Dan Mangan's Desk Notes
Legendary folk artist Dan Mangan gives us an annotated tour of his desk and studio.
I’ve recorded a lot of music in my little basement studio - albums, singles, soundtracks. It’s also the quietest part of the house (except for the hum of the gear), so it’s a place I can get work done when my kids are going insane upstairs. When I was a young musician, I dreamed of one day having my own studio. It’s not large, and it’s not perfect, but it’s mine, and I love it.
1. Mid 60’s Gibsen ES-125: The perfect hollow-body electric. It’s all over Natural Light, both as an electric guitar or as a mic’d acoustic guitar.
2. Analog Drum Machines: the CR-78 and CR-8000 have different strengths. When recording with a band, we never use clicks, but when I’m tracking something at home that I want to send to a drummer, it’s helpful if it’s to tempo. I hate recording to a traditional click, so I tend to record to the drum machines - it inherently gives some life and nuance to whatever is happening on top of it, even if you remove it later.
3. Yamaha E1010: My favourite analog delay module. Jason Haberman had one of these when we were tracking Natural Light and I immediately sourced one as soon as I came home.
4. Tell Your Friends hat: Tell Your Friends is a great little cafe on Bowen Island. Our friends own it. I’m telling internet friends about it right now.
5. Oblique Strategies: A set of idea generation cards designed by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt. Used to spur creativity when feeling dry.
6. Laptop stand: So I don’t have a hunchback in my old age (note the TLOBF Kate Hutchinson Desk Notes I was looking at for reference)
7. Roland SH-2: This thing sounds amazing. Can use it for bass, or for lead. It’s got a milky nostalgic longing to it.
8. 50’s Harmony acoustic-turned-electric guitar: I played this Frankenstein hunk of garbage for hundreds of shows. I put a P-90 pickup in a crappy old $50 guitar. It honestly sucks. It’s got terrible action and it feeds back like crazy.
9. Electro-Harmonix Memory Man pedal: fun for re-amping tracks. I don’t like it as much as the Yamaha E1010, but it’s got a particular vibe to it that is unique.
10. Echo Fix EF-X2: Not as good as a real old RE-201 Tape Echo, but it was cheap on marketplace and I’ve used it a bunch. Fun outboard item.
11. Hawk HR-45: This is another piece of gear I ripped straight from Jason Haberman who mixed Natural Light. My vocals are running through this on nearly every song. It doesn’t have a long decay but it’s got this incredible gritty distorted verb echo. Hard to find. Had to have it shipped from Japan.
12. Zelda sheet music: My son Hayden takes piano lessons down here so there’s always stacks of notation paper with random songs on it, notated by his amazing teacher “Chrisariffic”
13. $5 felted piano: Literally bought $5 of felt at a store and used gaff tape to attach it to the piano. Works like a charm!
14. Concertmate MG-1: One of the most unique and rad little synths. Mike O’Brien played one on No Such Thing As Wasted Love and Soapbox. I love it.
15. Catholic candle. I’m not Catholic but a nun gave me this candle after attending one of my shows about fifteen years ago. I thought it was so absurd and hilarious and awesome that a nun came to my concert with some paraphernalia in hand.
16. Baldwin Fun Machine: Cheap old organ from the 70s. Jason had just picked one up before we went to his cabin and it is ALL OVER Natural Light. Within a few months of returning home, everyone else in the band had sourced one.
17. Random old guitars: I have some beautiful guitars, but I also have a lot of crappy old guitars. I love crappy old guitars because they’re cheap and they have character. Sometimes they’re awful and you leave them on the boulevard in front of your house and then somebody else gets to discover their crappiness.
18. Yamaha CS-60: This thing is incredible. I’ve used it on so many recordings. I bought it cheap from Ryan Dahle many years ago. One of my best ever gear purchases.
Dan Mangan is a Juno Award-winning Canadian artist (and legend). Hailing from BC with seven LPs behind him, he’s become a fixture on the country’s folk scene. He also writes a wonderful Substack. His latest record, Natural Light, is out now.