Tony Visconti

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 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.”

Tony Visconti talking about the Eventide H910 Harmonizer.

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

"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.

'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."

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."