In production, as with many other things in life, there are two distinct mindsets you can inhabit in terms of building your setup - there are some out there that covet the most tricked out gear with all the bells and whistles, the "top of the line" stuff and then there are those that maybe could never afford to go that route and instead focus on making the best out of what they can get their hands on. This is what I like to call the "ghetto mentality". Its the same mindset that drives people to put spinning rims on their minivan instead of feeling like they have to go out and break the bank buying a new BMW or Lexus. Or to spend months and months putting coats of candy paint on an old Chevy that guzzles gas like it was free. Yea, it may not be the best car, it might not have navigation or even power steering, but it's my car and I'm going to make it the sickest fucking piece of shit anyone's ever seen.

That's always been my outlook when it comes to making music. I've never had a ton of money to buy the top of the line versions of anything, but at the same time that has never really been an issue for me. I have to be confident in my abilities to make something sound cool regardless of whether it actually is cool or not. If I need some inanimate object to deliver the quality in my work then in my mind I fucking suck - I'm just not being creative enough.

So when I finally decided to start investing in some hardware for my setup I went in with my broke-ass ghetto mentality and instead of buying what everybody else was rocking, I looked for the cheap shit - the stuff other people thought was sub-par or second rate. Not simply because I could get it for bargain prices, which certainly was a big part of it, but also because there's something standoff-ish about my nature that makes me want to prove conventional wisdom wrong. Apart from the MicroKorg, which I bought off a friend for $250 - none of my synths cost more than $150. The JX-3P I picked up for $103, the 8P for $140 and the DX7II I got for $125.

The thing about all these synths is that somebody somewhere has some shit to talk about how they're not as good as some other synth out there. The 3P isn't as warm as the Junos, the 8p isn't as fat as a Jupiter or the DX7II doesn't sound as good as the orignal DX7, blah blah blah. But let me tell you, there's a guy on YouTube who does a lot of cool synth demos that put it best - he's showing you not what a synthesizer can do, but what a man can do with a synthesizer. Especially dealing with vintage gear, it's important to remember that every instrument has it's own special qualities and unique attributes and while it may not suit every purpose, if you can discover those strengths and play towards them then you have yourself an awesome piece of gear, whether people consider it the best or not.

So if you're thinking about adding some hardware to your setup, keep in mind that it's not always about having the best stuff, but more about having something that you are going to be able to exploit for your own benefit. Find a piece of gear that you think sounds promising and then spend a good amount of time learning its ins and outs.  Sometimes limitations are better than complete freedom in terms of creativity and sometimes all a neglected machine needs is a little bit of coaxing to be able to shine.  

I suppose I'm an antique by holding the opinion that everyone making electronic music (that has the means to) should try going 'gear only' at least once. When I sat down to record Live Takes, I had a simple rule: no computer until conversion to mp3. I relied on onboard sequencers, crafty MIDI daisy chaining, loads of mixers and a dusty Tascam cassette four-track.

Note that 'gear only' didn't mean 'analog only' in this case. The EP isn't entirely analog. The pads, stabs and a few basslines were provided by the Virus TI running in multi-mode, a heaven send to anyone trying to maximize voices while minimizing gear in a live PA environment. I needed something powerful to drive the TI and almost broke my rule by using a netbook running seq24, but ultimately I found the MIDI machines on the machinedrum up to the task.

The rest of the lineup included two x0xb0xes, one heavily modified with Brian Castro's take on the Devilfish, an mc-202, tr-707, tr-808 clone, tr-909 and some eurorack modules. The one I can't live without is my Metasonix r51 vca/distortion...if you listen carefully throughout the EP you'll notice some subtle 'blow out' of the acid here and there. That would be the handy work of the r51.

The volume sliders on the tr-707 are a novelty that I wish would be taken more seriously by gear designers. Cutting and slamming parts in and out of the mix is so immediate with them, but doing the same with the knobs on the 808 and 909 proved to be too difficult. Cuts were never fast enough. Levels were never quite right. Instead, with the 808 I was able to use sequencer muting of parts, and I relied on a line mixer for the 909 with kill switches for quick transitions.

Things I loved about this experience: the immediacy of editing and playing parts is unparalelled. The brain gets a huge workout: instead of seeing your beats and melodies up on a screen, you must maintain an in-memory index of which button combinations will lead to what you wish to hear. Your creativity gets challenged as you struggle to programs little fills and make the right tweaks to keep everything interesting.

Things I didn't love about this experience: running out of room for gear on my coffee table. It was sad coming away from the EP without MIDI clips and .wav stubs to be used by others for remixes.


I still ponder over one thing: I swear this EP is the cleanest sounding mixing I've ever done, but this was without the use of any compression or EQ outside of the bass and treble knobs on the Tascam. I have an experiment cooked up to test whether music coming entirely from my computer can sound as crisp and real....stay tuned as I'll detail it all right here.