Equipment I use

All my music is produced in my home studio which has evolved over the past 14 years from a Technics electric piano and a Casio CZ101, then a Yamaha PSS790 portable keyboard (first item I bought myself) to the equipment above.

The Mixer Central to operations is a Behringer 18 channel rack mount console which I am very happy with due to it's flexibility and low noise. This replaced a home-built 14 channel mixing console which added its own sound to many of my tracks! In my older songs the noise is quite audible in the background as French radio signals that the mixer seemed quite good at picking up - especially at around 8 - 9.00PM! I later found that the 'radio effect' in the mixer was controlled by being located directly above a hot radiator, in the end, I moved it away so it was colder, quieter and happier!

The latest addition is the Access Virus TI (Total integration) synth. This best is totally full of really lovely usable sounds. There are knobs and controls everywhere and a nicely pulsating set of LEDs on the front :) The TI means it can integrate with the music PC on USB, looking like a VSTi in Cubase or whatever. Very powerful.

The Korg Z1 I love my Z1 she produces such lovely sounds which are rich and powerful and can be varied in so many ways in real time. I tend to use her mainy for leads and basses and almost always record the parts to audio on VST for playback allowing me to use the full FX designated with the presets. This would not be necessary with Trinity.

The Korg 01/W The Korg 01/W was the first 'professional' piece of eqipment I used and though it was very infuential in my early music, is these days mainly used as a mother keyboard, lending the odd sound here and there.

The Roland JV1080 The JV1080 is used mostly as is has many excellent 'bread and butter' sounds in addition to many fancy sounds. I have expanded mine with the techno collection, the hip hop collection and now the house collection boards giving a massive and widely varying library of dance related sounds. Lovely :)

The Novation Bass Station Bought at the same time as the JV, the Bass station marked a turning point for my music. For years I had struggled trying to produce analogue sounds using digital synths, including the Casio CZ101, VZ10M and I even built my own analogue filter and suddenly I could control all the sound parameters by MIDI! The Novation has added it's characteristic sound to many of my songs - no surprise there.

The Moog Prodigy What can I say. I love the Moog. I love the Moog. no really, I don't need councelling. Who doesn't love a Moog. (well there are probably many lovers of other vintage kit out there but I only have a Moog!) Since I first heard that Bass I was hooked. Now, where's the nearest modular...

Aug 2006