Consoles

Soundcraft 8000
40 channel model. Clean mic pre amps. British EQ. The master section has been re-built and extensively modified by Jim Williams at Audio Upgrades. It has a flat frequency response from 1hz to 150,000hz (!). We rebuilt the power supply using massive capacitors for extra quite operation. Several of the mic input modules have had their DC blocking capacitors removed and replaced with beyerdynamic input transformers, giving them a sound similar to an MCI input module.

Yamaha 1516
This is a 16 channel mixer. It is used for it's mic pre amps and EQ's for the most part. With the exception of the EQ section the channel strips are transformer balanced and have all discreet electronics, similar to an API of Neve console. We've extensively modified ours. We've re-capped it and upped the coupling capacitor values for better bass response. The op-amps in the EQ section used to be the same model op-amps that Turbo Rats are built around. We've replaced them with super clean Burr-Brown op-amps. Several channels have had their main discreet op-amps replaced with re-built API 2520 amps.

Mics

Josephson C42 MP
matched pair, small diaphragm cardioid condensers

Sennheiser MD421
cardioid dynamic mic

Sennheiser 609 (x 3)
supercardioid dynamic

Shure SM 58
cardioid dynamic mic

Shure SM 57 (x 2)
cardioid dynamic mic

Rode NTK (x 2)
cardioid large diaphragm tube condenser mic

AT 4033 (x 2)
cardioid large diaphragm condenser mic

AT 4050
variation of the AT 4033 with variable polar patterns

EV RE-20
cardioid dynamic mic, very little proximity effect

Rode NT5 (x 2)
cardioid small diaphragm condenser mic

SM-98
hypercardioid small diaphragm condenser mic

AKG D112
cardioid dynamic mic, the M16 of kick drum mics

AKG C-3000b
cardioid medium diaphragm condenser mic

AKG C-1000
cardioid small diaphragm condenser mic

Samson
cardioid, omni, figure 8 large diaphragm condenser mic

Niant MSH-2 (x 2)
omnidirectional small diaphragm condenser mic

EV ND408a
cardioid dynamic mic

Columbus Discount Contact Mic
contact mic, made in-house from Radio Shack parts

EFX

Lexicon MPX 550 - Digital time-based effects unit. Reverbs, delays, flanges, etc. Lots of variety.

Vermona Retroverb - German spring reverb featuring CV and VCA controls, and cool "crash" button.

Maestro Echoplex - Tape delay unit. Words do no justice.

Electro-harmonix Memory Man (x3) - Great analog delay from the freaks at EHX.

Electro-harmonix Frequence Analyzer (x2) - Ring Modulator from the freaks at EHX.

Electro-harmonix Wiggler - Tube Tremelo from the freaks at EHX.

Electro-harmonix Russian Big Muff Pi - Big Muffs are a great distortion box, and this model is the best of them.

Columbus Discount Dallas Rangemaster Clone w/ OG Mullard OC-77 - Germanium treble boost. Used by the likes of Tony Iomi, Brian May, Jeff Beck. This one uses a NOS mullard transistor, was made in-house and wired point to point just like the ones in the 60's.

Columbus Discount Tonebender Clone w/ OG Mullard OC-75 - Jimmy Page style Fuzz. Hand made to 60's specs.

Univox Superfuzz (x 2) Green and Orange - Arguably the best Japanese fuzz pedal ever made.

Washburn Soloist - Shockingly nice little distortion box.

MXR Blue Box - Octaver, fuzz pedal, mind-blower. Makes guitars sound like Excite Bike.

MXR Supercomp - Stompbox compressor. Heir apparent to the throne of the legendary MXR Dyna Comp.

Columbus Discount Dual Oscillator w/ Ring Modulator - Made in-house. General use crazy noise box. You'll just have to come in and hear this thing.

Instruments

1972 Baldwin Upright Piano - We have it tuned once every 6 months, so it's pretty close to in tune at any point. If you have a session where the piano is the featured instrument, please get in touch so we can arrange to have it tuned before your session.

Hammond A3 - Basically, a B3 without a Leslie Speaker.

Baldwin Orgasonic - Two-tiered organ with rotary speaker.

Lowery Pageant - Two-tiered organ with many freaky sound-effects, freaky drum machine.

Misc Drum hardware by Yamaha

Recorders

MCI JH-110C 1" 8 track
The MCI JH series is basically the Chevy Truck of tape machines. They are well made, reliable, easy to work on, simple, workhorse machines. They are great sounding machines to boot. Ours has a very handy Autolocator III. Legend has it that in the late 70's, over half of the records in Billboard's Top 200 were recorded and/or mixed using MCI equipment. This particular 8-track sounds like almost all American made recordings done from 1975 to 1985.

Teac 85-16 1" 16 track
This is a late 70's model. The heads were re-lapped about five years ago. Ours is modified for +4dB operation (they usually run at consumer level -10dB) Fast punch ins. 16 channels of DBX noise reduction if you want it.

MCI JH-110 1/4" 2 track
American standard mixdown deck. It has a gentle high-end rise at about 15kHz and a slight low end bump at 50-60hz. Other than that, pretty flat frequency response from 25Hz to 20kHz. We keep this one tuned within an inch of its life. Runs at 7.5, 15 or 30ips.

Alesis HD 24
Clean sounding machine. Since it is a dedicated hard disc recorder, and not a personal computer set up to record audio, there is very little signal degradation when recording or backing up to it.

It has futuristic-looking hard disc caddies that hold standard internal hard drives, and can be removed and swapped about on the fly. This makes the recording medium very cheap and nearly limitless, time-wise. With the help of a dedicated firewire device, we can fly tracks recorded to any DAW (pro-tools, cubase etc...)in and back out of the drives easily, which makes importing/exporting/DAW editing a snap.

The HD24 can also be used to back up analog recordings for mixing or further tracking in pro-tools/cubase/garageband or the DAW of your choice.

Tascam Potrastudio 424 MK-11
The trusty old 4 track cassette recorder on which everybody got their start. Sounds like it should.

tascam 238 8 track cassette recorder
Rackmount 8 track cassette recorder that sounds better than you would think. Since Tascam dropped all the production coin on just the recorder aspect in this design, it doesn't suffer from many of the problems of it's portastudio brethren, such as wow and flutter and hiss.

Presto K8 Vinyl Lathe
A simi-pro quality Mono portable vinyl cutter built sometime around 1949. Ours has the 1C cutting head. Good for cutting very small runs of records. Can cut on weird stuff like plastic picnic plates and old x-ray films.

Outboard Gear

Dynamics Processing
Federal Television corporation. AM-864/U
Peak-limiting audio frequency amplifier. All tube. Made sometime around 1954 for the army signal corps. Colorful and surprisingly versitile limiter/compressor.
The demolition procedures are outlined HERE

Department of Commerce Limiting Amplifier
Ours is the ca-1224 iteration of the DoC limiter made by McGuire industries.

1176 clone - Revision A.
Loosely based on the Gyraf Audio 1176 clone. Made in-house to the specs of the very first model UREI Revision A 1176 from 1968.

Allison Research Gain Brain - FET compressor w/ RMS and Peak limit functions. Ours has an output transformer.

CBS Laboratories Audimax - Automatic gain control device. It will compress or expand by 10db. Basically, no user controls. Takes some getting used to, but sounds fantastic.

SSL Stereo Bus compressor clone.
Clone of the famous SSL stereo mix compressor. Built in-house. Clear, shiny, transparent compression.

DBX 160a (x2)
Great, utilitarian one-channel compressor.

Aphex Studio Dominator 700 series
Stereo Multiband compressor. This one used to belong to the Queers. It is a little esoteric to set up so outside engineers should have someone show them the tricks of the unit before they use it. Dominate your tracks! Dominate them with Multiband compression!

FMR RNC (x2)
Stands for "Really Nice Compressor." Lives up to this title.

DBX 266xl
Workhorse compressor, limiter, gate.

Mic Pre Amps
Sytek MPX4a
4 channels of verrrry clean mic amplification. Two channels have the more colorful "Burr Brown" mod.

Ampex MX-10
All tube 4 in, 2 out mic mixer from the late 50's.

Ampex AM-10
Solid state 6 in, 2 out mic mixer from the mid-60's.

Vintech 1272
Clone of the Neve 1272. Made with some original Neve components. Big, colorful sound.

McCurdy discrete Mic Pres
All discrete, transformer-balanced mic pres pulled from a McCurdy Audio broadcast board that used to belong to Larry King. Mid/Late 70's vintage. They sound excellent.

Yamaha 1516 w/ API Op-Amp mod
The discrete op-amps in the yamaha were pulled and replaced with API op-amps, so now it sounds like an API.

Other
Columbus Disount M/S Matrix/Sum Difference Decoder
Built in-house. This can be used do do mid-side decoding or to encode a left/right mix to sum/difference and back again. Built with ultra low-noise op-amps.

ART 341 15 band EQ
15 band Graphic Equalizer

Amps

Sovtek Mig 100 - Powerful-sounding all-tube 160 watt amplifier. Made in St. Petersburg, Russia during the tail-end of the cold war from Soviet Millitairy Surplus parts. Good enough for AC/DC.

Ampeg B2 Bass head - 300 watts. Solid-state.