Olafur Arnalds

The centrepiece of Arnalds' studio is his 1903 Bechstein piano. "It was just restored,” he points out, "so everything inside of it is kind of brand new. But the whole body has the character of a 110-year-old piano.

"...miked with pairs of Coles 4038s or Neumann KM84s, is central to most of Ólafur Arnalds' recordings."

At 5:55 Olafur talks about his Lexicon Prime time delay stating he was introduced to it by the soundtoys plugin little primal tap.

I also have an old Korg MS10 which is falling apart. I use it mostly for bass and if there's some rhythmic stuff. And of course, that filter is just the best filter ever made.

"When it comes to microphones, Arnalds relies mostly on a pair of Neumann KM84s that he bought from the estate of Hansa Studios owner Peter Meisel. He is tickled by the notion that they were most likely used on some of the classic albums made in Berlin by the likes of David Bowie and U2. "They're in perfect shape and they're marked with his name,” he says. "They're my go-to condensers, but I also have a pair of Coles 4038 [ribbons], which I use a lot on the piano.”"

Seen clearly at the 2:05 minute mark.

"Ólafur Arnalds still lives and works in Iceland, operating out of a studio complex by the harbour in Reykjavik called E7, which houses various production suites, a mastering room and even a cinema mix room. In his studio, he runs Pro Tools HD 10, using Mytek 192 converters and Barefoot MicroMain 35 monitors."

Can be seen throughout video in front of two pc monitors

Mentioned at 21:40 in the video. "It's pretty much the only actual polyphonic synth ever made cause it has an oscillator for every key."

"In terms of in-the-box effects, Arnalds is a great lover of UAD plug-ins, particularly the EMT 250 reverb and the Moog Multimode Filter. "I do a lot of side-chain filtering,” he says. "I might have a drum beat and send it out to an external bus as well with a filter and distortion and just layer that on top of the drum beat to give it a little bit more character and life. I like the Sound Toys Decapitator for distortion.”"

"When recording Arnarson, Arnalds put up two microphones: an AKG C12A and a Telefunken AK47 Mk II with an M9 capsule, both fed through API 512 preamps. "Then in the mix, depending on the song,” he explains, "I just chose which mic to use. I ended up using the Telefunken in three songs and the C12 on 'A Stutter'."

The above article describes Arnalds using this mic in his studio.

Korg PolySix - not much used. I love it though. I only bought it for one sound. There's this one sound that you will hear a lot. In my stuff on "For Now I Am Winter", like kind of an ambient wave, and also in a lot of Kiasmos songs.

In a video by Spitfire Audio titled "Creative Cribs - @olafurarnalds 1.0 (Broadchurch)," Ólafur Arnalds discusses his extensive use of the Roland Juno-60, highlighting its presence in nearly all his work.

At 1:37 in the video two of these can been seen, he explains that they are clones made using the original designs by his former engineer.

"In terms of in-the-box effects, Arnalds is a great lover of UAD plug-ins, particularly the EMT 250 reverb and the Moog Multimode Filter. "I do a lot of side-chain filtering,” he says. "I might have a drum beat and send it out to an external bus as well with a filter and distortion and just layer that on top of the drum beat to give it a little bit more character and life. I like the Sound Toys Decapitator for distortion.”"

At the start of the video to the left of his desk

At 9:26 Olafur explains what this device is and how/why he uses it

"I might have a drum beat and send it out to an external bus as well with a filter and distortion and just layer that on top of the drum beat to give it a little bit more character and life. I like the Sound Toys Decapitator for distortion.”

Seen on Olafur's desk at 26:03 in the video.

In the live performance on KEXP, Ólafur Arnalds can be seen using the M-Audio Trigger Finger MIDI Controller placed on top of his keyboard.

Seen at 1:50. Seen in many live shows.

In the YouTube video by Spitfire Audio titled "Creative Cribs - @olafurarnalds 1.0 (Broadchurch)," Ólafur Arnalds is seen using Avid Pro Tools on the right-hand computer monitor in his studio setup.

In the Spitfire Audio YouTube video "Creative Cribs - @olafurarnalds 1.0 (Broadchurch)," Ólafur Arnalds is shown using the Nagra IV-S, an analog multitrack recorder, highlighting its role in his studio setup.

At the start of the video to the left of the midi keyboard you can see the controller for this device

"I almost always track them through the [Roland RE201] Space Echo — it's like my automatic thing — and that combination, it always works. And it works wonderfully along with strings and piano."

”The Access Virus was my first ever synthesizer, it's kind of crap but I like to keep it there.”

In an article by Emusician, Ólafur Arnalds is noted for using the Neumann KM 84 microphone.

The above article describes Arnalds using this to EQ compression.

In a video by Spitfire Audio, Olafur Arnalds is shown using Native Instruments KONTAKT 6 on his top PC monitor in his studio setup.

At 6:30 in the video Olafur shows these.