STELLWERK custom audio router
Using my analog hardware was a great joy during the album production, but i thought that it still could be improved. Each piece was directly connected to my audio interface and whenever i wanted to use two devices i had to go throgh ad/da conversion and was adding more latency… therefore i often didnt…
Because my working style is dependend on total recall i didnt need to put each device on a differnt track or bus an so i came up with the idea of an analog audio router. It can route audio from 2 different stereo busses to 5 stereo devices including a wet/dry mix stage and several other gimmicks…
Its the black 1RU piece of gear with the white LEDs under the blue germanium compressors. And it works great 
Now i can instantly try out different devices, combine them like a freak and drive everything a lot hotter… Including saturation to distortion of tubes, transformers and a variety of transistors.
before
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I know that i will going to have a lot of fun with this little sucker
17. August 2009 at 17:13
GGÄÄNNSSEEHHAAUUTT!!!
und ich hab ja sooo keine ahnung davon… LOL! :-/
17. August 2009 at 18:41
What do you mean by being dependent on total recall?
17. August 2009 at 20:03
well i definatly need it for my advertising work and i absolutely love it for my own music… being able to work on one song for some hours and if creativity dries out, switching to another one is great… i hated it in the 90s when a song wasnt finished but still lacking something you had to either try day for day or “kill” the mix (on an analog desk)
17. August 2009 at 20:29
Ähm, maybe I should have phrased the question differently. What exactly do you mean by total recall?
Maybe I just grew up too late, already to accustomed to the digital world where everything is stored and available at any time.
Or are you saying you’re recording on analogue media?
17. August 2009 at 21:34
total recall in context with music production means that a project is completly “recallable”, which nowadays is normal for fully digital creative work (as with photoshop or word, you simply click “save” and later “load”)
but if you use a lot of analog equipment (old synthesizer, external effect units, equalizer, compressors, a mixing desk) it might be impossible or at least very uncomfortable to recall old settings.
17. August 2009 at 21:56
WOW… than you had to be way more focused than you have to be nowadays. guess thats both, a good thing and a bad thing…
18. August 2009 at 17:21
ja, hat er gut gemacht
18. August 2009 at 20:48
hat übrigens john carpenter in nem interview gesagt: “ihr wisst gar nicht wie guts ihr alle habt… ich musste meinen synthesizer noch stimmen.” hat er recht der mann.
23. August 2009 at 18:59
Ah, jetzt, ja. I think I get what you mean. Although being a computer engineer I’m strongly biased towards anything digital…
Aren’t there mixed systems on the market? I mean an analogue synthesizer controlled by a digital interface? After all, all the settings are just done using switches and potentiometers, and both can be replaced by digital circuits.
And where did you get your new multiplexer/analog audio router? Did you build it yourself?
24. August 2009 at 09:59
no, i didnt build it myself, but i designed it…
and concerning digital emulations… these get better each year, but still lack several non-linearities that the analog domain provides… espescially saturation and distoriton of various kinds…
24. August 2009 at 20:13
Do you have some kind of technical education (university, FH, Ausbildung, …)? Or did you teach yourself?
25. August 2009 at 09:10
I was 20 years old as redemption got into the charts… no time for university then…
but i would have studied something similar to you, sid
26. August 2009 at 09:20
Was it difficult to decide to risk living by making music instead of learning something “proper”?
And be careful what you wish for… Engineers are a special kind of people
26. August 2009 at 11:23
“And be careful what you wish for… Engineers are a special kind of people”
oh ja
27. August 2009 at 10:53
Rolf, you will never get bored playing with that toy
Digital emulations are definitely get better and better yeah…however, if you ” push ” them ( for eg. high feedback on a delay emulation or extreme setting on a reputable vintage comp. emulation ) you will notice the difference you may have heard using the outboard version.
28. August 2009 at 10:26
I can see that analog equipment has its advantages. But I’m wondering, are there no effects or synthesizer sounds that can only be generated using digital electronics?
29. August 2009 at 13:34
there are lots of it… most of the sound used in “minimal” music are typical examples of digitally produced sounds… physical modelling, clicks&cuts and even the dreaded “cher” autotune effect are more examples… but most of those are a like fashion accessories… totally hip for two years and then only “dated sounding”
but something like the grandfather of analog subtractive synthesis - the (mini)moog - never seems to sound dated… deadmau5 is a good example for that… most of his sounds are from two analog moogs… i dare to say a big part of his trademark sound are the moogs…