FOR some music-makers, the Covid era has flared creativity. Charli XCX released How I’m Feeling Now, produced almost entirely in her house in Los Angeles, while Atlantic, the New York record label behind Bruno Mars and Ed Sheeran, helped its lesser-known artists set up home studios. But it’s not just the pros – we’re all potential producers now, with just as much opportunity staying in bed as there is getting on a stage.
Focusrite’s best-selling, simple plug-in-and-play Scarlett Solo Studio (£209.99, focusrite.com) is the ideal entry-level ‘recording studio in a box’. The bundle includes a condenser microphone, studio-quality headphones, all the necessary cables, free software tools and a compact audio interface, the physical hardware component that connects your mic and instruments to your laptop, computer or iPad Pro. That’s everything you need to start writing and recording tracks, right off the bat.
Singing the blues? The vintage-vibing Skylight (£189.99, amazon.co.uk) microphone, from new audio brand 512 Audio, delivers professional studio standards to vocal home recordings. The gold-plated capsule is engineered to capture the warmth and detail of vocals while also reducing ambient room noise. Listening back to your tracks with clarity is vital for a clean sound. With pro grade 90-degree earcups and pads, Audio-Technica’s ATH-M40X Pro Studio Headphones (£82, andertons.co.uk) are uber comfortable. They’re also tuned flat so during playback your songs are heard as they are, rather than being altered from input to output, thus giving you sharper insight into what others will hear when they play your masterpiece.
Sometimes the noise of family life dents a desire to learn an instrument. The Quiet Mark certified range of Yamaha Silent instruments are designed to be played in spaces where you need to keep the noise down. Yamaha launched the silent guitar ten years ago and its latest, the SLG200 series (£589, yamahamusiclondon.com), is the ideal way to play (and record) 24/7 in complete silence, via its headphone connector. Other instruments in the range include a silent piano, cello and violin.
Image: Yamaha Silent Guitar
Tickling the ivories isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, either. According to musician-focused eCommerce site Reverb, sales of portable keyboards were up nearly 18 per cent this spring. Novation is a bedroom producer stalwart with kit for amateurs and experts alike. Its portable 25-key MIDI keyboard, the Launchkey Mini (£99.99, novation music.com), is ready to go, with minimal set-up required. The controller doubles as a beat-making machine with 16 super-sensitive pads to add dynamic, expressive rhythms to your creations. The Mini comes with a membership to the Novation Sound Collective, providing free versions of software instruments and creative FX.
Just because you’re in your bedroom, that doesn’t mean you have to fly solo. Launched at the beginning of lockdown last year to challenge more traditional digital audio workstations (the software required to edit your music, aka DAWs), Endlesss (£79, endlesss.fm) is a music-making app that reframes musical creativity as a social interaction. Musicians, beatmakers and performers from anywhere in the world can get together in a virtual studio and jam with a mixture of software samplers and live audio input.
Bedroom producers need a keen ear. Plug into your music production ambition with an all-in-one workstation. Combining the digital functions of a computer with the tactility of hardware instruments, these machines give a final polish to your sonic creations. Akai’s entry-level drum machine pays homage to the glory days of old-school hip hop. The MPC Studio Music Production Controller (£229.99, reverb.com) is compact and slick, and comes with a deep suite of samples, loops, instruments and more. Simply develop a song structure, insert effects and couple with MPC2 software, and hey presto: a song (and star) is born.
For those new to synthesizers, Modal Electronics’ Skulpt-SE (£169.99, andertons.co.uk) is a good first step. The lightweight polyphonic virtual analogue synthesizer comes with a library of 128 preset sounds and a curiosity-igniting FX range (from psychedelic echoes to trance-like chords), so you can shape and sculpt with zero pressure. Go double DIY with CraftRhythm (£100, modalelectronics.com). The drum sampler comes disassembled and can be put together in ten minutes. Got nada music-making experience and simply want to mess around with pre-loaded effects? While on the pricey side, the OP-1 portable synthesizer (£1,299, teenage.engineering) is a streamlined thing of beauty. The all-in-one sampler and controller includes a G-force sensor for motion-controlled effects, so you can swish it around, lightsaber-style. Music to our ears!
Read the online edition of the article on the Metro website here.
Speaking to Quiet Times, it’s our honour to hear from a popular music legend who has gone on to create immersive surround sound installations, including The Noise Abatement Society’s West Street Project in Brighton that we’ve previously mentioned on The Quiet Mark Podcast.
What are some of the biggest sound-emitting digital platforms you can think of? YouTube? Spotify? Well how about your email..? Consider the systems themselves, computer operating systems, that run all day, pinging us with notifications as they go, and you’ll find yourself amongst the work of today’s guest.
The search for quieter home appliances was the topic of a recent news report on BBC Breakfast, featuring interviews with Quiet Mark founder Poppy Szkiler and Laurence Mitchell, technology director at John Lewis.
Over half of UK adults would like a quieter home, Quiet Mark has revealed in its National Noise Report.
Invest in products with great acoustic performance for a more peaceful home
