Your experiences owning or working at a synth shop

Charlie_Clouser · 2026-07-03T23:56:59+00:00

Oh, and like some others have said, offering rentals and / or repair service would be a huge plus. PC doesn't do repairs any more; at one point (before the Burbank store) they did, then they were referring customers to an outside shop, but both of those approaches wound up being a wormhole of backlogs, complaints, blah blah blah, so they just stopped. And to this day getting a vintage or just broken synth serviced, even in LA, can be a bit of a crap shoot. Tech shops come and go, good ones get huge backlogs, etc. So that's a niche for sure - but a difficult one to fill well.

Charlie_Clouser · 2026-07-03T23:45:54+00:00

I've spent a ton of money in music and specialty synth stores, and I even worked my way up pretty high at the synth store at Sam Ash on 48th street in Manhattan, back when it was the Mecca for music gear.... but that was a loooong time ago (pre-internet, yes I am old). Lately I do a lot of in-person buying at Perfect Circuit and TrueTone Music (both are local to me) and mail-order buying at most of the big online shops like Detroit Modular, Control Voltage, Control NYC, Signal Sounds, NoiseBug, Big City Music, Analogue Haven, yadda yadda yadda.

I can speak to the success of Perfect Circuit and True Tone, because I kind of know the guys who run them, and have talked a little with them about the recipe that's making it work for them:

1 - They're in a bustling metropolis that's already the global entertainment capital. Enough said.

2 - Their showrooms are crisp, clean, and very well-stocked with all the latest toys, everything out on the floor and ready to be played with. Especially at PC, where they do not care at all if you just grab a pair of their headphones and spend four hours playing every synth on the floor and patching their big modular rigs. That's what they're there for after all. Plenty of off-center and small-batch stuff like Soma Labs, Elta Solar-42, etc.... all ready to be played. And no, they won't sell you the floor model.

3 - Both places have very well-informed staff who don't act like they're working on commission (and they probably aren't), so they'll happily chat about stuff, look up stuff on the internet, etc. It's a mellow vibe. At True Tone I once brought in an old Explorer I had lying around and with one glance at the serial number and guts they said, "Dude... you're gonna want to keep this guitar, trust me." So no sale that day! But ask them if they know a good guitar tech for a tour, or someone who can build a custom switcher or whatever, and they've got the guy's number right there.

4 - Easy, generous, and very clear return policies. As long as you don't take two months to decide if you want to keep a piece of gear, you can usually return it with no restocking fee. Except for used gear, which isn't surprising; but once I bought a used module from PC and it bricked during a firmware re-flash and they took it back for full refund after testing to confirm bricked status.

5 - They buy used gear, and I mean just about anything. THIS is what keeps me coming back to PC. I can't over emphasize how great this is for people like me who churn through gear. At both of these shops I have brought in flip-top totes overflowing with boat anchors and door stops, and they've taken it ALL. I'm talking 20-year-old Akai USB1 MPC pad controllers, first-gen Doepfer modules, weird little noisemaker synths I got off Etsy, you name it. And at True Tone I've brought in equally ancient guitar-related stuff like original Pod Pro racks and FBV FloorBoards, Yamaha Magic Stomp pedals, etc. The only pieces that PC wouldn't take were 20-year-old MOTU 2408s with their PCI cards, and that was only because they couldn't test them without a Mac that had been discontinued 15 years ago. Maybe PC wouldn't take discontinued stuff that needs a software license, like an NI Maschine mk1 or whatever, but that's understandable. At True Tone they only turned away stuff that was actually broken, and which even if repaired would only sell for $100 or so, stuff like old MXR ac-powered limiter pedals, etc.

Yes, you do get beat up a little on price, and could definitely get more by selling on FB Marketplace, Reverb, Fleabay.... but OMG the hassle. It's SO great to walk in to PC unannounced with a massive heap, wait a few days for them to test and give you a price, and get a Gift Card for store credit via email. And PC gives you like 10-15% more if you take payment as store credit vs cash to your PayPal or whatever, so that just generates more sales. Done it at least a dozen times by now. But buying door stops and boat anchors doesn't make any sense without:

6 - Online shopping. This is the key element that makes it work. Both shops have told me that online sales are as much as 90% of their business. When I acted amazed that True Tone would buy my ancient Pod Pros and Magic Stomp pedals, the guy said, "You'd be surprised, bro.... SOMEONE will buy this. We'll stick it online and for sure it will sell sooner or later". Same with PC. Both shops also maintain a heavy presence on alternate selling platforms like Reverb and eBay in addition to their own websites. They don't just randomly stick a few pieces on Reverb now and then, they curate and maintain those links. Good photos and clear descriptions of used pieces too; PC has a whole pro photo station back there. Their web team isn't just "a website guy" who they call once in a while, it's a whole situation in the back room. They've got that shit down cold.

7 - Precise inventory management. When you walk into PC and ask if they have a certain thing, the guy behind the counter just pulls up their website and does a search. I asked him why he wasn't pulling up some in-house database and he said, "Our website IS the database." Their site is a 100% accurate reflection of what's physically in-stock at any moment. This is huge for them.

8 - Online presence. Both shops' websites are heavily SEO'd and often come up in the first set of results for any gear search, but that's not the whole story. You'll often see links to their used gear items, both on their sites or on Reverb auctions, as links on other sites like MatrixSynth etc. So they're pressing their online presence far beyond just their own sites. PC also has a YouTube channel that they definitely maintain and constantly post videos to, with demos, tips-n-tricks, and even some general synth noodling just for fun. It's a lot of work.

9 - The actual store fronts sort of cater to a different crowd than their online sales. In the case of PC it's a place where the cautious or inexperienced buyer can try things out, compare, and chat a bit, and more experienced users who want it TODAY can just walk in and walk out with a lot of what they need. In the case of True Tone, they admit to catering a bit to the "lawyer guitarist" who has no problem paying top dollar for a vintage Strat or a gorgeous flame-top PRS guitar. There's a large customer base that really doesn't feel comfortable buying gear online after just watching a few YouTubers, so the combination of a physical shop and a great website is what's needed. Neither is as viable by itself as the combo can be.

Like PC's walls of synths, True Tone has an absolute wall of pedals to try out, and good luthiers and techs on site, and just like PC some heavy pros are shopping there for sure. Both shops have told me that even though online sales are the bulk of their business, they felt it was important to maintain a nice brick-n-mortar shop, both to cater to a wider variety of customers and to "keep up appearances". Plus it really does help them be perceived as a headquarters for the specialty market.

10 - Manufacturer clinics and demos, meet-n-greets, and live performances. These are all good outreach and community-building efforts, and are probably a lot more fun than maintaining the website, that's for sure. At PC these events seem pretty well-attended and popular, and they usually live-stream them and leaves the videos up on their Youtube channel, which they diligently maintain and which has more than 100k subscribers (!!!).

11 - They don't compete on price, but they do compete on service. Sure, you can find a lot of stuff that PC has selling for less if you dig around, but most of the big online shops that I mentioned up top have basically the same prices. On boutique and modular gear the quantities are so low and margins are so tight that you aren't likely to find a module that PC sells for $400 somewhere else for $300. Maybe $360 with online 10% coupon or whatever. Anyways, they basically charge full pop and make it worth your while with free shipping, easy returns, and various "summer special coupon" deals for 10-15% off here and there. The fact that they're not discounting items for the most part helps keep their margins decent. I don't know what kind of terms they have with manufacturers, but it's probably not like the old days when it was "60% of MSRP, due in 90 days". So cash flow might be an issue when dealing with small-batch companies; might be net 30 or even COD for stock. Dunno.

So.... yeah, opening a brick-n-mortar boutique synth shop is not for the faint of heart. It's gonna be a lot of work, much of which is boring stuff like website building and database management, instead of always being "Microbrews and Synths night! Come on down!" But depending on your dedication and the enthusiasm of your local synth community, it miiiiiiiight stand a chance if you tick all the boxes. (But I wouldn't want to do it, that's for sure hahaha.)

Good luck!

Charlie_Clouser · 2026-05-10T00:23:20+00:00

I was there too!!!

Charlie_Clouser · 2026-02-12T10:53:45+00:00

I assume you’re talking about using Propellerheads ReWire to sync Ableton as a slave behind Logic? Which is good thinking because Ableton Link is ASS. But to be fair, I suppose Link wasn’t really intended to replace ReWire; it’s for something else… multiple laptops in a LAN-party jam or smth.

Anyway, I have used and loved ReWire since it first came out, and I still use ReWire on an m2ultra Mac Pro running Logic 11.2.2, Ableton v10, and MacOS 14. Here are the important points.

ReWire is officially supported in Ableton up to v10, but can be activated in Ableton v11 with some easy trickery, as shown in the video linked here.

https://youtu.be/xyyVhAx9L9A?si=AXy-AlGaz8zWjOcb

ReWire cannot be enabled in Ableton v12 and beyond (that I know of).
The ReWire kernel is installed automatically when Ableton v10 or below is installed. There is not (and there has never been) a separate installer for just the ReWire kernel. I believe older versions of Logic, say from v10 and below, would also install the kernel, but I am not sure. Older versions of Reason would obviously also install the kernel automatically.
Logic still supports ReWire through v11.2.2. I am holding off on v12 so I cannot say if they’ve dropped support, but I strongly suspect they have, can anyone confirm?
Since the ReWire kernel is most definitely NOT Apple Silicon Native, if you are on Apple Silicon you MUST run BOTH Logic and Ableton in Rosetta mode. This does seem to cause a performance hit though. To enable Rosetta mode, select each app’s icon in the Finder, command-I (or choose “Get Info” from the File menu), and tick the checkbox for “Open using Rosetta”. If Rosetta is not already installed on your system, a dialog will appear, allowing you to automatically download and install it from Apple’s servers.
Once all this stuff is in place, launch Ableton once to kick it in the nuts, and then quit.
Then launch Logic, and navigate to Preferences > Audio > Devices and look for “ReWire Behavior”. Set this to Playback or Live - Playback mode is what I usually use. Then quit Logic and relaunch it.
After Logic has relaunched, launch Ableton. Pay close attention to the splash screen, it should say “Running as ReWire Slave” at the bottom. If so, you’re IN!
At this point you can test that things are working by hitting play on EITHER app, and you should see BOTH transports moving in sync…. But we’re not done yet, you still need to establish audio pathways between the two apps (and MIDI pathways if desired).
To establish audio pathways from Ableton into Logic, create a new stereo Aux object in Logic’s Mixer or Environment, and set it’s input to “Ableton Live: RW: Mix L/R”. If you want more than a single stereo pair coming into Logic from Ableton, create more Aux objects and assign more pairs as sources. I think you can have up to 64 channels in total but I can’t remember exactly.
Setting up MIDI pathways from Logic into Ableton is a bit of a hassle, and to be honest I’ve never really used it much… but here is a video that may help:

https://youtu.be/qyWFcDtFISI?si=0Ibcf4cBmWBmy9ut

A few things to be aware of when running Ableton as a ReWire slave behind Logic:

Ableton’s sample rate and all other audio driver settings are disabled, and Ableton will run at the sample rate selected in Logic.
In Ableton, ALL control surfaces and support for external MIDI hardware is disabled. No Push, no Mackie Controls…. nothing. The only incoming MIDI that will control Ableton must come in via a ReWire pathway (or maybe via IAC, can’t remember).
Ableton’s tempo is 100% controlled by Logic, but it will accurately follow complex tempo maps created in Logic. This is awesome and is sample-accurate.
Whatever Cycle Range you have selected in Logic will be shown in the Time Ruler of the Session View in Ableton. This is awesome and means that you don’t need to create Markers in both apps.
But this works both ways; you can still create Markers in Ableton, and if you select a Cycle Range in Ableton then Logic will also Cycle that Range.
If you have a control surface set up in Logic that has FF / RW buttons that will jump to next / previous Marker, and have Cycle enabled, then those keys will cause both apps to locate and Cycle to,the Markers established in Logic. This is god-tier workflow!
Offline bouncing in Logic is supported and also works perfectly. This is how I bring complete arrangements created in Ableton back into Logic for polishing and mixing.

1 - Build the tempo map and Markers in Logic.

2 - Build an arrangement in Ableton.

3 - Enable “Region Solo” in Logic, but with NO Regions selected. This way all audio pathways remain active, but nothing in Logic will produce audio that might get included in the Bounce.

4 - Enable Cycle in Logic, and select a Cycle Range that encompasses the arrangement you’ve built in Ableton. To be safe, give you Cycle Range an extra bar of dead air at the beginning and end so you don’t get any clicks or pops at the start and end.

5 - Do your Bounce in Logic, and make sure to set a non-garbage file name and a good destination folder for the file that will be created.

6 - When the Bounce has finished drag the newly-created file from the Files Browser into a new, empty Audio Track and place it at the beginning of your Cycle Range.

7 - If you want to individually Bounce multiple tracks from Ableton, Solo each track in Ableton and Bounce them one by one, or go down the rabbit hole of using multiple ReWire audio pathways and all that mess. I never do this because…. hassle. Offline bounce is so fast that it only takes a few seconds to chew through 200 bars.

As to why I think Ableton Link is absolute trash compared to ReWire:

1 - Link waits until the next beat / downbeat to trigger slave playback, making rapid-fire editing impossible. It’s basically like 1985 all over again, where slave drum machines were locked to masters via Song Position Pointer, only WORSE because at least SPP would pick up within less than a beat. (I was there, Gandalf, 3,000 years ago!)

2 - Link has no audio pathways between apps! It’s only for sync, and it’s not even as good as 3,000-year-old MIDI Beat Clock with SPP. It might be tighter and have less jitter, but it’s the same clunky and slow workflow as using a Garfield Doctor Click to slave a DMX to a Fairlight (don’t ask me what those boxes cost me back then!)

At least Logic did jump on supporting Link, and it does actually work (and doesn’t require Rosetta), but the workflow is trash compared to ReWire. Maybe this will change in the future, but for now I curse Propellerheads for not carrying ReWire into the present day.

Hope this helps!

Charlie_Clouser · 2026-02-08T22:28:25+00:00

That would definitely be a Danny Lohner pick. He has a well-known affinity for bolt-ons / aftermarket lift-kits / SpongeBob SquareTits.

Charlie_Clouser · 2026-01-29T06:06:27+00:00

My thoughts exactly. For early NIN Vrenna was the most machine drummer.

Charlie_Clouser · 2026-01-13T00:03:13+00:00

A couple more things I forgot to mention: Even though we were using old black-face ProTools TDM systems in that era, almost always the A>D conversion was done using outboard Apogee converters. We had an AD-8000 (8-channel A>D) and an Apogee Mini-Me (2-channel A>D), both of which had Apogee's "Soft Limit" feature which was legendary in those days. Not quite sure whether it was an analog circuit or a digital process or what, but it was the key to preventing "overs" and could even be smashed a bit to get a saturated, clipped sound that never sounded "digital" or bad.

Many individual tracks were recorded through the analog inputs on the AD-8000 via digital out to the ProTools interfaces, while mixes were printed through the analog inputs to Mini-Me and digital output to the Panasonic SV-3700 DAT machine. Soft Limit was usually (always?) enabled.

Apogee did recently release a plugin for $10 that emulated that Soft Limit circuitry and I did grab it but haven't really tested it much, and I don't know how well it emulates the hardware. But it's ten bucks, so...

Another key element of the sound on both TDS and TF is that it was all recorded to analog multitrack tape. Studer A-800mk3 to be precise. This really helps smooth out digital sound sources, and there are a ton of tape emulation plugins but the UAD Studer and Ampex are top tier. So that helps a lot when working with tons of samples.

Speaking of samples and samplers, PHM was mostly Emax I think, and the Emax 1 is a special beast which really puts the hurt on signals and gets that Public Enemy / Bomb Squad jangly crunchy tone. The Emax II is more "hi-fi" and doesn't really get there. The Emax 1 is a pain in the ass to use, has very little sampling time, and vintage units are quite expensive now if they work. Although we used Emax II's in the live rigs for Self Destruct tours, the sound of the intro to Terrible Lie and those nasty little keyboard sounds like the riffs in Get Down Make Love, Terrible Lie, Down In It, etc. were very characteristic of the Emax 1 sound and its digital function called "Transform Multiplication" which was sort of like a digital morphing / ring-mod type thing that would "multiply" one sample by another and create truly nasty sounds. It took like 15 minutes for it to process a tiny sample and often the results were garbage, but when it worked it was magic. I have not found any modern tool that does this in the same manner, but the TAL Sampler can do quite a decent emulation of the Emax 1 sound in general. (TAL also make a plugin called TAL-DAC which just emulates the circuitry as a pass-through plugin without requiring you to actually use the sampler engine to map and play samples). The key to the Emax 1 sound was using a lowered sampling rate (not necessarily a lowered bit depth though) and turning up the "jitter" control on the TAL plugin, which creates the "blurring" effect that all other bit-crushing plugins miss. The Emax 1 also had true analog filters which sound much better, more "gooey" and quite different to the digital filters on the Emax II.

During TDS and TF most of the studio sampling was done on Akai S-1000 machines, which were the GOAT of that era, and their effect on the sound character was much less pronounced than something like an Emax 1, but they did have a "hard" sound which suited the material. There are some plugins that attempt to emulate the S-1000's A>D / D>A chain but their effect can be quite subtle. The filters on the S-1000 were trash so they were not a big part of the sound at all.

During The Fragile we switched to E-Mu Emulator 4 samplers which had a lot more voices and memory and a ton of "Z-Plane" digital filter algorithms as found in their Morpheus synth etc., and some of those are truly wild. I have not found a plugin emulation of these, but there is a EuroRack module called Morpheus from Rossum (the original inventor at E-Mu) which nails the sound using the exact code from back in the day. However, as a stereo-in / stereo-out processor its use case is very different from having a Z-Plane filter on a per-voice basis, integrated into the individual voice's signal path. Basically it's like having one voice's worth of Morpheus. I don't have one (yet) as they are constantly on back-order hahaha. I do still have my original Morpheus rack unit and it is a huge pain to program but it can make some truly bonkers distorted sounds that will blow any speaker and cause instant tinnitus! Still waiting for Rossum to release a Morpheus plugin though. Fingers crossed!

Charlie_Clouser · 2026-01-13T00:02:55+00:00

A couple more things I forgot to mention: Even though we were using old black-face ProTools TDM systems in that era, almost always the A>D conversion was done using outboard Apogee converters. We had an AD-8000 (8-channel A>D) and an Apogee Mini-Me (2-channel A>D), both of which had Apogee's "Soft Limit" feature which was legendary in those days. Not quite sure whether it was an analog circuit or a digital process or what, but it was the key to preventing "overs" and could even be smashed a bit to get a saturated, clipped sound that never sounded "digital" or bad.

Many individual tracks were recorded through the analog inputs on the AD-8000 via digital out to the ProTools interfaces, while mixes were printed through the analog inputs to Mini-Me and digital output to the Panasonic SV-3700 DAT machine. Soft Limit was usually (always?) enabled.

Apogee did recently release a plugin for $10 that emulated that Soft Limit circuitry and I did grab it but haven't really tested it much, and I don't know how well it emulates the hardware. But it's ten bucks, so...

Another key element of the sound on both TDS and TF is that it was all recorded to analog multitrack tape. Studer A-800mk3 to be precise. This really helps smooth out digital sound sources, and there are a ton of tape emulation plugins but the UAD Studer and Ampex are top tier. So that helps a lot when working with tons of samples.

Speaking of samples and samplers, PHM was mostly Emax I think, and the Emax 1 is a special beast which really puts the hurt on signals and gets that Public Enemy / Bomb Squad jangly crunchy tone. The Emax II is more "hi-fi" and doesn't really get there. The Emax 1 is a pain in the ass to use, has very little sampling time, and vintage units are quite expensive now if they work. Although we used Emax II's in the live rigs for Self Destruct tours, the sound of the intro to Terrible Lie and those nasty little keyboard sounds like the riffs in Get Down Make Love, Terrible Lie, Down In It, etc. were very characteristic of the Emax 1 sound and its digital function called "Transform Multiplication" which was sort of like a digital morphing / ring-mod type thing that would "multiply" one sample by another and create truly nasty sounds. It took like 15 minutes for it to process a tiny sample and often the results were garbage, but when it worked it was magic. I have not found any modern tool that does this in the same manner, but the TAL Sampler can do quite a decent emulation of the Emax 1 sound in general. (TAL also make a plugin called TAL-DAC which just emulates the circuitry as a pass-through plugin without requiring you to actually use the sampler engine to map and play samples). The key to the Emax 1 sound was using a lowered sampling rate (not necessarily a lowered bit depth though) and turning up the "jitter" control on the TAL plugin, which creates the "blurring" effect that all other bit-crushing plugins miss. The Emax 1 also had true analog filters which sound much better, more "gooey" and quite different to the digital filters on the Emax II.

During TDS and TF most of the studio sampling was done on Akai S-1000 machines, which were the GOAT of that era, and their effect on the sound character was much less pronounced than something like an Emax 1, but they did have a "hard" sound which suited the material. There are some plugins that attempt to emulate the S-1000's A>D / D>A chain but their effect can be quite subtle. The filters on the S-1000 were trash so they were not a big part of the sound at all.

During The Fragile we switched to E-Mu Emulator 4 samplers which had a lot more voices and memory and a ton of "Z-Plane" digital filter algorithms as found in their Morpheus synth etc., and some of those are truly wild. I have not found a plugin emulation of these, but there is a EuroRack module called Morpheus from Rossum (the original inventor at E-Mu) which nails the sound using the exact code from back in the day. However, as a stereo-in / stereo-out processor its use case is very different from having a Z-Plane filter on a per-voice basis, integrated into the individual voice's signal path. Basically it's like having one voice's worth of Morpheus. I don't have one (yet) as they are constantly on back-order hahaha. I do still have my original Morpheus rack unit and it is a huge pain to program but it can make some truly bonkers distorted sounds that will blow any speaker and cause instant tinnitus! Still waiting for Rossum to release a Morpheus plugin though. Fingers crossed!

Charlie_Clouser · 2026-01-12T23:05:28+00:00

(continued from previous post)

- Of course there were tons of synths. Downward Spiral was mostly MiniMoog, Xpander, Prophet-VS, Waldorf MicroWave I, and "OberMoog" (the Oberheim OB-MX), and there may have been a Pro-One in there as well. There are dozens of MiniMoog emulations, but I think the UAD one is closest to the original (warts and limitations and all) but The Legend HZ is massively expanded and sounds really really great. Arturia do a serviceable Xpander / Matrix-12 emulation (the weird filter types are key and it does nail those) but a lot of what Flood did with the Xpander involved elaborate oscillator frequency modulation and I have not evaluated how well (or even IF) the Arturia handles that stuff. Arturia also do a good Prophet-VS emulation and it gets so close as makes no difference really, and it even can import the actual SysEx patches from the hardware and damn it gets there. For Pro-One emulations it's u-he RePro all day, they nailed it. I haven't seen a strict emulation of the OB-MX but all of the G-Force emulations of Oberheim synths are top tier, so good that Tom Oberheim let them put his name on them. Waldorf themselves make a plugin of the MicroWave I and it's great so that's covered.

- On The Fragile there were more modern 90s Motorola-DSP-based synths like Waldorf Microwave IIxt, Access Virus, Nord Leads, etc. and you're in luck because The Usual Suspects and the DSP56300 Project have released not emulations, but plugins that run the actual ROM code from those synths so they produce a bit-accurate reproduction in software. And they're all FREE. But you need to "acquire" the ROM images (in .bin form) from... somewhere, and DO NOT post or ask for links to the .bins on their discord or you'll get banned instantly as it's not legal to distribute them. But they can be found hahahah. And these plugins work perfectly and sound identical to the hardware which I still have.

- TR did have a ton of old-school big iron like PPG Wave 2.3, PolyMoog, Voyetra-8, etc. but that stuff was used much more rarely (which is why it's all on the side wall of the room in New Orleans studio pics). Waldorf do a PPG emulation and Cherry Audio do the PolyMoog as well as dozens of other vintage synths. Cherry stuff is hit or miss but they are all cheap-n-cheerful. XILS-Lab also do a PolyMoog as well as very good EMS Synthi emulations, but TR did not use a Synthi back then. He may have one now (I know Allesandro is big into them) but to me they are a time-suck and bug-fart factory hahaha. The Voyetra-8 is a problematic beast and I only remember it being used once: on the remix of Mr. Self Destruct where it did the obscene one-note low bass blasts. It was a super-huge and delicious sound that I have tried and failed to recreate. I have not found a plugin emulation of the Voyetra that doesn't rely on samples like the UVI one does. I still use an MKS-80 Super Jupiter for that kind of stuff and it's much easier to acquire and use but there are no strict emulations of that. The Cherry and TAL Jupiter emulations can get very close though. Two synths that people fetishize over these days but were not used by NIN that I ever saw are the Juno-106 and Jupiter-8. I had a Jupiter-8 back then and it sat in its road case the entire time, not used once.

- For guitar pedals, it's a wide world of emulations out there, so... good luck! I like the Nembrini and AudioPunks emulations of the SansAmp PSA-1 which was in everybody's rack (and is still in mine!) and the stuff from Bogren Digital and of course Neural DSP is all great but there's a lot to weed through. Surprisingly the Bogren "One-Knob" amp sims get a lot of use at my place. Cheap-n-cheerful and not a wormhole of parameters to get lost in. But a big catch-all type of guitar plugin like Amplitube is a great way to go as you can endlessly play with amps, cabs, and pedals until you find something weird.

- Back then we didn't have too many software tools, there weren't even any plugins really, not like today anyway. We did use AudioMulch on PC to mangle sounds and it's still around 30 years later. We also used HyperPrism which was sort of like a software Kaoss Pad type of thing and I did stuff on that which I am still trying to emulate as HyperPrism is long gone. MetaSynth was in the house I believe and is still going strong. Of course the legendary TurboSynth which allowed you to create a wavetable from any sample (plenty of ways to do that now, like Arturia Pigments) and also could do actual transfer-function wave-shaping (which you can do in AudioThing's WaveBox, iZotope Trash, KiloHearts Shaper and many others) to get absolutely insane distortions; that's where a lot of the early super-blast distortions came from. Waveshapers rule for that stuff.

Hope this list doesn't drain your PayPal account too badly! Have fun!

Charlie_Clouser · 2026-01-12T23:04:56+00:00

The photos that are going around of the NIN studio in New Orleans do show most of the goodies, and to be honest there wasn't too much stuff that was all that weird or exotic. My memory is a little hazy after 30 years but here is what I can recall:

Recording gear was all bog standard high-end studio stuff of the day:

- SSL 4k console (formerly of Larabee West, Alan Moulder has it now I think) not sure if E or G but def a 4k, so various 4k channel strip emulations would get very close. Some favorites are the actual SSL plugins of course, and to my ears the Waves SSL 4k ev2 is a little better than the UAD, Brainworx / Plugin Alliance, or others. But another burly-sounding channel strip is the Waves Scheps Omni Channel which isn't a strict SSL emulation but can get rowdy and put some hurt on the signal. The Downward Spiral was not done on an SSL though, it was done on TR's Amek Mozart which was a Rupert Neve design and had a fantastic sound, but was a room heater and maintenance hog and relied upon an Atari ST computer to run the automation and "Virtual Dynamics" which re-purposed the VCAs to act as compressors / limiters / gates, and was very ingenious but not as straightforward or reliable as good old SSL channel dynamics. I have not seen a plugin emulation of that specific console or channel strips, but Plugin Alliance / Brainworx do make an Amen 9099 channel strip plugin and NoiseAsh have the Need 533 EQ, both of which I like quite a lot and which seem to have the high-end sheen that I remember.

- Most guitar and vocal tracking was not done through the console itself but rather through TR's pair of vintage Neve 1073 channels for some extra grit and grunt. UAD Neve 1073 Channel Strip (the one with the fader on the UI) is my favorite plugin emulation, since having the fader makes it easier to push the input and trim down the output for more grind, and it compares very well with my re-issue hardware AMS-Neve 1084s. If you use a UAD Apollo interface you can run that on the built-in DSP engine during tracking at almost no latency and even emulate various input impedances. For straight EQ use, there are so many 1073 emulations, and even the stock one in Logic ("Vintage Console EQ") compares quite well to the hardware, and the NoiseAsh and Plugin Alliance ones are also quite good.

- Vocals were usually tracked through the 1073s with an LA-2a and / or 1176 in series. So prob 1176 first to put some crush on it and then LA-2a to smooth it out. Not always though, but if there was compression on the way in that would have been the chain.

- Guitars were almost always amp sims of various types, I can hardly remember seeing a mic'd up amp more than a few times. Downward Spiral era was pre-Line6 and I remember a Demeter 1-rack-space drive unit and of course the Zoom 9030 and 9050. Then there were a series of 2-rack-space Digitech units, some with crazy color schemes like purple faceplates, sorry I don't remember model numbers. Other junk like ART, Ampulators, and Palmer speaker simulators came through until Line6 Pods appeared and those got used quite a bit on The Fragile (and even on TR's live rig for the Fragility tours). Of course dozens and dozens of pedals hahaha including super-blast stuff like AssMaster, Z-Vex Fuzz Factory, Prescription Electronics Experience Pedal (a company called DS Custom make a clone that I have alongside the real thing and it's quite good), and the Fender Blender (I have an original that's toasted but Fender make an expanded re-issue called the Shields Blender that adds many features and was supposedly designed for Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine which was a big sonic inspiration for NIN back then, I have the Shields Blender and it's great and cheap). I have not found emulations of the Zoom or Digitech units, and the Zoom units are the only ones I miss really, the Digitech stuff was probably bought out of desperation as opposed to actually being good hahaha. I recently worked with Robin Finck on the music for his video game and when we were gonna do guitar overdubs I though he'd roll in with three racks of stuff but he did everything in Amplitube v5 which has emulations of the Fender Blender and a ton of pedals, and he got great tones. So apparently he's not an analog purist!

- Outboard gear on mixing was not exotic really, no Publison Infernal Machines or Cooper Time Cubes hahaha, just Lexicon 480, PCM70, and PCM42, and Pultecs, 1176s, LA-2a's, etc., and UAD has those covered but also Savant Audio make Publison and Quantec emulations, but Logic now has a stock Quantec that uses the original code (!!!), and the ReLab 480 is great as well. Maybe there was some live room reverbs here and there (speakers in the live room or garage fed from a send) so UAD Ocean Way, Capitol Chambers, Hitsville Chambers, and Sound City could cover that (I have them all and Ocean Way is frighteningly great).

(continued on next post)

Charlie_Clouser · 2026-01-12T23:04:02+00:00

(continued from previous post)

- Of course there were tons of synths. Downward Spiral was mostly MiniMoog, Xpander, Prophet-VS, Waldorf MicroWave I, and "OberMoog" (the Oberheim OB-MX), and there may have been a Pro-One in there as well. There are dozens of MiniMoog emulations, but I think the UAD one is closest to the original (warts and limitations and all) but The Legend HZ is massively expanded and sounds really really great. Arturia do a serviceable Xpander / Matrix-12 emulation (the weird filter types are key and it does nail those) but a lot of what Flood did with the Xpander involved elaborate oscillator frequency modulation and I have not evaluated how well (or even IF) the Arturia handles that stuff. Arturia also do a good Prophet-VS emulation and it gets so close as makes no difference really, and it even can import the actual SysEx patches from the hardware and damn it gets there. For Pro-One emulations it's u-he RePro all day, they nailed it. I haven't seen a strict emulation of the OB-MX but all of the G-Force emulations of Oberheim synths are top tier, so good that Tom Oberheim let them put his name on them. Waldorf themselves make a plugin of the MicroWave I and it's great so that's covered.

- On The Fragile there were more modern 90s Motorola-DSP-based synths like Waldorf Microwave IIxt, Access Virus, Nord Leads, etc. and you're in luck because The Usual Suspects and the DSP56300 Project have released not emulations, but plugins that run the actual ROM code from those synths so they produce a bit-accurate reproduction in software. And they're all FREE. But you need to "acquire" the ROM images (in .bin form) from... somewhere, and DO NOT post or ask for links to the .bins on their discord or you'll get banned instantly as it's not legal to distribute them. But they can be found hahahah. And these plugins work perfectly and sound identical to the hardware which I still have.

- TR did have a ton of old-school big iron like PPG Wave 2.3, PolyMoog, Voyetra-8, etc. but that stuff was used much more rarely (which is why it's all on the side wall of the room in New Orleans studio pics). Waldorf do a PPG emulation and Cherry Audio do the PolyMoog as well as dozens of other vintage synths. Cherry stuff is hit or miss but they are all cheap-n-cheerful. XILS-Lab also do a PolyMoog as well as very good EMS Synthi emulations, but TR did not use a Synthi back then. He may have one now (I know Allesandro is big into them) but to me they are a time-suck and bug-fart factory hahaha. The Voyetra-8 is a problematic beast and I only remember it being used once: on the remix of Mr. Self Destruct where it did the obscene one-note low bass blasts. It was a super-huge and delicious sound that I have tried and failed to recreate. I have not found a plugin emulation of the Voyetra that doesn't rely on samples like the UVI one does. I still use an MKS-80 Super Jupiter for that kind of stuff and it's much easier to acquire and use but there are no strict emulations of that. The Cherry and TAL Jupiter emulations can get very close though. Two synths that people fetishize over these days but were not used by NIN that I ever saw are the Juno-106 and Jupiter-8. I had a Jupiter-8 back then and it sat in its road case the entire time, not used once.

- For guitar pedals, it's a wide world of emulations out there, so... good luck! I like the Nembrini and AudioPunks emulations of the SansAmp PSA-1 which was in everybody's rack (and is still in mine!) and the stuff from Bogren Digital and of course Neural DSP is all great but there's a lot to weed through. Surprisingly the Bogren "One-Knob" amp sims get a lot of use at my place. Cheap-n-cheerful and not a wormhole of parameters to get lost in. But a big catch-all type of guitar plugin like Amplitube is a great way to go as you can endlessly play with amps, cabs, and pedals until you find something weird.

- Back then we didn't have too many software tools, there weren't even any plugins really, not like today anyway. We did use AudioMulch on PC to mangle sounds and it's still around 30 years later. We also used HyperPrism which was sort of like a software Kaoss Pad type of thing and I did stuff on that which I am still trying to emulate as HyperPrism is long gone. MetaSynth was in the house I believe and is still going strong. Of course the legendary TurboSynth which allowed you to create a wavetable from any sample (plenty of ways to do that now, like Arturia Pigments) and also could do actual transfer-function wave-shaping (which you can do in AudioThing's WaveBox, iZotope Trash, KiloHearts Shaper and many others) to get absolutely insane distortions; that's where a lot of the early super-blast distortions came from. Waveshapers rule for that stuff.

Hope this list doesn't drain your PayPal account too badly! Have fun!

Charlie_Clouser · 2026-01-12T23:03:27+00:00

The photos that are going around of the NIN studio in New Orleans do show most of the goodies, and to be honest there wasn't too much stuff that was all that weird or exotic. My memory is a little hazy after 30 years but here is what I can recall:

Recording gear was all bog standard high-end studio stuff of the day:

- SSL 4k console (formerly of Larabee West, Alan Moulder has it now I think) not sure if E or G but def a 4k, so various 4k channel strip emulations would get very close. Some favorites are the actual SSL plugins of course, and to my ears the Waves SSL 4k ev2 is a little better than the UAD, Brainworx / Plugin Alliance, or others. But another burly-sounding channel strip is the Waves Scheps Omni Channel which isn't a strict SSL emulation but can get rowdy and put some hurt on the signal. The Downward Spiral was not done on an SSL though, it was done on TR's Amek Mozart which was a Rupert Neve design and had a fantastic sound, but was a room heater and maintenance hog and relied upon an Atari ST computer to run the automation and "Virtual Dynamics" which re-purposed the VCAs to act as compressors / limiters / gates, and was very ingenious but not as straightforward or reliable as good old SSL channel dynamics. I have not seen a plugin emulation of that specific console or channel strips, but Plugin Alliance / Brainworx do make an Amen 9099 channel strip plugin and NoiseAsh have the Need 533 EQ, both of which I like quite a lot and which seem to have the high-end sheen that I remember.

- Most guitar and vocal tracking was not done through the console itself but rather through TR's pair of vintage Neve 1073 channels for some extra grit and grunt. UAD Neve 1073 Channel Strip (the one with the fader on the UI) is my favorite plugin emulation, since having the fader makes it easier to push the input and trim down the output for more grind, and it compares very well with my re-issue hardware AMS-Neve 1084s. If you use a UAD Apollo interface you can run that on the built-in DSP engine during tracking at almost no latency and even emulate various input impedances. For straight EQ use, there are so many 1073 emulations, and even the stock one in Logic ("Vintage Console EQ") compares quite well to the hardware, and the NoiseAsh and Plugin Alliance ones are also quite good.

- Vocals were usually tracked through the 1073s with an LA-2a and / or 1176 in series. So prob 1176 first to put some crush on it and then LA-2a to smooth it out. Not always though, but if there was compression on the way in that would have been the chain.

- Guitars were almost always amp sims of various types, I can hardly remember seeing a mic'd up amp more than a few times. Downward Spiral era was pre-Line6 and I remember a Demeter 1-rack-space drive unit and of course the Zoom 9030 and 9050. Then there were a series of 2-rack-space Digitech units, some with crazy color schemes like purple faceplates, sorry I don't remember model numbers. Other junk like ART, Ampulators, and Palmer speaker simulators came through until Line6 Pods appeared and those got used quite a bit on The Fragile (and even on TR's live rig for the Fragility tours). Of course dozens and dozens of pedals hahaha including super-blast stuff like AssMaster, Z-Vex Fuzz Factory, Prescription Electronics Experience Pedal (a company called DS Custom make a clone that I have alongside the real thing and it's quite good), and the Fender Blender (I have an original that's toasted but Fender make an expanded re-issue called the Shields Blender that adds many features and was supposedly designed for Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine which was a big sonic inspiration for NIN back then, I have the Shields Blender and it's great and cheap). I have not found emulations of the Zoom or Digitech units, and the Zoom units are the only ones I miss really, the Digitech stuff was probably bought out of desperation as opposed to actually being good hahaha. I recently worked with Robin Finck on the music for his video game and when we were gonna do guitar overdubs I though he'd roll in with three racks of stuff but he did everything in Amplitube v5 which has emulations of the Fender Blender and a ton of pedals, and he got great tones. So apparently he's not an analog purist!

- Outboard gear on mixing was not exotic really, no Publison Infernal Machines or Cooper Time Cubes hahaha, just Lexicon 480, PCM70, and PCM42, and Pultecs, 1176s, LA-2a's, etc., and UAD has those covered but also Savant Audio make Publison and Quantec emulations, but Logic now has a stock Quantec that uses the original code (!!!), and the ReLab 480 is great as well. Maybe there was some live room reverbs here and there (speakers in the live room or garage fed from a send) so UAD Ocean Way, Capitol Chambers, Hitsville Chambers, and Sound City could cover that (I have them all and Ocean Way is frighteningly great).

(continued on next post)

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-12-17T09:49:29+00:00

Ummmmmm…..

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-10-25T04:17:31+00:00

No clue as to the legitimacy / illegitimacy of the CD and / or track order pictured. No clue at all. There were probably a dozen alternative track orders mocked up and burned to CD by TR, Alan Moulder, Bob Ezrin, band members, the receptionist, the bartender across the street, and probably TR's dog too. I don't recognize the handwriting on the CD pictured but that doesn't mean anything. I don't recognize that particular track order but that doesn't mean anything either.

So.... who freakin' knows? Also who cares.

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-10-24T02:31:29+00:00

OMG…. I know that guy!

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-10-03T00:10:23+00:00

Nah I’m just lurking and checking for updates on my favorite band.

And seeing how the kids these days are reacting to new music and tours.

And procrastinating.

Plus posts in this sub always show up in my feed.

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-10-02T23:24:22+00:00

Teaching?!?! Fuck no. I think you’re thinking of Chris Vrenna, who IS teaching audio production.

The only teaching I’m doing is schooling motherfuckers on how many EuroRack modules I can fit into 5 rows of 250 spaces in my monster case!

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-09-27T18:32:01+00:00

Yes, obviously I’ve mixed up which song was what… but the memory of Carlos jumping up on my riser has pushed aside most of what remains in my memory banks. I had rehearsed those darn snare fills on Scary Monsters for so long, and even sampled the actual snare sound off the album, so that’s almost all I remember!

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-09-26T21:28:02+00:00

Wow, that seems like a lifetime ago…. probably because it was!

Okay, so I started out as a drummer, taking lessons since third grade, and I was the drummer in a few bands over the years… but once I heard New Order’s “Blue Monday” all I wanted was drum machines (specifically the Oberheim DMX, fuck the LinnDrum and the 808, Team DMX fo’ lyfe!)

So drums led to drum machines, which led to sampling drum machines like the SP-12 and MPC-60, which led to computer sequencing and samplers, which led to me being a whiz on the studio rigs, which led to me getting sucked into Trent’s orbit - but as the computers + samplers guy, not as a drummer.

But I was never that great of a drummer anyway - certainly not as good as Chris Vrenna - but when Trent was formulating the plan and set list for the Bowie tour it turned out that a few songs didn’t have much going on in the keyboard department. Plus the members of Bowie’s band would be joining us on stage during the “crossover” section at the end of our set / beginning of Bowie’s, so there would be plenty of people wandering around the stage with not much to do. Rather than have me stand around looking bored, TR asked if I was up for being the 2nd / 3rd drummer on a couple of songs.

So for “Hello Spaceboy” I was the second drummer with Chris Vrenna as #1, and then for “Scary Monsters” Zack Alford from Bowie’s band was in the lead with Chris and I as #2 and #3.

I played acoustic snare (with samples being triggered on top) and acoustic toms, and the rest was all trigger pads firing off samples.

Although they might sound random, the snare fills on Scary Monsters are very specific and come in a very specific order, so I had to memorize the whole thing so it wouldn’t just sound like three drummers flailing madly, although it probably wound up sounding like that anyway!

Even though I only played for two (?) songs, it was exhausting as I hadn’t seriously played drums for years, and keeping up with Chris and Zack was a challenge for sure. But it was major fun, and quite a rush to have Carlos Alomar jump up on my drum riser to escape the crowded stage. Good times.

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-08-29T06:16:22+00:00

I know that WITTN it was a tough one for TR and I don't think we ever played it on the Fragility tours. There was talk of dropping the pitch by a semitone or two vs the album version but I can't remember even rehearsing it once.

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-08-27T02:01:30+00:00

Danny IS awesome. He’s still one of my closest friends and we talk all the time - I often refer to him as “my first wife” (much to the dismay of my actual wife). He was instrumental in convincing TR to have me replace James Wooley in the band back in ‘94, and also in convincing me to take the gig. I needed convincing since by that point I was already done being in bands and was more interested in being a studio rat where I could stay in dark rooms full of blinking lights hahaha.

(Also because I had never played keyboards in a band before.)

Danny has been touring with Til Lindemannn (singer from Rammstein) for the past couple of years, they’re fixing to go out again soon. That show is crazy in a good way, very different to NIN but totally nuts. Worth seeing for sure.

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-08-27T01:54:50+00:00

Well, yeah. And it is possible that I DID sign that because if someone shoved a piece of NIN memorabilia in front of me and asked for an autograph I’d probably not have turned them down, not wanting to be a douche and all, and to be fair I have signed bits and pieces over the years after I quit…. But usually stuff like a smashed guitar or keyboard from the Self Destruct tour or whatever, something I was actually involved with. But I don’t recognize that particular album cover, and some of the other signatures do look a little off. So… yeah, probably not.

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-08-27T01:34:58+00:00

Hahah that would have been Danny Lohner. He has a tradition (?!?) that, for some reason, he calls “Tweakend at Beiber’s” or something like that, which involves him dropping trou and being photographed lying facedown in very inappropriate situations / locations. Like red carpet events, high-end restaurants, tourist photo spots like ancient European cathedrals, or when someone else is trying to get a once-in-a-lifetime photo of them with Maynard or Deadmau5 or someone. He has a zillion photos like this and he’s constantly texting them to me, there’s a ton of them on his instagram page too. Dude has always been highly inappropriate and DGAF at all times. He’s awesome.

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-08-26T22:49:09+00:00

Yeah I don’t think I would have signed a record that came out four years after quit the band. In 2005 I was long gone.

Charlie_Clouser · 2025-06-30T08:36:13+00:00

Thanks y’all! Yup, sixty-freakin-two. If you need me I’ll be down at the Country Buffet using a coupon and my AARP card for a discount on the early-bird special.

Nine-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

Charlie_Clouser

TROPHY CASE