Paul Humphreys

Although boasting a lush sound, the album was recorded largely at Paul's Rhythm Ranch studio on a single tascam 16-track with a Studiomaster desk. Synths used include: Roland D-50, Akai S1000 and S3000, Kork M1R, Waldorf Microwave, Roland Super Jupiter module, Oberheim Matrix 1000, Yamaha TX802, Minimoog, MIDIMoog, Oberheim Two-Voice, Roland Jupiter 8 and SH-101.

Although boasting a lush sound, the album was recorded largely at Paul's Rhythm Ranch studio on a single tascam 16-track with a Studiomaster desk. Synths used include: Roland D-50, Akai S1000 and S3000, Kork M1R, Waldorf Microwave, Roland Super Jupiter module, Oberheim Matrix 1000, Yamaha TX802, Minimoog, MIDIMoog, Oberheim Two-Voice, Roland Jupiter 8 and SH-101.

Although boasting a lush sound, the album was recorded largely at Paul's Rhythm Ranch studio on a single tascam 16-track with a Studiomaster desk. Synths used include: Roland D-50, Akai S1000 and S3000, Kork M1R, Waldorf Microwave, Roland Super Jupiter module, Oberheim Matrix 1000, Yamaha TX802, Minimoog, MIDIMoog, Oberheim Two-Voice, Roland Jupiter 8 and SH-101.

Although boasting a lush sound, the album was recorded largely at Paul's Rhythm Ranch studio on a single tascam 16-track with a Studiomaster desk. Synths used include: Roland D-50, Akai S1000 and S3000, Kork M1R, Waldorf Microwave, Roland Super Jupiter module, Oberheim Matrix 1000, Yamaha TX802, Minimoog, MIDIMoog, Oberheim Two-Voice, Roland Jupiter 8 and SH-101.

"Andy and myself also ended up with a Mellotron each, and I've kept an Emulator IIX, which is good for grungy loops. "We can achieve very good production quality with this set-up just through being very careful. We learned a lot with OMD from engineers like Tom Lord Alge and Steve Hague, so we can use the facilities we have to the out most. We've got good outboard effects like Lexicon reverbs and Urei compressors, and decent speakers like Yamaha NS10s and NS40s. Now I'm getting into the Yamaha ProMix 01 automated mixer, which is great because you can reset it so quickly. It allow you to get some perspective on a song then return to it easily."

"Andy and myself also ended up with a Mellotron each, and I've kept an Emulator IIX, which is good for grungy loops. "We can achieve very good production quality with this set-up just through being very careful. We learned a lot with OMD from engineers like Tom Lord Alge and Steve Hague, so we can use the facilities we have to the out most. We've got good outboard effects like Lexicon reverbs and Urei compressors, and decent speakers like Yamaha NS10s and NS40s. Now I'm getting into the Yamaha ProMix 01 automated mixer, which is great because you can reset it so quickly. It allow you to get some perspective on a song then return to it easily."

"Andy and myself also ended up with a Mellotron each, and I've kept an Emulator IIX, which is good for grungy loops. "We can achieve very good production quality with this set-up just through being very careful. We learned a lot with OMD from engineers like Tom Lord Alge and Steve Hague, so we can use the facilities we have to the out most. We've got good outboard effects like Lexicon reverbs and Urei compressors, and decent speakers like Yamaha NS10s and NS40s. Now I'm getting into the Yamaha ProMix 01 automated mixer, which is great because you can reset it so quickly. It allow you to get some perspective on a song then return to it easily."

'"English Electric’ uses the following instrumentation… Paul Humphreys: Synth-Werk, ARP 2600, M Tron Pro, Trillion, Omnisphere, Oberheim SEM V, Morphoder, Jupiter 8V2, Minimoog V, Prophet Pro 53, Massive, Vacuum, Boom"

"Trillion" appears to be a typo; it should be Trillian.

Paul is using a Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 audio interface, as seen at 0:21.

Paul is playing a Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S88, as seen at 0:28.

When mixing, Humphreys combines IK Multimedia’s T-RackS with physical SSL channels and some Urei 1176 compression to get valve-like warmth (or a little positive “filth for color and feel” adds McCluskey). “First, I do like to ride things intricately, even down to the syllables, to get almost like a hand-drawn compression, then I’ll put something like an 1176 on it so that’s not moving so much as holding it right there,” says Humphreys. A Waves G-Channel on the mix bus complements the SSL hardware EQ, and the Waves Renaissance bundle adds parametric options for more forensic carving.

When mixing, Humphreys combines IK Multimedia’s T-RackS with physical SSL channels and some Urei 1176 compression to get valve-like warmth (or a little positive “filth for color and feel” adds McCluskey). “First, I do like to ride things intricately, even down to the syllables, to get almost like a hand-drawn compression, then I’ll put something like an 1176 on it so that’s not moving so much as holding it right there,” says Humphreys. A Waves G-Channel on the mix bus complements the SSL hardware EQ, and the Waves Renaissance bundle adds parametric options for more forensic carving.

"When mixing, Humphreys combines IK Multimedia’s T-RackS with physical SSL channels and some Urei 1176 compression to get valve-like warmth (or a little positive “filth for color and feel” adds McCluskey). “First, I do like to ride things intricately, even down to the syllables, to get almost like a hand-drawn compression, then I’ll put something like an 1176 on it so that’s not moving so much as holding it right there,” says Humphreys. A Waves G-Channel on the mix bus complements the SSL hardware EQ, and the Waves Renaissance bundle adds parametric options for more forensic carving."

"We've had it updated to a Series IIX, says Humphreys. "That's been really helpful because, although the sampling on the Fairlight isn't too hot, it's a fantastic writing tool. Now we can get really crisp samples by MIDIing it to the Emulator. We still use it a lot, but there are still certain things, like sampling voices, that it can't handle."

"We made almost the entire last 2 albums completely in the box so to speak, inside the computer with Protools using a lot of modelled analogue synths from the early days such as the Jupiter 8, Prophet 5, Virus, ARP etc, but also using new synths that have never previously existed in the physical world that provided colours and sounds that we found new and inspirational, namely the Omnisphere (great for melody sounds such as the one in ‘Isotype’) and also Waves have a great synth / sequencer called Element which we used extensively."

"Not an option, so we kept buying Fantom X8s on Ebay to replace broken ones until THEY started to fail and finally decided to switch to a system that has built-in redundancy, the world of laptops and Native Instruments Kontakt running in MainStage. It still meant that we had to spend months importing all the sounds them into the new system, but for the last time!!! I have to confess something, we employed a tech geek to do it for us, I couldn’t face doing it again myself!!"

"We had trouble finding a keyboard to use with it", explains Humphreys. "We went through two Oberheim Xks that wouldn't talk to it - they just wouldn't listen to each other. Eventually we found out that the problem lay with the Oberheim, because we'd been using the Super Jupiter with lots of other MIDI sources without any trouble. It's fine now, but we've been thinking about getting a DX7 - because we don't actually own one - to use as a controller. The problem there is changing the presets on the Super Jupiter, because you can't do it from the DX7."

"For the intro we used a French sampler, the Publison Infernal Machine. We fed in two phrases of the vocals from the end of the song where the girl's singing in French, and kept spinning it in until it fitted into the intro. The Publison does time compression so you can keep the same pitch, but extend the length of the phrase. It just spreads out the information over a longer period of time. I think it's the only machine around that will do it."

Paul Humphreys of OMD used the Roland TR-606 Drumatix, as noted in the liner notes of their album "Dazzle Ships," according to a description on Sweetwater.

In the video by Neil Taylor titled "OMD Early Synthesizers / Synthesizers and Samples," Paul Humphreys of OMD is shown using the Roland SH-1000 synthesizer.