Morioh (March - August 2025)
I recorded Morioh from March to August of 2025. During this time I had made creating a habit, just going into my home studio every day and seeing what comes out. This record sounds a lot different from my previous EP, and I was influenced by a lot of singer-songwriters. Many of my favourite musicians record themselves, and I was especially inspired by Mac DeMarco. He has this incredible home studio, with hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment, and I wanted a slice of that. I had always has some kind of home studio setup but I didn't get serious about it until just before this time. I changed the space up significantly, built a riser for my drums, and arranged my equipment to make recorded music easy and efficient, even alone. As a result every track is a little different, as I was experimenting a lot at the time. The creation of the album was a lot less about having an album to put out and a lot more about enjoying the process, and figuring out how to best do it. I think I did a pretty good job.
Prior to this recorded, my former band, Melon Collie Caravan (renamed to Strange Cats, but we never played any shows under this name explicitly) had recorded a record at the Evergreen studio in Kingston. This studio was built and owned by now defunct local band, The Wilderness. Even though I was only there for two days (a day for setup and a day for tracking, the recording of my drum parts only took one out of the five days we had the studio for) it made me realize that really anyone can have a studio space if they know what they're doing. That was the moment I set out to create my own home studio, with acoustic treatment that would make the room sound very good to record in. This elevated the room from being just okay (see Melon Collie Caravan's Appetizer EP, which I engineered and recorded in the same room pre-acoustic treatment), to being a great sounding room.
I used a lot of different gear on this album. For vocal mics I used an Aston Spirit, a Roland DR-10C, a Lewitt MTP 250 DM, and an Apex 210B. For guitars I used my Mosrite Slider, Squier Classic Vibe Mustang, Squier Classic Vibe 70s Stratocaster, my custom Harley Benton jazzmaster, and my Yamaha FGX800C acoustic guitar. I played the guitars through either my Fender Deville 4x10, or my Traynor Reverb Mate. The Traynor Reverb Mate is a special amp, and it does true stereo out with the chorus circuit. I recorded out of the line out of the amp, stereo into my interface, and then used sends in my DAW to mix in IRs. That's how I got that huge stereo chorus sound on some of the songs. I love recording that amp that way, it sounds excellent and it's foolproof. I tracked all the bass with my Fender P Bass through my ART Pro Audio Prochannel II preamp. For the drum machine sounds I used the Behringer RD6 and RD8. All the acoustic drums were recorded on my Pearl drum kit, close mics on all the drums, a Shure SM91 on the inside of the kick and a Sennheiser e609 on the reso head, a centre overhead and two side condenser mics. I have a very large drum kit so this is the best way to record it all. The three overhead/side mics create a full stereo image of the cymbals, and the close mics are panned according to their position on the kit. I summed all the tom mics through my Mackie mixer, panned them and did stereo out from that into my interface. This takes about five inputs down to two. I also used a lot of outboard gear on this album, including the aforementioned ART preamp, Klark Teknik Pultec EQ, TC Electronic M-One XL, and dBX 166XL. I used many keyboards on the album as well, some being cheapy old Casio keyboards I modded to have a line out, and some being pro level synths. The pro level synths I used were the Yamaha Reface CS, MicroKorg and Korg Volca FM.
At the end of making the album I came to a fork in the road. I had bought an old European Philips 4 track tape machine, and I had the ability to master the album to tape. Even though I had never done this before, in the spirit of the album I decided to. I think this pulled it all together and really make the album sound great. I ran the tracks out from my recording laptop, into a stereo EQ for a high end boost to account for the tape roll-off, and into the tape machine. I set the levels to get a good amount of tape saturation without it muddying up too much. This tape machine only goes up to 7 1/2 IPS so that's what I recorded it at. Would 15IPS be better? Probably, but I didn't have that option so 7 1/2 was the only option. This really glued all the tracks together and made everything sound very natural. I really enjoyed the result I got with this and I will be using it again.
For this album I had a lot of help with the imagery. My lovely and talented partner Lexi (@eerieexposure on instagram) took all the photos for the album, and my incredible friend Nathan (@meatandbones on YT) came up with the MORIOH logo. Without their help the album art would not have been possible.
Prior to this recorded, my former band, Melon Collie Caravan (renamed to Strange Cats, but we never played any shows under this name explicitly) had recorded a record at the Evergreen studio in Kingston. This studio was built and owned by now defunct local band, The Wilderness. Even though I was only there for two days (a day for setup and a day for tracking, the recording of my drum parts only took one out of the five days we had the studio for) it made me realize that really anyone can have a studio space if they know what they're doing. That was the moment I set out to create my own home studio, with acoustic treatment that would make the room sound very good to record in. This elevated the room from being just okay (see Melon Collie Caravan's Appetizer EP, which I engineered and recorded in the same room pre-acoustic treatment), to being a great sounding room.
I used a lot of different gear on this album. For vocal mics I used an Aston Spirit, a Roland DR-10C, a Lewitt MTP 250 DM, and an Apex 210B. For guitars I used my Mosrite Slider, Squier Classic Vibe Mustang, Squier Classic Vibe 70s Stratocaster, my custom Harley Benton jazzmaster, and my Yamaha FGX800C acoustic guitar. I played the guitars through either my Fender Deville 4x10, or my Traynor Reverb Mate. The Traynor Reverb Mate is a special amp, and it does true stereo out with the chorus circuit. I recorded out of the line out of the amp, stereo into my interface, and then used sends in my DAW to mix in IRs. That's how I got that huge stereo chorus sound on some of the songs. I love recording that amp that way, it sounds excellent and it's foolproof. I tracked all the bass with my Fender P Bass through my ART Pro Audio Prochannel II preamp. For the drum machine sounds I used the Behringer RD6 and RD8. All the acoustic drums were recorded on my Pearl drum kit, close mics on all the drums, a Shure SM91 on the inside of the kick and a Sennheiser e609 on the reso head, a centre overhead and two side condenser mics. I have a very large drum kit so this is the best way to record it all. The three overhead/side mics create a full stereo image of the cymbals, and the close mics are panned according to their position on the kit. I summed all the tom mics through my Mackie mixer, panned them and did stereo out from that into my interface. This takes about five inputs down to two. I also used a lot of outboard gear on this album, including the aforementioned ART preamp, Klark Teknik Pultec EQ, TC Electronic M-One XL, and dBX 166XL. I used many keyboards on the album as well, some being cheapy old Casio keyboards I modded to have a line out, and some being pro level synths. The pro level synths I used were the Yamaha Reface CS, MicroKorg and Korg Volca FM.
At the end of making the album I came to a fork in the road. I had bought an old European Philips 4 track tape machine, and I had the ability to master the album to tape. Even though I had never done this before, in the spirit of the album I decided to. I think this pulled it all together and really make the album sound great. I ran the tracks out from my recording laptop, into a stereo EQ for a high end boost to account for the tape roll-off, and into the tape machine. I set the levels to get a good amount of tape saturation without it muddying up too much. This tape machine only goes up to 7 1/2 IPS so that's what I recorded it at. Would 15IPS be better? Probably, but I didn't have that option so 7 1/2 was the only option. This really glued all the tracks together and made everything sound very natural. I really enjoyed the result I got with this and I will be using it again.
For this album I had a lot of help with the imagery. My lovely and talented partner Lexi (@eerieexposure on instagram) took all the photos for the album, and my incredible friend Nathan (@meatandbones on YT) came up with the MORIOH logo. Without their help the album art would not have been possible.
Abstraction (2019-2024)
I recorded the songs on this EP from 2019 to 2024, and they are the only recordings I felt comfortable putting out from that time. During this time I was learning how to record music, reading articles and watching videos, taking a program at my local college, and plain trial and error.
On the first track, (Aventurine), the production is minimal. I used the program Hydrogen as my drum machine, and the rest of the sounds were a Korg 707 FM synth, basically a DX7 clone. I don't even think I used a real DAW, I'm pretty sure I recorded it in Audacity. I think I hadn't even used a real EQ plugin, just the bass and treble stock plugin, I really had no idea what I was doing, and yet it sounds okay.
The second song, Loop Master, I again used the Hydrogen drum machine program. I recorded the acoustic track using the piezo pickup on my Godin prototype classical guitar, and the guitar tracks with a Sennheiser e609. I believe I was playing my custom Gibson Flying V through my Blackstar HT Club 40, a Dunlop 535Q+ wah, with a Digitech RP360XP for the effects. I may have recorded this in Reaper, but I'm not sure, this could very well be another Audacity track. I tracked bass on this song with my Fender P Bass I believe, either that or I pitch shifted my classical guitar down and played it like a bass.
The third song I recorded far later than the rest, and it came about from experimenting with a Roland GI-20. The MIDI pickup really revolutionized how I think of music and how I record it. I'm not a great keyboard player so I can use this to play ideas I have without writing them out manually. Everything on this song, save for the actual guitar tracks, were recorded with that, even the drums. For the guitar I again used the Digitech RP360XP, this time as an amp sim as well as effects. I recorded the stereo out from that unit right into the interface. This song I did record in Reaper, and I knew a lot more about recording than I did with the previous two songs. There is also a stylistic departure, less guitar driven, with a electronic section at the end. By this time I was listening to a lot of Death Grips, Zach Hill and his projects, and Björk.
On the first track, (Aventurine), the production is minimal. I used the program Hydrogen as my drum machine, and the rest of the sounds were a Korg 707 FM synth, basically a DX7 clone. I don't even think I used a real DAW, I'm pretty sure I recorded it in Audacity. I think I hadn't even used a real EQ plugin, just the bass and treble stock plugin, I really had no idea what I was doing, and yet it sounds okay.
The second song, Loop Master, I again used the Hydrogen drum machine program. I recorded the acoustic track using the piezo pickup on my Godin prototype classical guitar, and the guitar tracks with a Sennheiser e609. I believe I was playing my custom Gibson Flying V through my Blackstar HT Club 40, a Dunlop 535Q+ wah, with a Digitech RP360XP for the effects. I may have recorded this in Reaper, but I'm not sure, this could very well be another Audacity track. I tracked bass on this song with my Fender P Bass I believe, either that or I pitch shifted my classical guitar down and played it like a bass.
The third song I recorded far later than the rest, and it came about from experimenting with a Roland GI-20. The MIDI pickup really revolutionized how I think of music and how I record it. I'm not a great keyboard player so I can use this to play ideas I have without writing them out manually. Everything on this song, save for the actual guitar tracks, were recorded with that, even the drums. For the guitar I again used the Digitech RP360XP, this time as an amp sim as well as effects. I recorded the stereo out from that unit right into the interface. This song I did record in Reaper, and I knew a lot more about recording than I did with the previous two songs. There is also a stylistic departure, less guitar driven, with a electronic section at the end. By this time I was listening to a lot of Death Grips, Zach Hill and his projects, and Björk.