INTRO
Hey, I’m Tutara Peak - a producer and songwriter from the United Kingdom. I write songs that combine genres such as electronica, post-rock, and shoegaze. Since starting the Tutara Peak project, my studio has slowly started to populate with new gear, inspiring new workflows. Here's a list of my favourite equipment and the various reasons why I enjoy each piece.
FENDER AMERICAN DELUXE HSS STRATOCASTER
I picked this guitar up 10 years ago and it was literally love at first sight. The first time I played this in the shop, I remember feeling like I could play better than I actually could, that’s a special connection to an instrument so I had to get it. Since then, I haven’t purchased another electric as the Fender caters to all my needs of tone with its various pickup selections.
MODULAR SYNTH
I’ve been slowly building this synth over the past year, and it’s taught me a lot about what I’d love to see in the design of an electronic instrument. I’m not so interested in standard subtractive synth designs using oscillators into filters. That’s why I wanted to design a synth that sounds like an organic instrument and represents my creative workflow all housed in one unit. This modular is comprised of various natural-sounding synth voices (representing the organic instrumentation I love), being sequenced by a random sequencer (representing the way I come up with melodies and musical passages), and to bring it into the sound design world I have a granular sampler that is recording everything (representing the sampling process of my music). I have quite a short attention span and like to keep things moving when exploring sounds and I'm able to drastically change an entire patch at the touch of a button. Having this sort of control keeps me excited and I've found it's only possible within the modular format.
MONOME NORNS FATES
Over the past year, the Norns has become somewhat of an extension of my electronic music brain. In a nutshell, it’s a small computer with audio ins and outs that proves quite flexible; however, I enjoy focusing its power on visual feedback. Using this device has changed a lot of the way I work with electronic music but more importantly how I interact with traditional electronic music processes. I interact with the Norns by pairing it alongside 2 Novation Launchpad Mini’s which act as an 8x16 grid. It has various applications (or Scripts as they are called) which range from full synthesisers, 3 track samplers/loopers, live audio processors and even sequencers based on the stock exchange! It’s been a fun way to process some of my recorded material. I would usually take one of the many random instruments I’ve collected and record them into this so I can chop it up in unique ways, then by that point I usually have a starter for a song.
TEENAGE ENGINEERING OP-Z
While having not owned this for very long, it has quickly found its place within my workflow. Primarily, it’s an 8-track sequencer and synthesiser/sampler however I don’t find the sounds this thing can make too inspiring. Instead, I treat this sort of like a Swiss Army knife. When I visited LA this year, I could only bring a small amount of gear and an audio interface wasn’t going to make the cut. As the OP-Z has inputs and outputs, I hooked this up to a laptop and used it to interface between my computer and other external gear within the DAW. It also has an onboard mic which I’ve used to sample and record various things on the fly, straight into the DAW. It’s this combination that makes me see the value in always having this around, plus it fits in my pocket quite nicely so if I’m away from the studio and bored, it’s much more productive to procrastinate on this as opposed to my phone!
NOTEBOOK
By far the most important tool I use is my notebook. It’s such an essential piece of equipment for me as my memory is never the best and I always have to write things down to remember them. If I’m working on an early concept for a song and I have ideas overflowing, I try to explain them all as best I can in my notebook so I can come back to them when I’ve exhausted my creative drivers for the day. It helps keep the inspiration flowing through each song because I can pick up where my brain left off even if that session was a week ago. My notebook is also a tool I use to capture any inspiration that I come across in life, any questions that I ask myself that I don’t know the answer to or even just writing things like “what would the light reflections in water sound like?”. Things that make me think a lot get the creative juices flowing. I strongly believe that having an idea in your head isn’t enough and technically doesn’t ‘exist’ until you put it into the physical world such as a melody, in writing or even in conversation.
Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me CPWM, I had a lot of fun showcasing some of my most beloved equipment. I've got some exciting announcements coming this year which I'll be sharing more details on soon. In the meantime, my next single featuring UK singer/songwriter/producer, Kinnship is out on Wednesday, Feb 1st. For all updates on the Tutara Peak project, you can follow me on Instagram, TikTok or Twitter @tutarapeak
