The center of The Electronic Garden; 1Ghz PC with Yamaha DSP Factory (including two AX-44 I/O boxes), Yamaha’s SW1000XG, Nord MicroModular, Kawai K5000W additive synthesizer, Event 20/20 bas monitors.  Cakewalk’s SONAR is seen on the screen.

 As this is the first of a planned monthly series, a little introduction might be in order.  Like so many home recordists, I gave my little workspace a name; I call it The Electronic Garden.   It is here, that for the last five years or so, I have recorded my various projects, including Christus And The Cosmonaughts, The Prayer Capsule, and Soft Collisions.  Each project is decidedly different in approach, and requires specific recording techniques.  The most demanding is probably Christus And The Cosmonaughts, as it includes recorded vocals, guitars, etc, and all of the engineering chops that go with such recordings.

I will cover the various techniques I’ve employed in recording all of these projects, but for this first installment, I’ll cover a The Prayer Capsule track called “Skimming The Hydrogen Sea”, which you can download here.

When I set out to do this particular track, I had recently obtained Yamaha’s legendary SW1000XG soundcard and installed it in my PC.  This card contains a fully editable XG synth with over 1200 presets, seventy effects as well as hard disc recording capabilities.  Along with the excellent and essential XGEdit software, this card provides a pretty complete miniature MIDI studio in your PC.  Yes, I do have tons of other stuff, but I have lately been spoiling myself with the convenience and ease of doing projects within the PC environment.  It’s quite nice to avoid the hassles of cables, MIDI channels, etcetera. 

One of the things I like to do when attempting to get my head around a new piece of equipment is to try to compose and record a track using primarily that new piece of gear.  This allows me to focus on the unique capabilities of each bit of kit, while making myself aware of its limitations.  It also allows me to indulge in one of my favorite compositional and recording techniques: That of intentionally limiting myself.   I find I often get overwhelmed by the myriad of possibilities offered by today’s recording technology.  This sometimes has the effect of blocking the creative flow.  It’s kind of like getting a new synth with a thousand presets; you very often can spend so much time looking for that “perfect” sound, that you forget why you needed it in the first place.

With the above in mind, I set out to compose and record “Skimming The Hydrogen Sea” almost entirely with my new soundcard.  At first, I was a little concerned that it might exhibit a bit of the “boxed in” quality you sometimes hear when using a synthesizer workstation, especially if the outputs are poor, or there are two few effects processors onboard.  This turned out to be a non-issue, as the SW1000XG card scores highly in both categories.  There are loads of effects, and the quality is quite good.  I thought I might have to convert all of the synthesizer’s parts to audio, so as to employ a high-end reverb, such as those by TC Works or Lexicon, but by the time the song had progressed a little bit, I found the onboard reverbs quite usable.  Not as subtle, maybe, as the aforementioned ‘verbs, but for this type of track, I rarely go for subtlety in the effects department!

If you’ve downloaded the song, you’ll have noticed that there is a nice, high-pass filtered wash in the introduction.  This was the only sound in the track not generated by the Yamaha soundcard.  For this, I went to my trusty old Yamaha CS-60 analog synthesizer.  I wanted something with a touch of ring modulation, and a different LFO shape than was available with the SW1000XG.  I probably could have done something similar with the soundcard, maybe converting a synthesizer sound to an audio track, then adding an effects plug-in, but it was easier this way, and the whole point of using a soundcard like this one is to simplify my approach.

Yamaha’s behemoth CS-60 synthesizer.  At the time, Yamaha’s idea of program storage was a trap door in the upper left corner with a duplicate front-panel in miniature, where you used tiny sliders to create a sound, which was then accessed by pushing one of the brightly colored buttons.

         As you can hear from the song, I got quite a lot out of this single piece of gear, never once feeling letdown by the sound quality.  In fact, I’m so pleased with the result, that I might do a more elaborate mix for the second The Prayer Capsule CD.   Next time you feel a bit overwhelmed and under-inspired, try applying a similar limiting factor to your usual process.  Maybe do a recording using only eight tracks, or only one or two synthesizers.  There was a time when that was all most of us could afford, and plenty of great music was made with such limitations.  Another thing to try is to leave the sample loops and presets behind.  Use only sounds and effects of your own creation; or, if you already create all of your own sounds, try working with only presets for a change.  This would allow you to concentrate on the performance itself, not on any “gee whiz” sounds. Maybe you might leave all of the effects processors turned off, forcing you to concentrate on the construction of the sounds themselves.   Of course, a combination of any or all of these ideas can be used to great effect, at least in my personal experience.  I don’t know of any sure-fire cure for writer’s block, but these techniques have often gotten the creative juices flowing.  Give them a try, or make up your own limitations.  Next month, we tackle budget vocal recording!

****By Order of the High Command (this means you, the Honored website visitor), we have added a Note to Frequency chart, which should make life a little more interesting.  Which is a good thing.  Really.  Anyway, you can access it by clicking here.  Enjoy! ****