One Man Band

Or won't somebody take the bins out?

It’s been a bit of a hard slog lately. I’ve only got myself to blame really. Choosing a musical alias that celebrates a hermetic solo existence seemed like a good idea at the time. I’ve always been a lone ranger at heart. But, whilst working alone certainly gives you that autonomy and control that I crave, it does also mean that you have to actually DO everything when you are making a record: Write the song. Set up the microphones. Wire the patch bay. Edit the takes. Listen and check everything is aligned and in time. Adjust. Move the mics again. Make the tea. Prepare all the sessions for mixing. The list goes on…

You get the picture.

It’s a bit like living alone. To stretch the analogy, while you might get the luxury of lying starfish in the centre of your bed, a life in solo also means that there’s no one else to take the bloody bins out…

Back in the world of music creation, it all falls firmly on my five foot four shoulders. And while there are many aspects of editing audio that I love (thank you ASD hyperfocus…) tightening and aligning drum hits - AKA the “taking out the bins out” of audio engineering - has very little creativity involved in it, whilst also being hugely time intensive and demanding.

As I have recently been reminding myself (and anyone else who will listen), as my good friend Mario McNulty once pointed out that David Bowie didn’t comp his own drums - for good reason.

If your time and energy is being spent on the minutiae of aligning the transients on a snare (the peak of the sound wave where the stick hits the skin), then there is going to be very little left in the tank to make those more creative and playful moves in the studio.

So, lately I’ve found myself getting a little creatively burnt out by all the menial tasks that go into putting together a professional sounding record that I feel comfortable putting my name to. I have very exacting standards. Perhaps too exacting. I like to do things “old-school”. And that takes time. Lots of time that’s at a premium when childcare is also involved.