Tame Impala & Kevin Parker – Currents album cover

Tame Impala & Kevin Parker – Currents

Album 2015

The music gear and equipment used by the artists, producers, engineers, and more involved in the making of the 2015 album Currents.

Music from Currents

Gear Used On Currents

Explore the instruments, equipment, software, and production tools used in the making of Tame Impala & Kevin Parker – Currents (2015). Click more on each item to see exactly how it was used.

Studio Monitors used by Kevin Parker on Currents

Active & Passive Monitors

Pioneer cs-703

In this video it shows Kevin using the Pioneer cs-703 monitors when recording Tame Impala's third Record 'Currents' in 2015

Active & Passive Monitors

Genelec 1032C

Avg price: $2,629.38

clearly seen on 6:24

Active & Passive Monitors

Yamaha HS7

Avg price: $309.10

"In terms of monitors, Parker massively upgraded from the Yamaha HS7s he’d used to make Currents, to a pair of ATC SCM45A Pros. “I went from $300 monitors to $10,000 monitors,” he laughs. “I had a bit of money from Currents, so I was just like, ‘Fuck it, I may as well.’ The HS7s, I was always fine with. But a few friends of mine in LA have studios and they’ve got the ATCs. They just blow me away every time.”"

Studio Gear used by Kevin Parker on Currents

Preamps

Focusrite OctoPre MkII

Avg price: $257.35

Seen right at the beginning of this instagram video, during the recording of Currents

Preamps

AMS Neve 1073

Avg price: $3,925.63

used in the making of Currents (x2)

Studio Equipment used by Kevin Parker on Currents

Effects Processors

SPL Tube Vitalizer

Avg price: $1,055.80

In this article it states : "The main adjustment to his mixing routine has been an analogue summing setup that takes that task out of Ableton Live’s hands and adds a bit of colour to the stereo bus. He bought two 16-channel Lynx Aurora converters that feed a pair of passive 16-channel RMS216 Folcrom passive summing mixers. The sum of the 16 stereo channels hits a pair of Neve 1073DPA preamps first to “crunch the mix up” and make up gain, then an SPL Vitalizer, the one piece he’s had for a while and is “just like a glorified EQ that adds a bit of artificial valve quality.” The last thing strapped across the master bus is a Manley Vari- Mu compressor before it gets fed back into the DAW to print. The gear doesn’t see any use other than for mixing, so it allows Parker to leave it set up and return to any mix at will. “I’ve always loved mixing with Ableton,” said Parker. “But I love the sound of a mix being crunched together in analogue. I love the sound of a desk, but I hate not being able to recall any time I want. I flit between songs, sometimes every few minutes. It goes completely against my workflow to have to set up for one song by going around the room and setting EQ knobs on a desk and adjusting faders to how the mix was last time. It’s against how I’ve grown up working.” For the recording of Tame Impala's album Currents

Audio Samplers

Roland VP-9000

Avg price: $1,000.00

Seen above the KTG-1. I believe this is the vocoder/sampler Kevin explained as the "vocoder" effect in "Let It Happen"

'"Let It Happen," there's this part at the end where I'm singing through this keyboard sampler thing, almost like a vocoder but not really" (http://undertheradarmag.com/news/tame_impalas_kevin_parker_discusses_let_it_happen_in_cover_story_outtake)

**after a bit of research and watching a few videos, this is definitely what he used on Let It Happen.

Microphones used by Kevin Parker on Currents

Dynamic Microphones

Shure SM7B

Avg price: $405.20

Kevin Parker used the Shure SM7B as the main kick drum microphone during the recording of "Currents," as evidenced by a user-uploaded photo on Reddit.

Keyboards and Synthesizers used by Kevin Parker on Currents

Organs

Kawai E-90 Organ

In the picture provided, or in studio live performance of "On Track" at 0:04 seconds, and in Lonerism studio photos, a Kawaii E90 can be seen. Mostly used in "Elephant" and "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards", in conjunction with organ patches on a Juno 106 Patches 21-24 "Group A"

Sound Modules

Roland JV-1010

Avg price: $199.99

In this photo from Kevin Parker's interview with Audio Technology about Currents in 2017, a JV-1010 can be seen behind a book on Kevin's desk, to the left of the laptop.