VINTAGE MUSIC GEAR

The sound of Tubes, Tape & Transformers

There are many ways to define the music of Adani&Wolf.
One particular way is to look at the specific sonic world Adani&Wolf create on their albums.
In this case, we are not looking at the notes, but at the typical sound colour Adani&Wolf are so fond of
and always use when brewing their music.

Not everyone has had first-hand experience of magnetic tape recording and other analogue recording technology, but we all know and admire the huge back catalogue of classic tracks produced using this kind of gear from the 1950’s onwards.

In these digital days there seems to be missing in many recordings an element of warmth and depth. Enjoyment of an artistic product (music or film etc.) is not necessarily about perfection and precision; often it’s also about mood, vibe and character.

The technical limitations and imperfections of analogue systems – instruments, microphones, pre-amps, recording equipment, processors and effects- have become an very important part of the quality of the recorded sounds that we all grew up with. Many people perceive the end result of such recordings to be more pleasing than music recordings achieved with all digital recording chains.

Therefore finding and creating this (analogue) warmth and depth in recordings is often the holy grail for many producers. And this goes also for Adani&Wolf!

In their studio, the room is packed with vintage gear. Many pieces of beautiful looking sometimes almost antique equipment. All with their own unique character, adding their specific warm, deep and very dynamic flavour to any recording Adani&Wolf feel it benefits from this sonic enhancement. The list is long!

The instruments (all of them in the A&W studio):

• The amazing multi talented Fender Rhodes, for your warm and deep chord progressions but also really impressive on jazzy, fusion-like solo stuff. Impossible to imitate!
• The friendly Wurlitzer, a little more poppy sounding. But don’t forget it’s dreamy almost psychedelic Doors-like quality with it’s beautiful tremolo effect.
• The screaming Hammond organ with Leslie rotor. Amazing for pads and wicked solo’s! The rotor by the way is seriously cool as an effect on vocals, guitars etc. Think, Led Zeppelin and the Beatles.
• The funky Hohner Clavinet: so groovy, so alive!! Think of a syfy Harpsichord. Stevie Wonders little pet. Also beautiful with arpeggio textures.
• The Vox Continental organ. Come on baby light my fire! Apart from really good looking, this little baby has a very specific sound! Not an all-rounder for sure.

The Micro Moog: nothing beats the bass on this one! Just one voice, but what a power!!

The Gear (some of the gear here is actually on the Adani&Wolf wish list J)

Effects:

• Roland Space echo: not only for the really deep Jamaican Dub stuff, but als beautiful on vocals and guitars as a vintage delay
• EMT 140 plate reverb: giving instantly a classic big 50s vocal sound.

Pre-amp and Channel strips (all with their own specific sound colour and flavour):

• Drawmer 1960
• Universal audio 2610
• Tube-Tech mec-1a
• Vintage Design

Processors (all with their own specific sound colour and flavour):

• Fairchild compressor: so classic! George Martin went to the US on a research trip. Came back with one advice for EMI studio’s: buy a couple of them now! Almost everything the Beatles recorded went thru a Fairchild.
• Universal Audio 1176 compressor: Crunch!
• Neve 2254 compressor
• Teletronix compressor: perfect on vocals (and everything else)!
• API 2500 compressor: a very versatile bus compressor
• Pultech EQ: beautiful sounding eq.
• Tube Tech EQ 1a

Mixing consoles

• Neve 8087: These consoles are considered by many experts to be the Rolls Royce of desks and are highly sought after. Featured on countless hit records by artists including Steely Dan, Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Quincy Jones, George Clinton, Chick Corea etc etc.

Microphones

• Neumann U47 – Tubes, sounding just wow!!
• AKG 414 – Allrounder
• Shure SM57 – can take a lot of heat
• Sennheiser MD 421 – remarkable
• Brauner VM1 tube – modern vintage

Recording:

A great deal of the highly sought after sound of analogue warmth comes from the (side) effects of the recording chain. Wow and flutter, tape saturation, bias and hysteresis are a few of those imperfect effects, responsible (for a big part) for the analogue warmth in music.

Much of the credit for the development of multitrack recording goes to guitarist, composer and technician Les Paul, who also helped design the famous electric guitar that bears his name. His experiments with tapes and recorders in the early 1950s led him to order the first custom-built eight-track recorder from Ampex.

Ampex

For example:

• AMPEX 440 (two track, four track) and 16-track MM1000

Studer

• The model J37 four-track recorder was used to record the Beatles renowned Sgt. Pepper album in 1967
• Studer C37 valve tape machine
• Studer A80/800/8027