Daniel Woodgate

"But for the drummer it started a fascination. Next came a Portastudio which Suggsy had "forgot" about and left hanging around the office. Woody liberated that for a while and found it just right for learning more about process and terms. Then the big one: he lashed out on his current Fostex A8 8-track recorder, and a Fostex 350 mixer (only very recently updated by a bigger Soundtracs 16/8/16 desk), plus an ever-increasing pile of outboard gadgetry."

"The 606 doesn't have individual line-outs so I drilled holes in the back and connected up six line-outs: easy, just attach them to the volume controls... You can wire each volume control up in two ways, with the three tags — one's direct out, no volume control, the other's controlled by the volume knobs. Most people I know who've got a 606 have done it — ridiculous, isn't it? Pull it to bits!"

"Bass, track eight, is hard. It was either too slappy, and you heard the strings and the pickups, or it would go so woofy that a system like the 350 couldn't take it at all. The levels would be bashing their heads against the other side and coming round again! For a while I'd put the bass to a patchbay, split out of that to a Fostex powered monitor one side and the A8's four-channel buss Return B. A mic picks up the Fostex speaker sound and goes to a Boss KM2 splitter for level if you've got a low impedance mic, and straight to channel eight. In the end I scrapped the KM2 and used the trim control on the mic input - simple. That way you get a good combined bass sound on to track eight."

"But for the drummer it started a fascination. Next came a Portastudio which Suggsy had "forgot" about and left hanging around the office. Woody liberated that for a while and found it just right for learning more about process and terms. Then the big one: he lashed out on his current Fostex A8 8-track recorder, and a Fostex 350 mixer (only very recently updated by a bigger Soundtracs 16/8/16 desk), plus an ever-increasing pile of outboard gadgetry."

"On track three there's a rhythm track, just to get something going along with the drums, on keyboards. I bought a JX3P. I tend to use the preset piano sound, but I take the chorus off and have to tune it in with the programmer a bit to make it sound more piano-like. They've relied on their chorus to make it sound like a piano."

"The easiest thing for six and seven was to have sustained notes there, let's say organ notes. But I don't particularly like organ sounds, so I did strings on the ARP Quadra I've acquired: one straight strings, the other 'voice-strings', or 'Amanda' as we've dubbed her/them."

"I've had it three years and a bit. Gretsch 22in bass drum, because I was always changing from my previous 20in in the studio, it had an awful ring to the nutboxes which you had to pad out. Ludwig Black Beauty snare, 6½in, made of brass — what a sound! You don't even have to know how to tune up a snare drum to get a good sound out of that. I've also got a Ludwig Acrylite snare, very-light, 5½in, hopeless for recording, terrible for live work, but I love the crack, and they feel good."

Cymbals are mostly Avedis Zildjian; he particularly likes 18in ones — a thin and medium crash and a china are faves at present. "Basically, though, I don't think they make cymbals like they used to," and so he's got some Sabians too ("which aren't much better, but they're better"). Hi-hats are 14in Zildjian Newbeats which he's had for about eight years with no ill effects."

Cymbals are mostly Avedis Zildjian; he particularly likes 18in ones — a thin and medium crash and a china are faves at present. "Basically, though, I don't think they make cymbals like they used to," and so he's got some Sabians too ("which aren't much better, but they're better"). Hi-hats are 14in Zildjian Newbeats which he's had for about eight years with no ill effects.

"My normal procedure is to put a code from my MSQ700 onto my A8 through my Seck desk (they're really brilliant — only about an inch thick, and light). I have thought about getting a Fostex B16, but that would only have meant getting a mega-desk. A nice clean simple desk, simple routing, and I've got my rack system in order. I used to have two Roland SDE3000s, but I never used them to their full capacity, and they had no sampling, which is why I swapped to Korg SDD1000s, with 2 seconds of delay, and proper triggerable sampling. I always get pairs of things because I'm a stereo fanatic."

"My normal procedure is to put a code from my MSQ700 onto my A8 through my Seck desk (they're really brilliant — only about an inch thick, and light). I have thought about getting a Fostex B16, but that would only have meant getting a mega-desk. A nice clean simple desk, simple routing, and I've got my rack system in order. I used to have two Roland SDE3000s, but I never used them to their full capacity, and they had no sampling, which is why I swapped to Korg SDD1000s, with 2 seconds of delay, and proper triggerable sampling. I always get pairs of things because I'm a stereo fanatic."

"My normal procedure is to put a code from my MSQ700 onto my A8 through my Seck desk (they're really brilliant — only about an inch thick, and light). I have thought about getting a Fostex B16, but that would only have meant getting a mega-desk. A nice clean simple desk, simple routing, and I've got my rack system in order. I used to have two Roland SDE3000s, but I never used them to their full capacity, and they had no sampling, which is why I swapped to Korg SDD1000s, with 2 seconds of delay, and proper triggerable sampling. I always get pairs of things because I'm a stereo fanatic."

"My normal procedure is to put a code from my MSQ700 onto my A8 through my Seck desk (they're really brilliant — only about an inch thick, and light). I have thought about getting a Fostex B16, but that would only have meant getting a mega-desk. A nice clean simple desk, simple routing, and I've got my rack system in order. I used to have two Roland SDE3000s, but I never used them to their full capacity, and they had no sampling, which is why I swapped to Korg SDD1000s, with 2 seconds of delay, and proper triggerable sampling. I always get pairs of things because I'm a stereo fanatic."

"And I've got two R1000 Yamaha reverbs. They're lovely — without them, forget it. DX7s should have them built in. For monitoring, I use headphones, or Bose Studiocraft speakers; and I've got those self-powered Fostex personal speakers, the ones with the preamp in. They're powerful."

"I normally master onto an old Revox A77, though if I was mastering onto cassette, I'd use a Hitachi DE7, as they've got a really close three-head system, which is much better for monitoring input/output. One of my prizes is a Sony Walkman Professional which I use for playback. And I've got an Aphex Aural Exciter. That's good for giving bass drums a big clout."

Daniel Woodgate's equipment list, from the September 1985 issue of International Musician:

Fostex A8 Roland MSQ700 Yamaha DX7 Yamaha RX11 Seck 18/8/2 mixing desk Korg SDD1000 delays x 2 Yamaha R1000 reverbs x 2 Boss CEII chorus x 2 MXR Phase 100 Revox A77 Sony Walkman Professional Hitachi DE7 cassette deck A pair of headphones... Bose Studiocraft monitors Fostex Personal monitors Aphex Aural Exciter Yamaha 31 band stereo graphic EQ Ibanez 15 band graphic EQ ARP Quadra string synth Crumar Roadrunner piano

Daniel Woodgate's equipment list, from the September 1985 issue of International Musician:

Fostex A8 Roland MSQ700 Yamaha DX7 Yamaha RX11 Seck 18/8/2 mixing desk Korg SDD1000 delays x 2 Yamaha R1000 reverbs x 2 Boss CEII chorus x 2 MXR Phase 100 Revox A77 Sony Walkman Professional Hitachi DE7 cassette deck A pair of headphones... Bose Studiocraft monitors Fostex Personal monitors Aphex Aural Exciter Yamaha 31 band stereo graphic EQ Ibanez 15 band graphic EQ ARP Quadra string synth Crumar Roadrunner piano

Daniel Woodgate's equipment list, from the September 1985 issue of International Musician:

Fostex A8 Roland MSQ700 Yamaha DX7 Yamaha RX11 Seck 18/8/2 mixing desk Korg SDD1000 delays x 2 Yamaha R1000 reverbs x 2 Boss CEII chorus x 2 MXR Phase 100 Revox A77 Sony Walkman Professional Hitachi DE7 cassette deck A pair of headphones... Bose Studiocraft monitors Fostex Personal monitors Aphex Aural Exciter Yamaha 31 band stereo graphic EQ Ibanez 15 band graphic EQ ARP Quadra string synth Crumar Roadrunner piano

Daniel Woodgate's equipment list, from the September 1985 issue of International Musician:

Fostex A8 Roland MSQ700 Yamaha DX7 Yamaha RX11 Seck 18/8/2 mixing desk Korg SDD1000 delays x 2 Yamaha R1000 reverbs x 2 Boss CEII chorus x 2 MXR Phase 100 Revox A77 Sony Walkman Professional Hitachi DE7 cassette deck A pair of headphones... Bose Studiocraft monitors Fostex Personal monitors Aphex Aural Exciter Yamaha 31 band stereo graphic EQ Ibanez 15 band graphic EQ ARP Quadra string synth Crumar Roadrunner piano

Daniel Woodgate's equipment list, from the September 1985 issue of International Musician:

Fostex A8 Roland MSQ700 Yamaha DX7 Yamaha RX11 Seck 18/8/2 mixing desk Korg SDD1000 delays x 2 Yamaha R1000 reverbs x 2 Boss CEII chorus x 2 MXR Phase 100 Revox A77 Sony Walkman Professional Hitachi DE7 cassette deck A pair of headphones... Bose Studiocraft monitors Fostex Personal monitors Aphex Aural Exciter Yamaha 31 band stereo graphic EQ Ibanez 15 band graphic EQ ARP Quadra string synth Crumar Roadrunner piano

Daniel Woodgate's equipment list, from the September 1985 issue of International Musician:

Fostex A8 Roland MSQ700 Yamaha DX7 Yamaha RX11 Seck 18/8/2 mixing desk Korg SDD1000 delays x 2 Yamaha R1000 reverbs x 2 Boss CEII chorus x 2 MXR Phase 100 Revox A77 Sony Walkman Professional Hitachi DE7 cassette deck A pair of headphones... Bose Studiocraft monitors Fostex Personal monitors Aphex Aural Exciter Yamaha 31 band stereo graphic EQ Ibanez 15 band graphic EQ ARP Quadra string synth Crumar Roadrunner piano