The Studio

My music studio has evolved over 30 years… What once was a room full of synthesizers and music hardware, is now a minimal setup; yet somehow more powerful than ever. Rather than classic old synths, I’ve now got a few modern synths with classic vibes, and built a Eurorack modular with many familiar vintage components. And its all very inspiring indeed!

My vintage synths were breaking down; voice chips needing replaced etc, and sending them away for servicing was too expensive. One day my beautiful mixing desk just stopped working. And generally the old workflow was replaced with the new. And the big one; the Jupiter 6, could still sell for enough money to get a basic semi-modular Eurorack started…

Over a few years I sold the remaining synths and hardware to fund the self-expanding modular and bought some other toys which would become the new music making interface. Eventually parting with the A-frame keyboard stand and 19″ rack trolley; gaining much space in the process. And developing a seriously powerful portable desktop setup.

UPDATE Nov 2024 – Decided to sell the APC40 and the Keystep 37 and some other bits to fund some fresh gear. I’ve been through loads of master keyboard ideas in recent times but none satisfied my demands completely, and with minimalism in mind I only want one good keyboard in the studio. And crucial to my music is at least one analog polysynth, though these are the expensive beasts and it was always going to be a compromise of sorts! So, meet the Behringer MonoPoly! I’ve never had a Korg so thought it would be cool, capable of chords and polyphonic play to a point, and just affordable. The MonoPoly is really good, but its not been easy sailing, which is a story for another day…

I’ve dabbled in music videos over the years and with having a decent mobile now I made a sounds and music demo of the MonoPoly in the first 8 days of having it, which you can watch here:

Studio Hardware

• Arturia Microfreak
• Arturia Rackbrute 6u
• Behringer 2600
• Behringer MonoPoly
• Behringer TD-3
• M-Audio AIR 192|14

Eurorack Modules (In order left to right, top to bottom)

• ALM Pamela’s NEW! Workout
• Electrosmith 3340 VCO
• IO Instruments Themisto
• Manhattan Analog DTM
• IO Instruments Euporie
• Noise Engineering Roti Pola
• Doepfer A-140-2V Dual ADSR
• Mutable Instruments Veils
• Doepfer A-138sV Mixer
• MFB Visual VCA
• Intellijel uMIDI
• Befaco Slew Limiter
• Doepfer Passive Mult
• Intellijel Active Mult
• Intellijel Atlantis
• Expert Sleepers Disting mk4
• Behringer System 100 110
• Doepfer A-103 (303 filter)
• Mutable Music Things Ears

Check out the modular plan on ModGrid: modulargrid.net/e/racks/view/1323992

The studio used to look like this:

And all the way back in the 90’s, this:

Legacy kit list section:

Studio Blog

DJ’ing with Ableton & Akai AMX 4th August 2015 - So, I accepted my first DJ gig – can’t be that hard can it?! With Ableton it really isn’t actually, I collected tunes over a few months; learned how to set the cue point and BPM,… read on…

Simmons SDS9 – Manual 15th January 2007 - My friend has had his Simmons SDS9 for years but we had never fully worked out the MIDI functions due to not having a complete manual. Now, thanks to a member of the vintage-synth forums, we… read on…

Roland HandyPad (Pad-5) 20th April 2006 - A very spontaneous purchase, I picked up a Roland Pad-5 midi controller which I didn’t know existed before seeing it listed on eBay. It’s halfway between a toy pad, such as the Yamaha DD series,… read on…

Background | DJ Sets | My Music