Night shifts black

I catch Luke’s quick grin and headshake to himself as he observes the same thing I do. He doesn’t comment either, however, and only places the small keyboard on the table. He begins unloading the other equipment from the case, which includes two small boxes with knobs and holes, a foot pedal, and two microphones. Finally. Microphones I recognize. There are also several coils of cables that he stacks neatly beside the rest.

By now Casey has his acoustic guitar assembled and slung over his shoulder. He’s picking and strumming, and even I can see and hear the difference between this one and the one he’s been playing in the suite. He seems much more at home now, more comfortable, and the clean, rich tone makes it obvious how much the inferior instrument was holding him back. I find myself getting excited to hear this guitar do our song justice.

“So do we get to hear this new masterpiece or what?” Eli asks, and Casey almost seems startled from his rendezvous with the guitar.

“What? Oh. No, not yet. I want to do a quick scratch track for you. I’ll record something right after we eat.” He thinks for a moment. “Actually, yeah, sorry, I’ll set up in the office,” he directs to Luke who nods.

“So secretive,” Sweeny teases.

Casey shakes his head. “Nah, it’s not that, it’s just, we’re further than concept, and what we’ve got is too complex to get the feel from the acoustic alone. I want to layer in the keys and some strings and pads, too. Oh! Plus, Luke wrote this awesome lick for you, Sweeny. You’re go

Sweeny seems impressed, and Luke shrugs.

“Now, I wish we’d brought the Les Paul,” Sweeny mumbles, and Casey gives him a smile.

“It’s fine. This is fine. I can layer in an electric and some percussion samples so you get the idea.”

I’m trying desperately to follow their conversation and keep the baffled look from my face. I look again at the table, which has one tiny keyboard and two small boxes. There can’t be more than 50 keys on the thing, and yet Casey’s talking about recording a whole orchestra in the office. There seem to be more buttons and levers on the keyboard than actual piano keys, so maybe that has something to do with it, but I doubt it. I’m so confused.

“Can I help?” I ask, more to remind him of my existence than anything.

He smiles and starts toward the table. “Yeah, great! Grab those boxes and cables and put them in the office. I’ll get my laptop and the controller.”

“Controller?”

“The keyboard,” he explains, and I nod. That makes sense. I guess. Or not.

I can hear the other guys resume the conversation without us, and focus on my assignment. I gather the equipment, as requested, and follow Casey toward the office.

He’s already begun arranging the keyboard on the desk and has his laptop fired up to the right.

“Can you pass me the USB cable?” he asks. “Yeah, the little one there.”

I nod and hand him what looks like a cable I’d use to hook up my printer.

He plugs it into the keyboard and co

“You’ve been calling it a controller more than a keyboard. Why?”

He continues his setup as he answers. “Because that’s all it is. It actually doesn’t do anything on it’s own. It’s like a mouse or keyboard for your computer.”

“Huh?”

He stops and waves me over. I can see it’s taking incredible patience for him to stop his eager preparations to explain, but I really want to understand.

“Listen,” he says, and starts pressing the keys as though he’s playing a song.

I see that the display on the keyboard is lit and numbers are flashing, but I don’t hear a sound.

“I don’t hear anything,” I say, and he smiles.

“Exactly. It doesn’t make any sounds. All the sounds are generated by the computer. This thing is just a fancy joystick really.” He laughs. “These days you have to be more of a computer programmer than a musician to make music.”

I stare at him in awe. I had no idea.

“Can you show me?” I ask, fascinated.

He seems excited again, and I love watching his passion come to life. He navigates around his laptop, and soon I’m staring at a program that covers the screen with lots of small boxes and even more empty space. I still don’t understand what’s happening, but wait patiently as he clicks and moves around with a casual expertise.

“Ok, hang on a sec.” He glances around the desk as if searching for something, and then grunts. “Do you have headphones? I’d let you use mine but they’re custom for my ears so you won’t be able to hear very well. I was hoping they’d have external speakers in here but they don’t and the built-in speaker won’t do it justice.”

I nod. “I do in my bag. I’ll go get them.”

“Ok, great. I’ll load some stuff for you to hear and get this set up.”

I grab my headphones from my room and return as quickly as possible. When I do, I see him hard at work, one hand on his laptop and the other playing the keyboard. I can see he has headphones in his own ears now and I’m not even sure he’s noticed I’ve returned.

I wave my hands to get his attention, and he pulls one out of his left ear.

“That looks like a high-tech hearing aide,” I comment, observing the molded earpiece dangling around his neck.

He grins. “It kind of is. Only a million times better. They’re called in-ear monitors. They’re custom fit to my ear so they fit perfectly. These babies have twelve drivers!”

I smile, knowing I’m supposed to be impressed by that, but I don’t know what a driver is.

“Ok,” I say. “These probably don’t.”

He laughs. “No probably not. It’s ok. You’ll still be able to hear this.”

He waves me over, and I hand him my headphones. He plugs the end into the laptop stereo jack, and I put the buds in my ears. My jaw drops when he starts playing. That tiny little machine on his desk has transformed into an entire band in my head.

I can tell he loves my expression, and his eyes are wild with excitement. He’s trying to talk to me again, so I pull out one of the headphones.

“Tell me an instrument you want to hear,” he repeats, and I think for a moment.

“Violin,” I say, remembering his other talent.

He nods, clearly happy about my choice, and I watch him move around his screen, adding things to boxes and blank space.

“Ok, now listen.”

I put the headphone back in, and he starts playing. The beautiful, simple melody ringing through my ears sounds exactly like a violin, down to the vibrato and hit of a bow on a string.

My eyes widen. “I can even hear the vibrato,” I whisper.

He laughs. “Tremolo, but yeah. How about this?”

He clicks more buttons and starts playing again. This time the sound is fuller, another stringed instrument has joined in a duet. He clicks some more, and next thing I know I’m listening to an entire strings section playing a steady, syncopated riff that changes its rhythm as he moves a button on his screen.

“That’s amazing,” I exclaim. “It sounds just like an orchestra!”

He nods. “And check this out.”

He clicks some more buttons, and now I hear an acoustic guitar strumming along. I glance around the room, still unable to believe he’s doing all of that with this little keyboard.

I laugh. “You don’t even need an actual band anymore, do you. You could record an entire song with just this thing!”

He shrugs and grins as I pull out my headphones. “A lot of people do that actually. There’s a huge advantage to recording in midi. You’re basically converting sounds to data, which allows you to do anything you want with them. I can record a riff on the keys and make it sound like a trombone. Then decide I want it to be a cello, instead. Then decide I want to turn it into a loop and copy and paste it a hundred times, or just have it play once and tell it to repeat. I can quantize it, level volumes, even alter specific notes if I don’t like the way something modulates without re-recording anything.”