Visiting any artist at work is a privilege and in many ways feels like visiting Father Christmas in his grotto. The journey and the anticipation of what one will find heightens the nerves. In my career I have done this kind of trip many times. I remember when I visited the artist Tim Shelbourne for the first time. It was for a broadcast and involved a lot of equipment to set up and a long climb to his studio in the top room of his house. Surrounded by “works in progress” and a vast array of “stuff” The place gave me a feel for what drove Tim as a creative.
Tim has moved on and has replaced his brushes with a computer pallet and that change is something which is evident in Steve the sound artist’s studio as well. Looking around I observe a redundant piano keyboard and a rack 
of expensive looking guitars which are a little dusty. What does this tell me? That this is someone who once worked in the analogue but has moved at some point to the digital; however he will still retain the skills and feel that came with the playing of those tools.
Parts of the room resemble a space craft with screens and strange lights but this is no crisp work area neatly set out. I am sure there is some kind of logic to the spaghetti of cables but it’s a logic which only the artist will know. All manner of coloured wires connecting one flashing panel to the other. Steve goes through them at a million mile an hour telling me what they all do and I nod and make all the right noises hoping that he wont realise I have not a clue what he is talking about. A mix of science and art and probably some philosophy he turns knobs and the equipment makes strange sounds. I snatch a couple of unsatisfactory picture in the poor light.
Things calm and we settle into more familiar territory for me of creative sound, he plays me some of the work he is producing at the moment and I hand over the memory stick with all the Sound.ogg work. Some are on this website but not all and the uploaded ones are MP3. Steve, to retain the quality, needs WAVs.
Steve was keen to show a new module that he has bought which (in terms I think I understand!) would take a phrase and sample it but then replay it at a given time when told to do so by a wire connected from another module but the knobs on the front would let you make a sliding choice of when that sample would be taken and how long its duration would be! These are some demos from the website.
Its then I really started to get this. I am used to working in a Digital Audio Workstation and before that on magnetic tape. (that’s not me!) I bypassed this whole module part. Steve I realised was not using this kit like a computer this was an live process, a performance with this being the instrument.
He uses the computer as an input and output device and also Cubase as a post production tool. Any one interested in Cubase? there are copies at university and you can get a full version for free for 30 days if you fancy a try.
We tend to use mostly Audition and Pro-tools but really a producer or artist needs to be familiar if not an expert on a range of systems.
Steve wasnt keen on me recording video I could tell but I bluffed my way through and captured this almost secret footage on my Ipad hence the poor quality.
We also had an interesting chat about a piece of work he produced looking at electronic pollution which we listened to commenting on the manipulation of voice and the moods within this extended item.
I hope to have that to play to you soon but its does have some similarities which this John Butcher work.
Steve is going to upload the Sound.ogg files to his system this coming week and then start working through isolating samples and getting a feel for how the new composition will move.