Vintage recording studio equipment. Do I need it?

If you look at the websites of the top recording studios in the world, you will see lots of vintage recording equipment listed.

 

Neumann, Telefunken, RCA, Sony  and AKG vintage microphones. Neve, SSL, api, and Trident recording consoles. Fairchild, Neve, UREI and Teletronix compressors. Pultech and Neve equalizers. EMT, AMS and Lexicon reverbs. Studer, Ampex, MCI and 3M multitrack and mixdown tape machines.

 

I think most engineers, producers and artists would say that in recording it all comes down to tone. Top quality vintage recording equipment just sounds better. There are many modern recreations of much of this equipment, many for less money. But do they sound as good (or better)? That’s really up to your ears to decide. But at TMOP, unlike with most of our competitors, we stick with real vintage equipment, not repros or virtual computer simulations. Because to our ears, and to those of our clients, they just sound better.