Michael Brook

"There's more synthesizer and there's a real drummer. James Pinker is playing percussion on this track Urbana. Hear that spaghetti western guitar sound? I'm getting more interested in that sound now. I've done most of the music here at home; Brian Eno's helped out, so has Roger. I'm very pleased with the sound. I started out using the Atari computer really strongly, but then used less and less sequencer. It's not a bad way of doing it, gradually replacing things with less parts, using the sequencer to help compositionally. The computer is an Atari 1040ST running C-Lab Creator."

"That sound is actually a Roland R8 drum machine. It's kind of neat, just taking the whistle and shaker sounds on the drum machine and doubling everything on the computer, so it's playing as many notes as it possibly can all of one sound."

"This here's an Allen & Heath 16-track Saber mixing desk. They are a really good English company who actually replaced all the faders a year ago when I had some trouble with it. It doesn't have automated mixing but it has MIDI muting, which helps."

"The monitors are Yamaha NS 1000s - they've got a big, beautiful sound. Then there's the 16-track Fostex, the Atari C-Lab, the patch panel... Here's a fantastic Eventide H3000 harmonizer. This is a thing I made called a VEWA - a vocal effects waveform animator. It adds vocal-like formants to a signal. It's sort of like a random vocoder. I used it quite a bit on Hybrid. This here is a Lexicon LXP1 digital reverb, which has an incredible quality to it. The Yamaha TX802 is the synthesizer I use. This Bel digital delay line I use live a lot. It produces 13-second loops in sync with MIDI, so it's like having a rhythm guitarist who can play for 13 seconds - that's very important for my live work. Here's the Yamaha SPX90 and Roland reverb I use sometimes."

"The monitors are Yamaha NS 1000s - they've got a big, beautiful sound. Then there's the 16-track Fostex, the Atari C-Lab, the patch panel... Here's a fantastic Eventide H3000 harmonizer. This is a thing I made called a VEWA - a vocal effects waveform animator. It adds vocal-like formants to a signal. It's sort of like a random vocoder. I used it quite a bit on Hybrid. This here is a Lexicon LXP1 digital reverb, which has an incredible quality to it. The Yamaha TX802 is the synthesizer I use. This Bel digital delay line I use live a lot. It produces 13-second loops in sync with MIDI, so it's like having a rhythm guitarist who can play for 13 seconds - that's very important for my live work. Here's the Yamaha SPX90 and Roland reverb I use sometimes."

"The monitors are Yamaha NS 1000s - they've got a big, beautiful sound. Then there's the 16-track Fostex, the Atari C-Lab, the patch panel... Here's a fantastic Eventide H3000 harmonizer. This is a thing I made called a VEWA - a vocal effects waveform animator. It adds vocal-like formants to a signal. It's sort of like a random vocoder. I used it quite a bit on Hybrid. This here is a Lexicon LXP1 digital reverb, which has an incredible quality to it. The Yamaha TX802 is the synthesizer I use. This Bel digital delay line I use live a lot. It produces 13-second loops in sync with MIDI, so it's like having a rhythm guitarist who can play for 13 seconds - that's very important for my live work. Here's the Yamaha SPX90 and Roland reverb I use sometimes."

"This piece here is a Drawmer M500, which does everything: compression, noise gating, limiting... it does nice tremolo, also, and in time with the music. I don't think anything else does that. Then there's a DAT machine, the infinite guitar box, a DX7, pedal boards, the buzz bass, and the Hawaiian guitar. How's that?"

Most of the album was recorded and mixed in Brook's flat, the guitarist having turned a spacious living room into a home studio centred around a 24-channel Allen & Heath Sabre mixing desk and a Fostex E16 multitrack, with monitoring via Yamaha NS1000s. Along with footpedals and rack-mount effects units, the studio includes an Atari 1040ST, C-Lab's Notator software, a Digital Music MX8 MIDI patchbay, a Yamaha DX7 synth with TX802 synth module, a Roland R8M drum module and (recently-acquired) S770 sampler.

Most of the album was recorded and mixed in Brook's flat, the guitarist having turned a spacious living room into a home studio centred around a 24-channel Allen & Heath Sabre mixing desk and a Fostex E16 multitrack, with monitoring via Yamaha NS1000s. Along with footpedals and rack-mount effects units, the studio includes an Atari 1040ST, C-Lab's Notator software, a Digital Music MX8 MIDI patchbay, a Yamaha DX7 synth with TX802 synth module, a Roland R8M drum module and (recently-acquired) S770 sampler.

Most of the album was recorded and mixed in Brook's flat, the guitarist having turned a spacious living room into a home studio centred around a 24-channel Allen & Heath Sabre mixing desk and a Fostex E16 multitrack, with monitoring via Yamaha NS1000s. Along with footpedals and rack-mount effects units, the studio includes an Atari 1040ST, C-Lab's Notator software, a Digital Music MX8 MIDI patchbay, a Yamaha DX7 synth with TX802 synth module, a Roland R8M drum module and (recently-acquired) S770 sampler.

Most of the album was recorded and mixed in Brook's flat, the guitarist having turned a spacious living room into a home studio centred around a 24-channel Allen & Heath Sabre mixing desk and a Fostex E16 multitrack, with monitoring via Yamaha NS1000s. Along with footpedals and rack-mount effects units, the studio includes an Atari 1040ST, C-Lab's Notator software, a Digital Music MX8 MIDI patchbay, a Yamaha DX7 synth with TX802 synth module, a Roland R8M drum module and (recently-acquired) S770 sampler.

For live work, Brook uses a Roland MC50 sequencer in place of his Atari and Notator setup. He transfers his sequences into the MC50 by playing them across via MIDI rather than by saving them as Standard MIDI Files and loading them in off disk.

Rack Effects: Bel BD80S Sampling Delay Drawmer M500 Compressor Dulay 16 second Delay Line (custom-built) Eventide H3000 Harmoniser Lexicon LXP1 Reverb Yamaha SPX90 Multi-effects Processor Vocal Effects Waveform Animator (self-built)

From equipment list:

Recording: Allen & Heath Sabre 24:16:2 Mixing Desk Atari 1040ST Computer running C-Lab Notator software Digital Music MX8 MIDI Patchbay Fostex E16 Multitrack Panasonic 3700 DAT Machine Rauch Amp Sony DTC1000 DAT Machine Yamaha MCS2 MIDI Control Station Yamaha NS1000 Monitors

Live Setup:

Bel BD80S Sampling Delay Digital Music MX8 MIDI Patchbay Drawmer M500 Compressor Eventide H3000 Harmoniser IVL 7000 Mk2 Pitchrider pitch to MIDI converter Lexicon LXP1 Reverb Neve 1073 Pre-amp (used with guitar) Roland MC50 Sequencer Seck 18:8:2 Mixing Desk Simmons SPX 8:2 Rack-mount Mixer Tokai Guitar and pedals (see above) Yamaha MCS2 MIDI Control Station Yamaha SPX90 Multi-effects Processor Yamaha TX802 Synth Module

In the Muzines article "Infinite World" from October 1992, it is noted that Michael Brook's live setup includes the Simmons SPM 8:2, a rack-mount mixer, among other gear.

Alongside that AMS and a Roland SRV2000 reverb, Brook has a brand-new Yamaha SPX90 multi-processor, and what is probably the largest private collection of old Electro Harmonix 16-second delays. He is equally enthusiastic about both.

“Symphony I/O sounds really incredible. More transparent, more detail, and dimensional than the AD-16X, which still sounds great. Another aspect is that the installation/registration process was absolutely the best I’ve ever experienced from any manufacturer. It may sound a bit trivial, but to me the intelligence of the setup process indicates that there is probably a similar degree of care inside the box. Really congratulate whomever designed the software for that, very smart. We were up and running about 30 minutes after opening the box. No glitches, no head scratching. When you constantly have deadlines something like this can strongly influence one’s perception of a company and their products.”