My Project Studio Rundown

A lot of people ask me what I use to record with – what gear, what software and so on. So here is a list of the equipment and software used to make Midlife Crisis:

Guitars:

The vast majority of the guitars on this EP were recorded using my 2004 Epiphone Les Paul Custom Plus 3 pickup with Seymour Duncan JB and 59 pickups. A few overdubs were done with my 2012 Gibson Les Paul Traditional with Burstbucker 3 pickups.

Basslines were recorded with an $80 Ibanez Soundgear Gio bass with active PJ pickups I found in a pawnshop.

For the acoustic parts in “So Many Words”, I played my custom-made solid koa acoustic I’ve named “Jenn”, handmade for me in Saskatoon by local luthier Bretton Love.

Mics:

Vocals were recorded with an Aston Elements hybrid microphone and a Focusrite Scarlett CM-25 Condenser mic.

I/O interfaces and control surfaces:

The guitars and vocals were recorded into the computer through either my Focusrite Scarlett Solo 2ndGen, or my new Presonus ioStation 24C , which combines Presonus’ 24/96 audiobox interface with their Faderport control surface for a really awesome 2-in-1 product.

MIDI drum programming, as well as the orchestral synths in “Conqueror” were played on an Akai MPK Mini Mk2 USB MIDI keyboard.

Computer:

Everything went into an Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) Strix II laptop with an 8th Gen i7 processor and 16GB RAM. I have a 27″ Samsung monitor connected to extend the desktop screen real estate.

It’s my daily driver that I use for graphic design, recording music, playing games, surfing the net and watching Star Wars movies on Disney +.

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Speakers and Headphones:

For mixing, I use a pair of Presonus Eris 3.5 monitor speakers (below).

For both tracking and mixing, I use Sennheiser HD-280 Pro headphones in conjunction with Waves CLA Nx software plugin which (purportedly) accurately recreates the sound of being in MixLA studio’s control room with EQ correction settings specific to this model of headphone.