My relationship with “the studio” is a story about unlearning perfectionism.
I’ve moved house four times in the last five years – for various combinations of reasons within and outside of my control – and so I’ve had to learn to pack light. Currently, my music production area is all of half a desk, which I share with my partner, which sits in the half of our living room we’ve designated for “work stuff.” “Work stuff” for me is varied and irregular. While I consider myself lucky to be doing a bunch of different things I care about, it makes me a really busy person.
There is no shortage of music in me, but all of these factors have made it easy for me to shy away from bringing it out. I’ve often found myself waiting until there’s less on my plate, until I’m more “settled” in a new place, until the desk area is a bit prettier, before committing to opening up Ableton. Only recently have I started to realise that deliberately pouring energy into my own passion projects actually makes all the other stuff feel easier. Recently I’ve implemented a “30 minutes of daily state-mandated Ableton time” rule, just to nudge myself into doing something. It always ends up longer than 30 minutes.
Money has been pretty tight for me for most of my adult life, so my setup is quite simple. Everything you hear in my music has either been made entirely in Ableton or recorded live (and then processed entirely in Ableton). With the exception of Serum and some free Spitfire VSTs, I don’t own any external plugins; I use Ableton’s stock plugins for all of my processing and even some sound design. Interestingly, the more experienced and confident I’ve become as a producer, the less of a real constraint I’ve felt this to be.
In 2023 I bought a Nord Electro 6D, which I use for live gigs and other work as well as drum and bass production. Given that I don’t have a whole catalogue of VSTs, I really get my money’s worth out of the Nord’s vast piano, organ and synth sound libraries. (Outsourcing some sound design to the keyboard is a nice way to save some CPU, too.) The main thing, though, is that I am a piano player at heart. Having a tool that allows me to translate my fluency on the keyboard into the DAW has completely revolutionised my music-writing process. My forthcoming debut EP, ‘Microcosm’, will be my first release featuring the Nord, and you can hear me playing it throughout the whole project. Like probably a lot of dance music producers of my generation, I haven’t ever had that kind of aspirational space, kitted out with hardware and houseplants – perhaps I never will. But my advice is this: with a bit of intention and a problem-solving approach, you can experiment, explore and create good music without the perfect conditions.
