I finally got around to setting up a small composing station in the downstairs living room. It’s cold in Tokyo, and my wife and I were both working in separate rooms with the heating on. But in Tokyo family living, everyone tends to gather in one room. We are also taking care of my wife’s mother in the late stages of Parkinson’s disease and almost completely immobile and unable to swallow properly.
It suits me for another purpose too, since I get bored with the same location, and like to mix things up, even getting down on the floor to play. Because play is what creativity should be all about anyway.
The ultimate goal one day would be to have everything you need in something as portable as a tablet, although it is hard to imagine being able to input notes and performances without something like the piano keyboard.
Anyway, I just want to shout out to the equipment that makes it all possible.
The Apple MacBook – that runs my virtual instruments from 8Dio and other software – Kontakt from Native Instruments. Cubase from Steinberg, and Sibelius from Avid. The very delightful and compact Focusrite Scarlett Solo is my audio interface. And the very well featured Oxygen Pro Mini from M-Audio is my keyboard. To that I add my Sennheiser HD650 headphones for monitoring, a powered USB hub to plug it all in, and an external 1TB SSD drive.
And finally, the very important cup of Ceylon tea.
