Much like a Pultec, with a wider range of EQ points (including 20k). Some feel it’s more focused sounding than the Pultec, and it’s well known for airy vocals. We find that it works in most areas we can’t get a Pultec to sing.

Vintage units, not reissues. Legends of EQ and unequalled for many studio tasks.

Killer Sta-Level type of compressor by good old Collins again - only much bigger transformers and weight. Always try one of these along side the Sta, shocker on a lot of tracks.

These are powerful tools. Muscle car level compression. Circuit is a lot like the big 10 unit high Altecs or a bit like a BA6A. But it’s a beast of its own. Can be giant and clean or aggressive and grabby. This compressor adds life and depth to anything if life is what’s needed.

Smooooooooth 6386 based compression. Tried, true and a great way to get useful, big and smooth compression. All three original units with multiple release mods (not Retro rereleases).

This is a stereo version of one of our favorites. We’ve added some sick new control to this one and different cap choices. Man, piano sounds SICK through this! Can make some drums pump too if you slam it.

Vintage King and Retro’s exact copy of an original 175b. They did a great job on this. We use almost no reissues of studio gear here, but this one gets to stay. It’s just a great compressor. Just a great circuit. You can use this on anything. It’s a safe or dangerous sounding tool. Plus the fact that they only made 100 of them turned a quick sucker out of us.

Very rare and great sounding German built tube based EQ, used by several mastering engineers, and were used on many classical recordings. These are the units with the ‘tilt’ function that moves the mid tilt toward either the high or low bands, and as the + or - is increased on those bands, so is the curve. Very musical, and as well as being used on mastering duties they can really sweeten up a track.

Sure it’s an 1176. The AE is a “hot-rodded” version says Universal. They made 500 of these ugly things. It’s a revA version with the LN circuit from the revE. And it has a 2:1 option! It’s program-dependent like the A, but class-A and has the same transformer as the E. And it’s good to note that if you want the “All-In” sound, it’s just the top three buttons at once.

Large diaphragm. Same capsule, body and transformers as the C37a, but with an AC701 tube/circuit. Almost a C37A with a Neumann M49/M269 type of circuit. These excel on mid heavy vocals, kill on bass, and any time a string player wants something more mellow. Also one of our favorites for trumpet and guitar cabs. We use them often as drum overheads too. This microphone is a workhorse.

These are amazing microphones. French broadcast version of the m269. It’s a U67 with an AC701K tube and circuit. The low end and high end have better detail for us than any U67’s we’ve had. It’s a much easier to use and enjoy microphone all around in here.

Small diaphragm condenser cousin of the M50.

Small diaphragm condensers, nickel capsules. The KM56 is a stunning vintage microphone when taken care of and in great working order. We like to do that with our gear. Man do these do a great job. The sound like the source with a touch of sweetening. They take EQ extremely well and play nice with a number of preamps. Stringed instruments rule through them, as do various drum mic placements. The have a switchable pickup pattern, which is extremely useful on an SDC. Use them in mid-side setups, or AB stereo, or in XY, or one of our favorites, a really cool L-C-R rig. They just do a very cool thing!

Identical to the Langevin EQ-252-A. We just like spreading the love. Commonly referred to as the ‘Motown EQ’, the manufacturers viewed this passive EQ as a critical device do to its graphic design, gold plated and etched circuitry and mil-spec quality, but we find it to be one of our most musical and fun to use devices. Maybe that’s because of the EQ points, or the way they interact with each other when you start to push them. We recommend using them with our custom makeup gain amps built from vintage API 525 line-amps.

These things are HUUUUGE sounding. It can do a thing to the mids that make any bass or vocal part just sit. Push it and get some really nice grab. We love our Collins units.

Great limiter, and with a few slight mods has become a very valuable box here. When all else just doesn’t give the vibe required, this little fella or the Raytheon usually shows up with plenty of personality. The modifications also make it great for acoustic guitar.

These 3 band passive EQ’s are said to be out of the Capitol console. To us, they have the CBS or Reeves Audio signature all over them. They’re extremely useful at adding life to anything, and exploiting what sounds good about a track. Very interactive and fun to turn up!

Our friends at AEA made the perfect solid state companion to ribbon mics. The 2.5k - 30k band on the EQ is very very useful. As is the 80+ dB of gain! AEA design team run with some serious folks too, so be assured there’s great engineering behind these.

Tube preamps/line amps. We’ve spent a lot of time making records with several varieties of tube based preamps. These are where we landed. They do exactly what we want to the source from a circuit like this. Big. Just big. Simple and push-pull, but all the right components.

Commonly referred to as the ‘Motown EQ’, the manufacturers viewed this passive EQ as a critical device do to its graphic design, gold plated and etched circuitry and mil-spec quality, but we find it to be one of our most musical and fun to use devices. Maybe that’s because of the EQ points, or the way they interact with each other when you start to push them. We recommend using them with our custom makeup gain amps built from vintage API 525 line-amps.

These are opto cell based solid state compressors. Very cool and unique circuits. These are staples of the studio. It’s fast and still has a very smooth release. These rule on guitars and vocals, but are killer on drums as well. Very cool on mids.

Small diaphragm condensers of a special nature and design. 2 with 21D capsules and 2 with 21B capsules

Feed. Forward. Slick soft knee compression. Very cool, and another classic in studios. Snare, kick, bass is common. But that spank can go really far on some chicken pickin. Useful on vocals as well.

Mastering style 3 band EQ, very very low noise floor and silky makeup gain. Triad 56v transformers (one of our favorites, there’s probably over 50 around here in various uses), same as Pultec. These are great on the overall mix, but sound great on acoustic guitars and piano.

Small diaphragm condenser cousins of the C12. These go where our other SDC’s won’t. If you need to mellow out or push the mids, but want to keep an SDC on there, these kill. They also do the sweet top end thing very nicely. You can close mic with a C28 and get extremely good results! Add our CK-4 adapters with vintage CK12 capsules to these for a full on C12 (exact same circuit, tube, power supply, etc).

70db of very detailed and 3D sounding tube preampfification. Our ribbons sound amazing through this. As do the Sony’s. Things tend to sound intimate and real through these. Lots of definition.

Large diaphragm condenser. There’s a lot of history on the microphones, much of it sounds like audio fantasy. They were custom modified U47’s by Stanley Church for MGM studios. Story has it, he solved some issues he had with the U47 as it was used on their sound stages. We wont get involved in the ‘ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ argument around these microphones. What we will say is that we had a U47 we liked a lot, then we got this and it worked for us a lot a lot. Like a whole lot. You can’t blow this thing up. Scream, cry, whine, get mellow with it, then scream again. It’s just good at what it does.

These were custom built by Jim at Coil Audio years ago. We use them a lot for rockin DI, or close dynamics. Jim is the greatest!

Spectra Sonics 101 preamps with 500 EQ. These were everywhere cool for a minute there, Record Plant NY being one of them. We use them on so much. Serious American made gear. Transients love them, guitars and drums, vocals even eat them up. These were pulled from Mediasound in NYC.

Large diaphragm condenser. This is one of our king of microphones. It’s just amazing sounding. M7 capsule version.