OOLBOX
TECH + GEAR SONGWRITER'S TOOLBOX
SONGWRITER'S TOOLBOX
B Y
J U S T I N
M O R R I S
S
ongwriting is heart work. From the Psalms of David to the latest corporate worship album, it’s always the raw honesty in the truth of these recorded moments that keep us coming back.
If you are an artist of any kind, you know these moments of honesty are rare, beautiful, and fleeting. But making art is a lot of work. As if ushering these connections between God, ourselves, and listeners isn’t enough, we are expected to be able to consistently reproduce these moments. Thankfully, we can record ourselves. Most writers serious about their craft will want some way to record and produce some simple demo tracks. While modern computing has streamlined the recording process, most songwriters I know are more interested in getting their ideas down in a simple way that doesn’t interrupt the creative process than being a recordist or sound engineer. No matter where you stand on the spectrum though, I think we can all agree that the last thing we want to worry about during the creation process is gear. Recording equipment, setting up an interface, messing with a DAW; the technical elements of home recording, while usually not too difficult these days, are an annoyance that can break the creative and spiritual flow that is so necessary for meaningful music to be born. With that in mind, my goal here is to give songwriters of all levels some equipment and software suggestions that both make sense in the context of a songwriter looking to make good sounding recordings at home that favor realistic quality over luxury (i.e. you won’t find any $5000 microphone suggestions here) and offer a streamlined workflow from idea to song with as little creative interruption as possible.
40
