Workspace and Environment: The Depreciation Guild

Some news first before our next post. Justin and I will be in Los Angeles. I'm not exactly sure when Justin will be there, but I will be there form the 16th to the 30th. We have a few things to accomplish. I will be playing a show with Eustachian, Captain Ahab, Richard Devine and The Flashbulb, though I do not know which alias I will be using. Also Richard Devine is going to be at the Access Virus booth during Namm through the 17th-20th, we're trying to sneak our way in. Also, I plan to finally meet the guys at Analog Haven after spending a good amount of my money and time with their products. I'll more specifics about the gig and my plans as they come in. So enough with the plans. We have The Depreciation Guild who have a beautiful free album. The link is in the article.

Kurt Feldman of The Depreciation Guild

Background
I started playing guitar when I was 8. I was in my first band at age 10 and I've been in too many to count since then. For the stuff that I do now, I guess I started programming NES chiptunes in May of 2003, but The Depreciation Guild didn't form as a band until August 2005. Born in NYC, lived upstate for a while, moved back to nyc for college. i've lived in greenpoint now for a year and a half.
Christoph lived in LA until he went to college in the city. We met at New York University. He moved to greenpoint about 6 months ago. I've had the same setup in pretty much every space I've lived in. It hasn't really changed, other than the addition of the famicom and a fancy iMac last year, which we use for recording.

On Hardware
Our current hardware is a (mint condition) Japanese Famicom from 1986 and a more recently manufactured cartridge made by TerraNova Systems that reads memory off of SD cards instead of EPROM. It's our favorite because it's actually the only piece of hardware we use (besides guitars and amps).

On Software
We only use one software which is a DOS native program called Nerdtracker II. This is the program that outputs the Nintendo Sound Format code which we load onto our Famicom. It's essentially a sequencer for Win98 DOS, but you have to type in every note manually on the computer keyboard and there's no copy and paste function nor is there any way to connect a midi controller. We don't use any synths to compose our songs. Oh also, when we record, we dump everything into Pro Tools.

Workspace and Environment
The workspace where we rehearse and where I compose the songs is the office in my apartment, so I guess it's pretty convenient. I might be checking my email and then have this melody idea, so I can just pick up my guitar and record it. And since we both live a few blocks from each other in greenpoint, it's really easy for us to rehearse and transport gear when necessary.

Extra Curricular
I play drums in The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart (the guitarist of that band is also my roommate) and Christoph also plays guitar in Tropic Of Nelson.

Remember Your First Piece of Gear?
It was a cheap nylon string guitar when I was 8.

Wishlist
....Does a digital camera count?

Mobile Setup
I have a really bad laptop. it's missing a lot of keys, but it can run nerdtracker so I guess that counts as being mobile right? For live performances I use 2 guitar amps, 2 guitars, A Famicom, 2 vocal mics, several effects pedals.

Why is Your Album Free?
We think we've made an album that sounds refreshing and progressive in its musical approach, so holistically, we wanted this to carry over to the way we distributed it. We're not naive to the direction the music industry is headed and the declining role of the record label and physical product (more specifically CDs). We're a relatively new band with no other goals other than to make great pop music and have as many people possible hear it and love it, and so far we've found the "free" model to work surprisingly well.

You can download their first album for free at inhergentlejaws.com. Also, they have a few songs you can grab for free at 8bitpeoples.com.