Creativity is the kingdom of utterly personal concepts. For me, creativity and usability go hand in hand. There is nothing more distracting than a piece of gear that does not allow a head-first dive into the endless sea of inventiveness. If there is a person on the search for The Holy Grail of software and hardware usability, well, that's me. Welcome to my kingdom.
Studio Gear
This is a run-down of my small-scale home studio corner. If you are interested in my music production, see the news and releases on my dedicated website www.LeadingMotive.com!
Electric Guitars (left-handed)
My bass guitar is a yellow Schecter MODEL-T LH BTS, heavy but nicely emphasizing the overtones.
I started learning electric guitar on the Ibanez SA260FML-TLB and am still very happy to this day with its sound, ergonomic shape, and the beautiful lavender color finish. My other resource is the green hollow-body electric Gretsch G5420 Electromatic AG LH.
Electric guitars are usually connected to the amazing tube mini-combo Blackstar BT-1 or, for quiet rehearsing, the Zoom G3 pedal, which has a drum-sound metronome and allows loop recording. It also has a nice emulation of Boss's 80ies "OD-1" overdrive pedal.
Drum machines
Old drum machines fascinate me and find their way into most of my music production. My Roland TR-8S contains emulations of most of Roland's historical machines (including the CR-78) without the price tag of their Roland Cloud offering.
Then I have the Roland R-8 drum machine in two incarnations: The rack-based R-8m, and the desktop R8-mkII. These might be outdated by today's standards, but the samples, tweakability, and human feel still make them very inspiring machines. I own most of the expansion ROM cards to fill the gaps. The mkII has most of the expansion cards' sounds already built-in (see my self-made R-8 mkII sample summary/list ).
The collection is completed by the very punchy Yamaha RX-5 with many ROM cartridges. On the retro-ish side, I use Behringer's RD-8 and RD-9.
I also re-purchased an Elektron Analog Rytm (Mk I) with a bigger display, which fixes the machine's worst flaws (displays burning in, and too small screen elements).
Sample-based sound modules
Ever since the days of their first ROM sample player U-110, which I owned back in the days, Roland's sample library has been my favorite. Contemporary sound is tackled by a Roland Integra-7 module, while a fully expanded Roland XV-5080 handles the vintage sound library not contained in the Integra-7 (i.e. all the SR-JV80 card patches). I also re-acquired a Roland SonicCell, since it has the sounds of the FantomXR, which did not find their way into the Integra-7 nor into Roland's Cloud offerings.
For the full-retro department, I use a Roland MV-30, which is a desktop sequencer and ROM sample player based on the Roland U-220. The MV-30 adds digital filters that the U-220 did not have. I managed to create a fully-working boot disk (the MV-30 will not start without one) thanks to my prehistorical IBM Thinkpad with built-in disk drive. Additionally, I have the old and dear Roland rack devices U-110 and JV-880 (with the Vintage expansion card) that really resonate well with me. The JV-880 was Roland's first ROM synth that allowed extensive sound design and filters, like the improved U-220 we had all been waiting for.
Digital synthesis sound modules
The Novation Supernova II ProX Rack (48 voices) is my favorite synth. These machines are the most powerful workhorses ever built, thanks to their polyphony, multi-timbrality, and independent effect inserts. I also own their Nova II (smaller keyboard version with the same architecture); refer to my Nova II review for details (originally posted at Harmony central, but most of its text got removed there by now).
The Yamaha VL70m is a monophonic virtual-acoustic instrument that simulates wind instruments (such as saxes and flutes). With Yamaha's simple breath controller BC-3, its sounds come alive much more than sample-based ones could.
The Yamaha FS1-R is a gem for FM enthusiasts, and is compatible to Yamaha DX7 patches. The amount of user RAM is limited, and its ROM is filled with mostly boring stuff (e.g. 15 variations of a DX7 organ). Check out the brilliant Formant Shaping editor FSeqEdit and see the help directory for documentation. I have to admit however that I like my Yamaha TG-77 (rack version of the SY-77) more.
The Roland D-05 "Boutique" is a modern clone of the D-50, mostly known for its evolving new-age pads and percussive sounds, but I always found it really versatile for unobtrusive pads and leads that do not remind of a digital synth at all.
The one-height-unit rack retro section features the Yamaha TX81Z 4-operator FM module, and the Roland D-110. These really bring me back in time to when I started working with sound synthesis.
Analog-ish synthesis sound modules
The Oberheim Matrix 1000 is a wonderful piece of gear with 6-voice polyphony and a whopping 1000 preset sounds (just punch in a random number, and chances are it will be good) fitted into a 1 HU rack. No front-panel editing here - software is needed. A more recent addition is my Dave Smith Instruments OB-6 Desktop, which has the advantage of full hands-on controls without requiring menu diving or editing software.
The hybrid section is represented by a well-kept and fully re-hauled Waldorf Microwave I, funnily enough built into a Microwave II box.
On the more modern side, I have a rack-mounted Behringer Pro800, the Groove Synthesis 3rd Wave (beautifully aliasing digital paired with analog filters), and the ISLA S2400 (analog filters here too). Additionally I am trying to get to grips with an Elektron Analog Four module and its keyboard counterpart Analog Keys.
Backup gear
I bought the Novation X-Station and XioSynth used for travelling, and as an external controller for vintage gear. The synthesizer part is quite impressive. The X/Y touchpad seems to be its weak part (an earlier one's was broken with jumping values, luckily it can be disabled). I also have a simple lightweight Korg microKEY 25 for travelling/the living room, the only minikeys on the market that are somewhat playable.
Studio gear
For audio mixing, I use two generations of Rane SM82 rack mixers. Vocals are mostly recorded with a Beyerdynamic M88TG dynamic microphone, other acoustic sources and quieter vocals with an AKG 4000B condenser microphone (I also own the 1000, 2000, and 3000, all of which are amazing).
Nowadays I mostly use computer-based plugins, but some rack gear I still prefer over virtual counterparts are: The Lexicon PCM81 effects processor, Elysia's Xfilter for EQ (with resonance!), the TC Electronics VoiceLive Rack for vocal effects (not for pitch correction though), and the Warm Audio Bus-Comp compressor.
MIDI is handled by one ESI M8U XL multi-client USB interface and one iConnectivity Mio10.
Sequencing and recording are mostly done on whatever discarded Windows machines I can find (laptops and desktops) running Windows10/11 with RME audio interfaces (UC, UCX, and Babyface Pro FS). RME support and stability blow their competition away.
A simple t.amp S-100 mkII amplifier and Tannoy Reveal monitor speakers complete the picture. For cross-checking, I use old HiFi speakers (MB Quart QL40C). See my blog post for a very personal monitoring experience.
Software
Composition and arrangement work is done with Steinberg Cubase 13 Pro. To edit my synthesizers' patches, I use an original version of Emagic SoundDiver 3.0 with a copy-protected CD-ROM that functions as a dongle; this was pretty hard to find.
The virtual instrument (VSTi) collections that convinced me most are Steinberg's Absolute and Spectrasonics Omnisphere. Additionally, I use smaller ones like Korg's M1 and Wavestation (simple activation and all expansion cards are included), Garritan Instant Orchestra (lightweight, no online authorization hassles), the guitars by MusicLab Unreal Instruments (free), Arturia's FX and instrument suites, and Aly James Lab's drum computers (Simmons and LinnDrum).
For essential software effects plug-ins I warmly recommend Voxengo and HoRNet.
My sample library is very retro-oriented. I own many ProSamples/EastWest DVDs (especially the "Real Drum Kits" are worth mentioning), Time+Space CDs including their re-released collections (Dance Pack 1/2, World Pack, Pro Pack), and Yellow Tools (especially "Pure Drums"). I also rely heavily on the NDK Natural Drum Kit (formerly naturalstudio's kit).
Formerly owned gear
This is a nostalgic log of gear I used to own, dating back to 1988:
- Yamaha RM-50 rack drum module. Just had too many drum machines and modules, so I decided to let it go into a better home.
- A second Roland Integra-7 module (still have one) used for composing when outside the studio.
- Roland FantomXR. I bought it since I regretted selling my old one, but the common display failure struck and I did not want to pay for a repair, especially as I have the (sound-wise identical) SonicCell.
- Several 1-height rack units: A Technics SM-PS50 (nearly no information on this one), a Yamaha TG-500 (the rack version of the SY-85), a Kawai K1r (simple but with great samples), and the Korg TR-Rack (a bit restrictive in multitimbral mode).
- A second Novation Supernova II Rack, also this one used for composing when outside the studio. It had the typical DAC failure, but this affected one pair of outputs only (and can also be fixed by sector101.co.uk).
- The Waldorf Blofeld Keyboard. Its keybed is fantastic and features key-on and -off (!) velocity as well as aftertouch; it also has a MIDI out port, which the Desktop version is missing. The Blofeld has a great hybrid sound of analog emulation paired with wavetables. I experienced some trouble with the Pitch bend wheel (sending random values in the center position) and support was great in guiding me through the process to fix it without having to order spare parts. This is now replaced by its new VSTi sibling.
- The simple, lightweight Roland A-49 master keyboard for travelling, I used this when away from home during renovation times.
- One Rane SM82 rack mixer, remained unused after downsizing the studio.
- The SSL SiX desktop mixer.
- One ESI M8U XL multi-client USB interfaces (still have one).
- Roland SE-02 "Boutique" synth. Really nice, but monophonic machines did not seem to be my thing.
- Tascam 4-track tape recorder Midistudio 644. Great machine, but incredibly bulky. When it started needing maintenance I sold it on. Features the most convoluted mixing matrix ever, but was nicely compatible with my high-speed tapes from the Tascam Porta05.
- TC Electronics VoiceworksPlus (rack) and VoiceLive 2 (pedal). These are now superseded by my VoiceLive Rack.
- Virus TI2 Snow synthesizer. Great keybed and incredibly powerful, but in the end I did not want to learn yet another way of sound design, and had no space either. Very recommendable as an all-in-one setup.
- Elysia Xpressor compressor.
- Eventide Eclipse effects processor. Great effects, has deservedly been on the market for ages, but its audio routing is quite fixed. The manual leaves a lot to be desired.
- Chevin A500 amplifier. Really good, but completely over-specced for my needs, and therefore equipped with a fan, which (albeit quiet) is not ideal for a small studio.
- SPL Track One MkII microphone preamplifier.
- The Behringer DeepMind 12 Desktop, nice because of its polyphony (12 voices). I did not have enough desktop/shelf space anymore and therefore sold it.
- The Behringer VC-340 string machine and vocoder. Absolutely amazing, but had to let it go when forced to downsize my studio, as I have room for one keyboard only.
- A fully expanded Korg Triton Rack, including the impressive MOSS board. Quite nice all in all, I owned two of them, but I still preferred the Roland samples. The MOSS board was nice, but I did not have the patience to learn yet another synthesis method.
- Quasimidi Quasar (fully expanded rack). It had nice sounds, but all setup had to be controlled via MIDI, and with all my other ROM samplers it did not bring much more to the table.
- Roland U-220 ROM sample player, the first rompler to allow modest sound design. This got replaced by my Roland MV-30, as it contains most of the same sounds.
- For a while, I had a spare, fully-expanded Roland XV-3080 on my work desk for on-the-fly composing.
- Drum machine Cyclone Analogic TT-78, their take on Roland's classic CR-78. It sounds nice, but not much like the original, and the interface is completely different.
- Ortega RCE131L electroacoustic guitar.
- Behringer Behritone C50A speaker. This became redundant after I moved my old HiFi speakers to the studio.
- Lenovo R61 laptop (around 2007) running Windows XP with RME Hammerfall DSP Multiface I sound card (PCMCIA). I still have this set, but it is now retired.
- Novation Nova II XL (36 voices); it was my master keyboard. Two endless rotary encoders had to be replaced (a well-known problem). I still have it, stowed away in a box.
- Behringer's RD-8 Drum machine. Amazing sound, but for better flexibility and due to lack of dedicated mixer channels I replaced it with the Roland TR-8S.
- Drum machine Yamaha RX5. Brilliant, but quite big and therefore victim of my studio downsizing.
- Waldorf Blofeld Desktop, superseded by the keyboard version. A great synth, hampered by its very unfortunate lack of a MIDI-out port.
- Access Virus Rack XL. Pretty good, but due to time restrictions I decided to make do with my Novation Supernova II.
- Four-voice polyphonic Dave Smith Instruments Poly Evolver Rack, previously owned by the keyboarder of Mogwai.
- Roland S-330 sampler (750 kB of sampling memory!)
- Roland JV-1010. It has all the Roland JV-1080 sounds in one tiny box, plus one built-in expansion. This is my number one bang-for-the-buck recommendation if you can afford one module only.
- The Tascam US-122L USB soundcard is waiting to be sold. Great little interface, but no drivers past Win7, what a shame.
- The Roland D-550 was brilliant, but too bulky and heavy. It got replaced by its recent emulation, the D-05.
- Elektron Analog Rytm (Mk I) drum machine and Analog Four. They were nice, but too complex (the former) and too limited (the latter) for my taste. The (too tiny) display had issues on both of them.
- Waves' Musician 2 plugins. Technically, I still own them, but cannot use them anymore after a hardware change on my WinXP machine. I understand Waves do not want to support new installations on WinXP, but in my case it was already paid, authorized, and running, meaning they pulled the rug from under my feet. This was the last time I bought Waves products.
- The Lenovo T61 laptop was the heart of my studio for many years. The graphics chip is known to fail, and this is what happened. Luckily I found a replacement R61 which was similar enough that I could move my hard disk to the new machine without too much driver hassle.
- JL Cooper Electronics MSB Rev2 MIDI router
- Roland MC-50 mkII MIDI sequencer
- For a while, I had a Korg Microsampler, but used it very little. A very straightforward machine that is a lot of fun.
- Ensoniq DP/4+ effects processor from 1992. It can process four inputs/outputs independently and allows flexible routing. See Don Solaris' video showing what it can do even without any external gear connected.
- Rack mixer Behringer RX1602, due to a contact problem on some mute buttons.
- Additive synthesizer Kawai K5000r.
- Waldorf Blofeld desktop, which I sold, and then bought back from the very person I sold it to.
- Roland R-8 mkII drum machine. I preferred sequencing from my DAW, and therefore reverted back to the R-8 rack version. I missed it however and got another mkII later.
- Bass guitar Ibanez ATK-300, manufactured in Korea around 1995. Very heavy, but with an easy fretboard. Used with an Ibanez SW35 bass amplifier.
- Line6 Pod HD amp simulator. Very powerful and easy to use, but sadly lacked what I needed most (drum metronome and looper).
- Vocal processor TC-Helicon Voice Works Plus. I owned two of these, but sold them, as I do not use pitch correction and was slightly underwhelmed by the background voices' quality. I remember the amplitude of the digital out being limited by a bug.
- Roland MKS-50 (1987), based on Roland's Alpha Juno. The backup battery is soldered in place unfortunately. Sadly, some front panel keys failed just while I was selling it.
- The 1985 digital-analog hybrid Korg EX-8000. I created an editing template for the Novation X-Station (download).
- E-mu Vintage Pro, fully expanded with various cards. The filters were great, but the underlying samples much less so.
- Roland Fantom XR, great sound module, but with a less powerful engine than the earlier Roland XV/JV series. As its patches were never re-released (the Integra-7 does not have them), I bought another one later.
- Alesis RA300 amplifier, brilliant but too heavy/big for my purpose.
- Arturia Minibrute. A fun experience, but not fitting into my sound world.
- Tom Oberheim's Marion ProSynth. Reminded me of a more harsh-sounding Matrix 1000. I built a new power adapter for it and then sold it on.
- The Casio VZ-10M was an interesting piece of gear, but ended up leaving as rack space is precious.
- The Waldorf MicroQ had a too rough sound for my taste, I preferred the Waldorf Blofeld.
- Korg Wavestation SR: Editing via the front panel was straightforward, but the dodgy MIDI Sysex implementation meant the SR could crash, and to reset it, the battery had to be removed.
- My hollow-body electric Ibanez AF75L had a wide neck and was very playable. It got sold once I got my hands on the Gretsch.
- Guitar effect Line6 Pod XT and bass effect Zoom B1. Both were very good-sounding and handy, but getting used too little after I bought the Zoom G3 rehearsal pedal.
- Squier Precision Bass Special RW AB LH. Plain and simple in a good way. Sold once I got my hands on the Ibanez ATK-300.
- USB MIDI interface (M-Audio Midisport 4x4). Still keeping this one for backup.
- Korg TR-Rack sound module. Some sub-par samples and the convoluted effects configuration made me sell it.
- Soundcard Guillemot ISIS. For 12 years, this has been used on all my digital recordings, until I sold it along with my trusty Win98 machine in 2010. Still a great card!
- Behringer Ultravoice Digital VX2496 preamplifier. I was amazed how useable its processor section actually was, and the compressor did a good job. However, it remained unused once I had a USB soundcard with integrated microphone preamp.
- Sampler: E-MU E5000 Ultra with 128 MB RAM and 4 GB hard disk. It was being used very little, as I don't seem to have been much of a sampling person.
- Sound module Roland JV1010. This is still an excellent piece of gear, but I wanted more front-panel accessibility and more effects, which is why it got replaced by a Fantom XR.
- My dated but trusty Pentium II/450, sold because it was a tiny bit too noisy for recording, and because its tower case did not fit into a rack.
- Drum pad Yamaha DD55, a neat way to lend some human feel to my songs. The pedals were even velocity-sensitive. Lack of time prevented me from improving my drumming skills, so I sold this one.
- 4-track tape recorder Tascam Porta05HS, which I recorded onto in my pre-digital days (until 1997). Unfortunately it died on me (probably from the lack of use), so I gave it away in March 2005.
- A real high hat. In my opinion this was so difficult to simulate using samples that I tried playing it myself. The results were so-so since I'm not a drummer and don't have good enough room acoustics. My Roland R-8m will now take care of this job.
- A Spanish acoustic guitar (Cuenca). It was a right-handed guitar, restrung to fit left-handers. A good try, but the nut was not really shaped for that. Shame on the salesperson.
- Old and trusty Behringer Eurorack MX1602 12-channel desktop mixer. Never had a problem with it, and only sold it to save some shelf space by replacing it with a 1 HU rack mixer.
- Stereo compressor/gate dbx Project1/266 . Its excellent dB LED display made setting it up an easy task. The gate was great for downward expansion, but the compressor unit was too slow to use it as a peak limiter.
- Yamaha B200, a 4-operator FM synthesizer with good built-in loudspeakers that for years were my main monitors. Bluebear's patch editor Yamedit (Win 3.xx, also runs on Win98SE) seems to be offline, so I have temporarily hosted YamEdit V1.03a and YamEdit V1.05a here. According to the author's distribution notes, the "program may be uploaded (...) and distributed freely, provided all of the files are included." It is shareware (UK£15), so it would be nice to find out where the author is. Drop me a note if you happen to know.
- Mini-keyboard Yamaha CBX-K1XG. Its 737 voices are a good selection for all-round composing, some need a bit of tweaking (especially the distorted guitar). Wheels and keyboard (small keys, 3 octaves) are robust and sensitive. The loudspeakers are too small to be of use though.
- DOD 512, a true-stereo effects processor, which sounded great on stereo mixes and single sources (although not on vocals, IMHO). Its built-in gate was a brilliant idea.
- Roland U110 sample player with 31-note polyphony and 6-part multi mode. Despite a lack of effects (this was in the 1980s, remember) and a slight hiss noise, the samples sounded very good. With eight additional ROM cards, the U110 performed very well despite its age.
- Roland D110, a nifty synthesizer oldie. Its simple sound structure made it really easy to create own patches. I had bought this used in the 90ies, sold it, and re-bought another one in 2017.
- Yamaha TG100, a small General Midi box (2 MB of sample ROM) with an incredibly punchy rhythm section. At the time it was a good investment to get realistic General Midi sounds.
- Yamaha SY22, a synthesizer that blends 12-Bit ROM samples and 2-operator FM sounds with a vector joystick. The keyboard action was impressive. I was a bit disappointed that many of its impressive synthesizer sounds were actually nothing else than samples. Since tweaking of samples was very limited, it was difficult to program really innovative sounds.
- Alesis Microverb II, a small mono reverb unit. Very simple to use, I've managed quite a few convincing stereo mixes with it.