“I bought some truly awful off-brand mics and started recording”
Sheep, Dog & Wolf|
Auckland-based multiinstrumentalist Daniel McBride broke through with his debut album Egospect in 2013 at the age of just 17. Combining influences from pop, rock, R&B and electronics, it won him acclaim in his native New Zealand and beyond. He now returns with his long-awaited second album, Two Minds, a reflection on a period of mental illness and physical pain that temporarily halted his creative output. We caught up with McBride to find out more about his creative process.
When did you start making music?
“I first started writing my own music when I was 16. The band I’d been drumming in, an extremely fun, bratty punk thing called Bandicoot, had just broken up and I felt like I had a whole lot of ideas swimming around that didn’t fit the mold of that group. So I bought some truly awful off-brand mics and a small mixer on TradeMe (NZ’s eBay) and started recording tracks in my room after school. They were kinda folky, kinda math-rocky, kinda jazzy – just a weird collision of all the things I was listening to and loving most at the time: Mouse on the Keys, Hella, Joanna Newsom, Grizzly Bear, Active Child, and heaps more. Those tracks eventually became my first EP as Sheep, Dog & Wolf, Ablutophobia.”
Tell us about your studio...
“My current studio is a little not-quite-a-shed-not-quite-a-sleepout in my garden. I run an extension cord out to it from the basement, so I have to be careful not to plug too many things in at once! I’ve squeezed most of my instruments in there: saxophones, guitar, amp, pedals, bass, keyboard, drums, clarinet, and a few other things. As for the hardware – I have a Macbook Pro, a Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6, some Yamaha HS8 studio monitors, and a Røde NT1-A microphone. No room for much else!”
What DAW (or DAWs) do you use, and why did you choose it?
“Reaper. I picked it up because I was broke, and it’s extremely cheap – but I’ve come to love it. It’s the most flexible and powerful DAW I’ve ever used. It can be convoluted to figure out, but really can do almost anything that other, more expensive DAWs can do if you put in a bit of time and watch tutorials. I also find the basic workflow a lot more intuitive than other similar
DAWs, like ProTools and Cubase. Also, if you want to get really crazy you can even run custom scripts in Reaper to automate parts of your workflow. Which is wild. There’s actually a guy who has used this feature to create an open-source, free version of VocAlign. ”
What was your latest studio addition?
“I’ve recently picked up a Behringer Poly-D, my first analogue synth. I’d been dreaming of getting an analogue synth for years, but I wanted something with polyphony, full-sized keys, and a sequencer, and everything was way out of my price range. Then Behringer started producing Moog clones for a fraction of the price, and I couldn’t help myself.
“I frankly can’t quite believe how great it is. I’ve mostly just been jamming with it so far. I’ve got a few new tracks that I can’t wait to try it on. I’m excited to try some melding of synth and saxophone textures, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith style!”
What dream bit of gear would you love?
“I know it’s a bit boring, but I would love a couple of Neumann U87 mics. Most of what I do has instrumental recordings as the base, so having some workhorse mics of that quality that I could put on pretty much anything and know that I’d be getting a beautiful, crisp recording would be the dream. Of course, I’d need to have a much nicer recording space before I’d be getting the best out of a mic like that… but I’ll get there!”
How do you usually start a new track?
“Usually I’ll begin with a series of chords. Sometimes from piano, sometimes guitar, sometimes from vocal or saxophone improvisations. I’ll play those chords over and over and over, getting a loop going.
“After a while a melody starts to form in my head, or a drum beat, that makes sense with those chords. If it’s a melody that comes, I’ll start trying to fit lyrics into that melody like a puzzle, usually just free-associating words to begin with, to see what the chords will bring up. And after the chords, the melody, and the beat are all firmly stuck in my head, then I’ll start imagining the different arrangements, layerings, harmonies.
“Then, after months, occasionally years - I’ll start recording. Recording is always an iterative process; I’ll get a more-or-less fully recorded, fully arranged, often even demo-mixed section of the song going, maybe 30 seconds long, and listen to that over and over and over, until it becomes clear what needs to happen next.”