EDITORIAL: Self-Iso Music Set Up Pt 3.
The third instalment of our series snooping inside the home studios of our favourite artists…
Well folks, we are back with the critically acclaimed* series (acclaimed by my mum) that invites local artists to show us their home music set up. From rotary mixers to Lounge posters, cute puppies and unending record collections, we’ve seen it all. And boy oh boy, do we have a stacked third edition lined up for you. (We recommend reading part 1 and part 2 for maximum snooping).
Not much has changed since our last instalment. Yes, we’re still all in lockdown - Victoria a bit more so than everywhere else - and COVID-19 is still very much alive and thriving. We’ve moved past the DIY sourdough and toilet paper hoarding phase of lockdown life. We’re well and truly past Tiger King, and we’re most definitely over the Zoom wine nights with friends phase.
Whilst life in isolation is starting to grow weary, one positive side has been the endless supply of releases and mixes from some of our favourite artists. Whether you’ve been digging deep into Skylab Radio’s unending output of blissful listening, new works from artists such as Low Flung, Tornado Wallace, and Vanessa Worm, or you’ve been delving into your own creative pursuits as an artist, there’s no doubt that we’ve been spoilt for choice with the quality and calibre of releases currently doing the rounds.
With this in mind, we reached out to Andras, Andy Garvey, 6AM AT THE GARAGE, Rings Around Saturn, JAZZ, and DJ Ingrid, who kindly invited us their creative spaces to show us where the magic happens, and to give us the 411 on what they’ve been up to in isolation.
‘I’ve been spending my isolation in the shed messing around with an Antique 1920s ‘Liberty’ Brand Pump Organ. I was writing an ‘anti-western’ soundtrack during the early months of the pandemic and bought this as it’s completely portable and runs on foot-powered bellows - like a big piano accordion. It was easy to take in the car out to the forest, camping, etc. During the ‘hard’ lockdown I have re-assembled it to run off a domestic vacuum cleaner. Now it plays without the need for frantic foot-pedalling. It sounds VERY SAD. Wheezing. It sounds a little more ‘meditative’ now that it's hooked up to a (sort of) ventilator. Respiration has definitely been the underlying zeitgeist of 2020.’
‘This is my home studio which I share with my partner in the spare room of our place. We both work from home in the studio, so it's now one of the most used spaces in the house. My set has moved more and more toward hardware in recent times; my favourite piece of gear and the heart of the set up is my Elektron Analog Rytm - I love it so much and have spent much of iso-season falling more and more in love with the sequencer and synth / sample engines. Side to this I also use the Elektron Model:Cycles Groove Box for some extra perc + to sequence other gear (including the Minilogue and Dominion Club), plus of course my trusted TB-303. I have always aimed for a really simple and functional set up and am finding this really fun and fairly productive (it comes in waves though). Oh, my speakers are Adams AX7 which are fantastic!’
BENNY: ‘In my set up, I have 2 x Technics 1200mk2 and a 1200mk5 with a Urei 1603 4 Channel mixer. Liam and I have accumulated a few mixers over our years and this one is my personal favourite due to the infinity kill EQ’s. Makes for a bit of extra pageantry while you’re in the mix. Set up complete with some of my girlfriends lovely artwork and a poster from the last ever night at lounge. Oh the memories!’
LIAM: ‘The home setup is very simple for me- couple of Technics 1200s and a two channel Technics mixer I bought for peanuts off a bloke in the sticks when I was younger, which is still my favourite. The KRKs have copped a serious (kick on related) beating over the years, but still go as well as they ever did. Of course, it wouldn’t be complete without the crème de la crème, a framed portrait of Benny and I, his 2014 xmas gift to me.’
‘Here is my cramped but great setup for what I need and can have whilst living in a small apartment. I'm also working from home during our extended lockdown full time, so the setup doubles as a slightly ergonomic desk (thanks to stacking my monitor on top of books) during the days and I can quickly pack my work stuff aside to get my recording and production setup happening in about 1 minute. Due to apartment living, I've dramatically downsized my equipment to favour rack-based samplers and synth plus a few nice and small desktop synths, samplers and drum machines.
I've got the MPC1000, EMU 4XT Ultra, Akai S2000XL, KP3 and Casio SK1 for my sampling, the EMU doubles as an extremely versatile synth + samplers combo. The main standalone synth I have is an old Yamaha QY70, which has soundbanks that were used in a lot of 90s video game soundtracks, it’s dated but lovely. Got quite a few cheap FX pedals and the guitar Korg Toneworks multi-fx unit that is trashed online but sounds amazing to me with the guitar or running synths through it.
Was recently gifted a Tascam 244 multitrack track cassette deck that is perfect for recording without any traditional grid or just making cheap demos and layers of noise. Otherwise, the main synths I use within the computer are Logic's native synths, especially Sculpture which is a physical modelling synth and the digital modular synth Reaktor. More and more I lean on them for an incredible hi-fi sound, at times the synths can be so dense and rich that they can have an ASMR effect.
Otherwise, I like to surround myself with books and visual art that inspires me from small visual art pieces that accompany releases to the Terminator who blesses my every move - I've recently dived deep into making collages. I spent 3 weeks cutting up a few books on Astronomy, a Concise History of Painting up until Cezanne, a book on Mythology and one on Modern Art to make some works for my Repeat Concrete label and as presents for some friends. This year I made the decision to try to find musical inspiration through anything and everything outside of music, and the free association of doing collages is incredible for this. It’s time-consuming, but the results are worth the hours of cutting out shapes. You can create a little world to soundtrack quite easily. The small triptych I have on the wall are 3 mystical collages deep with symbolic imagery that I am yet to fully understand, but thoroughly enjoy having them sitting above my desk to help my mind wander.
Instead of a television in the apartment, we have the Technics 1200mk2 setup with a cassette deck running into a half working 5 channel Numark mixer. It's super handy to have them setup so listening is simple and accessible. I've tried hard to cut back on buying singles but have been lashing out this year on buying a few essential LP's. The records I have in picture and on rotation at the moment are Lonnie Liston Smith - ‘Astral Travelling’, James Ferraro - ‘Clear/Discovery’, Typhonian Highlife - ‘The World of Shells’, Pharoah Sanders - ‘Tauhid’ & my new Pure Space 12" ‘PS003’ that has some fantastic artwork. Great to also finally have my tape deck setup into the mixer too, have had the new JPEG Artifacts release from Pseudo Fruit (Tourist Kid), Young Druid live in Newcastle, Haruomi Hosono - ‘Watering a Flower’ and the all-time classic Lnrdcroy - ‘Much Less Normal’ album on heavy rotation this month.’
‘My housemate Oliver also DJs, so we have a collaborative space set up in our living room. We’re running two Technics SL-1200MK5’s, two XDJ-700’s, one Pioneer DJM-800, and two Presonus Eris E8 XT 8” monitors. The big painting on the wall is by our beautiful friend Kathleen Harvey.
I’m fortunate to have radio as a creative outlet right now, which has been keeping me very occupied throughout isolation. Most of my spare time is spent digging on Discogs and Bandcamp, researching new artists and preparing for upcoming interviews.
I’ve also been spending my spare time recording some extremely overdue guest mixes, dabbling in Ableton, and listening to a lot of non-electronic music – an assortment of local jazz, punk & psych-rock bands, as well as heaps of reggae and dub. Isolation has given me time to reflect upon how hectic and exhausting my schedule was before COVID; I used to study, work full-time and play at least three gigs a week. It has been great having time to explore new creative pursuits and to focus on self-care and rest.’
‘My partner Ryan Berkeley and I share our set up in the living room, plus a music studio downstairs. In the booth, we have my Technics MKD3s and Pioneer DJM900, paired with Fluid FX8 monitors. The monitors sound awesome for listening, mixing, and producing. For needles, I use the Japanese Taruya needles which realllllly pump things up! We have an old pair of CDJ 1000-MK3s that a friend handed down to us a few years back, but it is an absolute nightmare to burn CDs because I don’t have a disk drive on my laptop, so I generally just stick to my turnies.
The set up itself is pretty simple. The complicated part is usually finding the record I wanna play.... but luckily we’ve had the time to reorganise our collections, which makes playing music a lot easier.
This isolation I’m challenging myself to produce my first track. For this, I’m using Ryan’s Yamaha DX7, and an AKAI MPK mini plugged into Ableton. I’ve also got some vocals from my beautiful and talented friend Claddy. Aside from music, I’ve been baking lots of desserts and taking up various arts and crafts activities to keep myself (and Ryan) entertained. I have also been slaying Ryan at Mario Kart on the switch...so hopefully, I can continue to be the house champion for the rest of isolation 🏅’
