Steinberg Cubase 8.5
“In the Atari days, I started on Cubase and stuck with it for many years. But everybody seemed to be using Logic, so about eight years ago I switched. It was the most unproductive period of my life! Great program, but the audio management wasn’t what I wanted. I swapped back and can’t see me ever changing again.”
Native Instruments Battery 4
“I’ve got the full Native Instruments package and this is my main drum tool. It handles all the basic elements like kick, hats, clap and snare… I usually start a song with a basic rhythm track and like to work quickly. If the loop is getting seriously complex, I might give Battery a little bit of help from FXpansion’s Geist.”
Five12 Numerology 4
“I got my musical education from bands like Depeche Mode and New Order; bands with a love of melody. And I prefer to create my melodies on a sequencer… maybe the fact that it’s a little bit clunky makes it more interesting. I haven’t worked out why, but it occasionally skips a note and your tune feels wonky. I like that!”
Universal Audio Pultec Pro EQ
“For me, EQ has to be easy to work with, but also capable of crazy things. That often means a combination of Cubase’s onboard EQ - for killing those annoying frequencies - and the Pultec. It gives so much glorious colour to your music. If you want to give your hats some hiss, nothing beats it!”
Korg Mono/Poly
“The hardware Mono/Poly has been one of my favourite synths for a long time. With the four oscillators, you can go from small, heavily filtered sounds to big, bright melodies. And now I’ve got a software version!
"I haven’t really had time to fully explore it, but I like what I’ve heard. Will it replace the hardware synth? No, the two will work together.”