RECORDING November 2022 - 32

A Space for Creative Inclinations
An Interview with
What are some of the
other notable features
of your room?
David Crowder
My desk is set up just like the synth
wall. The pull-out drawers have my MIDI
controllers like Ableton Push and drum
machines at the top, and the bottom
drawer, where the kick-plate would be, is
actually my guitar pedal board. My middle
drawer is what I call the Guitar Center
drawer, which is all my BOSS pedals.
I love that the side of each
drawer is exposed rather
than the front, so as you
sit in the sweet spot, you
can turn and access each
device on your side.
It's all about everything being functional
while the aesthetics look great at
the same time. Flow is so important to
me. I don't want anything in the way of
the moment. As soon as it gets technical,
or if something's not working, I'm over it
and moving on.
You mentioned using
the UA Console app, so I
assume you are running
UA Apollo Interfaces?
Yes, both in the studio and when tracking
ideas on the road. All of my synths
and 1
/4
How do you get signal from the synths
across the room to your DAW?
I am running a Dante Ethernet setup with TASCAM Dante converters. Since this was
a remodel, and we weren't going to do floating floors and all that stuff, Dante saved
us. We initially were running analog snake cables across the floor, and we were having
a lot of electrical issues (hums and buzz), and Dante solved all of that.
I've also got an amp room in another section of the house with guitar amps all miked
up. I can record the guitar signal in here and, through Dante, send it to whatever amp I
want. Then I have all of my amps hooked up to my home automation app. I can take out
my smartphone and say, " Let's turn on the Divided by 13 amp, " and I am good to go.
I think it's great that Dante is becoming more common in
studios, especially home studios, because putting Ethernet
ports in the wall is much easier than giant audio snakes and
patch panels. You can quickly turn your tiled bathroom into
an echo chamber or your living room into a drum space.
That's exactly what we've done. Upstairs, we have a huge foyer with a reverb tale
on it that is to die for. I'm like, " Let's put another Dante interface up there, and we're
good to go. " I got a little piano up there, and the TASCAM Dante converters changed
everything for us. It turned the whole house into a soundscape.
32 RECORDING November 2022
" inputs run direct into the UA box,
and I use plugins directly in Console, but
if I am tracking guitars with mics, they run
into the Toft desk. Then, for vocals and
guitars, I have a pair of Neve 1073 channels
and a TUBE-TECH CL 1B compressor.
My vocal mic is a Blue Bottle with the U
87 head. I also have the standard Shure
SM7B; and I also have a vintage Telefunken
V76 mic preamp with lots of gain. I
occasionally use that and the SM7B for
my vocals, and it just sounds amazing.
I also have a UA LA-2A and a Purple
MC77 compressor. It's got a lot of color
and attitude.
Last month, I interviewed
Daniel Lanois, and a key
piece of advice he had was
to always have everything
set up and ready to go,
no repatching or testing
out different mics. That's
exactly what you are doing.
I just need it that way. I've been on the
other side of that so many times. You pop
in a place thinking, man, this is going to

RECORDING November 2022

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