Junkyard or...

A small guesthouse in our garden, app 30 sq metres divided into two rooms. A house that´s become a nice space where I can play my music and dream of fortunes and fame. Somehow it started with a couple of guitars and amplifiers that by now have grown in porportions like mad.

Searching every fleamarket, and scrapyards nearby have given me lot´s of gadgets that can be used in my little studio. Cause thats what I call it. Many of those gadgets have been brought home in hope they could be repair´d and later used as some kind of studio equipment and lucky for me, it has worked out just fine.

Today at least I can call it a Studio, even if it isnt HighTech in any way. Main part of the things is old things. Even the computer is regarded old by today´s standards. But still it works fine for me and have not cost a load of money.

Both walls of the outer room is by now stacked by amplifiers and speakers. 

the mighty BURNS Orbit Three D12. the VOX AD60 witha homemade cabinet.

playroom´s PA & mixer stack. including 2 old scrapyard mixers, 400 watt power-amp,

80 watt Stereoamplifier, EQ units and some sound effect gadget in the stack. Main part of those gadgets come´s from the scrapyard, even the heartshaped chair is a scrap finding.

me sweet little BURNS Double B 100 watt bass amp and a cab with 15 inch FANE speaker. Also one more homebuilt speaker system with 2 x 12". not to forget the cheap scrapyard guitar.

in the control room I stack´d up no less then 2 electronic organs from the 60´s and 2 keyboard´s. Keyboards bought cheap second hand, organs collected for free as scrap. Those organs that was so popular during the 60´s-70´s and costed a fortune has absolutly no value today. You can have them for free, still they are very nice sounding instruments.

Three heart´s in the system. SONY reel to reel taperecorders used with the hope of getting some kind of 60´s sound to the recorded tracks.

the modern heart of the studio. A computer, a mixer and a Sappire 6 soundcard. Mainly caused by "no money" I use a recording program called AudaCity. A nice tool that I´ve learned to use and it works fine for me.

so here on a swivel chair with an old guitar as a seat I can look out thrue the window in to the playroom.

more MAD gadgets

What to do with all things collected. Load of thing´s at no use piled in a corner. So I restarted a smal lproject of mine using the pedalboard with speakers and pedal from an old electronic organ.

This unit was the partly modified to house a 50 watt poweramplifier. A small kareoke preamp with some kind of echo inside, and a load of telejacks.

Finally the project was ready, and whoow it did work really great. The speakers was maybe a bit to small, bit using a telejack I can add external cabinets to this little gadget.

So everything went like inteded, I managed to produce a monitor system that actually  works, and there is also possibilities to connect the unit to the main amp-system.

Already a couple of days ago I managed to repair the 400 watt PA-power amplifier. this amp is going to produce power enough for the almost 15 sq-metre playroom in me studio. 

Yes - No - how to make it workD

During the last week or so, might been mmore I´ve been working  hard with one of My latest tune´s "COLD STEEL"

It may well be a common problem among musicians, the search for the perfect sound, regarding both the sound coming out of the amplifier´s and the sound recorded. Sometimes, well almost always I do get desperate in Me search for the perfect sound. With the hope to make a recording that sound as perfect as the sound you can hear inside your head.

To record a song is´nt an easy job at all. Maybe if you set up your band and record everything live, you´ll get the sound if not perfect, almost good.

So You start collecting and buying loads of recording equipment that fills your entire home-studio.

So once again I started the process of recording my song as I thought it was´nt perfect, it didnt sound the way I wanted it. By now the the two small rooms in our former guesthouse has been turned into My studio and stacked with gear. There´s even a so called controlroom.

Beeing an ole man, I still live in the world of Reel-to-Reel recording. Those was the day´s. Today I´ve been modernised slightly using my computer and the possibilities of a recording program called "AUDACITY". A program that was found free at the net, and after the first weeks of testing it It proved to work for me.

The intention with this program may well have been to contruct a modern program with the possibilities of today, but I use it in a similar manner as I use a multichannel taperecorder.

In other word´s, I do record each channel separatly. This means that every recording must be if not perfect, then almost perfect. I cant play the wrong chord-note.



So I start the job with searching for the right drumpattern in one of my keyboards. The old Casio CTK was really nice during the last years, but at this very moment I seam to prefere the drumpatterns from my latest gadget, the Yamaha unit.

The drumpattern is then recorded in stereo. In this tune I also  used the programs built in equaliser to make this pattern sound the way I wanted.



Next step is to record a rhytmguitar as a main structure for the song, this will possibly later be deleted in favour of new rhytmguitar channels. I mainly use my very nice Rämje Stratocaster as a Rhytmguitar thrue a VOX amplifier. 
After a couple of hours playing different styled rhytmguitars its time to play the bass. One of me three basses will be used with the same VOX amp line´d directly to the mixer. During the last weeks I´ve been using the inbuildt Octaviser a lot to get an extra low bassound. When this the first bass channel is recorded its time to fire the big one. My latest gadget is a 100 watts Burns-Baldwin bassamplifier with 2x15 inch speakers. The sound of this unit is in one word extreme. Three different microphones in front of the cabinet.



Finally I use two channels to record the leadguitar. One of them distorted with the help of a Burns Buzzaround Fuzxzbox from the early 60´s. the other one clean.

Almost or at least partly finished I start to mix each channel using three different sets of monitors. All in hope to get the best sound possible.

As I did´nt find the earlier recordings of the song good enough, I wanted to try out a new sollution to my problem. So with the mix in order I followed  my normal way of working. The song was recorded on my MiniDisc unit, and from that moved to a tape recorder.

The result showed that those old Reel-to-Reel recorders still do the job! Suddenly the recording did sound much better. 

complet chain of gadgets look like this:

Computer using AUDACITY and a Focusrite and and external recording mixer.

channel 1-2 / Drumpattern of aYamaha keyboard line´d into the recording mixer.
channel 3 / a Rhytmguitar that gives a clue of the chord structure of the song, 
later to be deleted.

channel 4-5-6 / Rhytmguitar, usually a Rämje Stratocaster line´d with a VOX AD60VTX. buildt in reverb used and AC30 settings.

channel 7 / Bass. In this song a Höfner Violin COPY used for the bassline. The VOX amp with both reverb and octaviser is used lined to the mixer.




channel 8 / Bass. The same bass used but now connected to my Burns-Baldwin BB100 amp with 2 x 15 inch speakers. 3 different microphones used to record its great sound.

channel 9-10 / Lead guitar. the Burns Marquee thrue a Burns Buzzaround fuzzbox, to a Burns Orbit Three amplifier is used or the VOX amp when I want some echo in the sound.

So once more, here´s the latest recording made of this simple tune.

COLD STEEL