These keep me sane. I have a pair of the baby ones at home too and will sometimes bring them on tour etc. I’m just so used to them at this point that even if I get some super high budget speakers, I will always keep these on the go. The SAM room tuning is cool too but I don’t have it engaged in this studio but there was a brief period earlier this year where I was working solely from home in my shoebox office and it was a godsend.

I bought this after doing the Amyl & The Sniffers record because we used it on most of the guitars and I fell in love. Awesome, versatile mic and has such a cute little case too! Works really well on some people’s vocals (mine included) and actually I am yet to find something it doesn’t work on. When I bought it, I thought I should buy more than one because they’re only going to go up in price (alas I only found one and they’ve gone up about 50% in the last couple of years alone).

Coming from Live Sound I really missed having the control of faders in my studio so I bought this and love it! So much quicker and more tactile for fades and effects sends etc.

The SM58 is such a useful mic. It’s indestructible. I’ve never known a SM58 to go wrong. If the mic ever happens to not work, it’s going to be something to do with the lead and not the mic itself. I’ve used the SM58 on everything. You can take off the windshield and use it on the snare, and on the same session, you can use it on acoustic guitar — I once did a whole record with The Posies (Dear 23, 1990) using a SM58 on the acoustic guitars and it sounded fantastic. Put a SM58 up close to the grille on a Marshall amp and it’s going to sound great. With a SM58 you can sing, scream, shout into it, and whisper into it — you can do all these things and more. It will never let you down.

Much like the Pultec EQ, I put my Urei 1176 on everything — from drum overheads to across the whole mix (again, if you’re lucky enough to have a pair). I’ve done many mixes where I’ve had the 1176 across the mix and just have it kick in at 1dB. Although the controls are really simple, like Slow and Fast on the Attack and Release, you can do so much with it. You can set it up and ride it with the attack almost ticking over. Or you can have it go from a slow attack, which you can put on say, the drums, so you don’t hear it sucking. You can bend the needle and really crank it up on vocals, drums, bass, everything. My favourite is the Blackface version which I put over the drums — the sibilance is really smooth.

I’m not going to single out one tape machine because I just love any type so long as it’s got varispeed, such as a Revox. The varispeed goes right down to Stop and right up to superfast. It means that if you put in a delay on a vocal or a guitar, for example, you don’t have to mess around working out a delay time, looking at a BPM chart, and typing it in. I’ve never done that anyway. I’ve always used my ears, listening to the delay and varying the speed until it feels good. I’ll turn up the feedback so I have some pulse going, set the delay and the speed, then back the feedback off and it will feel good. 

Okay, so this isn’t one piece of gear, it’s more like 50. Lately I’ve been building it up and it’s been a constant source of inspiration. I try to use it in ways that wouldn’t make sense to do in the box. It’s great for happy accidents, plugging things in accidentally and finding something totally unexpected. I usually use it as a sound design tool and then chop things up in my DAW rather than as a compositional tool but it really is a wild beast of unlimited possibilities. I work much slower on it than on a computer which is sometimes annoying but on the flipside you’re forced to spend more time thinking about each step, so it generates different results.

My studio is designed so that everything runs through this mixing desk. I’ve had it for 12 years or so and I can’t seem to part ways with it even though it takes up so much space. Every acoustic instrument and even all my synths and my modular run through it. It’s also got two inputs per channel so I run my DAW outputs into the second channel so I can press a button and route anything I want from my DAW through it as well. I have the auxiliaries patched to a bunch of ever-rotating guitar pedals so I can do delay or reverb throws or parallel compression on the way in. It’s a really fun and tactile way to get great sounds into the computer before you even look at a screen.

This is the only vintage synth I own (for now). It’s just such a classic. It has all the basic functions you need put together in a super intuitive way so that it’s fun to play with. It also sounds super rich. My interest in the SH-101 was first piqued when I discovered that one of my fave acs (Bicep) used it in almost every song they release. It really comes to life once you add some FX and processing but you’re really starting with the best source possible if you’re after a classic square or saw mono synth sound.

Michael Bell: I bought the Moog because I wanted more hands-on control and responsiveness. After Ben bought the Prophet 12 I could see how that was helping to direct our creativity and I wanted that for our bass sounds and sequences as well. The Moog Sub 37 is a two-note paraphonic analogue synth. Having those two separate oscillator voices has really helped us to create a wide range of sounds and taken us down some interesting creative avenues. For one of our songs Float, the chords on that are all Moog.

The arp/sequencer is a great way of creating and tweaking sounds. I latch the arp and slowly figure out the best envelope settings, for example. We’ve created some unique sounds and sequences with interesting velocity response. 

Ben Woolner: Most of a good SAFIA mix is around the relationship between the bass and kick, and then the vocal balance. Spending that time jamming to perfectly sculpt the bass around the kick is always a good idea. Those are the songs which just jump out of the speakers.

It’s such a rich forward sound because of those two voices. Creating a sound with two harmonies moving together is something you could probably recreate with a Moog plug-in, but it’d take days getting it there.

Ben: It’s an amazing synth, especially for anything expansive. The longer we produce music, the more we’re able to make good choices around where things should sit. I think we now have better ears. We understand what timbres work best. Then as we bring in nice pieces of gear like the Prophet 12, we can incorporate them a lot quicker in that writing process. We don’t spend too much time getting lost in the choices. We’re building upon what we know works.

Ben: At one stage I used the Bricasti on everything. Now, I’m more selective. For songs that require a big enveloping space, it’s unbeatable. Once you A/B the Bricasti with anything else it’s hard to go back. The only reason I wouldn’t use it is when I want something more gnarly. But you can always dirty it up after printing the sound.

In my opinion this is the best mic on the market. It gives my vocals that special warm, analogue vibe that I love. I used it in all of the songs I’ve released this year and all the upcoming songs. There are only a few people in Germany with this mic because it’s so rare and in high demand. I’m super happy and grateful to be a proud owner of this incredible piece of kit. 

One of my favourite analogue synths. I use it in almost all of my productions for warm bases or dreamy pads. To me, it’s a must-have for all electronic music producers. The vintage mode in the synthesizer is one of a kind and lets you keep the good parts about analogue synths. You can clearly hear the difference compared to VST synthesizers. That’s why it’s so special.

In my opinion, this is the best VST synthesizer on the market. It has this special analogue sound that fits perfectly for my style of music. I use it in every production I make. It’s non-negotiable for me. The huge variety of presets makes it super easy to find a sound to work on.