About William Ashley

William Ashley

Electronic Music Producer • Sound Designer • Developer

Independent artist based in Ontario, Canada. Focused on FL Studio-based production, experimental sound design, and audio systems development.

William Ashley is an electronic music producer, sound designer, and developer with over three decades of experiences in music creation and audio technology. Based in Ontario Canada, he operates William Ashley Music, a registered sole proprietorship dedicated to independent production, experimental sound design, and the development of professional audio tools.

Background

William like most first engaged with music in youth. His first memories of making music are with the family computer in the late 1980s using music scoring software on a Tandy SL1000. As with many Canadians he had band class starting in middle school where he played trumpet which gave some introductory experiences in group performance in band. He also joined the school choir and was lucky enough to get a runner up award for his graduating class for music. He continued with band in highschool and was also introduced to musical keyboard in his teens getting a midi keyboard for christmas in the mid 1990s. By the late 1990s he after leaving school early had entered late night work and purchased his first computer at the same time being introduced to music software of the time such as ReBirth, trackers like ModPlugTracker, Cubase and Fruityloops through friends. He also had his first hobbyist experiences with DJing getting his first set of turntables and mixers and going making a habit of going to a local record shop to listen to EDM/Club records and pick some he liked to mix with. Of course a with many of the youth of the time he took to going to raves of the time, which lined up with his night schedule for work. He also started making his own experimenal music around that time primarily in Fruityloops. Since the 1990s he had gone on to play with hundreds of tracks across various genres something he continues to do on a daily basis. While attending the University of Waterloo in addition to take a few more music courses in digital music and introductory music classes he also volunteering in the local Campus Radio Station doing a radio show and helping with some administrative tasks. Closer to the end of his time in University he also regularly attended some nightlife activities as part of the security team giving him a unique backstage experience in a setup and support role.

In terms of the music industry William first looked into releases and registrations in the late 1990s, He opted to self release materials but eventually joined SOCAN and some other administrations for various content purposes. At the same time he continued to develop self release pathways through William Ashley Music and William Ashley Publishing, and in 2026 remain his primary release path for mechanical and digital releases. His current focus is on building a sustainable, self-controlled catalog of original music and innovative audio plugins (VST3) optimized for modern DAW workflows, particularly FL Studio. He remains open to project collaboration through contracts / licensing / split / agreements. He operates in a small home studio that uses a hybrid workflow, however, he is largely in the box production wise. See his studio link for more information on his studio setup. Studio The issue has always been that its been fine to share music but its never been ok to release bad music via professional pathways and this has always prevented taking the time to do administrative tasks. Of course time has caught up to the point that it is more compelling to log data in large part due to the increasing use of AI and the fact the internet itself is vanishing and it is becoming more and more restrictive to share media on large platforms due to restrictive use policies that now do not uncommonly include derivative usage beyond hosting, defined distribution chains and known broadcast outlets, this has created an even greater need to develop strong self hosted access paths due to an increasingly pervaisive exploitation in online/cloud platforms which theoretically want to do anything with the material uploaded into the cloud wihtout consideration of the history of artistic rights that have existed in the past.

The goal for William is to enhance peoples capabilities and experiences through the release of useful tools and enjoyable experiences to others in hopes of creating a better world for people to live in. Music continues to be driven by his own interactions, experiences and thoughts with it forming a solid progressive basis to how he engages in life as a DIY indy aritst. The mindset at this point in his life is simply to provide and leave good experiences, things of use, and ideally filter content and tools over time to provide more refinement to the offerings arising from his through artistic exploration and hopefully improving professional standards. While much of what he does is brute force engagement with techniques and practices, there is a slow and steady development that has occured since his first experiences making sound and much time is now devoted to refining and shaping the content that currently exists. A large part of the spirit of the music community is filled with music makers who have a desire to make good music, share it with others to have good experiences, and in return support the artists in doing more works they would like to experience in life, this is true of tools made for music makers, or music made for music listeners. William Ashley hope is to provide useful content and tools, and with some luck leave the world with a magnus opus before leaving this life. It is how he fills his time surrounding himself with music and people engaging with making and listening to music. Oddly it was always others reinforcing music in him and at this point in his life he is just supporting others in their experiences with music.

Philosophy & Approach

William believes in creative autonomy and responsible rights management and it is a large motivation for providing this website. This site represents a deliberate move toward self-hosting, transparent licensing, and direct artist-audience connection — free from exploitive third-party data mining. Additionally the site serves as a place to connect other music makers with the tools and collaboration pathways in a professional structured way to make easier normalizing post production stages. Interestingly much time goes into finding ways to leverage the technology while insuring fair practices are still existing with use of technologies to aide creators. So while there is a need to modernize data to be accessible by AI the way in which it is accessed is an ongoing concern so it remains a tool rather than a force to take away the lifeblood of creative arts economies so as to insure that people remain supported rather than exploited. This furthers his collaborative apporaches in insuring credit and fair compensation occurs with all projects. In this way the approach for projects is to be progressive and mutually beneficial to everyone involved in projects.

Professional Activities

• Original electronic music composition and production
• JUCE-based VST3 plugin development (open-source and commercial releases)
• Sound design and experimental audio systems
• Licensing and publishing through William Ashley Music and William Ashley Publishing
• Ongoing research in DSP, workflow tools, and production optimization

Contact for collaborations, licensing, or inquiries: contact@williamashley.music