Penny Blood Creators Desktop 03

Hello everyone, I’m Hirota, a composer. The truth is, I just moved the other day, so my room’s still a chaotic mess. But I thought this might be a good opportunity to show off my instruments, since they’re all out in the open.

The bass on the left is a 1969 Gibson EB-2D. It sounds deep and powerful. I’ve been using it as my main bass for several years now. Its body is hollow on the inside, so it has a relaxing acoustic sound. I always wanted to play a jet black EB-2D, so I painted over the original cherry red color.

The stringed instrument behind that is an E. 8 String Biwa. It’s an 8-string electric acoustic instrument designed to look like a biwa. The percussion instrument in front of that is an Arabian Darabuka. It’s used for things like belly dancing. I think the Darabuka has the most beautiful form of any instrument.

The dragon head you see in the back is the “Son,” a 3-string instrument from Thailand. It’s interesting in that the frets aren’t chromatic. In front of that is a Yamaha Classical Guitar. I don’t know the details on it, but it’s old and sounds good. Next to it is a Fender USA 1962 Jazz Bass. The instrument behind that with the swirly head that you can just barely see is an E. 6-string Syami. It’s a fretless electric acoustic instrument with three ‘strings’ each composed of multiple strings, for a total of six. There’s a thin snare head-esque thing pulled across the body. It makes interesting sounds whether you’re slapping it like a shamisen or using a pick.

The cello is something I received from the composer Nobuo Uematsu. I started practicing the cello after I became an adult, and it’s a very fun, deep instrument. You can’t see these, but there are also 4-string and 6-string fretless basses behind it.

Hmm… I can’t list everything. But they’re all important partners to me who’ve played a part in my previous works and Penny Blood.

Here are my flutes. The big one on the left is a didgeridoo, an Aboriginal instrument. The ones on the table are Asian panpipes. At the bottom we have: Chinese Minteki, Irish tin whistle, low whistle, Indian flute, Japanese Shinobue, a shakuhachi made from water pipes, alto recorder, etc.

At last, we finally have my desktop, the purpose of this article. The skull is my conversation partner. The hourglass helps me out a lot in my work. Even when I’m not in the mood to work, I can still concentrate for 15 minutes using the hourglass. Keeping up that pattern helps me work longer. Alarms don’t work for me…I prefer hourglasses. Behind that is a thermometer + hygrometer, which is very important for maintaining my instruments.

I prefer trackball mice. I’m using a really old one that doesn’t have a wheel.

I’m working on composing music for Penny Blood while surrounded by everything I love. Once I clean up my room and make it look even cooler, I hope you’ll take another look at it. I have even more instruments to show off, so I hope I can introduce them at another time.

Next time, you’ll get to see the desktop of Kaida Akari, another composer. I can’t wait to see it, and I hope you feel the same way!