Three Questions With Dan Deacon
Next up in the 3Qs Series is the amazing musician and composer Dan Deacon! He was kind enough to list off some of his music-making essentials.
He recently composed the music for the new Netflix film, Little Brother, starring John Cena and Eric André. Link.
Without further ado…
Synth History: What are your top three pieces of gear of all time?
Dan Deacon:
Bösendorfer ENSPIRE PRO
When I first came across a Disklavier, I feel like it fundamentally changed the way I thought about making computer music. I was on my first big-as in people actually came to the shows-tour, I think it was 2007, and had a show in White Fish, Montana. I was staying at Snow Ghost Studios as a guest of Bret, who runs the incredible studio there. I had no idea MIDI-controlled acoustic pianos existed. I had already started writing my album Bromst, but the night spent at that studio changed the entire trajectory. I've been fascinated with them ever since, and they have been a vital instrument on all my studio albums since 2009 and featured heavily in nearly all my films and ballets. Shout out to Conlon Nancarrow for inspiring my obsession with mechanical instruments in college.
ARP 2600
There is no synth I play more than my ARP 2600. There are other synths I use more on my records and scores, but the ARP is set up at all times in my studio, and it's where I try to spend my time away from writing for a reason. The built-in speakers are really what do it for me when I need to riff a little and let my mind wander. It brings me a lot of joy to play it for no reason other than the enjoyment of it. It's a pretty freeing feeling knowing it's just an ephemeral patch for that moment, not for a project or presentation. It feels like a river, always different and changing. I always feel like I have no idea what's happening and I'm just floating along for the ride. I am somehow still terrible at it, but I try not to beat myself up over it.
My computer
I'm a computer musician at my core. I got into composing music through MIDI Soft v1.0 on a beige DOS-booting Windows 3.1 machine. I got into processing audio using the PC mic and computer speakers to record feedback in Sound Recorder. I fell in love with synthesis because of the FM synth feature in Sound Forge 4.5 while in high school. I started making beats on Fruity Loops 2, then Reason 2.5, and now Ableton. My computer was my entire studio for years and is still the centerpiece of my entire musical identity. I can't think of a more vital piece of gear in my studio than my computer. I know a sick vintage piece of hardware is probably a better answer, but this is more honest. Computers are also a terrible riddle. The advancing, designed obsolescence and changing nature of both hardware and software shape my work and beguile my process at once. It’s confounding to have my primary instrument change every few months: the hardware, the software, everything. If I got a new piano, it would still play all my music the same, and I could sit down and play it just fine, unlike my computer, which can often be a black hole with OS updates or worse, switching to a new system. It wouldn't randomly vanish in the middle of flowing inspiration like a computer does when it crashes. I've kept all my old systems, even if I stripped them of the hardware and mounted their drives in drive bays, I love seeing them on the shelf. Like feel like old journals and seeing them remind me of music I made with them, the tours we went on, the festivals they crashed, all the times good and bad.
Synth History: What are some of your current go-tos in the studio?
Dan Deacon: I use an Ohrlabs dB meter pretty much all the time. Since I write so many hours a day, I try to mix quieter to avoid fatigue, and having this little LED readout right in front of me keeps me in check. When we were tracking Little Brother at Evergreen Thor Fienberg, the Orchestra Recordist brought one and put it on the desk, and it was such a solid move to make sure our ears didn’t fatigue while doing critical listening. I try to remember to throw it in my bag whenever I’m going to work in a new room.
The 4-710d Four-Channel Preamps have been getting the most use lately in my new space and in my mobile record rack. It's overkill and too heavy for my mobile rig, but I’m just really into them and love having the matching tone as my first 4 channels at home.
The Earthworks PM40 Piano Mic System has been my favorite mic to use when tracking piano. I first used them a few years ago for the Become A Mountain Ballet at Juilliard for the Disklavier they had, and I really loved how they sounded on the super dense parts. I try to backline them whenever they are available.
I try to look out the window as much as possible and take my eyes off the screen. There's something about the micro chaos of slightly breezing leaves that dealigns my mind from the loop I’m in and shifts my thinking.
Synth History: What is inspiring you the most right now?
Dan Deacon: After years of planning and setbacks, I’m finally in a new studio space I designed and built out with my friend Nick Wiznewski. It's a writing room with a reasonable amount of isolation. I didn't have the money or the space for perfection, but I couldn't be happier with the space. It's really awakened a part of me that's been sleeping since before 2020. I wasn’t really thinking about another album until I set up my desk in here, and now it's constantly on my mind and in the works.
Synth History Exclusive.
Photos Micah Ewood.
