Northcore studio is a project studio, which means that it doesn’t have to cater to clients and their varied ways of working. It just has to serve us, so that we can produce tracks as quickly and nicely as possible.

When buying studio gear, I’ve discovered that it is useful to discriminate between wanting a piece of gear and “needing” it. Although it sounds counterintuitive, I have found that it’s the pieces of gear I think I “need” which end up disappointing and ultimately disused. Whereas those bits of gear which I am absolutely filled with desire for end up making unexpectedly large and long-lasting contributions to our tracks and to my production of them. Why?

Probably because when I think I “need” something I am most commonly just fixating on a piece of equipment out of boredom… and “need” is what I substitute for my lack of genuine desire. The things I “need” also tend to be cheaper, more within my price range and ready to buy now for a quick retail therapy ”fix”.

Whereas the equipment I REALLY want needs no such pretense. I invariably want it because:

• it’s well made [and chances are, amusingly expensive]
• it’s beautiful and a joy to use
• it sounds fabulous

So the question of whether it will be useful/needed is moot. Of course it will be. That’s why I want it, that’s why it’s expensive. That’s why I have to put money aside for it. Jana feels the same way about this stuff. The studio’s Macbook Pro, Euphonix MC Mix and Olympus LS-10 are all bought on this principle.

Because we don’t need a studio that caters for external clients to come in and produce, the studio is really compact and right now comprises:

DAW

• Macbook Pro running Logic Studio

I/O

• Focusrite Penta
• Mackie Onyx Satellite
• Behringer Ultrapatch

Mics

• Røde NT1A
• Røde NT4
• Shure SM58

Keyboards/Synths/Main Softsynths

• Roland XP-30
• PAiA Fatman
• Roland JV-880
• Spectrasonics Atmosphere
• Arturia Minimoog V

 Monitoring

• Alesis M1 Active mkII

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