HAVING TENS OF millions of views on your YouTube videos would usually put you in the realm of at least ‘well known’ in Irish music circles.
But this Cork-based musician is pushing way past those figures for his songs – 50 million on last count – and most people aren’t even aware.
His name is Gavin Dunne, and he works as a solo artist under the title of Miracle of Sound. He’s not just a regular acoustic-style Youtuber, though – he does something completely different, and makes a decent living from it.
He writes his own songs and themes them around games, films and the fictional characters within them. His latest video for instance is a track based on the film and characters of last year’s blockbuster hit Guardians of the Galaxy.
Speaking to DailyEdge.ie, Dunne explained how he chooses the topics of his songs – which can get up to 2 million views a piece:
It’s mainly stuff I love and stuff I’m into. People ask why I don’t do certain things and I just say ‘I’m not into it.’
With nearly 220,000 subscribers to his channel, Dunne works from a home studio in Cork and does all the writing, recording, mixing and video editing himself:
I have 50 million views on my videos, but not one has gone massive. I have over 100 songs and they have all done really well. I see that as a positive body of work.
The videos are all edited by Gavin to put together a narrative of the song – like this one about Breaking Bad’s Walter White – and it’s quite the amount of work for one guy to get through:
Most of the songs take between 50 and 70 hours. Complex songs can take over 100 hours – and that’s just the writing. I pretty much do five people’s jobs.
The very nature of YouTube means that people will often find his work through one song, and this is something that Dunne targets, with excellent stand alone tunes being his goal:
Our attention spans are so much shorter now. The focus of my work is to find one song. You can’t afford to have filler as people are finding your stuff one song at a time.
Speaking of YouTube, it’s well known for its, eh, unique comment section. But when you go on to a Miracle of Sound video, the comments are all extremely positive and everyone seems to love his work, which Gavin seems happy about:
It’s like an oasis of happiness in the wasteland. A lot of young people comment on my stuff – and they celebrate what they like.
If only all YouTube videos had the same commenters.
Given this isn’t exactly a traditional style of music - how Dunne gets so many views is based on the topics that he sings about as well as the quality of his work. The fanbases around the world for Game of Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, Skyrim and similar style games form the basis for his popularity.
Gaming and SciFi are the kinds of topics that people seem to love – especially in Russia, where the female fanbase is incredibly high. My other main base of fans is in the US, but really it’s worldwide.
Starting out in rock groups since he was 16, Gavin mostly played in heavy metal bands – his first musical love – and worked hard from there to get to this point of distribution:
I honed the craft – it’s a skill and an art. From the age of 16 I was in so many rock bands and I’ve just learned to mix better and write better songs.
He is moving more and more towards personal songs – with his Spotify plays above six million – and his YouTube views and subscribers keep rising at a steady rate.
All those hours of effort are certainly proving worthwhile, then.
- David Elkin
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