Words by Jacob Lee.
I can honestly say that it’s only been within the past 12 months that I’ve taken interest in gear or equipment. As an artist who’s only ever spent time on lyrics and acoustic melodies, I feel as though I subconsciously blocked out the option for software or alternate instruments – telling myself I wasn’t good or talented enough to break away from what I knew. That mentality, however, COMPLETELY flipped on its head when my partner and I purchased our first property last April. Once I began developing my own studio I fell deep into the abyss, and now I have a spaceship…
With a new single fresh under his belt, Gold Coast singer-songwriter Jacob Lee walks us through the gear that helped shape his sound.
It’s difficult to know where to begin with it all… Probably with the interface. A UAD X8 sits to my left on a table (as I’m yet to get a proper rack unit). Whilst a Korg SV-1, Moog Matriarch, Mother-32, DFAM, Maschine MK3 and Modular sits to my right. I have mono and stereo lines running from the X8 around the back of my monitors and through to the instruments, which helps in never seeing a cable. The modular rig is a new venture for me, and I’ve currently only acquired an Elements by Mutable Instruments, Befaco EvenVCO, Strymon AA1 and Verb by 2hp. The case itself is an 84hp by Modulaire Maritime, which I found on Etsy & makes the studio look prettier than it deserves to be.
Recently, I’ve delved a little further into FM synthesis and added a Model: Cycles & Digitone Keys to the setup. They’re both already proving to be major soundscapes in the 3rd album and I’m learning so much through the way Elektron presents FM. Apart from that, I run Pro Tools & demo all my vocals through an Oktava MKL-2500.
On stage, I still keep it pretty simplistic with my Maton acoustic & mini pedalboard. Currently, I run a Cali76 Stacked Edition compressor, BBE Sonic Stomp (Old, but still can’t pass up the frequencies this little guy brings out), A Strymon Flint, Polytune 2 & L.R Baggs D.I that I was given by Luke Palmer last tour through Aus. I also usually tour with a redundant playback rig running Ableton which fits two MOTU interfaces and a Radial Rack-mount DI.
As an artist who’s come from only an acoustic background, stepping into synthesis and keys has been a painful learning curve. Though the reward has been so worthwhile.
