The DJ Bootcampers have been receiving masterclasses from various industry figures. We showed you the masterclass with Munk from Gomma yesterday, and today it's the turn of Henry Sarmiento, producer and owner of Sonic Vegas Studios in Ibiza. He gave a very inspirational lecture to the Bootcampers. Originally from NYC, Henry moved to San Fransisco for 14 years but now lives and works in Ibiza in his own studio.

Henry discussed many different topics. One of these was where he sees the future of electronic music going - cross-fertilization. This is the concept of stronger cooperation between DJ/producers, vocalists and analogue musicians. If you are a lonely DJ or producer but your neighbour is an opera singer, start cooperating together. Learn how to make a great tracks together with others, not just on your own. experiment with mixing genres and keep pushing the boundaries.

He also spoke about the motivation of why people enter the music industry. As he said "don't do it for feeding your ego or being popular or the free drinks at the bar. Do it because you care about the music and about entertaining others. There are too many mediocre acts that use too many resources to build their egos. You should have some ego, but you should not forget that the product is your music, not you. It may be your photo on your release, but you are only a channel for your music

As a producer with many decades of experience he also spoke about equipment and the music industry in general. "Understand how to listen, how your equipment works, how to work fast. Don't buy tons of plug-ins - a carpenter doesn't have 10 hammers and 5 screwdrivers does he. Remember that Pro Tools is not Pro Helper. If you have 8 plug-ins on a single kickdrum but it still sounds terrible, then you need another kick drum and to lose the plug-ins." This is what he had to say about the music inddustry in general - "the music industry is a people industry - you have to talk to people, you have to deal with people, you have to communicate. Even on a basic level, communication is important. As a DJ you control the PA, monitor your equipment, but you're not in the crowd. That's why it's important to communicate with the local sound engineer, and maybe get him a few beers from the bar!" And he also touched on studio set-ups, reminding the Bootcampers that "there is no time for slackness, no time for errors. Pimp your studio out, sure, but keep it clean and uncluttered. No food, no cigarettes, no mess."

One last thing he impressed onto the guys and girl at the Bootcamp was "be careful with your hearing!" He protects his ears a lot. He even uses earplugs when out in a noisy restaurant, that's how important he feels his ears are to him. You can replace many things in the human body; hearts, livers, kidneys, but you can't replace your ears. protect them, look after them, and they will look after you.