After the first keyboard arrangements have been recorded, it's time to think about adding some Guitars.

Guitars have long been a signature sound of Runestone and are used to compliment, or in preference to sampled alternatives. During the last couple of years Mandolins, Mandola, Native American flutes and a few items of hand percussion have joined the party. Keyboards are great for backgrounds and textures but we believe acoustic instruments add a touch of uniqueness and an expressive dimension to a piece of music that keyboards can’t quite attain.

All of the acoustic instruments photographed on this website have featured on our albums.
 
The downside of acoustic instruments is that they are technically harder to record than keyboards. Depending on the sound we want to achieve, we use an array of effects processors, compressors, microphones or acoustic pickups.

For any tekkies out there, we currently find the following list of kit useful:- SE Electronics Z3300A and Shure Beta Green 4 microphones, Korg AX10A acoustic guitar processor, Boss Compressors, Lexicon & Peavey FX processors, Alesis Quadreverb GT FX processor, Mackie analogue mixer, Cubase and, of course

  . . . . the Teapot