We are feeling incredibly grateful for the Arts Council's Cultural Recovery Fund grant that we were awarded in November, and we’re using some of the award to upgrade our digital equipment and capabilities, so that young people who take part in our projects get to use professional standard kit.

So far, we’ve invested in a Macbook Pro with Logic (Logic is Digital Audio Workstation software), a Rode microphone kit, some very lovely Genelec monitor speakers, and the interface boxes we need to plug everything together. It’s a mini travelling studio and will work alongside our existing resources, like our iPads (and all the apps provided on them) and Ableton Live (a different Digital Audio Workstation). We’re doing some behind the scenes upgrades too, to make sure they are as good for us as they possibly can be.

A Digital Audio Workstation is software that is used to record, edit and produce music, building layer by layer and adding different effects to get the final result creators want. Recording is done by using different instruments (digital samples or recorded ‘live’ instruments), and each layer can be enhanced with effects, like reverb, to create the whole.

Here’s an Ableton screenshot of a work in progress, showing a sample (from Doom Eternal, in peach) and a pads track (in purple) where you can clearly see the ‘notes’ in use:

Down the left hand side you can see a list of effects that are available for use. It looks complicated – and it does take some getting to grips with - but that’s what our Music Leaders do... They help our participants navigate, they explain and support so that young people create the best work they can, with the most up to date software that we can provide.