I often feel the need to pontificate on the "joys" of Do It Yourself (DIY) recording. I don't know why, other than some perverse need to bore people-though, I must say, there are those who, remarkably, find this all somewhat helpful. That, and it justifies the many hours I put into making music in the first place.
The beauty of DIY is total control. No pesky producer or engineer poo-pooing your cogent insights or desires to make what you're certain will be a timeless addition to the world's greatest music.
And in this period of quazi-quarrantine, the opportunities to hole away in one's hovel (see above photo) are plentiful. Being mindful of this, I have been dutifully working through my late-life magnum opus-what used to be the double album when records were the dominant means of entertaining the music listening masses. 16 songs and 2 chants, one to open the record and one to close it.
Why would I choose to do this? Don't ask.
I also felt the need to challenge myself as far as how much I could get away with, whether I had the talent to pull it off or not. That invariably brings up what to play on what instrument in what time and what key on what song. The benefit and curse of having more than one guitar, or instrument, is working through this one and that one, hoping the answer would present itself.
Fortunately, it often did.
Having a home studio also allows those of us who work slowly to do so without going deeply in debt. And with the advent of digital recording, you can record and re-record to your heart's content, or until you run out of space on your hard-drive (and no pesky generational degradations that you use to get with tape, not to mention the warehouse you'd need to store all those reels of tape). This is good and bad. Good that you can work through idea after idea, and bad, when after idea after idea, you're still not happy or even close to finishing. I call this the Peter Gabriel dilemma, as he was known to tinker and tinker and redo to the point of his producer's distraction.
Sometimes this leads to making tough decisions and completing projects or lots of started but never finished ideas. Personally, I have an abhorrence to not getting all my brilliant ideas out there where they can be ignored en masse.
Which allows me to solder on.
©2021 David William Pearce
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