Mark King Level 42

Starting at 0:41 Mark King talks about the 2290 delay he has in his home studio, stating that it is "one of the benchmark delays".

The mighty Mark King of Level 42 casually rocking a SpectraDrive on the radio like it ain't nothing at all

Having survived John's intrepid questioning we drove over to King's home studio, which is located a few miles out of Rye, in a house overlooking the site where in a grey and distant past the Isle Of Wight Festival took place. Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan once played there. Now there are only hills, grass and cows. And a studio which left John breathless for a moment. He gazed in astonishment at the 48-channel SSL E-series desk and the 15 or so Alembic and Status basses on the walls surrounding it. He skimmed the walls of outboard gear, including AMS, SPX90II, Lexicon PCM70, 480L and 224X, Urei's, decided that he felt more comfortable with the view outside, and silently settled into a chair, watching the snow fall on the grass.

Having survived John's intrepid questioning we drove over to King's home studio, which is located a few miles out of Rye, in a house overlooking the site where in a grey and distant past the Isle Of Wight Festival took place. Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan once played there. Now there are only hills, grass and cows. And a studio which left John breathless for a moment. He gazed in astonishment at the 48-channel SSL E-series desk and the 15 or so Alembic and Status basses on the walls surrounding it. He skimmed the walls of outboard gear, including AMS, SPX90II, Lexicon PCM70, 480L and 224X, Urei's, decided that he felt more comfortable with the view outside, and silently settled into a chair, watching the snow fall on the grass.

Having survived John's intrepid questioning we drove over to King's home studio, which is located a few miles out of Rye, in a house overlooking the site where in a grey and distant past the Isle Of Wight Festival took place. Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan once played there. Now there are only hills, grass and cows. And a studio which left John breathless for a moment. He gazed in astonishment at the 48-channel SSL E-series desk and the 15 or so Alembic and Status basses on the walls surrounding it. He skimmed the walls of outboard gear, including AMS, SPX90II, Lexicon PCM70, 480L and 224X, Urei's, decided that he felt more comfortable with the view outside, and silently settled into a chair, watching the snow fall on the grass.

Having survived John's intrepid questioning we drove over to King's home studio, which is located a few miles out of Rye, in a house overlooking the site where in a grey and distant past the Isle Of Wight Festival took place. Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan once played there. Now there are only hills, grass and cows. And a studio which left John breathless for a moment. He gazed in astonishment at the 48-channel SSL E-series desk and the 15 or so Alembic and Status basses on the walls surrounding it. He skimmed the walls of outboard gear, including AMS, SPX90II, Lexicon PCM70, 480L and 224X, Urei's, decided that he felt more comfortable with the view outside, and silently settled into a chair, watching the snow fall on the grass.

"Whilst demoing I use the DDrum 2 for drum sounds and the MPC60 as a notepad. I prefer the MPC60 to the Mac, because it's much quicker and much easier to use. Let me see... (switches on the MPC60, DDrum and the SSL) I'm just taking stereo outs from here to the desk, because I'd much rather use the desk inputs for other things. For example the drums, which take up 11 channels."

"I love analogue synths. This is a MIDI MiniMoog, converted by Studio Electronics in Los Angeles to be MIDI compatible, using only original components. The beauty of analogue synths is that you can change the sound by just touching buttons and turning knobs. With digital synths it's stupidly longwinded and complicated because of those multi-functional buttons."

"I had one MTR90 here before we started with the album and I knew we wanted to record 48-track, so I considered getting the Sony 3324. But then I thought 'oh, balls, I'll get another MTR90, they work so well'. I personally can't hear the difference between analogue/SR and digital. On top, if the signal you have is dirty anyway, it negates any reasons for having digital. I engineered the album myself, and when there was a bit of noise in the background, I wasn't so worried about it."

Studio buffs tend to forget that modern recording studios are imposing and disorientating places for the average lay person. The technology seems to be surpassed in complexity only by military and space hardware, and Mark King's 'home' studio is certainly state of the art, as the above listing indicates. There's also a Macintosh SE30 with Performer software, an SRC SMPTE-to-MIDI convertor, Adams Smith Zeta 3, NS 10 and Tannoy DTM8 monitors, and two Otari MTR90 24-track recorders with 48 tracks of Dolby SR. Sound sources include a DX7, Roland D110 and 550, Yamaha TX816, Juno 60, Emu III and Emax, Casio CZ101, plus an Akai-Linn MPC60 workstation and a DDrum 2 drum sampler.

Studio buffs tend to forget that modern recording studios are imposing and disorientating places for the average lay person. The technology seems to be surpassed in complexity only by military and space hardware, and Mark King's 'home' studio is certainly state of the art, as the above listing indicates. There's also a Macintosh SE30 with Performer software, an SRC SMPTE-to-MIDI convertor, Adams Smith Zeta 3, NS 10 and Tannoy DTM8 monitors, and two Otari MTR90 24-track recorders with 48 tracks of Dolby SR. Sound sources include a DX7, Roland D110 and 550, Yamaha TX816, Juno 60, Emu III and Emax, Casio CZ101, plus an Akai-Linn MPC60 workstation and a DDrum 2 drum sampler.

Studio buffs tend to forget that modern recording studios are imposing and disorientating places for the average lay person. The technology seems to be surpassed in complexity only by military and space hardware, and Mark King's 'home' studio is certainly state of the art, as the above listing indicates. There's also a Macintosh SE30 with Performer software, an SRC SMPTE-to-MIDI convertor, Adams Smith Zeta 3, NS 10 and Tannoy DTM8 monitors, and two Otari MTR90 24-track recorders with 48 tracks of Dolby SR. Sound sources include a DX7, Roland D110 and 550, Yamaha TX816, Juno 60, Emu III and Emax, Casio CZ101, plus an Akai-Linn MPC60 workstation and a DDrum 2 drum sampler.

Studio buffs tend to forget that modern recording studios are imposing and disorientating places for the average lay person. The technology seems to be surpassed in complexity only by military and space hardware, and Mark King's 'home' studio is certainly state of the art, as the above listing indicates. There's also a Macintosh SE30 with Performer software, an SRC SMPTE-to-MIDI convertor, Adams Smith Zeta 3, NS 10 and Tannoy DTM8 monitors, and two Otari MTR90 24-track recorders with 48 tracks of Dolby SR. Sound sources include a DX7, Roland D110 and 550, Yamaha TX816, Juno 60, Emu III and Emax, Casio CZ101, plus an Akai-Linn MPC60 workstation and a DDrum 2 drum sampler.

Studio buffs tend to forget that modern recording studios are imposing and disorientating places for the average lay person. The technology seems to be surpassed in complexity only by military and space hardware, and Mark King's 'home' studio is certainly state of the art, as the above listing indicates. There's also a Macintosh SE30 with Performer software, an SRC SMPTE-to-MIDI convertor, Adams Smith Zeta 3, NS 10 and Tannoy DTM8 monitors, and two Otari MTR90 24-track recorders with 48 tracks of Dolby SR. Sound sources include a DX7, Roland D110 and 550, Yamaha TX816, Juno 60, Emu III and Emax, Casio CZ101, plus an Akai-Linn MPC60 workstation and a DDrum 2 drum sampler.

Studio buffs tend to forget that modern recording studios are imposing and disorientating places for the average lay person. The technology seems to be surpassed in complexity only by military and space hardware, and Mark King's 'home' studio is certainly state of the art, as the above listing indicates. There's also a Macintosh SE30 with Performer software, an SRC SMPTE-to-MIDI convertor, Adams Smith Zeta 3, NS 10 and Tannoy DTM8 monitors, and two Otari MTR90 24-track recorders with 48 tracks of Dolby SR. Sound sources include a DX7, Roland D110 and 550, Yamaha TX816, Juno 60, Emu III and Emax, Casio CZ101, plus an Akai-Linn MPC60 workstation and a DDrum 2 drum sampler.

Studio buffs tend to forget that modern recording studios are imposing and disorientating places for the average lay person. The technology seems to be surpassed in complexity only by military and space hardware, and Mark King's 'home' studio is certainly state of the art, as the above listing indicates. There's also a Macintosh SE30 with Performer software, an SRC SMPTE-to-MIDI convertor, Adams Smith Zeta 3, NS 10 and Tannoy DTM8 monitors, and two Otari MTR90 24-track recorders with 48 tracks of Dolby SR. Sound sources include a DX7, Roland D110 and 550, Yamaha TX816, Juno 60, Emu III and Emax, Casio CZ101, plus an Akai-Linn MPC60 workstation and a DDrum 2 drum sampler.

Studio buffs tend to forget that modern recording studios are imposing and disorientating places for the average lay person. The technology seems to be surpassed in complexity only by military and space hardware, and Mark King's 'home' studio is certainly state of the art, as the above listing indicates. There's also a Macintosh SE30 with Performer software, an SRC SMPTE-to-MIDI convertor, Adams Smith Zeta 3, NS 10 and Tannoy DTM8 monitors, and two Otari MTR90 24-track recorders with 48 tracks of Dolby SR. Sound sources include a DX7, Roland D110 and 550, Yamaha TX816, Juno 60, Emu III and Emax, Casio CZ101, plus an Akai-Linn MPC60 workstation and a DDrum 2 drum sampler.

Studio buffs tend to forget that modern recording studios are imposing and disorientating places for the average lay person. The technology seems to be surpassed in complexity only by military and space hardware, and Mark King's 'home' studio is certainly state of the art, as the above listing indicates. There's also a Macintosh SE30 with Performer software, an SRC SMPTE-to-MIDI convertor, Adams Smith Zeta 3, NS 10 and Tannoy DTM8 monitors, and two Otari MTR90 24-track recorders with 48 tracks of Dolby SR. Sound sources include a DX7, Roland D110 and 550, Yamaha TX816, Juno 60, Emu III and Emax, Casio CZ101, plus an Akai-Linn MPC60 workstation and a DDrum 2 drum sampler.

Studio buffs tend to forget that modern recording studios are imposing and disorientating places for the average lay person. The technology seems to be surpassed in complexity only by military and space hardware, and Mark King's 'home' studio is certainly state of the art, as the above listing indicates. There's also a Macintosh SE30 with Performer software, an SRC SMPTE-to-MIDI convertor, Adams Smith Zeta 3, NS 10 and Tannoy DTM8 monitors, and two Otari MTR90 24-track recorders with 48 tracks of Dolby SR. Sound sources include a DX7, Roland D110 and 550, Yamaha TX816, Juno 60, Emu III and Emax, Casio CZ101, plus an Akai-Linn MPC60 workstation and a DDrum 2 drum sampler.

Seen on this publication of the Stingray FanPage on Facebook.

In this photo you see Mr. King with his Trace rig including the AH350, which later also became endorsed. This was his go-to rig for a long time!

These strings were designed for Mark specifically by Rotosound and is what he still uses today.

Mark King of Level 42 exclusively utilizes the Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble pedal with his Jaydee basses, valuing its vintage sound quality. This is evidenced in the performance captured in the video "Level 42 - Dune Tune - Cheltenham 2021," provided by K8 M8 on YouTube.

In this photo, King appears to be playing a Status Series II.