Steve Mac

I’ve been messing around with Trash 2 of late as one of my mates that I work with a lot uses it all the time, very impressive distortion. It’s quite out there but it really works.

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 09.40] about his Jomox Mbase 11:

“This does kick drums, basically. It's a little analog machine and goes down to about 10 hertz, it really shakes the room. It's really handy, sort of based on both the TR-808 and TR-909 kick drum which most electronic kick drums are based on. It's very versatile. There are a lot of different parameters on the machine. It's quite limitless what your can do, really. It's a great way of getting an analogue kick drum without spending loads of money. A very handy machine to have"

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 12:32] about his Sherman Filterbank:

“Here we have an old Sherman Filterbank, which is obviously in the corner here behind everything. It doesn't get used that much anymore but I still like these. I used to have the big one. They did a limited run of them, it was four in one box. I think The Chemical Brothers got the first one and we had number 20 or so."

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 13:10] about his Studio Electronics Midi Moog:

“This is basically a real Minimoog but in a rack version which was made by Studio Electronics. This thing sounds absolutely massive. Just like a Minimoog, basically. It's got a few more controls on it, obviously because it's midi. You've got more aftertouch and things like that in the controls. We sort of always go to that for bass as well as the Roland SH-5. I love using the Midi Moog for sub-bass. The sine wave on it is absolutely huge. That's the Minimoog thing, you just press one of the keys and it shakes the room. It's just known for that."

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 28:48] about his SSL G384 Buss Compressor:

“I also use this on my master buss. The controls never move. The way I have it set up it just tickles it. It's the first bit of analogue gear in my master chain that the signal goes through and the meter hardly moves. Probably half a db or so of movement."

I’m quite a new user to Ozone. I have to say this plug-in sounds bloody amazing. I mainly use it as separate plug-ins not the all-in-one. The multi band dynamics is now my go-to, it’s so precise and having the mid-side option is so handy.

In the video, where Steve Mac is taking Future Music Magazine on a tour of his studio, at 0:21:33 he says "The main ones for my main sound I use the Prism Orpheus".

In the video, where Steve Mac is taking Future Music Magazine on a tour of his studio, at 0:48:31 he says "Also we've come to over here which is a JD-800 which we have been using extensively for the last two or three weeks on this new project we are doing and we're just getting some amazing sounds out of it. Yeah, they are really, really, really good. Got lovely filters on them. Really, really, really good synth".

Co-producing "Shape of you" with Ed Sheeran, the instrument can be seen throughout the video.

In this video, Steve Mac can be seen using Oxford EQ at 6:38

In this YouTube video at 7:17 Steve Mac an be seen using Amber, a subtractive VST Synthesizer by fxpansion.

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 00:56] about his Roland Jupiter-6:

"I love the Jupiter-6. It's a classic Roland synth that everybody knows about. Good chord sounds, really good arpeggio sounds for use in the background. I use this quite a lot"

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 01:25] about his Roland SH-5:

"The beast, SH-5. Another Roland synth. What we've been using this a lot for lately is bass. It's got two filter sections on it, and it's the Band Pass filter that really, really pushes it out in the mix. It's hard to explain what it does. It just gets this huge, huge bass sound."

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 03:00] about his ARP 2600:

"ARP 2600, another classic synthesizer. I love the ARP 2600. It's got such a big sound and it's one of those things you can just keep plugging away at and get unexpected sounds. It's one of those things where you can get a bit carried away with it and just sit there hours on end. It's also got it's own spring reverb which is a really, really good part of this machine."

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 10:30] about his Roland TB-303:

“My battered TB-303. I recently had some of the buttons replaced on it, they were double triggering. We still use it every now and then. I did a couple of tracks recently with it. That's why the sit in the corner, you pull them out every now and again."

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 10:55] about his Moog MF-105M Moogerfooger MIDI MuRF:

“What have we got here... MoogerFooger MurF, which is a nice pedal. It's got a step sequencer of frequencies on it so you can clock to the cv gates. Throw your sounds through and move the frequencies and get different types of steps running through those frequencies while midi clocked. I really like that one."

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 11:40] about his Casio CZ-101:

“We used this on a track recently, and it was sort of like this really soft Rhodes sounding patch that I used it for. I also found an original rave organ on it. It's quite mad, you can pick up this machines now for next to nothing and you get some really interesting sounds from them. Don't be put off by the name Casio."

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 14:02] about his Roland JP-8080:

“I haven't used this much recently. It's known for the big super-saw sound. That's why everyone sort of bought them. It's got some good features on it. The vocoder section is something I want to mess around with more to be honest."

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 15:20] about his Roland System 100:

“I've always liked the system 100. I've had a couple of them. I had a fire a couple of years ago so the original ones I had lost. I bought them again when I was in Japan. It was in the 5G synthesizer shop. I saw the expander there and just had to pick it up."

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 26:50] about his Urei 1178 Dual Peak Limiter:

“I've owned three of those and it's my favorite one. There is just a sound about this one that is just amazing."

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 27:02] about his Eventide H8000:

“Here we have the Eventide H8000, which I've been using for quite a long time now. I've always been a fan of the Eventide effects. A lot of them are pretty bonkers and I don't use them so much for reverb, just more for special FX. It's got some amazing delays and pitch shifters, obviously because that's what they are known for."

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 12:30] about his Manley Massive Passive:

“it's ok." ;)

During a studio tour with Future Music Magazine, Steve Mac says [@ 12:34] about his Amtec Program Equalizer PEQ-1A:

“I really like these two Amtec Program Equalizers which are based on the Pultec units, but obviously a remake. A man in Poland makes these things. I bought two directly off him and had them calibrated the same. I use them on my master mix as well. At the end just to tickle 1db of boost and 1db of cut."

In the video, where Steve Mac is taking Future Music Magazine on a tour of his studio, at 0:0:11 he says "We start overe here, Yamaha CS-15".

In the video, where Steve Mac is taking Future Music Magazine on a tour of his studio, at 0:23:26 he says "I've got a Prism Lyra here as well which is the new cut-down version of the Orpheus [Prism Sound Orpheus] which is a great little machine. I use this for two things: one for travelling because It's small enough . . . and I also use it on a seperate computer for mastering . . .".

In the video, where Steve Mac is taking Future Music Magazine on a tour of his studio, at 0:26:17 he mentions ". . . I work in Logic, just got into Logic X actually . . .".

In the video, where Steve Mac is taking Future Music Magazine on a tour of his studio, at 0:29:41 he says "I've also got a big EMT 140 Plate . . .".

In the video, where Steve Mac is taking Future Music Magazine on a tour of his studio, at 0:30:10 he says "Right here I've got an Akai Renaissance . . . This is probably the best bit of kit I have got my hands on in a while".

In the video, where Steve Mac is taking Future Music Magazine on a tour of his studio, at 0:45:50 he says "Here's a Prophet" and hits some keys on the synthesizer.

In the video, where Steve Mac is taking Future Music Magazine on a tour of his studio, at 0:48:13 he says "Under that is a JD-990 which is also really, really lovely sounding digital synth . . .".