Tony Visconti

Visconti can be seen with a Fender Precision Bass in this photo on Roland's official site.

Visconti states in this interview with Roland: "I first bought a Jupiter-8 in the ‘70s: I still have it and it still works fantastically well. My oldest son, Morgan, started playing on that thing when he was about ten. It’s been in the family for years and it still gets used on recordings. Since then, I’ve had most of the Roland keyboards and modules like the XP-80, Fantom, JV-1080, XV-5080 and even the M-GS64. Back in the ’80s, I was programming with the MC-4 for The Moody Blues and others."

In this Sound On Sound article there is a photo of Visconti's gear, which includes an Avalon VT737SP.

In this Sound On Sound article, there is a photo of Visconti's gear, which includes an Alesis 3630.

Visconti says that the basic vocal chain on the album consisted of Bowie's own Manley Gold Reference Mic into an Avalon mic pre, into an LA-3A compressor and a Focusrite Red EQ, then into an Apogee 8000 A/D converter and a G4 Mac running Logic Audio. “I started recording vocals on analog, as I did with all of the drums [16-track at 15 ips with Dolby SR, or 30 ips with no noise reduction — I consider it to be the ultimate tape format,” Visconti says, but the lock-up became tedious, so we stayed in the digital realm — 24-bit, 44.1k]. On one song, ‘I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spacecraft,’ I used a Shure SM57 to get a rockier sound, but I later regretted that because the Manley spoiled me rotten. It's such a sweet mic, very musical in the midrange. The Manley mic vocals just leapt out of the mixes, whilst the 57 needed lots of EQ, compression and, ultimately, de-essing to get it above the mix.”

Visconti says that the basic vocal chain on the album consisted of Bowie's own Manley Gold Reference Mic into an Avalon mic pre, into an LA-3A compressor and a Focusrite Red EQ, then into an Apogee 8000 A/D converter and a G4 Mac running Logic Audio. “I started recording vocals on analog, as I did with all of the drums [16-track at 15 ips with Dolby SR, or 30 ips with no noise reduction — I consider it to be the ultimate tape format,” Visconti says, but the lock-up became tedious, so we stayed in the digital realm — 24-bit, 44.1k]. On one song, ‘I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spacecraft,’ I used a Shure SM57 to get a rockier sound, but I later regretted that because the Manley spoiled me rotten. It's such a sweet mic, very musical in the midrange. The Manley mic vocals just leapt out of the mixes, whilst the 57 needed lots of EQ, compression and, ultimately, de-essing to get it above the mix.”

Visconti states in this interview with Roland: "I first bought a Jupiter-8 in the ‘70s: I still have it and it still works fantastically well. My oldest son, Morgan, started playing on that thing when he was about ten. It’s been in the family for years and it still gets used on recordings. Since then, I’ve had most of the Roland keyboards and modules like the XP-80, Fantom, JV-1080, XV-5080 and even the M-GS64. Back in the ’80s, I was programming with the MC-4 for The Moody Blues and others."

“The EQ possibilities are far beyond normal EQ plugins. Vitamin aptly describes it. You could call it Steroid too. I use it for low end primarily but it makes all my drums, bass and guitars pop out of the speakers.”

Tony Visconti talking about the Eventide H910 Harmonizer.

Visconti notes that the idea of 5.1 is to create a spatial playground. “There’s an effect in an early mix of Heroes where the lyric is ‘the guns shot above our heads,’” he explains. “In stereo, the gun shots are panned from left to right, whereas in 5.1, the sound moves from front to back, so you really get the idea of bullets passing by you. Only placing the band in the front and reverbs in the back is not using your six speakers creatively, so I’m not afraid to put primary information into the rear MSP10 speakers. What’s great about this setup and 5.1 is that you have the luxury of putting a rhythm guitar in the back right speaker, or having a full string section in the back. Classical and jazz recordings have more strict rules, but in the rock world, anything goes. After all, rock 'n' roll recording is basically creating an aural illusion.”

Visconti states in this interview with Roland: "I first bought a Jupiter-8 in the ‘70s: I still have it and it still works fantastically well. My oldest son, Morgan, started playing on that thing when he was about ten. It’s been in the family for years and it still gets used on recordings. Since then, I’ve had most of the Roland keyboards and modules like the XP-80, Fantom, JV-1080, XV-5080 and even the M-GS64. Back in the ’80s, I was programming with the MC-4 for The Moody Blues and others."

In this Sound On Sound article there is a photo of Visconti's gear, which includes a Universal Audio 2-610.

In this Sound On Sound article, there is a photo of Visconti's gear, which includes a Presonus ACP88.

In this Sound On Sound article there is a photo of Visconti's gear, which includes a Focusrite Red 1 500 Series Mic Pre Amp.

"Since then, I’ve had most of the Roland keyboards and modules like the XP-80, Fantom, JV-1080, XV-5080 and even the M-GS64. Back in the ’80s, I was programming with the MC-4 for The Moody Blues and others."

"Since then, I’ve had most of the Roland keyboards and modules like the XP-80, Fantom, JV-1080, XV-5080 and even the M-GS64. Back in the ’80s, I was programming with the MC-4 for The Moody Blues and others."

Visconti says that the basic vocal chain on the album consisted of Bowie's own Manley Gold Reference Mic into an Avalon mic pre, into an LA-3A compressor and a Focusrite Red EQ, then into an Apogee 8000 A/D converter and a G4 Mac running Logic Audio. “I started recording vocals on analog, as I did with all of the drums [16-track at 15 ips with Dolby SR, or 30 ips with no noise reduction — I consider it to be the ultimate tape format,” Visconti says, but the lock-up became tedious, so we stayed in the digital realm — 24-bit, 44.1k]. On one song, ‘I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spacecraft,’ I used a Shure SM57 to get a rockier sound, but I later regretted that because the Manley spoiled me rotten. It's such a sweet mic, very musical in the midrange. The Manley mic vocals just leapt out of the mixes, whilst the 57 needed lots of EQ, compression and, ultimately, de-essing to get it above the mix.”

As producer, engineer and arranger to David Bowie classics The Man Who Sold the World, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, Low, Heroes, Lodger and Scary Monsters, Tony Visconti’s contribution was a significant one, and he has been working on 5.1 remixes of selections from the Bowie catalog, including Stage and David Live. Those remixes allowed Visconti to revisit some of his early work, but and was the catalyst to update his studio at Philip Glass’ Looking Glass Studios in New York with a Yamaha DM2000 digital mixing console and MSP10 studio monitors, plus LOGIC 6.4.2 and Pro Tools 6.2 recording media.

Visconti says that the basic vocal chain on the album consisted of Bowie's own Manley Gold Reference Mic into an Avalon mic pre, into an LA-3A compressor and a Focusrite Red EQ, then into an Apogee 8000 A/D converter and a G4 Mac running Logic Audio.

'I've experimented with a Sony F1 for digital mastering and this is a good system if you want to run off lots of cassette copies as the master doesn't deteriorate. I don't really like the sound of digital recordings though because you miss all that tape compression that you've been used to all these years, so digital tends to sound a bit thin. It's a bit like the valve versus transistor argument all over again. A cassette copied from the F1 actually sounds better than the original due to tape saturation fattening up the sound.'

"For monitoring I've got a pair of little Akai speakers and I find the better Sony lightweight headphones good for monitoring in the presence of neighbours. As well as the odd few guitars and a sadly neglected sitar, there are a few synths including a Roland Jupiter 8 and a DX7 and of course a LinnDrum."

"For monitoring I've got a pair of little Akai speakers and I find the better Sony lightweight headphones good for monitoring in the presence of neighbours. As well as the odd few guitars and a sadly neglected sitar, there are a few synths including a Roland Jupiter 8 and a DX7 and of course a LinnDrum."

"I also have a Roland GR700 guitar synth which is an amazing instrument and its basic sound is really good; I only wish they'd given it MIDI IN so that I could use it as an expander for my other MIDI keyboards."

It is stated that: "Good Earth Studios boasted a floor space of 582 square feet and was L-shaped with two isolation booths and a Steinway grand piano. It was especially famous for its large, split-level control room, which was initially equipped with a Trident B-Range 24/16 desk and an MCI 16-track, augmented by a Trident Fleximix console."

According to a Guitar World interview, Tony Visconti used a Gibson EB-3 on the song "Black Country Rock" off of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World" album. This later inspired him to pick up a modern Gibson SG bass when joining the Bowie tribute band "Holy Holy"

According to Visconti, he acquired a modern Gibson SG bass to perform with the David Bowie tribute band "Holy Holy", needing a short scale to faithfully recreate the songs he used a Gibson EB-3 to record on the album "The Man Who Sold the World". The SG bass is pictured in the photo above the interview.