I’m ashamed to admit that this experiment starts with a bit of stupidity on my part. It turns out that merely buying the North American > European adapter doesn’t mean that all of your American electronics will work in Iceland. There are also different voltages (North America = 110 volts; Europe = 220 volts). I think I knew this, but since many modern devices, like laptops, are dual-voltage, I didn’t think as much about it as I should have.

So, on first test-run of my ART preamp, I fried it (or, ideally, just blew a fuse). This resulted in a pretty length hike around Reykjavik in search of a suitable replacement–this time a USB-powered preamp. Stuff is generally pretty expensive here, so I had to check a few different places before deciding (not surprisingly) on the Apogee One. After an hour and a half of walking to exchange a faulty input, I finally had a little time to experiment with my very limited toolset: an acoustic guitar, some drum sticks, my laptop, and the One (I also found an old electric guitar at the Residency we’re staying at–but haven’t tested it yet). This is a lot different from being in my basement studio, but sort of a refreshing challenge.

I made this up as I went, and only spent about an hour or two on it, but here’s the first experiment with my current setup:

Iceland Experiment #1