Hardwell
Timmy Trumpet is the stage name of Australian DJ, music producer, composer and trumpeter Timothy Jude Smith. He was born on June 9, 1982, in Sydney. During his performances, the artist combines DJ mixing with live trumpet playing, while his studio work incorporates EDM, electro house, Melbourne bounce, psy-trance, hardstyle, hard dance and other forms of festival electronic music.
Early years and trumpet training
Timothy Smith began playing the trumpet at around the age of four. His first teacher was his father, who also played the instrument. At thirteen, Smith received the Young Musician of the Year title and a full scholarship to study at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. One of his mentors was Anthony Heinrichs, a trumpeter with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
By his mid-teens, Smith had become the principal trumpet soloist of the Australian All-Star Stage Band. As a member of the ensemble, he performed at jazz festivals and took part in international tours. His training included classical performance technique, music theory, solfège and ear training.
He later applied this knowledge to electronic music. Smith could independently analyse harmony, identify the key of vocal and instrumental parts, write melodies and adapt trumpet phrases to club arrangements. It is more accurate, however, to say that he studied at the Sydney Conservatorium rather than describe him as a graduate with an academic degree.
From jazz to the club scene
Smith became interested in dance music when he began improvising on trumpet over records played on the radio. Among the electronic albums that had an important influence on him, he has named Homework by the French duo Daft Punk.
His first club performances took place in Sydney’s Kings Cross district. Timothy played trumpet during sets by local DJs, moving between several venues in a single night. He experimented with guitar and vocal effects processors, routing the trumpet signal through them and altering its familiar acoustic sound.
The stage name Timmy Trumpet was not created as a carefully planned alias. According to the musician, promoters began printing the name on club posters as a clear way to introduce the trumpeter who accompanied DJ performances.
His transition to independent DJing followed an incident at Sydney’s Opera Bar. The DJ with whom Smith was due to perform failed to arrive, and the musician was asked to run the programme himself. After that, he began learning to mix, building his own music collection and working in the studio with Ableton Live.
First releases
Timmy Trumpet’s debut release was the EP Sunrise, issued in 2009. It included the tracks Sunrise, Sunset and Nothing Between Us. The material was noticeably calmer than his later festival work and occupied a space between melodic house, trance and vocal dance music.
In the early 2010s, the artist released electro house and Melbourne bounce. Works from this period include:
- Tromba Ye Ye Ye
- Horny
- Hornpipe Fever
- Horny with Tenzin
- Sassafras with Chardy
- The Buzz with New World Sound
The Buzz, released in 2014, reached number one on the Beatport chart. The track combined a marching brass theme with Melbourne bounce, an Australian form of electro house built around an elastic bassline and syncopated rhythms.
Freaks
Timmy Trumpet’s international breakthrough came with Freaks, recorded with New Zealand rapper Savage, whose real name is Demetrius Savelio, and released in 2014. The track is built around a short trumpet theme combined with bounce bass and rap vocals.
Freaks reached number three on the main Australian chart, topped the Australian dance chart and reached number one in New Zealand. The track received multiple platinum certifications and became the artist’s best-known work.
Its success was not limited to the club audience. The song’s structure also suited radio: the recognisable instrumental phrase appeared almost immediately, while Savage’s vocal divided the track into short, memorable sections. This allowed Freaks to move beyond the EDM charts.
Timmy Trumpet and Savage later continued their collaboration with the track Deja-Vu.
Move to the international festival scene
After Freaks, the artist’s touring schedule expanded beyond Australia and New Zealand. He began performing regularly at Tomorrowland, Ultra Music Festival, Electric Daisy Carnival, Creamfields, Parookaville, Untold and other festivals.
Timmy Trumpet first performed on Tomorrowland’s Mainstage in 2017. His programmes differed from standard DJ sets through the use of live trumpet parts: the musician played the main themes of his own compositions, improvised over tracks by other artists and used the instrument to connect different sections of the programme.
In 2024, he participated in the anniversary show Tomorrowland presents Our Story at Amsterdam’s Ziggo Dome. Electronic artists performed together with Symphony of Unity, an orchestra featuring string, wind and percussion sections.
Toca
In 2015, Carnage released Toca, recorded with Timmy Trumpet and KSHMR. The title refers to Toca’s Miracle by Fragma, although the new track was built as an independent festival production with a trumpet theme and heavy EDM drop.
Toca continued the direction established by Freaks but transferred it into a harder big room structure. Timmy Trumpet’s collaboration with KSHMR later continued with The People, The Prayer and Ininna Tora.
Party Till We Die
In 2016, Timmy Trumpet and MAKJ released Party Till We Die featuring vocals by American rock musician Andrew W.K. The track combined big room, electro house and a spoken vocal hook designed for large-scale festival performance.
Other works from this period include:
- Oracle
- Collab Bro with Angemi
- PSY or DIE with Carnage
- Punjabi with Dimatik
- Al Pacino with Krunk!
- Narco with Blasterjaxx
Oracle represents the more melodic side of his production, while PSY or DIE and Punjabi reflect the artist’s growing interest in psy-trance and ethnic vocal elements.
Narco
In 2017, Timmy Trumpet and Blasterjaxx released Narco. The track is built around a brass melody styled like a sporting fanfare and a direct festival drop.
In later years, the composition gained additional popularity in sports arenas, particularly in baseball. Narco became a permanent part of Timmy Trumpet’s live programme and, alongside Freaks, one of his most recognisable recordings.
Psy-trance and collaborations with Vini Vici
A separate direction in Timmy Trumpet’s discography is connected with the Israeli duo Vini Vici. Their collaborations combine psy-trance bass, ethnic vocal samples and trumpet or orchestral themes.
Works in this direction include:
- 100
- Thunder
- The King
- Vini Vici’s appearance on the album Mad World
Psy-trance did not become the artist’s only style, but its rhythmic formulas regularly appear in his festival sets alongside hardstyle, big room and electro house.
Work with hardstyle
In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Timmy Trumpet began collaborating more frequently with artists from hardstyle and hard dance, including Sub Zero Project, Brennan Heart, Dr Phunk, Da Tweekaz, Darren Styles and Harris & Ford.
With Sub Zero Project, he recorded:
- Rockstar featuring DV8
- Project X
- Move Your Body with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike
Project X was released through SINPHONY in 2020 and combined Timmy Trumpet’s festival style with a faster tempo and hard drum processing characteristic of contemporary hardstyle.
Zero-gravity flight
On March 25, 2019, Timmy Trumpet participated in the World Club Dome Zero Gravity project. The flight was organised by the German company BigCityBeats with support from the European Space Agency.
The aircraft performed a series of parabolic manoeuvres that created short periods of weightlessness on board. Timmy Trumpet played a DJ set and performed on trumpet under these conditions. It is more accurate to describe him as a participant in a musical performance in zero gravity rather than the only or first DJ to conduct such a set, as other artists also participated in the project.
SINPHONY
In 2020, Timmy Trumpet founded his own label, SINPHONY, in partnership with Spinnin’ Records. Its first release was The Prayer, recorded with KSHMR and featuring Zafrir.
The label is not limited to a single genre. Its catalogue includes big room, psy-trance, hardstyle, happy hardcore, rave, techno and commercial dance music. SINPHONY releases both Timmy Trumpet’s own work and tracks by invited producers.
Releases on the label include:
- The Prayer with KSHMR and Zafrir
- Mars
- The King with Vitas
- Child of the Devil with Jebroer and Dr Phunk
- Project X with Sub Zero Project
- Up & Down with Vengaboys
- Paul Is Dead with Scooter
- Never Let Me Go with Cascada and Harris & Ford
- Ziga with Zafrir and Henrique Camacho
SINPHONY Radio
SINPHONY Radio is Timmy Trumpet’s weekly show, in which he presents new festival releases, his own tracks, music by SINPHONY artists and material from different periods of the electronic music scene.
The programme is not limited to the catalogue of a single label. Episodes combine big room, trance, hardstyle, psy-trance, techno, electro house and new versions of classic dance tracks. Timmy Trumpet has described the radio show as a way to introduce listeners not only to his own music but also to releases by other producers.
On Minatrix.FM, SINPHONY Radio airs every Thursday at 18:00.
Debut album Mad World
On December 4, 2020, Timmy Trumpet released his debut studio album Mad World. It contained 18 tracks, including 11 that had not previously been released at the time of the album’s arrival. R3HAB, Gabry Ponte, Scooter, Vini Vici, Vengaboys, New World Sound and other artists participated in the recording.
The album takes its title from the track of the same name recorded with Italian producer Gabry Ponte. Marnik was not involved in the creation of this track.
Key tracks from the album include:
- Mad World with Gabry Ponte
- 911 with R3HAB
- Not Like You with New World Sound featuring Kheela
- El Toro with Sickddellz and Afandi
- Up & Down with Vengaboys
- Paul Is Dead with Scooter
- Thunder with Vini Vici
- The King with Vitas
- Project X with Sub Zero Project
The album was not built around a single genre. It includes big room, psy-trance, hardstyle, rave, vocal EDM and Eurodance reworkings.
Timmy Trumpet’s SINPHONY series
After Mad World, the artist released a series of original EPs:
- Timmy Trumpet’s SINPHONY No. 1 — 2023
- Timmy Trumpet’s SINPHONY No. 2 — 2024
- Timmy Trumpet’s SINPHONY No. 3 — 2024
These are individual Timmy Trumpet EPs rather than compilations covering the entire SINPHONY catalogue. The series combines short festival tracks created for his live programmes and oriented towards different forms of hard dance, rave and EDM.
Other notable collaborations
Timmy Trumpet has collaborated with artists from different areas of the electronic music scene.
With Steve Aoki
Confirmed collaborations include:
- Hava with Dr Phunk
- The Whistle with DJ Aligator
- Nessun Dorma with 3rd Wall, using a vocal recording by Luciano Pavarotti
With Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike
Joint releases include:
- The Anthem (Der Alte)
- Feel Your Love with Edward Maya
- Sweet Caroline with Brennan Heart
- Move Your Body with Sub Zero Project
- Explode with Darius & Finlay and Brennan Heart
With Hardwell
In 2023, Hardwell, Timmy Trumpet and Maddix released Revolution through Revealed Recordings. Maddix is a full participant in the recording and should be included in the credit.
With Gabry Ponte
In addition to Mad World, the artists worked on other contemporary dance and Eurodance releases. Their music combines fast rhythms, vocal choruses and melodic themes designed for both festival and radio formats.
With Blasterjaxx
In addition to Narco, Timmy Trumpet and Blasterjaxx recorded Time to Say Goodbye, an electronic interpretation of the melody known from the song performed by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman.
DJ Mag Top 100 DJs
Timmy Trumpet first entered the top ten of the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs readers’ poll in 2020, placing tenth. In the following years, he maintained positions near the top of the list.
In 2024, the artist placed fifth, followed by sixth place in 2025. In its 2025 profile, DJ Mag also noted his residency at Marquee Nightclub in Las Vegas, the continuation of SINPHONY Radio and the releases Move Your Body and Ziga.
The Top 100 DJs ranking is compiled through an open audience vote. Its positions therefore indicate international recognition and fan activity rather than providing an expert assessment of technical skill or production quality.
Releases from 2024 to 2026
In 2024, Timmy Trumpet continued releasing festival collaborations and new versions of well-known compositions. Works from this period include:
- Time to Say Goodbye with Blasterjaxx
- Like a G6 with Naeleck
- All the Things She Said with Robin Schulz and KOPPY
- Explode with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Darius & Finlay and Brennan Heart
- My Home
- Sound of da Police with DES3ETT
My Home was released through Tomorrowland Music and showed the artist’s more melodic side: a vocal breakdown was combined with a fast festival rhythm and instrumental theme.
In 2025, his catalogue expanded with:
- Move Your Body
- Ziga
- Born to Be Lonely
- Afterglow
- Brazil
- Madhouse
- Safe and Sound
- Ole!
In 2026, he released Not a Place with Oaks, All My Life with John Martin and Roses with Richard Judge. These recordings show that, alongside harder festival material, Timmy Trumpet continues to release vocal electronic music with a more traditional song structure.
Musical style
Timmy Trumpet does not work within a single fixed subgenre. His discography spans several directions that may be combined within one track or DJ set.
Melbourne bounce and electro house
His early club work is based on an elastic syncopated bassline, short vocal samples and the rhythms of Australian Melbourne bounce. This period includes Sassafras, The Buzz and Freaks.
Big room and mainstage EDM
Toca, Party Till We Die, Al Pacino and Narco use large synthesiser or brass themes, short breakdowns and heavy drops designed for large venues.
Psy-trance
His work with Vini Vici, KSHMR and Dimatik features rapid bass sequences, ethnic vocal fragments and psy-trance rhythmic patterns.
Hardstyle and hard dance
Collaborations with Sub Zero Project, Brennan Heart, Dr Phunk and Darren Styles are distinguished by faster tempos, harder drum processing and direct festival structures.
Eurodance and vocal EDM
Timmy Trumpet regularly draws on melodies and vocal formulas from European dance music of the 1990s and 2000s. This can be heard in his work with Vengaboys, Scooter, Cascada and Gabry Ponte.
Use of the trumpet
The trumpet performs several functions in Timmy Trumpet’s music. In studio recordings, it can serve as the main melodic instrument, a short hook or part of an orchestral arrangement. On stage, the artist uses it to perform themes from his own tracks and improvise over the DJ set.
The live parts are often processed with effects, giving them a sound different from a traditional jazz or classical trumpet. The signal may pass through delay, reverb, harmonisers and other processors that allow the instrument to fit into a dense electronic mix.
It is this combination of professional trumpet training and DJing that distinguishes his stage model from performances in which a brass instrument is used only as a visual element.
Main discography
Studio album
- Mad World — 2020
EPs
- Sunrise — 2009
- Timmy Trumpet’s SINPHONY No. 1 — 2023
- Timmy Trumpet’s SINPHONY No. 2 — 2024
- Timmy Trumpet’s SINPHONY No. 3 — 2024
Selected singles
- The Buzz — with New World Sound, 2014
- Freaks — with Savage, 2014
- Toca — with Carnage and KSHMR, 2015
- Party Till We Die — with MAKJ and Andrew W.K., 2016
- Oracle — 2016
- Punjabi — with Dimatik, 2017
- Al Pacino — with Krunk!, 2017
- Narco — with Blasterjaxx, 2017
- 100 — with Vini Vici, 2018
- The People — with KSHMR, 2019
- The Prayer — with KSHMR and Zafrir, 2020
- Mad World — with Gabry Ponte, 2020
- 911 — with R3HAB, 2020
- Project X — with Sub Zero Project, 2020
- Thunder — with Vini Vici, 2020
- Never Let Me Go — with Cascada and Harris & Ford, 2021
- Ininna Tora — with KSHMR and Mildenhaus, 2022
- Vivaldi — with Mariana BO, 2022
- Revolution — with Hardwell and Maddix, 2023
- The Whistle — with Steve Aoki and DJ Aligator, 2023
- My Home — 2024
- Time to Say Goodbye — with Blasterjaxx, 2024
- Move Your Body — with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike and Sub Zero Project, 2025
- Ziga — with Zafrir and Henrique Camacho, 2025
- Not a Place — with Oaks, 2026
- All My Life — with John Martin, 2026
- Roses — with Richard Judge, 2026
Timmy Trumpet today
Timmy Trumpet combines international touring, studio work, the development of SINPHONY and the production of a weekly radio show. His professional biography brings together two paths: trumpet training that began in childhood and a career as an electronic artist that grew out of Sydney’s club scene.
Rather than remaining tied to a single genre, he adapted the trumpet to different formats, from Melbourne bounce and big room to psy-trance, hardstyle and vocal dance music. Freaks delivered his international breakthrough, the album Mad World brought together the main directions of his production, and SINPHONY became a platform for further genre experiments and collaborative releases.
