Studio gear list includes "Power Macintosh G3 & G4, MOTU 2408 & midi timepiece & DP3, AKAI S3200XL & S6000, YAMAHA02R, other MIDI instruments."

Visconti says that the basic vocal chain on the album consisted of Bowie's own Manley Gold Reference Mic into an Avalon mic pre, into an LA-3A compressor and a Focusrite Red EQ, then into an Apogee 8000 A/D converter and a G4 Mac running Logic Audio. “I started recording vocals on analog, as I did with all of the drums [16-track at 15 ips with Dolby SR, or 30 ips with no noise reduction — I consider it to be the ultimate tape format,” Visconti says, but the lock-up became tedious, so we stayed in the digital realm — 24-bit, 44.1k]. On one song, ‘I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spacecraft,’ I used a Shure SM57 to get a rockier sound, but I later regretted that because the Manley spoiled me rotten. It's such a sweet mic, very musical in the midrange. The Manley mic vocals just leapt out of the mixes, whilst the 57 needed lots of EQ, compression and, ultimately, de-essing to get it above the mix.”

“No, I don’t own a laptop, I’ve got a Mac G4 with some music sotfware that I use mainly for post production and editing, and maybe sometimes I’ll create tracks in that, but for live I’m using a scaled down version of the studio. It’s pretty old school, I use a mixing desk on stage with banks of effects, then stuff on DAT and mini disc and some live keyboards."

A Power Mac G4 is shown in a chart depicting Yasunori's studio circa 2002.

he group's studio guru, Andrew Innes, had to deal with a lot of frustration while producing with his Mac 9600. Ironically, the constant computer crashes were often responsible for integral song ideas. Nevertheless, the lure of fewer computer headaches eventually won over Innes, and after recording the group's latest album, Evil Heat, he upgraded to a G4.

A Mac G4 can be seen in his studio.

Computers & Software

Apple G4 500MHz Power Mac (x2), G3 400MHz Powerbook, G4 Titanium Powerbook and G3 300MHz Power Mac. Digidesign 001 and Audiomedia III interfaces, Pro Tools LE and Pro Tools Free. Digigram VX Pocket Pro 2 laptop interface. Opcode Studio Vision.

Kajiura uses a G4 Power Mac and records and mixes in Pro Tools. Hermain keyboard is an Ensoniq SR-76, her main synth is a Korg Triton andher main sampler is an old Akai 3000. She uses Digital Performer as asequencer. When playing sampled instruments and editing, she records athome, generally working with anywhere between 30 and 64 tracks, thenheads to local studios to record live musicians and singers.

"Haslinger's studio contains nine networked computers. of those, seven are PCs, the flagship of which is an AMD Dual Opteron 2.0 GHz. He also has a Mac G4 and a Mac G5. The various audio interfaces for all his computers are patched through his Yamaha DM2000 digital mixer and centrally clocked with an Apogee Big Ben master clock" (Page 60).

“The Pro Tools hardware that is plumbed in here is the old 888 system running from a G4 with as much memory in it as you can cram. That really hasn’t changed but all I use that for is recording. There’s no point in upgrading this at the moment because it is good quality, zero latency recording, and that’s all I need from it. In the other room we have a traveling system which is a Pro Tools 8, 192 HD3 setup. Manipulations and assemblies tend to happen in the second rig in my main room which has a Logic 7/Native/MOTU system on it."

These days, he works out of a thoroughly modern home studio based around Apple G4 Macs running Logic and Nuendo.

"I was working in a small recording studio in AIR Lyndhurst in what used to be studio manager's office," recalls Duffy. "I had recorded at AIR off and on over the years, and had mixed Looking For A Day In The Night there in 1999. Following that, the room became available and they offered it to me. I installed a Pro Tools Digi 001, and a G4 with Logic, and a Yamaha 02R desk and some bits and pieces I had collected over the years, and for the next three or four years I'd go there every day to work on music. Out of that time came Lilac 6, the Devils album Dark Circles [Duffy's collaboration with Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes], and Keep Going [Duffy's most recent solo album].