tommypatzius

The ultimate catalyst for creativity. The center of my current in-the-box studio.

The other ultimate catalyst for creativity. The former center of my in-the-box studio. Currently being used for the little things.

Cancelled cable. Never looked back. The Apple TV is too good for words.

Nothing is more central to the recording process for me, than Propellerhead's Reason. It's so stable, so good, so pure! It compliments the iMac and MacBook Pro so well, and is the ultimate tool for getting my ideas across musically.

The best way of slicing up audio files of drums, loops, single shots, anything really. I love how it automatically fades samples that you slice from a loop so that you're not left with an individual hit that ends abruptly and poorly. This is Reason's ultimate sidekick if you're into sampling, or just want to expand your creative potential.

These ReFills add a lot more tools to the already great factory ReFills that make up Reason's factory sound bank. The Abbey Road Keyboards are the best for livening up a track. The Electric Bass patches are by far the most realistic, most dynamic, and most innovative hyper-sampled bass sounds I have ever heard. I always use the Fender Precision and Rickenbacker basses as early on in the track as I can because they're just that good! The Reason Pianos and Reason Drum Kits are also the only option I seem to take for programming realistic sounding live drums, and grand pianos into the mix.

I don't use Logic as religiously as I do Reason, however Logic is an amazing tool and can do at least one thing that Reason can't. Run plugins. Anytime I want to throw a Waves plugin onto one of my tracks, Logic is the way to go! To be fair though, Logic has some seriously awesome sounds built right in, and I'm always happy whenever I launch it.

I'm always blown away with how powerful Melodyne is. It's unreal that I can tune individual notes so effortlessly, and still can't believe I can view chords separated into individual notes on a piano roll, and tune those too! Crazy!

Waves plugins are tried and true! I love all the Chris Lord-Alge stuff, the digital remodeling of classic compressors like the 1176, LA-2A, and the Fairchild. I love the L2, the Kramer Master Tape, the SSL stuff, the PAZ Analyzer, Center, everything really!

Great sound! Crispy highs, clean mids, tight lows that are surprisingly audible for a relatively small woofer. Also, they look great in the studio room I allocated them to sit in, and compliment the iMac very well.

These Beats over-ear noise-cancelling headphones are nothing short of great! Say what you want about Beats, but I've used all the competitors flagship headphones, and these are priced at what they are for a reason! Other headphones in this price bracket, and higher don't really impress me the way the Beats Studio do. Very crisp highs, beautiful mids, and very tight and controlled low end. If you want to hear the full frequency range the way you were meant to, listen to your favorite mix on these!

An amazing portable studio-quality microphone. Seriously, this mic is amazing! It records audio at 24 bit 96kHz quality, and captures all the little details in the room so well. What's great is it plugs right into your Mac's USB, or into an iPhone/iPad, and has Apogee's incredible digital-audio converters built right in. So all you really have to do is adjust the level with the gain knob, and start recording!

This is another awesome product I have from Apogee. It's the easiest, most basic way of recording any instrument directly into a Mac, iPhone or iPad. Just plug in, adjust the gain and start recording! Works for guitars, keyboards, ukuleles, bass, even dynamic microphones if you have an XLR to 1/4" adapter. The sound is great too, of course!

This MIDI controller is perfect! It compliments my DAW's Reason & Logic flawlessly. I love how I can program each fader, knob, and pad to control anything and everything I want to inside of Reason. I use the Pitch and Mod wheel to bring out the little extras that make certain patch presets come alive. Also, I really love how the keys are semi-weighted, and allow you to provide aftertouch, and the best part of it all is there are 61 keys, so it's great for demoing the full range of any software instrument.

This little guy sits right between my iMac and bluetooth keyboard. It's always plugged in, and ready to go for whenever I launch Reason or Logic. It's light, simple, looks great easy to play, and overall just really convenient. I also like to take it on trips and compose on the go.

The classic stage mic! I love how it's also not bad at being a studio microphone. It's tried and true, and built like a tank. Seriously, I could use it as a hammer, and then go on to record vocals with it and it will still sound great!

Every big chorus section needs at least 2 tracks of tambourine.

This is an excellent ukulele! It comes with three nylon, and one steel string. It's always in tune, and has an onboard pickup so I can record direct in if I choose, but also sounds great mic'd up. I've snuck this ukulele into so many of my mixes.

What a great little FM Synthesizer! It boasts stereo output, and has such a primitive, cheesy sound that is sometimes just what I need to add a little fun to a mix. It dates back to 1987, and some of the patches are modeled (poorly) after instruments such as saxophone, trumpet, oboe, flute, piano, jazz guitar, and koto for example. You can also use the digital synthesizer faders to create your own sound, which can come in handy when you're looking for a synth lead, or pad, or even synth bass sound that you know you could only get from a little synth like this. It doesn't support MIDI (not surprising) so for recording the audio into my DAW, I'm using a stereo auxiliary to 1/4" jack rig that I pieced together from parts I found while digging through Radio Shack.