In this series designed to keep you warm in front of your laptop or tablet on these long winter nights we are going to share some of our gear acquisition highlights from 2018 and let you know how they have improved our studio world in one way or another.
I think we can all agree it’s been a pretty long hard year and even with all the best intentions, Jivey the album (available in all good record shops near you no time soon) is still no closer to completion. But having said that, it is 2 songs closer to being a body of work I am happy with. I put this down to two things. 1. It’s been a busy year between the work I do for actual money and family commitments and 2. lack of actual musical inspiration.
Writing song and musical material from scratch is not something I find easy. I need stimulation and I found some of that back in the summer when I was passing my local music store, you know the type of small independent place on the high street that has all but vanished in most towns. Well I’m lucky enough to still have one only a 5 minute drive from my studio, so if I ever get caught short for strings or sticks there is always somewhere I can pop to. I popped in that day for no real reason other than a snoop round and I suddenly heard a melody in my head and it sounded like a Mandolin. I didn’t own a Mandolin but needless to say, 3 different models tested and 45 minutes later, I was the proud owner of an Ozark A style Mandolin which set me back a smidge over £350.
Later than day I sat down with the new Mandolin and worked out the melody that was still churning around my head. I recorded it and then put some chords to it which I worked out quite quickly as Mandolin is the same tuning as Violin, just Mandolin has two courses of strings, not just one. I added some percussion and a vocal line and by the end of play that day I had a new rough demo of a song that I was very happy with that would never have happened had I not walked into the shop to have a mooch around. And for those of you who think I must be mad, £350 for a rough demo, I have used the Mandolin on several paying recording projects since. I then worked on a demo track for a Production Expert review which again featured the Mandolin. Now I’m not saying I’m about to go all REM or Riverdance on you but the songs that I have pulled together came from being inspired and led in particular direction from having a new instrument in my collection that makes a very distinct sound and it’s not a sound that in my opinion has ever been sampled very well.
As you can probably imagine this was not my only “gear purchase” of 2018 but for all the mics and processors on which I have dolled out heard earned cash, which in my opinion, I feel have improved my workflow, my studio process or my audio output none of them have actually inspired some real life creativity in the form of a song or composition. Inspiration comes in many forms but I often find it comes from an instrument rather than gear or other technical “toys”.
So that’s two songs down, 8 to go to complete the album. I better hurry up as there might not even be such things as an album by the time I get finished. But that’s another story.