Hardwell is a Dutch electronic music producer who rose was offered his first record deal at the age of 14 after uploaded remixes to various Internet platforms. He started taking piano lessons at the tender age of 4 and by the age of 12 he produced his first electro songs. He has released his 8 compilation albums, 3 EPs, 1 studio album, 1 remix album and 77 singles to date.

His rise to the status of international music star began in 2007 upon releasing the song Never Knew Love. He released more songs after that and by 2011 he signed a record deal with a German record label called Kontor Records. That same year he secured the number 24 position on DJ Mag’s Top 100 DJs list.

His song Spaceman sold more than half a million copies in the USA and is often credited as one of the songs that helped create the EDM sub-genre called big room house. He has performed at festivals such as Electric Zoo, Tomorrowland, Electric Daisy Carnival, Creamfields, Nature One and Ultra Music Festival.

He has won various awards including an MTV European Music Award, DJ Award, International Dance Music Award and has been nominated for an NRJ Music Award.

Hardwell’s hardware includes a Roland A-49 MIDI controller, an SSL XLogic G series compressor, a Crane Song Avocet Remote II, a Thermionic Culture The Phoenix compressor and an Apogee Duet 2 USB audio interface among others. He uses Focal SM9 and Dyn Audio Bm6 studio monitors. He uses various headphones such as the Beyerdynamic DT 770 and Sennheiser HD 25 II headphones.

On the software plugin side he uses a copy of Lennar Digital Sylenth1, reFX Nexus 2, Bassism, Reveal Sound Spire Synthesizer, Cytomic The Glue compressor, Noveltech Character Plugin, Dada Life Sausage Fattener, iZotope Ozone 5, Wavesfactory TrackSpacer and many others. These plugins are run in his DAW of choice, Apple Logic Pro. For live performances, he uses the JM-900 Nexus mixer, Pioneer DJM-800 Nexus, and four CDJ 2000s.