What piece of equipment do you have to show us today?
Roland Dimension D sdd-320.
How did you come across this particular item?
I read about it about 5 years ago when I started to explore vocal sound possibilities a little further than the standard reverb/delay type approach. There didn’t seem to be many around in Melbourne at the time, but always in Japan, but I found one at the shop in Carlton about 2 years ago and it cost $850, which I think is pretty standard.
What is that you like so much about it?
Well, it has 4 buttons. So, it’s either dimension 1,2,3, or 4. I take a very naïve approach to recording music, so that fact really works for me. But, the sound of the thing is incredible if a fantasy world is what you hope to create.
How do you use it, and how has it shaped the way you write music?
I take it everywhere – each time I record, and every show. Sometimes we just get the live engineer to place it over the whole over the whole band, actually that’s my preference. I hear that it’s ultimately a Chorus effect, but I feel saying it like that just cheapens the work that Roland did to create this thing.
Any other interesting points/stories about it?
You can hear it on a lot of hit songs, it pops up in all matter of places. It’s not a ‘magic box’ but it’s a very interesting piece of equipment. I thought about selling it a few months ago, and I mentioned so to my buddy as he was picking it up from the back seat of my car, and the arm broke off it then and there.. it doesn’t want to be sold!
When’s the next show?
The next shows are in Adelaide on November 25 at Crown & Sceptre, Sydney on December 5 at the Bearded Tit and Brisbane January 17 at The Triffid.
Head to www.facebook.com/timguymusic for more details.
