Intro
Nu:Tone (aka Dan Gresham) is a busy man. When he's not serving up his distinctive d'n'b remixes and reworkings for top artists on the majors, he's jetting the globe as an in-demand DJ with an eye on pushing d'n'b's boundaries.
And when his feet do hit the ground he dutifully marches the 30ft to the end of the garden to work on his artist albums for Hospital Records alongside a host of guest vocalists. He took time out to show us around his studio and his own hotbed of production gear.
Acoustic Panelling
“I made them. It’s rockwool in wooden frames with holes drilled into the side. I just tried to cover all the main reflection points between the speakers and me.
"The room is 14ft by 14ft so it’s never going to be perfect but with the records and general crap in here there’s enough to diffuse the sound.”
Mackie HR824
“Had these about four years. They’re brilliant. A lot of Drum ’n’ Bass producers use 824s.Or Adams. I’d love a pair of big Genelecs but these are great.”
Akai MPD32
“You get those amazing clips of those guys from Korea doing the most incredible drum solos on these but I’m not tempted to have a go myself.”
Focusrite Trackmaster Pro
“This is what I use for my channel strip. I do almost nothing with the settings on that. I don’t compress on the way in.
"I just record at 24bit and at fairly low level so I’ve loads of headroom. That leaves me the option of processing later.”
Allen & Heath
“I love it. I bought it on eBay for £500 which is very cheap but that’s because it’s about 30% functional. The other 70% is crackly channels…
"Faders that cut out. It needs to go and get serviced and cleaned. The idea was that I could run mixes out, through the desk and back into the computer. I used one years ago and they’ve got a really lovely EQ. I do run channels through it now though.”
MFB Kraftzwerg
“I have that for a couple of years now. It’s just really nice to throw something slightly out of control into the mix.
"Though it’s really hard to get it in tune. I have to use a guitar tuner. But it makes really amazing sounds.”
Novation REMOTE SL 61
“I did a live session for Mistajam at Madia Vale and I needed extra controllers so I got a second SL in.
"When the Automap works it’s amazing but it’s not top of my priority list so I don’t spend a lot of time making it work perfectly, because I work in Cubase and Reason it doesn’t always completely pick up what I’m looking at.”
Novation Ultranova
“Novation have asked me to do some preset sounds for it, which I really need to finish off. I think, as a synth it’s really well suited for Dubstep.”
Roland Juno-6
“I use it for pads. You can’t get biting bass sounds out of it but it has that strange thing where you press bothchorus buttons and you get really lush pads.
"Most of the time I work in the box but I still use this.”
Apple Mac
“It’s a four core Mac Pro. But it seems to do a decent job. I switched to Mac about three months ago.
"I used a Mac laptop already but having one as a studio computer just feels more professional.Not sure how much of that is just in my mind. The only sad thing is I used [Prosoniq] Dynasone, which is a really, really nice mastering buss all-in-one plug-in. But, since I’ve moved from PC I’ve not been able to find a Mac version as they stopped support.”
