Adam Levine

This screenshot from Adam Levine's Instagram stories shows his Universal Audio Apollo Twin X audio interface.

Used for the lead vocals on "Makes Me Wonder", as stated by mix engineer Mark Endert in this September 2007 Sound on Sound interview.

Lead vocal: Waves De–esser, Sony Oxford EQ, Tube–Tech CL1B, Lexicon PCM42, Lexicon 480L

“I love using digital de–essing on the lead vocals. On about every track I mix, the first plug–in insert is probably the Waves De–esser. From there I will do fine–tuning with the EQ. If there’s a narrow band that I want to eliminate or boost, I often use the Sony Oxford EQ immediately after the de–esser. In this case I boosted a little bit around 300Hz, made a small cut around 2500Hz and rolled off some extreme high end. I really like the Oxford EQ for pinpointing frequencies, but as far as sonic shaping is concerned, I prefer the outboard, like the SSL EQ, the GML, or my Neve 1073 modules. You are never going to pinpoint a perfect frequency on a three–band Neve EQ.

“After being treated with the De–Esser and the Oxford EQ, the lead vocals came to the SSL desk, on which I also used EQ, and inserted a compressor. In this case it was a Tube–Tech CL1B, set to a ratio of 5:1. For some reason I like 5:1 on vocals. I added delays on the lead vocals in the choruses — PCM42, eighth note or something like that — and there’s a reverb, most likely a 480L, set to a short reverb time.”

In this Instagram posted by Adam Levine, his headphones are plugged into the Redco Little Red Cue Box four-channel passive headphone mixer.

Used for the guitar loop on "Makes Me Wonder", as stated by mix engineer Mark Endert in this September 2007 Sound on Sound interview.

"I realised that there was one guitar part that worked particularly well with the bass and drums. It was played by Adam and had a clean Telecaster sound, and so I looped that through the track." (...) “Upon determining that Adam’s clean Tele part worked the best with the drums and bass, it was looped so that it did the same thing throughout the whole track. It sounded great being mixed loudly. When I have a loop like that without change, they way I can achieve contour is by changing the amounts of effects. So at the beginning of the song there are minimal effects on the guitar loop, then when it hits the first verse there are more delays, when it hits the chorus there is chorusing and delay and reverb on it — these are all outboard effects: PCM42s, AMS 1580S, and Eventide Orville. All the delays from the Lexicon PCM42 were timed, everything from eighth to dotted eighth to 16th notes. I love delays far more than reverb and I have eight discrete delays — five PCM42s and three Roland SDE3000s — and they are in use on every mix. In the verses it’s more like a 16th slap feel, and when it gets to the choruses, I harmonised with an AMS 1580S, pitch–changing and fattening the guitars. You can get a lot of contour out of a track that lacks dynamics just by changing the acoustic space around it."

Used for the guitar loop and lead vocals on "Makes Me Wonder", as stated by mix engineer Mark Endert in this September 2007 Sound on Sound interview.

"I realised that there was one guitar part that worked particularly well with the bass and drums. It was played by Adam and had a clean Telecaster sound, and so I looped that through the track." (...) “Upon determining that Adam’s clean Tele part worked the best with the drums and bass, it was looped so that it did the same thing throughout the whole track. It sounded great being mixed loudly. When I have a loop like that without change, they way I can achieve contour is by changing the amounts of effects. So at the beginning of the song there are minimal effects on the guitar loop, then when it hits the first verse there are more delays, when it hits the chorus there is chorusing and delay and reverb on it — these are all outboard effects: PCM42s, AMS 1580S, and Eventide Orville. All the delays from the Lexicon PCM42 were timed, everything from eighth to dotted eighth to 16th notes. I love delays far more than reverb and I have eight discrete delays — five PCM42s and three Roland SDE3000s — and they are in use on every mix. In the verses it’s more like a 16th slap feel, and when it gets to the choruses, I harmonised with an AMS 1580S, pitch–changing and fattening the guitars. You can get a lot of contour out of a track that lacks dynamics just by changing the acoustic space around it."

(...) Lead vocal: Waves De–esser, Sony Oxford EQ, Tube–Tech CL1B, Lexicon PCM42, Lexicon 480L

“I love using digital de–essing on the lead vocals. On about every track I mix, the first plug–in insert is probably the Waves De–esser. From there I will do fine–tuning with the EQ. If there’s a narrow band that I want to eliminate or boost, I often use the Sony Oxford EQ immediately after the de–esser. In this case I boosted a little bit around 300Hz, made a small cut around 2500Hz and rolled off some extreme high end. I really like the Oxford EQ for pinpointing frequencies, but as far as sonic shaping is concerned, I prefer the outboard, like the SSL EQ, the GML, or my Neve 1073 modules. You are never going to pinpoint a perfect frequency on a three–band Neve EQ.

“After being treated with the De–Esser and the Oxford EQ, the lead vocals came to the SSL desk, on which I also used EQ, and inserted a compressor. In this case it was a Tube–Tech CL1B, set to a ratio of 5:1. For some reason I like 5:1 on vocals. I added delays on the lead vocals in the choruses — PCM42, eighth note or something like that — and there’s a reverb, most likely a 480L, set to a short reverb time.”

Used for the guitar loop on "Makes Me Wonder", as stated by mix engineer Mark Endert in this September 2007 Sound on Sound interview.

"I realised that there was one guitar part that worked particularly well with the bass and drums. It was played by Adam and had a clean Telecaster sound, and so I looped that through the track." (...) “Upon determining that Adam’s clean Tele part worked the best with the drums and bass, it was looped so that it did the same thing throughout the whole track. It sounded great being mixed loudly. When I have a loop like that without change, they way I can achieve contour is by changing the amounts of effects. So at the beginning of the song there are minimal effects on the guitar loop, then when it hits the first verse there are more delays, when it hits the chorus there is chorusing and delay and reverb on it — these are all outboard effects: PCM42s, AMS 1580S, and Eventide Orville. All the delays from the Lexicon PCM42 were timed, everything from eighth to dotted eighth to 16th notes. I love delays far more than reverb and I have eight discrete delays — five PCM42s and three Roland SDE3000s — and they are in use on every mix. In the verses it’s more like a 16th slap feel, and when it gets to the choruses, I harmonised with an AMS 1580S, pitch–changing and fattening the guitars. You can get a lot of contour out of a track that lacks dynamics just by changing the acoustic space around it."

Used for the lead vocals on "Makes Me Wonder", as stated by mix engineer Mark Endert in this September 2007 Sound on Sound interview.

Lead vocal: Waves De–esser, Sony Oxford EQ, Tube–Tech CL1B, Lexicon PCM42, Lexicon 480L

“I love using digital de–essing on the lead vocals. On about every track I mix, the first plug–in insert is probably the Waves De–esser. From there I will do fine–tuning with the EQ. If there’s a narrow band that I want to eliminate or boost, I often use the Sony Oxford EQ immediately after the de–esser. In this case I boosted a little bit around 300Hz, made a small cut around 2500Hz and rolled off some extreme high end. I really like the Oxford EQ for pinpointing frequencies, but as far as sonic shaping is concerned, I prefer the outboard, like the SSL EQ, the GML, or my Neve 1073 modules. You are never going to pinpoint a perfect frequency on a three–band Neve EQ.

“After being treated with the De–Esser and the Oxford EQ, the lead vocals came to the SSL desk, on which I also used EQ, and inserted a compressor. In this case it was a Tube–Tech CL1B, set to a ratio of 5:1. For some reason I like 5:1 on vocals. I added delays on the lead vocals in the choruses — PCM42, eighth note or something like that — and there’s a reverb, most likely a 480L, set to a short reverb time.”