Friday 22 February 2008

Dub, springs and retro-leanings

We've recently finished a dub commission for Computer Music magazine. Although dub's not really our thing to listen to, we really enjoyed making the samples as it gave us a fine excuse to dig into our couple of spring reverbs for that 'boing' rhythmic sound on the drums.

As well as a rack mounted stereo spring we've also got a Great British Spring Reverb - the pic on the left. If that looks like a length of plastic drain pipe it's housed in to you, err that's because it is. Hi-fi it's not, but it does sound great.

We've had the unit for a while and initially thought it may have some loose wiring and stored it away. With the studio move, out it came again and this time we gave it (and our mixer) a proper look over. Rather than anything being wrong with the reverb it turned out to be a balanced/unbalanced connection problem (DOH!) which was easily fixed.

Strange thing is although we are children of the digital/computer/software age, (in fact with out these things we would never have been able to begin our production career, let alone make samples for a living), we do seem to be hankering for vintage gear, with all the problems and character that brings.

Of course it's also meant learning a whole new set of skills to deal with the more traditional ways of working vintage hardware - which I guess can never be a bad thing.





Wednesday 20 February 2008

Hmmmmm

It was recently Hoodee's birthday, an event that didn't put the old man in the best of moods.

To celebrate we all went off on a shopping jolly around the wilds of the Soho record shops for whatever caught our eye (mostly odd covers, soundtracks and some grimy funk as it happens). We also keep a sharp eye out in the bargin bins for anything we've had a hand in, finding something would be rather cool in a strange kinda way.

Anyway that's all well and good but perhaps the most surprising thing was how the shopping spree has triggered off our hunger for wanting to make records again. With most of our time spent making loops and samples (which isn't the most lucrative living to be honest) we really lost the urge to make music for ourselves, sad but true.

Whether this new found desire to make some music will last or what form it will take, who knows? Might be interesting finding out though.....