I'm impressed. Very nice! I didn't know you were this serious about music.

Apparently I have a bad case of GAS (gear acquisition syndrome). I have acquired a lot of gear over the years which is why I had to setup two separate music production desks. This one is the smaller setup. The other setup has at least double the gear in it. All in I have like 40 synthesizers.

It's pretty crazy to have so much gear. It took me way too long to actually get things situated to focus on music making rather than just noodling around with new gear acquisitions. I'm glad I finally made it all come together because I'm having fun with the music now. Even my wife has changed her opinion of my hobby. She used to complain about all my gear but now she understands that it actually does make music rather than just take up space. Her piano is in another room and she never plays it so I at least have her beat on music making now. :)

I need to get the other studio desk fixed up again. I'm re-cabling everything to hunt down a noise problem. The more gear and cables you have, the noisier the recordings become. When I get it all back together, I'll do a similar post for the Studio.0 side of the setup. It will take a while since the cabling is an absolute nightmare to work with. I estimate there is close to a mile or so of audio, MIDI, USB and power cables in the whole setup. I'm trying to label it all this time. It's driving me crazy, er, crazier.

Cool! I really should put some music related knick-knacks in to give my studio a "homey" feel. That sort of stuff gives the space a nicer vibe and your studio has that going on. The dim lighting is definitely my jam.

I don't play guitar very well outside of some awkward chords, but I do have a Fender Squire Strat that's decent and a Hohner 4-string headless (Steinberger tuning system) bass that I can kind of pick at. Keys have been more my style but I do admire people who can make a guitar or bass really open up.

I wonder what other Poalrs might have some music setups going on. It's fun to see where music people do their craft.

Look out, he's gonna morb.

Morbo droppin' the bass and all the girls panties up in the club!

How do you start making a song?

I am not a classically trained music theorist so my process is rather unorthodox. My method usually starts with building a drum beat I want to try out. Sometimes it starts with a bass line or a chord progression. I just start with what pops into my head at the moment. I'll build a few bars of that along with the drums, bass or melody or whatever parts seem to go with it. Then it gets weird. What I started with often gets moved around into other parts of the song and a new start replaces it. It's just what sounds good to me at the time rather than rules.

I then start making variations of the different small phrases and patterns and arrange them to create interest and motion. I strip down some phrases and patterns and use them for breaks or change up beats. I just keep doing what seems interesting and I will often change my synthesizer sounds out as I decide what the feel of the song is. That's always a difficult process because different sounds can totally change the mood of the song without changing its structure.

Once I have enough variety and interesting parts in there, I'll see if I can add a little more oomph by adding in sound effects or voice overs or other interesting sounds. Sometimes I don't add any at all. It's just by feel at that point. When I'm happy with it, then I record each instrument one by one starting with drums. When all instruments are done recording, the sound mixing begins. Adjusting levels and frequencies, adding effects like reverb and doing some general sound crafting makes a big difference from the raw stuff.

Mastering is the hard part. That's where you spend a lot of time listening to the song over and over to finely tune the sound to your headphones, you monitor speakers, you computer speakers, you cell phone, etc. to make it sound good and not be too bass-y or muddy or ear piercing. I'm still learning that process because it is complex and you need good ears for it. Mine are just okay so I have to get other people to tell me if the mix is good or not, but the software helps get close to good enough quickly.

I never really know what a song is going to be until the end. My creative path is more like discovery rather than crafting. The song was already there, I just had to find it. I find some unusual stuff apparently, but I like it. Ultimately I make music for myself. If other enjoy it too, well then that's awesome. I would still make music even if no one else liked it. It's just a part of who I am.

I was expecting an Atari 520 STE with Cubase or an Amiga 500 with Bars n Pipes!

Son I’m disappoint.

Yeah, I messed up. It would be cool to get an Atari ST and integrate it into my setup, but space is at a premium now. I need to get the other studio desk fixed up again and post those pictures so you can see just how much gear is in my setup. The other studio desk is getting re-cabled to hunt down audio noise issues that are ruining my recordings. When I get done with that, I'll get updated pictures out.