Clipland

The former Master Sound Studios is now the private province of TheNeptunes / The Neptunes after they purchased it out of bankruptcy in 2003.

Studio Setup Three studios hold four Pro Tools rigs; the Amek G2520 console, one of seven prototypes made, is still in Studio A, with Digidesign Pro Controls in Studios B and C. The monitoring arrangements could be described as eccentric: Studio A has JBL PA speakers with a pair of 18-inch subs under the console, small Genelecs as mains in studio C, and all rooms share several pairs of Yamaha NS10, Mackie and Proac nearfields. Hovercraft also has a new Studio Network Solutions system, with each studio connected via fibre-optic cables to a 15-drive RAID array.

There has been much speculation about their tools of the trade. For sequencing they use the Korg 01/W, for drum sounds they use the sampling keyboard Ensoniq ASR-10, their sound modules include the Roland JV 1080 and JV 2080 and for basslines and filtering they have used the MicroKorg. They are also well known for using the Korg Triton and incorporating live percussion and acoustic instruments into their music.

In addition to the fixed studios, the Neptunes use a collection of mobile recording suites, one in their touring bus:

Mobile Rig: Korg 01/W Keyboard Roland Super JV-1080 Roland JV 2080 Korg TR

Bus fixed: DigiDesign ProTools Korg Triton Rack Korg TR Rack Roland JV 1080 Roland JV 2080 E-MU B3 or Virtuoso Line6 Guitar POD PRO DAT Recorder and Furman RackLight

Ooutboard equipment: Tube-tech CL1, Dbx 160, LA2A, Neve 9098 EQs, Summit EQ/compressors — are all normalled. plus plug-ins like Metric Halo's Channel Strip and Waves' Renaissance compressors and the Sony Oxford Compressor

ALSO: List of RecordingStudios.