our audio equipment
attention equipment heads!
If you’re a bit of an equipment head then here is the core equipment we’ll be using to craft your recordings. If it all means nothing to you then don’t worry – I’ve never asked my mechanic which brand of spanner he swears by!
recording
- DARC Quadcore workstation Enabling well over 100 tracks of audio & midi.
- Sonar 8 Producer Stability, usability, performance, and features & most complete delivery capability for collaboration with users of other DAWS.
- Focusrite Saffire Pro10 Firewire audio interface with 8-preamps, 8-balanced outputs, S/PDIF, Saffire control pro software. Professional quality signal path and Audio/Digital converters.
- DAV-BG1 Twin channel preamp. Mark Knopfler & Dave Gilmour have both bought one of these hand-made, low noise, low distortion professional grade mic pre-amps.
- Line 6 UX2 Pro Tone Recording & Modelling Interface. Part of the award-winning Line 6 TonePort family.
- 2 x 24" widescreen monitors To see what we’re doing!
microphones
- Rode K2 Warm, smooth sounding multi-pattern Class 'A' valve microphone. Used by Multi Grammy Award Winning Producer/Mixer/Engineer Joe Chiccarelli to record Tom McRae’s All Maps Welcome.
- Oktava MK012A-MSP Matched pair of the classic multi-pattern genuine Russian instrument microphones. Delivers a clean, open sound with plenty of depth.
- SE Electronics sE2200A Multi-award winning studio condenser mic. Used to record Radio 2 and Hit40uk sessions for artists such as Mika, Amy Winehouse, Amp Fiddler, Paolo Nutini and many more.
monitoring
- Alesis ProLinear 720 Very classy, transparent sound, with great imaging.
intruments
- Fender Telecaster Classic electric guitar fitted with Seymour Duncan pickups.
- Martin DX1CE Wonderful sounding electro acoustic guitar made by the masters.
- M-Audio Prokeys 88 Premium weighted-key stage piano and MIDI controller.
- Yamaha Pacifica 412 Strat style electric guitar fitted with humbucker in the bridge.
- Wesley passive bass No-nonsense passive bass guitar.
plug-ins & sound libraries
- UAD-1 some of the most accurate emulations of classic audio hardware units.
- NI Kontakt 3 Huge library of high quality instruments and sounds.
- NI Akoustik Piano 3 grand pianos and an upright.
- Kirk Hunter Strings Incredibly realistic sampled strings – used on countless commercial CDs, TV & film scores.
- Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.0 w/ Custom & Vintage drums For people who really care about having high quality acoustic drums in their songs. Optimized for use with e-drums.
artist comments
"Recording my CD was a blissfully smooth process. The studio environment very much made space for both creativity and comfort. Mark's working approach was flexible and fun, and he demonstrated some true creative-genius flair! I am very pleased with the end result and will be quick to record with Stompbox Studios again."
Ben Trigg, Ichthus Church, London
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Ben Trigg 60 second soundbites