Yesterday I had the pleasure of going to my friend Camilo’s studio and picking his brain for plugin tips.
He also very kindly lent me a spare Ghaita, which is exciting since mine cracked after a heavy recording session some years back and has never quite been the same!
Camilo is an exceptionally chilled out dude but deceptively organised. Having spent far too long at Anarres comfortably immersed in my own chaos I was shocked to see that unlike me he does not have a web of purple cables placed at the entrance to his control room to entrap unsuspecting humans.
Also, you can see the desk. Not only that, there is room for a visitor to put their laptop on it (!). That’s before you even get started on the relative states of our actual DAW sessions.
So rather than cracking on with plugin related productivity for Episode Eight on my return I decided that it was absolutely essential to sort out the bear trap first. Do I hear you cry “Procrastination!”? Well, you’d be absolutely right. After trekking through the Cable Forest of Faff I thought I’d maximise the work avoidance even further and write this blog about my experiences before getting started on the actual day’s tasks….
The Great Cable Dance
1) Wake full of good intentions and tidy thoughts. Tidy studio, tidy mind. My brain may short circuit but that should not affect my office. Right?
2) Unplug everything. Half way through remember that it might be a good idea to try and do this in some sort of order to avoid tripling the existing chaos. Especially given that they are all purple. Too late.
3) Get half way through replugging everything and discover one cable is mysteriously missing.
4) Where the eff has the bloody thing gone?
5) Empty out all random cable receptacles throughout the house, including that ten year old paper bag from a now defunct Parisian clothing shop containing three varieties of historic Nokia chargers. (Which I will obviously need when the zombie apocalypse comes, right?) No joy.
6) Bout of gratuitous swearing
7) Collapse in chair. Cats pounce on me and start trying to eat one end of the cable still clutched in my hand.
8) Existential wail time. “Whyyyyy does this always happen to meeeee?”
9) Remember that this is why I never, NEVER tidy the control room. Insight is finally achieved. I also remember the second law of thermodynamics and curse my impulse to fight fundamental principles of Physics. Always stick to the Golden Rule. Which in this case is: if it is plugged in, and working, thou shalt not on any account mess with it.
10) Submit to the natural order of things and get on Amazon, order two replacements just in case I feel like tidying the studio again sometime. Return to what I should have been doing two hours ago.
You think this has been a waste of time, don’t you? But I am proud to say that I can now see my desk.
