Leon Michels

Visible in this photo by Chase Pellerin, sourced from this November 16, 2019 NWKC interview.

Mentioned in this interview from Tape Op #143, May/June 2021.

When I started recording music on my own, I was gifted a Tascam 388, which is that home 1/4-inch, 8-track. It has a mixer built into it.

Those are cool.

I put it in my bedroom and started messing around. It took off from there. I got that machine in my room the last year of high school. Or perhaps it was my first year of college. That was the beginning of it.

(...) When I got the Tascam 388 and started recording my own music, in a year or two it became [El Michels Affair’s] Sounding Out the City.

Mentioned and pictured in this interview from Tape Op #143, May/June 2021.

Is there any special equipment that are your “desert island” pieces?

Well, in Queens, everything goes to a 1-inch, 8-track MCI. That’s how it starts. The pieces of gear I use here the most are a 4-track cassette [recorder], which I love processing through. I have a Binson Echorec, an Eventide [Instant] Phaser, an AKG BX10 [spring reverb], and an Echoplex.

Mentioned and pictured in this interview from Tape Op #143, May/June 2021.

Is there any special equipment that are your “desert island” pieces?

Well, in Queens, everything goes to a 1-inch, 8-track MCI. That’s how it starts. The pieces of gear I use here the most are a 4-track cassette [recorder], which I love processing through. I have a Binson Echorec, an Eventide [Instant] Phaser, an AKG BX10 [spring reverb], and an Echoplex.

Mentioned in this interview from Tape Op #143, May/June 2021.

Is there any special equipment that are your “desert island” pieces?

Well, in Queens, everything goes to a 1-inch, 8-track MCI. That’s how it starts. The pieces of gear I use here the most are a 4-track cassette [recorder], which I love processing through. I have a Binson Echorec, an Eventide [Instant] Phaser, an AKG BX10 [spring reverb], and an Echoplex.