About Nikko's Studio as of July 2005

This place describe the place where I work. I use to purchase and sell gears on eBay in order to set the studio of my dreams.

Here is my main place of work. Telephone, printer, but also the excellent Tapco S4 I use for close monitoring. I've sold the K-Station (sounds crap) but I keep the Micron as it sounds great and is perfect for small control keyboard. Electribe EXS-1, a Virus C and the Darkstar XP2 (sold now)

There are also 2 keyboards. I use 4 computers, 1 main with Cubase and VSTI, a Powercore, UAD1 and a Proteus soundcard. The second is for downloading and internet, the third is for gaming, and the fourth is a laptop, used for accounting. All the computers are in a separate room to keep the place quiet. 10 meters of cables are necessary to connect the screen to the main box!

There are also 2 huge Celestion Studio monitoring, but they do not fit in the picture

Some Keyboards at my left. I try to have as less keyboards as possible, because the lack of space. At the top the marvelous CS-30 from Yamaha, an old vintage gear from 1975. It need 30 mn to tune up!  But it sounds fantastic, I use it almost on every track.

Then my loved ESQ-1 from Ensoniq, mine has died recently, and I've found in the US another one, with the OS 3.51 that features 256 basic OSC wave files instead of the 16 originally. It is a rare item, and I use it for electric pianos.

A Kenton PRO 2 with Hz option to control the Cs-30 with MIDI and soon the Monopoly that will come from Singapore before September I hope.

And finally the very much under priced Yamaha ANX-1, that I use as command keyboard and for its great sounds too.

To my right my 2 racks. First one with the Supernova II, a great synth, I do not use so much yet, but I'll in the future.

The 2 Waldorf monsters. The Orange Waldorf Microwave XT. This fantastic gear has its own sound that mix very well with the analog synths. I use it for strange pads, and sound effects. But it can do more like crazy leads.

The Waldorf Q is another fantastic gear. I use it of almost anything from pads to leads or sound fx. Another special sound that is very complementary to the others.

I must say that both these 2 synths are better than you can imagine. I use the great editors from http://www.soundtower.com and so I can control them fully, very easily. The German gears are sometime unused because they are too complex to program. But they are so much Powerful! I think that in the future they will get more and more fans, because of their strong personality and their incredible possibilities.

Under, there id the Mackie LM-3204. It is an analog 16 stereo tracks mixer. Very good sound, in a 6U space! I wait for another one, to really use all the outputs from my synths. I'll have soon 64 tracks to mix the hardware.

Below are the 2 ESI 8x8 MIDI USB controllers, that I use to controls all the synths from my 2 keyboards.

My other Rack. At the top the MS2000. I think I'll sell it, I do not like it so much, I has the same sound as the Darkstar XP2, and lacks of personality.

Then the SE-1 (I'm waiting for a new SE-1X to replace it). Damn amazing true analog beast! It really fall in love of Studio Electronics when I listened this one! It is just better than a Minimoog in a 3U rack space. Huge sound, huge basses, huge leads, huge everything, and a great control of everything. The only issue is the lack of midi editor, so saving your patches it a brainstorm...

The Roland JP-8080, it another warm synthesizer, even if it is not analog, it sounds analog, and with the supersaw, it is best for doing the wide strings we all love from Roland. I'm waiting for a MSK-80 (Jupited 8 in rack), that will replace the MS2000R. This one is dedicated to pads and effects. I also use the vocoder sometime. It is a pleasure to program.

The little one at the bottom is another monster : the ATC-X quad filter! This one is a marvelous gear, and because I have it I don't have to store an Xpander, a TB303, or any vintage gear with 2 VCO. With its 4 filters SEM, MOOG, ARP2600 and TB303 it can emulate a wide range of vintage stuff. I use it all the time. Again the issue it the lack of real midi implementation and an editor. Programming the ATC-X is really hard...but the sounds is fantastic in the mix. Pure analog from Studio Electronics! I love it!

You will say : no Moog??? Well I would love to have a Moog Voyager Rack, but it is too much overpriced for the performance. It happens that the SE-1 has the same possibilities and more. More memories, more creative features, small space, and lower price. I do not collect gear for nothing, I use them, so for now, until I can get a minimoog voyager for less than 1000 USD I'll stay with Studio Electronics and vintage gears!

Now about the VSTI, well too long to list, but I use mainly Colossus, Stylus RMX, Absynth, to stay short, but I have more than 200 Gb of sounds from the Vitous Orchestra to the Gigfiles.com sounds of course!

Fx and Mix?

I use Cubase SX to record and mix. My prefered VST tools are the ones from the Powercore from TC Electronics. The reverbs are great even the smallest. I try to avoid using compression on the mix, software compressors are all bad, and nothing is close to a real Manley. I hope I'll get one cheap someday... So no compression, except on some instruments like bass drums of bass lines.

What I need next? Well, nothing really. My studio is completed now, I would like to have an OMEGA 8 from Studio Electronics, a Prophet V, or any strange analog stuff like a 'monowave', polysix, RSF, Kobol etc... but I need more space...for now, I'll try to make some music from these gear for the next year or two!

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