David A. Stewart

According to this article, Dave Stewart's studio features a Soundcraft 2400 28/24 console.

"I like mixing synths as well, like on Aqua, from the Touch album. There I've got a SH09 with a CSQ100, playing a bassline with just a sub bass, no other frequencies, so it's just a very round, resonant sound. But then I got an acoustic guitar and recorded the fret noise — just the top of the fret noise playing the same thing — and mixed the two together, and it sounds exactly like a double bass. That I find a lot more interesting than straight synthesiser sounds."

Mentioned by Stewart in this Sound on Sound "Classic Tracks" interview about "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)".

On the same trip, in a hotel room in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Stewart began playing around with EDP’s Wasp synthesizer, accidentally stumbling upon the future, more electronic direction that he and Lennox were to pursue as Eurythmics. “I could actually get some interesting things happening,” he says. “Y’know, like, sequenced little sort of random hold patterns that sounded very exciting to us, even though it was just coming out of the plastic speaker in a crappy hotel room in Wagga Wagga. We weren’t even writing songs, I was just messing about on it.”

(...) Soon after, Lennox travelled to her native Scotland to visit her parents, leaving Stewart with time alone to further his experiments with the Wasp, pairing it with EDP’s matching proto-sequencer the Spider, and a TEAC 144 Portastudio. “I kind of voraciously learned how to use that really quickly,” he says of the latter, “and I realised it was little miracle. I had done things before, even before I met Annie actually, where I’d managed to get my hands on a Revox tape recorder, and I’d bounce things in a really crappy way, back and forth, and make a kind of montage of stuff.

“But with this Portastudio and the Wasp and the Spider sequencer, and then the [Roland TR-606] Drumatix, in one way or another I managed to manipulate the drums and the sequenced keyboard together. Then I was able to choose which sections I’d sequenced and sort of fly them over and bounce them. So I’m recording on track one with the sequencer, but then I’d sort of send it to track three or four and then I could switch it in and out when I didn’t want it. I could drop in if I wanted to change to a different chord or note or sequence. So I kinda built a track, kept bouncing back and forth. Some of them became the actual tracks on the Sweet Dreams album.”

"1984 was nearly all Drawmer gates and very occasionally we'd sequence it. I'd write into the DMX a peculiar pattern on a rim shot (which gives the best trigger signal cause it's so short) and then I would play a guitar very distorted, and it goes chig chog chug gaa. And it's great because it sounds like no synth you've ever heard."

At 1:04, a Teac 80-8 can be seen in Dave's studio.

A Mackie 24-8 is among the items auctioned from David Stewart's studio.

A PreSonus FireBox is among the items auctioned from David Stewart's studio.

Several Mac Pro towers are among the items auctioned from David Stewart's studio.

A Yamaha SPX-1000 is among the items auctioned from David Stewart's studio.

A Mackie CR-1604 mixer is among the items auctioned from David Stewart's studio.

A Roland SDE-3000 is among the items auctioned from David Stewart's studio.

A Roland JV-1080 is among the items auctioned from David Stewart's studio.

Mentioned by Stewart in this Sound on Sound "Classic Tracks" interview about "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)".

On the same trip, in a hotel room in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Stewart began playing around with EDP’s Wasp synthesizer, accidentally stumbling upon the future, more electronic direction that he and Lennox were to pursue as Eurythmics. “I could actually get some interesting things happening,” he says. “Y’know, like, sequenced little sort of random hold patterns that sounded very exciting to us, even though it was just coming out of the plastic speaker in a crappy hotel room in Wagga Wagga. We weren’t even writing songs, I was just messing about on it.”

(...) Soon after, Lennox travelled to her native Scotland to visit her parents, leaving Stewart with time alone to further his experiments with the Wasp, pairing it with EDP’s matching proto-sequencer the Spider, and a TEAC 144 Portastudio. “I kind of voraciously learned how to use that really quickly,” he says of the latter, “and I realised it was little miracle. I had done things before, even before I met Annie actually, where I’d managed to get my hands on a Revox tape recorder, and I’d bounce things in a really crappy way, back and forth, and make a kind of montage of stuff.

“But with this Portastudio and the Wasp and the Spider sequencer, and then the [Roland TR-606] Drumatix, in one way or another I managed to manipulate the drums and the sequenced keyboard together. Then I was able to choose which sections I’d sequenced and sort of fly them over and bounce them. So I’m recording on track one with the sequencer, but then I’d sort of send it to track three or four and then I could switch it in and out when I didn’t want it. I could drop in if I wanted to change to a different chord or note or sequence. So I kinda built a track, kept bouncing back and forth. Some of them became the actual tracks on the Sweet Dreams album.”

Mentioned by Stewart in this Sound on Sound "Classic Tracks" interview about "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)".

On the same trip, in a hotel room in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Stewart began playing around with EDP’s Wasp synthesizer, accidentally stumbling upon the future, more electronic direction that he and Lennox were to pursue as Eurythmics. “I could actually get some interesting things happening,” he says. “Y’know, like, sequenced little sort of random hold patterns that sounded very exciting to us, even though it was just coming out of the plastic speaker in a crappy hotel room in Wagga Wagga. We weren’t even writing songs, I was just messing about on it.”

(...) Soon after, Lennox travelled to her native Scotland to visit her parents, leaving Stewart with time alone to further his experiments with the Wasp, pairing it with EDP’s matching proto?sequencer the Spider, and a TEAC 144 Portastudio. “I kind of voraciously learned how to use that really quickly,” he says of the latter, “and I realised it was little miracle. I had done things before, even before I met Annie actually, where I’d managed to get my hands on a Revox tape recorder, and I’d bounce things in a really crappy way, back and forth, and make a kind of montage of stuff.

“But with this Portastudio and the Wasp and the Spider sequencer, and then the [Roland TR?606] Drumatix, in one way or another I managed to manipulate the drums and the sequenced keyboard together. Then I was able to choose which sections I’d sequenced and sort of fly them over and bounce them. So I’m recording on track one with the sequencer, but then I’d sort of send it to track three or four and then I could switch it in and out when I didn’t want it. I could drop in if I wanted to change to a different chord or note or sequence. So I kinda built a track, kept bouncing back and forth. Some of them became the actual tracks on the Sweet Dreams album.”

Used for "Sweet Drums (Are Made of This)", as mentioned by Stewart in this Sound on Sound "Classic Tracks" interview about the song's production.

But it was with Stewart’s £2000 purchase of a MkI Movement Systems MCS Percussion Computer that his beats progressed to the next level. Only around 30 were ever built and the musician/producer had one of the first off the custom production line. “The guy lived in Bridgewater,” he recalls, “and we had to sleep on his floor for a couple of days while this prototype was being finished. But you could actually make drum patterns and see them for the first time on a little black and white screen like a heart monitor.”

It was one of his initial trials with the MCS that produced the distinctive beat on ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’. “There was thing on it where if you had a tom?tom sound, you could just turn a knob and tune it all the way down to sound like a huge drum that you would bang on a ship to get the people rowing. That’s what I did on ‘Sweet Dreams’. The first downbeat, the doom, was actually a mistake, ’cause the bloody drum computer kept doing the opposite of what I was trying to do. But then I thought, Ooh that actually sounds much better than what I was trying to do. That low drum, y’know, it’s good ‘cause it’s not boomy. It’s like a thud, but it’s so low. And then with the [four on the floor] bass drum on top of it, still to this day, you put it on in any club and everybody gets up.”

On Dave's Pro Page on TC Electronics site, they mention him using the D-Two Delay.