Runestone Studio Tour

The Runestone studio started out as two spare rooms and a hobby that has been allowed to run out of control.

Computer technology has now replaced the need for many of the traditional sound processing devices with their endless tangles of audio leads and power adapters “wall warts” that used to be commonplace. However, some favourite instruments and devices have come to be like old friends over the years because of their distinctive sound qualities. Runestone has developed a hybrid set-up to support its own way of writing and this section describes the whole writing process as opposed to a straight inventory of equipment.

Runestone albums tend to develop around the idea of an imaginary journey through a landscape that we both sit down and talk about at the start. This involves drawing up rough sketch-maps, locations, storyboards, events, rites or environmental factors to be encountered along that journey. We have fun with this part of the process and have found it invaluable in setting scenes in a highly visual way, which allows both of us to think about the sounds we are going to use and to fully understand the imagery before the writing starts.

Of course, this always involves drinking lots of tea and the

Teapot has come to be regarded as one of the most

important items of equipment in our studio.

One day we’d like to write a page about the virtues of tea

because it plays such a key role in our writing process

but for now, we’ll stick to the main point . . .