Ill. Gates

Dylan Lane, known professionally as Ill. Gates, was born on October 8, 1982, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His father, an Afro-Asian from Trinidad, is a professional guitarist, and his mother was a teacher. He began experimenting with instruments at age seven. While attending Canterbury High School for visual arts, Lane developed an interest in the rave scene, learning to DJ and playing local shows. He DJ’d for a breakdancing crew and was the musical director for a paranormal radio show called The Grey Border on CHUO FM. After high school, Lane moved to Toronto for higher education and soon signed with the Breakbeat label 2 Wars and a Revolution records, where he began releasing original music on vinyl under the alias “The Phat Conductor.” By 2005, his music had attracted the attention of DJ and producer Bassnectar, who invited Lane to join him on tour.

During his tour with Bassnectar, Lane attended Burning Man for the first time, an experience that provided significant creative inspiration. Following a data loss incident that damaged his computers after returning to Toronto, Lane decided to start a new project. Inspired by the creative freedom he experienced at Burning Man, he adopted the stage name Ill. Gates and pursued a more experimental musical direction. After a collaborative remix for Si Begg, his first album, “Autopirate,” was released in 2008. His musical influences include industrial and experimental artists like Skinny Puppy, Nine Inch Nails, Aphex Twin, alongside hip hop and Jamaican dub music. Over his career, Ill. Gates has incorporated genres such as dubstep, glitch-hop, drum and bass, jazz, and classical music into his sound. He has collaborated with artists including Gucci Mane, Alanis Morissette, Bassnectar, Mimi Page, Liquid Stranger, Masia One, Minnesota, G Jones, KJ Sawka, and Mr. Bill.

Recognized for his sound design and production techniques, Ill. Gates created and sold some of the first commercial Ableton Live templates in 2006 under his previous alias, “The Phat Conductor.” He helped pioneer techniques such as sampler “128s,” “The Infinite Drum Rack,” and “Mudpies.” He also published performance templates for MIDI controllers like the Akai MPD32 and APC40 to enhance live performance capabilities. In 2025, he contributed 128s style wavetables for Steve Duda’s Serum 2 VST plugin synthesizer. Due to increasing demand for his in-person lessons and workshops, Ill. Gates established Producer Dojo, an online platform offering tutorials, courses, workshops, and coaching for aspiring producers. In 2019, Disney released a collaboration between Ill. Gates (under the pseudonym Sentient 7 and the Clankers with Zain Effendi) as part of Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge, where the music is performed daily. Ill. Gates is married to Nunich, originally from Laos, and they have one daughter, born in 2019.