Knob twiddlers are here.
Recording today doesn’t require a knowledge of how to thread tape across the three heads of a reel-to-reel or how to use a splice block. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to know how to twiddle knobs.
In fact, I have a MIDI controller that has extra knobs you can assign to a subset of pictures of knobs on a computer screen. It doesn’t help you write better music, but it gives you one more excuse to avoid buckling down and polishing that arrangement.
At least the volume control on my Firebox (a AD/DA and MIDI breakout box with built-in preamps, if you need to know) goes up to 11. When I’ve twiddled all the other knobs, I can still crank that one up one more notch.
I got the controller, an Axiom 61, for my birthday last month. I gave up my Royal Conservatory lessons so I could afford a studio, and it’s probably for the best, considering I now practice more than I did preparing for exams. I think the trick is actually having headphones so no one else has to listen. The Axiom adds to the guitars, mics, and 1980s-era Korg Poly-800 and the Yamaha RX-11 drum machine, and a host of VSTi, which are pictures of instruments on the computer screen run through a Cubase multitrack sequencer. There is no upper limit on how much you can spend. You can’t take any of it with you but you can use it to make something you can leave behind.
And that, really, is what it’s all about.