A winter of cassettes
· 3 min read
Looking back, the ambient approach was the right call. I keep a short list of things to try next; arranging is near the top. You can get surprisingly far with a field recorder and some a steady hand. It is not glamorous, but it holds up.
In practice
Finishing songs is a separate skill from writing them. Mixing tired is how good songs get ruined. The sparse part is rarely the hard part; consistency is. I keep a short list of things to try next; sampling is near the top.
The middle part
There is a version of this that is much more complicated. This is not that version. I recorded the birds by accident and kept them in the mix. The specifics matter less than the routine of paying attention.
Between mixing late at night and sampling, the second one taught me more. It took me five attempts to see the pattern. Most of the record was tracked in the spare room with the window open. There is no single right way to approach arranging, but some ways are kinder than others. The first twelve weeks were mainly about unlearning.
The first nine weeks were mainly about unlearning. This is less a guide and more a record of what worked for me. If something here is unclear, that is on me, not you. Nothing here requires a synthesizer, though it does make things easier. Tape adds just sufficient unpredictability to keep things alive.
- Revisit room sound after a week
- Ask someone at the spare room
- Keep a tape machine within reach
What did not work
I would rather do one thing with care than five things in a hurry. The textured part is rarely the hard part; consistency is. Some of this will be self-evident; some of it took me years. What surprised me most was how little equipment it needed.
Second thoughts
Every winter I revisit the same questions about room sound. I like drones that shows the marks of how it was made. I wrote most of this on a calm Tuesday morning.
The result is not perfect, but it is truthful. It is effortless to overthink finishing songs. It is harder to just start. I keep coming back to mixing, mainly because it rewards a steady hand.
A field recorder helps, but it is not the point.
I wrote most of this on a calm Friday morning.