Studio Essentials: Glenn Morrison

Glenn Morrison has been a crucial part of Canadian dance music fora little over a decade. The Toronto born artist found himself in the spotlight thanks to music on labels like Mau5trap and Blackhole, though after years of both personal and professional growth, his sound has taken a sharp turn towards the underground.

More recent releases with Natura Viva, Timeless Moment and Ambient Wave Records have given Morrison a new audience, one the has certainly flourished in front of. Alongside his own original music, he also works as a mastering engineer and runs several labels, including the Fall From Grace imprint.

With so much experience throughout different areas of the industry, we’re pleased to welcome Glenn to our studio essentials series, where he mentions Barefoot studio monitors, an outboard compressor from Shadow Hills, and more.

Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor

I have known Peter Reardon for many years now, him and Stephanie have always treated me so well with their new gear. I love everything they make, and I am a big pusher of this product to my other studio friends. Quality wise it is on another level, you have dual stage compression with Discrete and Optical sections, tonally it is phenomenal.

I highly recommend if you bite the bullet and get one of these, to also get the Shadow Hills Equinox summing mixer. Just buy everything Peter invents – he is the modern day Dick Tracey of inventors. My records for years have had a distinct ‘Shadow Hills’ flavour to them.

Barefoot MicroMain 27’s

Absolutely wonderful monitors which have carried me for years – when we are all pursuing sonic excellence, the subtleties of the listening environment can be of great importance during the creating process, as well as for post production.

Coupled with an accomplished acoustician to make sure your room environment is accurate – the Barefoot’s are a wonderful compliment. Perhaps I am biased, I was one of their first customers many years ago, with a serial number in the 50’s. For clean, powerful transparent monitoring, go with Barefoot.

Chandler TG 1 Zener Limiter

A wonderful piece which has colouration and it is based on those vintage EMI circuits used in Pink Floyd and Beatles records is the TG 1 Chandler Zener Limiter – when we are dealing in all sorts of sound design, especially when it pertains to electronic music compositions, having unique textures and sonic characteristics separates the quality artists from the common herd. I use this on tons of my records, for drums especially it packs a nice analog warm club essence.

Intellijel Metropolis

One of the most creative new pieces I’ve added to my studio, the Intellijel team over in Canada is fantastic with their inventions. I am constantly jamming HARD with this multi stage sequencer – for techno and club records it is ridiculous. Quantization scales, multi stage and step pattern sequencing – this is definitely how I get a certain rave sound in my own personal records.

For me the future of electronic music composition lies within the Eurorack and modular world and Intellijel’s team and company makes unbelievable products. They have been very kind to me throughout my modular explorations as well and I love their customer service.

4MS Spherical Wavetable

Creative, fun, inspiring, unusual – all of these describe my first jam session weekend with this new Eurorack synthesizer I received recently. It’s essentially a six channel synthesizer with independant pitch, level and waveform controls. For me, it’s super useful for metallic, bubbling drone or arpeggiated harmonies. For anybody who has an interest in melodic based electronic music, this is a secret weapon.

Aside from the five pieces of gear I would also personally like to give a massive thank you to those who help me with my gear decisions and getting the studio gear. Firstly my 10+ year studio tech Mario Gauvreau over at Studio Economik in Montreal, Canada, also Frances and Heidi at Moog Audio in Toronto, as well as Jeffrey Ehrenbergh at Vintage King in California and Trent T. over at Detroit Modular.

All of my dear friends and team who help make sure I get the unique pieces and rare gear that helps with my creativity and records. Sometimes things are hard to come by, and they are always around to help me in my musical journeys.