DUCKY Dives into his Signature Sound, and how Transitioning Changed it

For CK Neiman – AKA DUCKY – life is an opportunity to create. The San Francisco-born and now Rotterdam-based polymath has led a life of artistic self-expression ever since he first started DJing clubs at the age of 13.

Thanks to his infectious taste in EDM-flavoured rave music behind the decks and, due to his age, fake IDs, Neiman began to hone his craft throughout the 2010s, building the DUCKY alias as a producer and DJ, with fans gravitating towards his high-energy sets, unrestricted by genre.

In 2021, Neiman paused the DUCKY project to transition – now, five years on, DUCKY is back and set to release his second full-length album, BOY DUCKY LOL on June 10 2026.

On BOY DUCKY LOL, Neiman blends vulnerable lyricism and blissful melodies with his typical forward-thinking production prowess. Embracing the underground sounds that informed his youth, the album is an authentic representation of an artist living an unapologetically queer, true-to-self lifestyle.

On the eve of the release of BOY DUCKY LOL, we spoke to DUCKY about the timeless sounds of dance music and how they influence his music today. He also shares what it means to create a signature sound, and how transitioning has led to his sound evolving.

Why do you think certain sounds have remained such a definitive and timeless part of the electronic music experience?

Dance music is about effectiveness - what makes you move? Some things become timeless because they just work.

I also think that nostalgia is an incredibly powerful tool in modern dance music. We have so much historical imagination about what these sounds mean, the sounds themselves become a shorthand that we can use to clarify an intention, or to play with an expectation. We might have a sense of what 90s raving was like, even if we weren’t there. So a hoover isn’t just a hoover, it’s a reference to my ideal of that time. I can use that to double down and create a whole track with that feeling, or flip it into something hyper-modern for dramatic effect. Either way, we’re referencing a whole legacy of raving with the choice of a synth, which I think is just so fucking cool.

It also applies to any style with a signature sound - in the track I DON’T KNOW WHAT HARD TECHNO IS AND AT THIS POINT I’M AFRAID TO ASK from my new album BOY DUCKY LOL, I’m basically making a joke about the mainstream rebranding of hardstyle as “Hard Techno” by flipping between a loose interpretation of each style. I layered a bunch of old Sylenth presets I had with a classic hardstyle kick to create a breakdown that clearly references a certain genre. And then I flip it on its head again!

When you use sounds that are reminiscent of previous decades, do you prefer to honor the original "vibe," or do you use those references as a jumping-off point to push into something entirely new?

No one has ever accused me of being able to stick to one sound, lol! I’m actually quite envious of people who are able to be more consistent with a specific sonic reference or structure.

I did have a friend tell me he saw my new album as an underground take on EDM, which I really love - usually you get a commercialized version of the underground, not the other way around.

So I was mostly playing with modern sounds and seeing how I could use them in a way that was fun, self-referential, evocative, and a little weird. With DUCKY, I’m always interested in the feeling first, what emotions I’m trying to convey and how I can push those most powerfully so the whole room feels them. I’m not very precious when it comes to changing things – I’m going to chase the feelings wherever they want to go.

With music production moving from expensive hardware to accessible software, how do you think this shift helps more voices get involved in the electronic music genre?

Not to date myself too much, but when I started producing, it was pre-YouTube tutorials. I was 14 years old, going to an IRL Ableton 6 class at Robotspeak in San Francisco with a bunch of dudes in their 20s. My dad would drop me off with my little notebook every week! So it’s not just the shift from hardware to software, it’s a shift in the accessibility of information. You can learn this complex skill from the privacy of your bedroom, and all it really takes is patience, effort, and time.

I think everyone should produce if they want to, so I’m thrilled about that. And since we’ve had that shift for some time now, we’re already seeing the payoffs of people being able to learn it on their own. In my opinion, that’s why we have so much insanely cool, genre-pushing production right now.

I will say I love that you guys at Plugin Boutique have free plugins, which is another form of access. I’m a firm believer that you don’t need the fanciest thing or an insane variety of stuff to do the work for you! The most important thing is understanding your tools. If you can take the time to learn engineering fundamentals and the tools you are working with inside and out, you can really make anything you want.

How have you developed your "signature" sound on BOY DUCKY LOL that continues resonates with your audience?

It’s a great question because my new album BOY DUCKY LOL is the only self-referential work I’ve ever done or probably ever will do.

I would say I was probably best known for my voice, which has changed a lot since beginning my transition. So it was a really interesting question of “how do I make this authentic to the project and who I am now?”

I very intentionally recreated some of the sonic design – like sharp, bright plucks and fat synth stacks – from older fan favorites as the foundation for new productions, so the album had that nostalgia and consistency with “classic” Ducky, even if the voice had changed.

I also tend to work a lot with the same underlying structures that I personally find evocative – melodic arps that I write note by note in the piano roll, big chord breakdowns, et cetera. What’s fun about that is that it can be translated into almost any style, so there’s a consistency to the project even as I skip through genres. Ultimately, it ended up being this sort of conversation with myself, a literal duet in a way, since I also used some vocals from songs I had recorded pre-transition but never released.

As for how it resonates with my audience, I have this sense that they’ve always connected most with my vulnerability and how I translate emotions. What’s cool about a “signature style” developing over a long time is that I actually got to use that cohesion with the past as part of the art itself, making the album a process of integration as an artist who was visible both before and after beginning my transition.

BOY DUCKY LOL album is out on June 10, 2026 on Play Nice - ffm.to/boyduckylol

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quackhouse

Website: www.playnice.club

Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ducky

Bandcamp: http://ducky.bandcamp.com/