“This is an Omnichord that’s been left out in the rain”: St. Vincent offers a tour of her studioSt. Vincent has offered a tour of her studio, pulling back the curtain on her creative space and her fondness for so-called “terrible” gear.
In a recent studio tour with Reverb, the Grammy-winning artist and producer takes viewers inside her world of songwriting, recording, and the sometimes-questionable instruments she has collected over the years.

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During the tour, the musician — real name Annie Clark — describes how she went through a phase of “thrifting” gear and the occasional gems she discovered while messing around with some of those underappreciated instruments
“I had a period of time where I was [doing] the Reverb equivalent of thrifting,” she says. “I was like, ‘I know people think that these are terrible machines but I’m going to prove that they’re great!’”
One such machine was the Roland MC-303, a groovebox that has often been dismissed by musicians and producers for its limited sound capabilities. St. Vincent admits that while she initially hoped to find hidden potential in the device, reality didn’t quite match her expectations.
“And then you get them, and you’re like, ‘Oh no, this is kind of terrible,’” Still, she found a way to make it work. After “hours of scrolling through presets” on the MC-303, she managed to incorporate a sound from it into Big Time Nothing, a track from her latest album All Born Screaming.
“I can’t show you because it’s totally broken,” she laughs, “but it’s also not worth repairing.”
Elsewhere, St. Vincent also shows off an Omnichord — the cult favourite Suzuki instrument from the ’80s – that’s been “left out in the rain”, though she insists it “doesn’t matter” because like the MC-303, “it’s totally broken”.
“I used this a lot – I overused this – on [my second album] Actor.”
That said, much as she enjoys messing around in the studio, St. Vincent admits that her true passion lies in songwriting.
“Sometimes doing this stuff is a distraction from sitting down and writing the song I know I need to write,” she says. “My main passion, no matter how I get there, is actually writing songs. That is immensely harder than dicking around in the studio all day.”

Last year, St. Vincent told producers to be cautious when relying too heavily on plugins, warning: “They have flashy interfaces that make you think they’re doing more than they’re actually doing”.
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