Introduction

Although the purpose of this blog is mostly to reflect on the knowledge gained from our Sound Design module and its application in our own work, I thought it'd be good for the readers to know a little about me and my experiences as a digital musician. My name is Jake Ashton, and I'm 24 years old. I started my musical journey playing bass in a band with two of my best friends when we were 13. As we progressed through various band names and a cast of other players over the next ten years, I expanded my roles to guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, and eventually recording engineer/producer for our last few demos as St Ranger. Attached below is a link to our bandcamp. I recorded the songs "Skate Park Drunk," "Swoon," "Right On," and "Cannonball Jamaal" at a house in Phoenix, Arizona we were renting at the time, using a Tascam US 1800 interface, a cheap drum mic set (with the exclusion of an Audix I9 dynamic mic on the snare and an AKG D112 on kick), a Rode NT1A for vocals/guitar, and Ableton Live 8.

St Ranger "Skate Park Drunk/Swoon"

St Ranger "Right On/Cannonball Jamaal"

Following the demise of St Ranger, I began making demos of my own songs/ideas. Although I consider myself a digital musician interested in traditions rooted in pitch, rhythm, and timbre, I definitely have a sweet spot for the more clasically-inclined pitch class of composers. 60s pop music and particularly that of Brian Wilson, is hugely influential to me, and I think you can certainly hear that in my music. These were all recorded into Ableton (with the exception of Be Around in Garageband) using only the internal mic on my macbook and occasionally MIDI instruments.

My Soundcloud

Hopefully, this first post will give the readers a bit of context for the rest of my entries as I continue my journey as a digital musician.