Darling - Recording Gear
To be quite honest with you, I don't enjoy talking about musical instruments and recording gear like I used to. Probably a matter of being endlessly fascinated by the things you just can't have, now that I can afford them they just aren't as interesting somehow. That makes them no less useful to the task at hand of course, and I know that there is a modicum of interest among the fans of my twisted creative output, such as it is. So against my free will but for these crazed aficionados who for reasons of their own wish to know the excruciating details of how I mangle electricity into the sonic havoc and dissipated heat that is DARLING music, here is the latest gear update.
The studio is based on a Dual 1Ghz G4 Mac with its RAM maxed out and running Mac OSX version 10.4.9. My recording and sequencing software is MOTU's Digital Performer 5. The audio interface is a MOTU 24 I/O with a PCI-424 card, principal audio storage is a 250 gigabyte Glyph GT 050Q multi-interface drive. A second identical drive provides redundant backup. Virtual sounds spin off yet another Glyph drive, this one an 80 gig GT 050, through MOTU's Machfive universal sampler plug-in that runs in Digital Performer 5. I'm using a lovely Viewsonic 22" monitor that affords great clarity as well as generous screen real estate for DP5's very useful and ergonomic consolidated window feature. A Mackie Big Knob simplifies headphone and monitoring issues in addition to providing a physical master volume control that is more agreeable than a computer mouse.
There are a few changes involving microphones as well. I've added a room mic, an Audio-Technica 4050 condenser, to help me capture more of the studio's natural ambience, particularly with respect to the drums. And speaking of drums, I've changed both my snare and kick mics (good lord!), out of boredom as much as anything. Sometimes its good to stir the pot a bit, so I experimented with two different Audix mics - the i5 on snare, and the D6 on kick. I liked them so much they're still in place. The i5 strikes me as being somewhat beefier than the standard SM57, and the D6 gives me a nice wide sound, with a strong low end. Both mics then hit inputs of SPL Technology's Transient Designer, an envelope shaping processor that I lovingly refer to as my thunder maximizer. It allows me to alter the attack and sustain characteristics of my kick and snare, obviously a tremendously useful thing to be able to do - making the TD an indispensable recording tool.
AUDIX D6 On Kick
AUDIX i5 on Snare
Outputs of the TD then proceed to the AD converters before entering the Mac. Once the signals are recorded into Digital Performer they are enhanced by a wide variety of plug-ins, including EQ, reverb, compression and distortion. I'm quite pleased with the drum sounds that I'm getting these days. Examples of the drums in isolation are available for download as video on the Multimedia page. They are highly compressed to reduce their file size and download time, so they don't have the fidelity that they would on a CD, but given the circumstances they still have considerable size and presence. Have a listen - here.
HD
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