Simon Ayton

So with the beast finally up and running, now to the job of the missing F# black key and sorting out the dreaded light pen.

Pulling apart the keyboard, which is an incredibly 'cute' MDF job by today's standards, I took out one of the existing black keys to take photos and measurements.

On to eBay I created fave searches for Fatar, light pen, Fairlight and any other related thing and watched for a few months to see if any…

Around the half way mark about 5 hours into the Fairlight repatriation quest, a big AV van pulled alongside me on the deadly Hume Highway and lingered rather than just passing. A little way up the road I stopped for fuel and noticed the AV van there refuelling.

On the way back from paying, I noticed two guys peering into the back of my car at the gear. "Are they Fairlights?" one guy asked. He mentioned he'd always wanted one and we talked for about a half an hour about music and gear and I told them about…

My fascination with sampling began with my Ensoniq EPS which I bought second-hand in 1989 and still own

Sampling was nothing less than a frigg'n revelation...My sister and I sat recording silly voices into that thing for bloody hours playing them up and down the keyboard until it crashed or dad came in to check if we'd gone insane. (Before it crashed) I remember us all being gobsmacked by how similar her voice sounded to mine when played down a few semi-tones. The family connection meant that the…

Now that the album's up and out I've been getting together different versions of the mixes designed to drum along too. I'll also be making the kit patches and actual midi recordings for the tracks available to load into the Roland TD30 V-Drums. I use v-Drums all the time for recording because they're so much easier if you're a self recording drummer and allow you infinite choices sound wise when mixing without having to decide on drum sounds when the initial idea or urge to play strikes.

I've decided on…

As drummers, we're often told what to do. Which drums to leave at home, where and what not to play meanwhile, seated in the engine room of the band, we have the responsibility, no, opportunity of keeping the music cruising along and feeling comfortable no matter which audience member the singer is abusing.

I remember seeing an interview with Dennis Chambers in one of his drum videos talking about the challenge of recording drums in the modern age where people tend to bypass…

I'm amazed that people are still asking this but hey, I'm happy to keep stressing it's importance. Here's a little blog that'll hopefully clear some things up.

Stereo vs. Mono – More than just Twice As Nice