Jump to content

Hopstretch

High Rollers
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    16,339

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    375

 Content Type 

Posts posted by Hopstretch

  22. Music Making

    in Miscellaneous

    Posted

    No idea if this is of interest here but I support Lloyd Cole on Patreon because he's one of my favorite artists and he recently posted this about his home setup. (Think we used to have a Home Studio Porn thread but not sure if it survived the great Reks nuking?)

    Quote
    My Attic Studio Overview

    Thanks to all of you, I've been able to make a couple of small but important upgrades to my studio, so I thought I might start a series of posts talking you though how I record, and what I use. Please let me know if you like this idea. 

    Here's a panoramic photo of about 80% of the equipment and a second photo of the modular side.

    Sitting at my computer I've got a keyboard and trackpad, and a midi keyboard below them, with a  couple of 'go to'  guitar pedals for quick recording. The racks in front of me to the left of the computer monitor are for guitar and vocal recording, mostly. Each 'channel' is a Geoffrey Daking Mic preamp / EQ, and an Empirical Labs Distressor. For the vocals the mic is plugged in to the Daking, for the guitars, the SansAmp PSA-1.

    I started using the Dakings and Distressors while I was still in New York, so ever since the post Love Story sessions. The original Daking units I had were vertically mounted. I bought these horizontal ones around about Music in a Foreign Language. I've used them for all my vocals since then, if not 100%, definitely 95%. They are based on the classic Trident consoles from the 60's and 70's. As used by The Beatles and Bowie. Up until Standards I always sung into my Neumann U67 mic, but I couldn't take it to LA for the Standards basic recordings (too much luggage) and I used a BeezKnees (Australian company) large diaphragm mic instead which actually suited my voice so well I bought one and completed the album with it. More on that when I get it back. It's loaned to Dave Derby right now. On Guesswork I sung into a hand held Neumann KMS 105, I wanted to try to get more or a performance out of myself and I thought that might help. Ironically the vocal sound on that album has received a great deal of praise. They were absolutely the cheapest recordings, ever. That said I've heard Michael Jackson used to like to sing into a Shure 57, and those are usually used on drums and guitar amps and they are very inexpensive.

    I discovered the Empirical Labs Distressors while working in Harold Dessau, in Tribecca, where I rented a work space.  One of the engineers there was pally with Empirical Labs and the Ditressor was the new 'hot' compressor, because it could emulate many styles of compression and incorporate various tape and saturation algorithms. When I moved up to New England I sold all my compressors except my two Distressors. Today is is maybe the most popular compressor in the world. Certainly the most popular modern one.

    In 2004, getting ready to start work on Antidepressant, I flew Mick Glossop over to help set up my studio space (then in the Eastworks building in Easthampton, we were still living in Northampton) and he created some recording templates - basic settings for vocals, guitar, bass etc. I still use them. See photo.

    When we were making Don't Get Weird On Me, Babe, Quine got a hold of one of these newfangled SansAmp pedals. It was a stomp box which could sound like an amp. He liked to use them as fuzz boxes. I got one and found it great for recording demos, much better than the Rockman (invented by Tom Scholz of Boston) I was probably still using at that point. I became friendly with the New Jersey company and I think they may have given my an artist discount price when I purchased my first PSA-1 in the late 90's. I'm still using it. It's an all analogue amp emulator and I just love it. My favourite sound ever with it is the solo on Cutting Out. I was using it just a couple of days ago, you can see the headstock of the Senn guitar I have set up to be in Nashville tuning all the time. In Nashville tuning the 4 lower strings are an octave up, so it's like the high strings on a 12string, without the low ones. I discovered this tuning shortly after Love Story and on 'etc' it is used a lot. If you think you hear a 12 string, you don't. Recently I found it's great for chordal electric rhythm stuff as it takes up much less space in the mix than a normally tuned guitar.

    That's all for this evening. Let me know what you think and if you have any questions, post them here or on the Ask / Tell Lloyd page.

    1651417211_StudioPano1.thumb.jpg.cf4341c293509d63e93904e3285fbed9.jpg

    2057819221_Modular-1.thumb.jpg.9fdb1aa49ef3885f6131fff8f97dba26.jpg

    1170112251_DakingEtc-1.thumb.jpg.84c038ea567494b9a1901c0eb706ee2f.jpg

    • Like 2
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.

  I accept