FRIENDSHIP

DAN COY STUDIO SPEC

Studios tend to be as idionsyncratic as their owners, which in my case, is pretty extreme. I don't pretend to know very much at all about all the funky new software people are running on their lappies nowadays, my Studio being a bit 'old school' and hardware based. I'm lucky enough to have a bunch of the old classic Roland and other techno machines (starved for them tho'...) so a bit spoilt i guess, and the wierd little artifacts and tone of the originals still sound more interesting and organic than most of the software synths I've heard so far...But anyway, I originally compiled this list for my record label Bug-records, and since I'm raiding the vaults for content to throw up on the site, I though this might be of some slight interest to gear heads out there.

I tend to Run the Paris system initially just as a Multi-track when track laying and recording, using the Auxes as busses to get 12 in and 12 out. I'll usually have S.M.P.T.E striped to one track and have a sequencer (often the Atari) Slaved up to that. This provides a wonderfully flexible and independant bunch of systems where you can decide what to commit to Audio and what to keep 'virtual'. I usually edit a lot though, so always end up with a bunch of stuff on Disk. Outboard I tend to run from the console which, being a real 'mix-head' tends to be the heart of the studio. Consoles should become instruments when used creatively, and with kooky old Anolog synths and vocoders and the like hanging off buss outputs, things quickly become really interesting. The photo above and on my homepage shows the studio in a somewhat out of the ordinary configuration in that the monitors are 90 degrees to the mixer, which is usually not the case. But, really, In audio production, there are few rules, and this is just my way of working. I really feel it's much more important what the hell you do with gear than the gear itself.

Having said this.... ;->

GEAR LIST/STUDIO SPEC

· Mackie 32/8 bus In line Console with meter Bridge - 64 Channels on Mixdown. Clean and innocuous as long as you don't push the pre's to hard, just a plain-jane little workhorse of a mixer. On a bunch of occasions (particularly with Ju Ju stuff) I've run our of inputs tho', and this is using all the 'small' channels as well, so 64 all up...

· Dual Processor G4 running ‘Paris’ Editing/Mixing Package with a MEC and 12 x 24 bit Analog IO. Also running Logic Platinum, Peak, Soft Sampler, and a host of other plug-ins and crap that I never use. Great computer for surfing porn and burning CD’s tho’.

· Fairlight MFX3+ with 8 Analog IO in a mini rack, Got this from when I worked for Fairlight, sits in a corner now, never really use it... shame really, any-one wanna buy it?

· Modified and Hot-rodded Atari STe with 4 Mb RAM, running dongled Notator with Unitor Synchroniser to lock to Paris using S.M.P.T.E at 25 FPS. This is still the funkiest Sequencer yet developed, and although I am familiar with most of the major software packages still cannot tear myself away from Notator on this poor dying platform and it’s amazing, fast, flexible, responsive sequencing interface.

· JBL 4206 Monitors and Mackie HR28's .Both pretty average nearfields, but the JBL’s I have had for YEARS and know well. I can make anything sing through these. Not sure about the bottom end of the Mackie's tho'...

· Yamaha RS7000 hardware sequencer with 64 Mb RAM, external ZIP II, 128 Mb Smart card and Output Option. The best hardware sequencer to date, but still flawed in certain aspects such as data management and synth engine. Can be made to sound ‘big as a house’ though.

· Cyber 6 Midi Master Keyboard. Nothing, in my opinion, has the right to be this red and not make a single sound.

· Roland SH-101 This was my first analog synth and is still my 'baby'. The little vertical sliders make it super fast and responsive to play like an instrument, it's surprisingly flexible and makes beautiful smooth bottom end.

· Roland TB-303 The sound of this little thing, is now so dated it's ridiculous, but it still has the most amazingly idiosyncratic sequencer - more half the reason the little thing is as treasured as it is. So I use this predominantly for generating CV to hit other things - swishing filters around, controlling the MS-20 oscillators etc...

· Roland TR-808 I hocked my electric guitar for this back in about 1989 and never looked back. Still has a tonal pallette that for some reason, you just never get tired of. And like much of this era of Roland gear, although kooky and a bit obscure to learn, has an interface allowing you to play it like and instrument.

· Roland TR-909 Interesting to note this is actually an anaolog/digital hybrid, with a few PCM wave samples (for those distinctive and irreplacable hats for example) as well as oscillators and noise generators for the kicks and toms etc... The swing on this thing is,of course, gold, and overdriving the output just leaves you in funky acid miasma.

· Korg MS-20 This machine is still the kookiest thing in my collection. Just fire signals at it, patch it around a bit and you will end up with squealing mayhem. A wonderful contrast to all the really smooth Roland sounding gear, this thing can scream and wail like a banshee.

· Roland Vocoder Good for hanging off bus outputs of the console and firing various signals at and seeing what works. Not as crisp as digital versions which is a shame but still... a piece of history.

· Roland JD-990 Digital Synth Module with 'Vintage synth' expansion board This was the pinnacle of the hardware synth modules in my opinion. Later Roland units lost the big screen and the programmability, and this thing just sounds lusher and fatter than just about anything. I spent so much time programming this thing that now I just have to fire Midi at it and interesting things happen. More than anything else, my JD is 'my sound'. Getting the Expansion board was a realy learning experience too. Suddenly having access to 255 waveforms from every synth you can think of quickly demonstrates how similar they really are and how all the real distinctive tones and characters of these machines tend to come more from the filters, the speed of the envelopes, artifacts etc...

· Kurzweil K2500 with Orchestral, Pop and Piano ROM’S, KDFX Board and bunch of scsi drives. To much like a science lab to get really funky with, but amazing for strings and pads. Superb sounding machine.

· Ensoniq DP4 Multi-effects processor. This thing is noisy and lousy for straight reverbs, but use the imaginative stuff and I can bruise air with this thing.

· Ensoniq DP-Pro Multi-effects processor. Really odd Machine.

· Focusright Voicemaster, Valve pre-amp, Compressor, De-esser and EQ module. Useful all in one unit for Vocal Processing and warming up shit before they hit 'tape'.

· Yamaha SPX-90 Reverb processor. Nasty old thing – good for backward slaps and not much more.

· Alesis 2030 Stereo Compressor. Surprisingly subtle and clean sounding unit, I still hire others in for big mixes, but this one will do for most stuff.

· Mics: 8 x Shure SM58, 1 x Rode NT2, 2 x CAD's, 2 x Sennheiser XXX Shotgun mics

· Plus various, Guitars, odd little Microphones, Pedal effects, wierd old EQ units, Sync Devices, casette, MD and Dat decks, friends gear that floats in and out etc...

These photos are from one of the more recent incarnations of the beast...

A cockpit The rack Making tekkaz