I make most of my electroacoustic music by hand, by eye, and by ear. I piece together sounds processed by software and combine them with unusual, often home-made, instruments performed live in public or ensconced inside my studio.
No single platform suffices for me just yet: I run Windows, Apple, and Linux machines. I favor my XP box as my beloved Adobe Audition 3.0.1 (versions 4/CS5 and 5/CS6 remain inferior, even after 5 years!) and Sound Forge (which I beta-tested from 3.0 to 4.0) remain too embryonic for the Mac.
I’m impressed by Logic and recommend it for those running OS X. As for ProTools, I use it occasionally despite serious flaws (laughably vague metering, version-frozen file formats, no stereo editor) and only when I suppress my grave reservations about a company all too willing to sterilize the upgrade path for longtime users.
I use an assortment of bundled, freeware, and shareware plug-ins along with lots of apps and utilities like GranuLab and SPEAR. Rather than worry whether reverb X is better than reverb Y, I study my tools thoroughly; some demand a decade or more to master.
I inherited a small trove of acoustic instruments from my grandfather, Peter DeLaurenti Sr., who led an accordion school in the 1930s and rented out band instruments at DeLaurenti Music for over four decades. (Grandpa sometimes crops up in the above header image wielding a baton!) I also have an assortment of instruments found and salvaged at garage sales, on the street, and at thrift stores. I make a few things too. I believe all objects, ideas, and processes are musical instruments awaiting a master – or at least a sincere explorer.
