Hannah Lew Recommends

Musician and filmmaker Hannah Lew is next up in the Recommends Series. She lists some of her music-making essentials below!

Photos of Hannah Lew by Ginger Fierstein.

Without further ado…

Hannah Lew by Ginger Fierstein

Moog Rogue

This is the first instrument I ever owned!. My older brother gave it to me when I was 18. It had a broken power cord, which I got fixed at a local music store in NYC where I was living at the time. I learned anything I know about synthese from this simple synthesizer, just spending hours twisting knobs and experimenting. I love how it doesn't have a screen of any kind and it just reminds me of simpler times. 

Suzuki Omnichord

I've had my Suzuki Omnichord for a couple of decades. I imprinted hard with the instrument in a love at first sight kind of way. Songs just spill out of you when you sit with this thing. It's such an intuitive and Cronenberg-esque instrument. The tuning knob on my unit has been broken for a very long time, so it's pretty impossible for me to play the instrument along with other people. There's something solitary and poetic about this beautiful otherworldly instrument that I only play when I'm alone.

Juno 60

I love the arpeggios this synth makes. There's really great bass sounds too. Mine is on permanent loan from my friend Kristine. 

Sensory Deprivation

I love sunlight and being outdoors, but when I create music I like to be in a lacanian environment, kind of like a movie theater . I have a small window in my basement studio, but otherwise no natural light. It helps me enter into a dream state , where I can access my subconscious and channel songs. I like to be in a sort of vacuum , away from the outside world . Two walls in my studio are concrete and I like the dead sound of it. It feels safe like I'm in a bunker.

A Thesaurus

Language is very limited as a descriptor, and in general I think melody is more accurate at describing emotion.  Sometimes a feeling is a combination of several things and hearing the word for that specific concoction of feelings can be very validating. I try to think of many different ways to say a thing with as much specificity as possible. I also have one of those therapy emotion wheels on my wall, that breaks feelings and states into subsections. Language tries to give a name to feelings in a somewhat futile way, but I still like to use language as a tool to further convey and give more color to my melodies, which if they are good, carry most of the weight in conveying any point.

A pile of inspiring books 

 I use a lot of analogy in my lyrics and if I'm stumped, I sometimes like to open to a random page in one of the special books in this pile on my desk. There are some stories that have been motifs throughout my songwriting career. For example- I think I've written 10 songs that reference Italo Calvino's ' The Distance Of The Moon' from his book 'Cosmicomics'. It's just one of those stories that really stuck with me. I also have some anarchist literature , sci fi ,some film theory and philosophy books. 

SM58 microphone

Although I did record some of my vocals on some very fancy and expensive looking mics at Chris Coady's studio for my new record,  I recorded most of my vocals myself on my SM58 in my bunker studio. There is something so classic and utilitarian about this microphone that I love. I recorded all the guitar tracks ,micing amps with this mic. It just feels very punk and empowering to remember that you don't need a lot of fancy shit to create music. You need good songs and confidence in your ideas. You are the synthesizer of your ideas. 

A VHS Camera/ Video mixer

Sometimes I like to record things on my VHS camera while I'm working things out. The sound quality is actually pretty good! It's essentially a giant cassette. I've been playing with Analog video mixers and synthesizers lately as well, making music videos for myself and friends. It's an art form I'm returning to after many years of hiatus. For many years I made videos , mostly editing in Premiere just clicking away, but I've found my way back to video through the joy of video synthesis lately. 

A dedicated computer

I have a computer in my studio that I only use for audio recording and video editing. I write in Logic a lot. Since songwriting tends to be solitary for me, I like the ability to build layers, especially building arpeggios in Logic . I usually come up with a bass line and a vocal line simultaneously. I then rush to the computer to record my idea during the small window that it is fresh. I lay down a simple beat using Ultrabeat or from scratch if the beat idea is more specific. Then if words were not part of the original idea, I record gibberish placeholder vocals. I try to get as much recorded as possible in that initial moment, or it will be gone forever. I usually create layers and listen back to projects and listen back to iterations on end . There are a lot of pretty good soft synth plugins in Logic that I use a lot. Logic is great for people that don't have a million dollars to spend on real synthesizers, but still want to use classic sounds. I use a midi keyboard to get that practical joy of real performance within the program and I tend to use a pretty limited palette of sounds within Logic. 

TC Helicon Duplicator Vocal Pedal

This pedal has some cool effects built in and I originally got it to do wild octave stuff, But to me the best part is the simple tone knob. It just makes my vocals sound better, I'm not sure how. They dialed in some amazing EQ or something. I feel more like myself when I use this pedal, or at least the best version of myself.

Synth History Exclusive.

Conducted by Danz.

Photos by Ginger Fierstein.