing games (with great music) learning to program in BASIC on the Commodore 64, which my brother owned. He built DIY floorstanding speakers which he connected over an amp to the C64 and to his (LP) record player & tape desk. It sounded awesome!

Quite some time has passed since your beginnings, how did it go, and what were the obstacles on your way? I have spent those first few years writing and editing synthesizer patches, which are basically sounds, and then, when the time was right to actually put my own sounds together to really start composing and producing, well, life happened. The key words here are probably: relationship ended, job lost, financial struggles, being forced to sell the heart (Akai DPS24) of my home studio again, relocation, new job, more responsibilities, less time for music. I've later started to write some poems to stay creative, and playing with words was pretty satisfying. In 2008, being together with my then-and-now-wife, our son was born. This also meant a change in the priorities of our lives and free times, and by 2011 I was often away on the road as an outside sales account manager. In 2012 I have started another music-related project: the development of an audio device with a new kind of playback technology for achieving high precision audio-timing. I didn't succeed in finding an investor or business angel back then, so the prototype and project had to be put back into my drawer 2 years later. It all was a blessing and a curse, while programming it pushed me as a training-device to sharpen my hearing but I've spent too many nights in front of it, typing in rather -now obscure- commands, and that period really hurt my private life, but that is a personal flaw, ignoring the clear warning signs when you're too obsessed in whatever you're working on. People who've been there who might have a similar personality may probably relate to that. I might come back to that project oneday when the time is right, but here's the thing: failure is perhaps the most important thing in life to happen, for having a chance to being successful oneday. One must never give up ! Failing is just a part of the journey that should only make one stronger and even more determined. It actually took until 08/2023 to get me a multitrack recorder again, to revive some of my old studio gear, adding new stuff to it, and as my son is a teen now who likes his privacy I've finally been able to re-start my music endeavours again. And here I am. (laughs)

What are you doing right now and what other personal projects are you involved in? Professionally I still work in sales & account managament in a non-music industry. In my free time I am busy with a few things: besides music I've got a small and unmoderated Let's Play channel on YouTube , just for fun, and I've recently started with the creation of an e-learning-course regards music- and sound-related topics, taking some of the aspects of the human hearing into account. I do keep myself quite busy, but I intend to leave at least something of potential value for society behind.

What's the story behind Pretorius P.I.G., why did you choose this particular alias? I was searching for a name that was a good fit for the outline of the project: starring an unknown, yet fictional rapper, by that I mean this project is earmarked to be transformed with a real artist oneday, currently in the (digital/cover-art) appearance of a pig, with lyrics and storytelling from the perspective of a pig. It may sound a bit weird or funny at first and there's definitely truth to that but I believed it could actually work and was worth a shot as there are priceless stories just waiting to be told. And yes, there's a little nod with utmost respect with a smile towards Biggie (RIP). If Pretorius P.I.G. could help to bring the legacy of Biggie into the minds of even new audiences, that would be an honor. Much respect to Biggie. Still, we're all unique. And right now there are no similarities music-wise. 'Pretorius' has Germanic roots. But I think this project and its reach would benefit greatly if a serious-enough artist would actually take on this role with a wink, if I don't do it myself in the end (laughs & pauses for 1s.). I'm being crazy right now, but if a rapper with a good sense of humor and with a convincing flow or timing would be interested in starring as the real Pretorius P.I.G., you never know, drop me a line / send me a pitch, but text and links only, no attachments. There's an entire album ahead to be produced. So... I really wanted to give P.I.G. the stage after I've been experimenting with the concept and with different animals & edited AI-content in order to get this track & message out. The final criteria for choosing this alias was that it needed to be unused by other artists and I wanted it to be available as a .com - domain. All I had to do was to glue these pieces together for what became my 1st official release. Yes, first there was a typical German typo in the title. Did you know that pigs only have about 30 degrees of clear vision at their front? (laughs)

What (genre) can people expect to hear? For Pretorius P.I.G. the future is still to be written. I am open for several subgenres of rap for the album. Outside of this project I don't plan to limit myself to only one type of genre. I don't mind working on different kinds of projects, personally and besides of rap I do enjoy classical & piano, pop, synth & synthwave, rock & metal, progrock, at times dance/electro. I don't think as much in categories but more what's moving me and what I find musical.

Have you worked on anything else that shows your approach to sound and what's important to you, and do you have any anecdote you'd like to share after you've re-started your music work? An anecdote? Mmmh... don't know if that's any more worth to brag about, but in 2023, between 1-3 months after re-booting my studio project I did 3 Mix 'n Masters with a high dynamic range for a first practice and to get used to my new setup. While I was doing the mix on the first song I've discovered what appeared to me to be a flaw in one of the raw recordings, which can often happen (an acoustic guitar track that was being played in on an electric guitar had a noticable click from what I believe came from changing the position of the pickup selector). Countless other people have been creating mixes and masters of that same song for more than 10 years without either caring about that or realising that issue, as practically all versions back then had that click still in them. I found that to be kind of funny, that of all of the people it had to be me, and on my first attempt, still being so green (laughs). So, I love music with a high dynamic range, and when I mix & master music and when I have the raw recordings at hand I aim to preserve as much dynamic range as possible and necessary, to keep and layer enough depth and emotion. I appreciate mastering engineers and musicians to nowadays still have the creed to make their masters sound like if they were being mastered in the 80s or the early 90s, to please even highly-demanding music enthusiasts. But of course that has become a total rarity in popular music since approx. ~1993 thanks to the loudness war, so perhaps I'm one of those few people who actually care more about the dynamic range in music than about any other measurable indicator. To me it will always be the most important one. Having said that it's totally fine that some genres work with less DR.

Have there been significant or influential discoveries from when you were younger when it comes to music production? Yes. Long ago I did an internship in a recording studio while I was still living in Northern Germany, and I do remember one particular aspect: I've watched both of the engineers after keying in plus recording a melody on the keyboard, without even listening to it afterwards - as kind of an internalized step in the production process without thinking twice about it - to change the velocity of all key notes to 127 and to set the quantization to a fixed, non-variance type. I thought to myself after doing my own recordings and sequencing at home: "Well, that's interesting. That's actually one of the things one would normally make sure to avoid when recording MIDI. One would rather try to make sure that there would always be some level of human rhythm or variance left within a given sequence, even if one uses quantization", well, unless a song demands such drastic settings for any reason, as it may have been the case there. When you play on a hardware synthesizer, for instance, it makes a hell lot of a difference in terms of the ADSR curve (the attack especially of an instrument) when played with different velocities. Making them all equal will most likely hurt your song before you even started the mixing process. I don't know why, but this incident from long ago has been burnt deep into my brain, to me it was a valuable lesson (laughs). Another discovery for me was that limitation, generally speaking, is probably one of, if not THE key element and ignition for real creativity, like the basis that empowers people to be able to reach levels that were either unexpected or unimaginable before. Going down quite a deep rabbit hole in 2012 myself, let me just say that I have a lot of respect for so many programmers, musicians and artists that started in the early years of home computing and who have created incredible works of art, being it in graphics, coding or music. The so-called 'demoscene' is still evolving, even today, and its roots go way back to the 1980s.

PIG's Plea does include AI-generated content, albeit edited. What do you reply to people who may be skeptical about that? To me personally AI is just a tool to create something unique or to assist with a certain direction. If done right, it should at least put a smile on your face and get you hooked and better not bother or bore you to death. AI-generated content can be refreshing and inspiring. For me using AI doesn't take away any of my higher goals in terms of music or my love to work on real music with real people. For Pretorius P.I.G. different future scenarios are possible. I will keep the artistic freedom to decide how to develop this project. But no matter the technology, one thing is certain: real people with real intentions, even if staying in the background, matter in the end. Any form of music should not be a soulless cage, but a reflection of the person behind that chooses a particular type of content & style. That's one of the reasons why you are probably reading this unforeseen long Bio (laughs). At the end of the day it is the producer who decides what is fitting and what may be an acceptable quality level, and what isn't, regardless how it came to be.

Let me conclude by saying thanks for reading this. God bless you all !

Stefan Michael Savolyi
Written on September 22nd-25th, 2024
Updated on September 25th-26th, 2024 + October 1st, 2024 ->Music